I am told that I have five senses, and for the most part I am aware of the world through these five. I may possess other senses, but inasmuch as I am consciously aware of. them, I have only five.
I am conscious. I feel, I perceive, I sense and thusly to the best of my knowledge it is assumed that I am conscious of a portion of the universe. But I must also presuppose that the portion I am conscious of is relatively minute compared to the field of awareness which lies beyond the range of my senses. I am told that unperceived radiations and vibrations are resonating around me constantly. I can witness the effects of radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet waves and other forms of energy, even though I personally am not equipped with the sense organs capable of perceiving them. Obviously, much exists that I do not perceive. But then there is also much that my senses perceive that I fail to receive, mainly because of the vast quantities of input available at all times.
To say, however, that all my knowledge extends from my senses (what others have said, what has been seen, felt, tastes, heard or smelled) would be a very limited statement. True, there is no way of tracing the origins of our knowledge, but to say that we can only know what our senses relate to us, and that we can only know what our limited capacity allows us to know, would be to say that the universe itself is limited. Can a blind man ever know the color red? A deaf man ever know music? Was it genius in DaVinci that advanced how beyond his time? Was it chance that Edison discovered the means of recording sound? What is the nature of knowledge? Is it inherent in ourselves or does it lie in some vast ocean beyond us, into which we dip our consciousness and bring forth the fruits of wisdom, as some have believed?
Can intuition truly be discredited as a way of knowing? What about telepathy, psychic powers, dreams, and inspiration? Are all these mere manifestations of our five senses, or do they belong in the helm of an entirely different sense, a sixth sense, which has not as yet been defined?
I would venture to say that there are no geniuses, that I have what every other physically normal child has at birth. It is possible that we are all born with unlimited potential, but swiftly become limited by unfavorable circumstances and prejudices. Were all people free rom personal and physical restraints, I believe we’d all be unlimited, each a genius in comparison.
Is there a real world? Is our perception a reality? With no other alternative, I would have to say that it is. I have no other information to discredit its reality and therefore I must assume that it is real. What is reality? What is the nature and origin of knowledge? There is truly no way of knowing.
09.24.74