Touch and its Potential (standard:Creative non-fiction, 1197 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Jul 14 2009	Views/Reads: 3511/1959	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, change of position or orientation and other human sensitivities enable us to sense the presence of danger, feel loved and experience many more emotions and sensations. Here is how I think it all happens.

Touch and its Potential 

Overview 

The spectrum of senses – touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight,
vestibular, proprioceptive and others – are the receptors that enable 
humans (among other animal life) to interpret their environment.  The 
relationship among these senses is described here as a key element in 
the process of communication with the world.  As developing humans 
become aware of new stimuli, they learn to interpret messages from 
their endocrine systems.  Under the right conditions, these 
translations from gut feelings to sophisticated cultural values are 
what determines their behavior.  As of now, many well-developed and 
experienced people have opened their spectrum of sensitivities to 
stimuli of less visible, less audible, less painful aspects of their 
environment.  This is the first step on the pathway to bliss -- and 
perhaps to human survival in this century. 

Outline 

One-celled life forms enjoy a sense we may call taste, since it reflects
an ability to distinguish between nourishment and other stimuli.  Taste 
can be visualized as one specialized form of sensitivity to touch.  At 
this level, life forms pursue that which tastes good in their aqueous 
environment.  When they behave in ways that sustain them, and later 
multiply, they eventually become part of you and me and everyone else.  
Over the last billion years of development (from less complex life 
forms into today's spiritual leaders), human sensitivities have evolved 
to a pinnacle of sophistication. 

In a similar sense, nasal receptors can be stimulated by as few as one
or two molecules of a substance; smell is also a subset of touch.  
Instead of a liquid medium (as with taste) , the air movement conveys 
each odor molecule to the nasal receptor, which has a nerve ending at 
its core.   Once the molecule fits the receptor, it triggers off a 
stimulus that actuates one or more endocrine glands.  The secretions 
released by this stimulus give rise to unique and identifiable feelings 
such as hunger.  The aroma of Limburger cheese may be ambrosia to one 
person, yet may smell rancid to another. This distinction may be 
intellectual or cultural, on one hand, but also might be a toxic or 
conflicting response for an individual who lacks the ability to 
metabolize cheese of this type. 

In like manner, hearing, sight and other senses also provide stimuli to
trigger off the feelings aroused by the cocktail of endocrine 
secretions.  “The Girl from Ipanema” may inspire deep feelings in the 
lovesick watcher, yet she may pass unnoticed by others. During a 
lifetime, experience accumulates.  As an individual comes to recognize 
each nuance of feeling and compares this with their own intellectual 
and cultural hierarchy of values, it leads to greater success in the 
Game of Life. 

An equally sensitive, exquisitely designed eyesight, when touched by a
minuscule quantum of light.  The color and intensity detected by each 
nerve ending flows through brain areas that trigger off the appropriate 
endocrine secretions.  Meanwhile, as the brain processes what it 
receives into "meaning" appropriate to other areas of the brain, the 
endocrine secretions have driven you into flight --  or fight, eat it 
or feed it, and so on.  This highly developed sensitivity, like 
hearing, smell and taste, has incredible qualities of discrimination.  
And all the senses begin with a touch of something: the aroma of a ripe 
melon, the vibrations from a violin, the radiation of a sunrise, the 
touch of a lover. 

And as human development proceeds, new sensitivities appear:  a
vestibular sensitivity to detect motion and gravitational orientation; 
a proprioceptive sensitivity to the body's location in space; a 
magnetoinductive sensitivity whose potential remains largely untapped; 
a psychic potential, from empathy and clairvoyance to healing energies, 
detection of auras and spiritual awareness.  There are more. 

With so many active senses, the information load on the brain takes time
to sort out.  With speech, for example, one speaker may slowly and 
clearly enunciate each syllable, gathering and packaging ideas for 
transmission.  Another speaker may compress words, speaking too rapidly 


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