Can memory be considered a sense?

Very interesting. I like the idea of memory as a sense, though I hadn't remembered THAT from school. I did remember a mention of 10 senses and went a-Googling to see what might stir up my faint memory. Diane mentioned various ways that touch was defined and how the body was held... where one's arm was in relation to the outside world, for example. (Is that a memory sense?)

Well, there wasn't much to confirm my memory; apparently human senses are no longer taught that way! However I did find that the Bhagadad Gita mentions ten senses. They were not named but mixed together with other cognitive actions, quite interestingly.

Quote:

Bhagavad-Gita -- Chapter 13, Verse 6-7.
The five great elements, false ego, intelligence, the unmanifested, the ten senses, the mind, the five sense objects, desire, hatred, happiness, distress, the aggregate, the life symptoms, and convictions--all these are considered, in summary, to be the field of activities and its interactions.

I continued my searching and found that memory has a special meaning... connected with the soul. The ten senses in Hindu thought are identified as Indriyas. They include five entering and five exiting senses:

Indriyas - Ten Senses

Quote:

Karmendriyas: The five exit doors are five means of expression, which are called Karmendriyas (Karma means action: Indriyas are the means or senses). ["Exporters" named as: eliminating, reproduction, moving, grasping, speaking]

Jnanendriyas: The five entrance doors are the five cognitive senses, which are called Jnanendriyas (Jnana means knowing; Indriyas are the means or senses). ["Importers" include: smelling, tasting, hearing, touching, seeing]

------
Not content with these, I searched more and found a mention of twelve senses, defined by Rudolf Steiner, who is far from the mainstream. Anyway, here they are.... still no mention of memory.

Quote:

To summarise, the following order can be established:

Senses of cognition:
Sense of the self or "I"
Sense of thought
Sense of speech or word
Sense of hearing

Senses of feeling:
Sense of heat
Sense of the eye
Sense of taste
Sense of smell

Senses of will:
Sense of balance
Sense of own motion
Sense of being
Sense of touch

I also found this interesting thing called "Sense Memory" used by actors. This makes a lot of sense to me!

Theater Group Method Acting Procedures

0 Replies

Uncommon sense
Memory seems to be an uncommon sense.

Without out it, we are completely unaware of any experiential state. With it our common senses come alive.

Perhaps we should resurrect the silent controller.

Memory is fundamental to understanding subjectivity and/or the self.

Perhaps the free will/determinism conundrum could be critically examined via an understanding of memory?

Can one choose to do anything without reference to their experiential background? Can one choose to do something other than what they believe is optimal from their vantage point at that moment? What role does memory play? Does it constrain us to act only as we have come to know?

Perhaps the Golden Rule needs modification? It seems "Do unto others as has been done unto you" better represents reality.

0 Replies

To NeoGuin,

It would be remiss to omit smell as one of the primary senses, IMHO.

Taste is limited to salt, sweet, bitter while smell encompasses infinite variety and ability to trigger memories.

In general, senses are physical inputs to be processed by the brain.
The 'sense of time' is simply an internal timer used to separate out specific memories of inputs that occurred at different times.

In other words, the perceived passage of time is a reference point for organizing past sensory input.

0 Replies

Without time, there would be no past nor future. If everything in static, it means it's not alive. c.i.

0 Replies

Kevin:

An error on my part:(

0 Replies

Git....;

While I agree with your point that, without our "history" in mind, it is hard to make wise descisions, I must point out that the converse position, that of overemphasizing the importance of social history, is a destroyer of creativity and invention. Children, devoid of the level of historical "baggage" (experience), display much greater abilities at both learning, and creating, which abilities spiral downward as the "organism" becomes more "mature".
Perhaps an eye to history, without turning the entire head, is a more benficial approach.

And I must add your modification of the "golden rule"

"Do unto others as has been done unto you"

tends to invite revenge and retribution as the "golden" path!

0 Replies

BoGo's quote: "And I must add your modification of the "golden rule" "Do unto others as has been done unto you" tends to invite revenge and retribution as the "golden" path!"
I agree! There are a greater number of bad deeds over good ones - even in religious history. How many can deny this claim? I doubt good deeds will ever overtake bad deeds in the human universe - with or without religion.

c.i.

0 Replies

Memory might be considered a sense. Anything is possible
I can definetely remember reading somewhere about an
American Indian tribe - and I SO wish I could remember
where it was that I read this, but I'll have to hunt for it; that
all of the members of some particular American Indian tribe
were actually born with ancestral tribal memory ... just like
their fathers, their mothers & all of the members of the tribe.
So that, in this tribe, each member of the tribe was born with
the entire history of their tribe virtually intact. I also have
noticed - since living with my partner for 17 years (who is half
Native American Indian) what a phenomenal capacity for
memory she has. Upon entering a room, if one single thing
has been moved - she notices. She's memorized all the phone
numbers for everything from friends and family to Pizza Hut,
our vet, the grocery store, the florist we use, what kind of car
every single person we know drives and I could go on and on
till infinity. It is so uncanny that at times it gives me goosebumps.
AS FOR ME - I'm lucky if I can remember my own phone number
and 1 or 2 others. So, I guess all I can say is that if it IS a
sense - it is one that is definetely stronger among some persons
than others.

0 Replies

babs, In the caverns of my mind and poor memory, I seem to have read something about that Indian tribe. Sure would be nice if somebody can recall it for us with a web link. c.i.

0 Replies

I hear you, C.I. - those vast caverns of the mind & memory
I have the same problem. I can recall the information, but
not necessarily where it came from. I believe that it's been
over 10 years since I read this information - to the best my
memory. So that I read about this quite a long long time ago.
I guess I could try some mamma.com or google search engines
endeavoring to find out what I can

0 Replies

babs, I've tried the search engines, and found there are five major Native American Indian Tribes that have some geneology information. Beyond that, I could find nothing. c.i.

0 Replies

WELL, that was sure fast C.I. Bravo!!
Too bad we are no closer to the source
of this little tidbit of history. It may take
alot more time and investigation, tribe
by tribe but, what the heck, I have lots
of free time on my hands here lately.
Since I can not go on my Easter trip;
we were supposed to leave tomorrow,
but some of my health issues are just
too precarious at this point, for me to
go off & be no where near my physicians
who know me - and who know about
every thing going on about my health
problems already. So.. while resting up
and waiting to find out what is going on
with my body - I can spend lots of time
going through sources of info. We could
make it a race - which ever one of us
comes in first with the right answer wins
??????????? wins what though???

0 Replies

The "booby" prize to be named later. Wink

c.i.

0 Replies

Memory is a mental construct, and besides the theory of there being a language faculty, it probably is the only construct of the mind or in the case of there being a language faculty, 50% of what we call "mind". So if you want to call memory a "sense", then you are asserting that the "mind" is a sense.

0 Replies

Lenglain; (just noticed that you're "brand new"; welcome to a2k)

you refer to language as a property of "mind"; it would actually be more concretely a function of the brain, "mind" being a debatable construct.
I find the nice round 50% interesting, where did that come from?