2. Fundamental Senses

I would like to list the bodily senses based on their priority or how important for a living being to exist in this world. To start with, I ordered the senses based on its importance for a being to perceive the world from the worst to best possible ways and here it goes,
1. Sense of Touch
2. Sense of Smell
3. Sense of Taste
4. Sense of Sound
5. Sense of Vision

Sense of Touch:
Yes, sense of touch was the first one that was developed during evolution of species. We will leave debate about the accuracy of the theory of evolution for now! So, this is the first sense that indicates oneself about its existence. Think of 'Amoeba' which is the simplest of the protozoa. It can be found in ponds and rivers and on the surface of the leaves of water plants. It's made up of only one cell and has only sense of touch, using which it moves, finds his food, etc. Temporary pseudopods are formed for its feeding and locomotion! This also helps being to be aware of danger as well as its food.

Sense of Smell:
Though it is bit confusing to understand or decide which sense was developed first, among sense of smell and taste, my analysis tells me that sense of smell takes priority over sense of taste. Similar to touch, smell also helps the living beings to find its food and also to be aware of any danger. Of course, not all of us perceive smell in a same way. It is subjective. Even though it's subjective, animals fall under same species tend to have similar (almost) smelling abilities and perceive smells in a same way. The reason why I kept sense of smell before sense of taste is because one is informed about it's prey or any danger it only with the sense of smell even before it comes to contact with food or danger.

Sense of Taste:
What comes next is the sense of taste. Just like sense of smell, this also needs highly developed of organ. When we say 'highly developed', I don't really mean the size or shape of the organ because even a tiny ant has a great sense of taste. Researches say that ants have a well-developed sense of taste, and can distinguish sour, sweet, bitter, and salty tastes. Sense of taste is just another level of classifier to distinguish whether the food is suitable or dangerous, etc. If you see, by nature things which are not suitable for us smell and taste bad for us! Some say taste is the last sense to be developed. It may be true in case of human but if you consider other animals, they don't develop their tastes like us. Only we humans eat and wants to try different food of various tastes!

Sense of Sounds:

Sound is the another flavor of this universe. In order to perceive this we need organs that perceive sounds. Apart from just perceiving, most of the animals use this for communication. Few, such as bats, use sound for their movements. They make sound waves and based on how soon it reflects, it understands that whether its path is clear or not. For us it sounds bit difficult, but for bats its not that difficult as they grow up with this ability and they develop their senses as they grow up.

Researches tell that even tiny ants communicate with each other ants using one of the following techniques,
1. Sense of touch - by touching each other with their antennae.
2. Sense of smell - by releasing chemical on their path
3. Sense of sound - by making sound using jaw slapping, jumping, rubbing body parts, etc.
Some species of ants ingeniously combine all three communication techniques—touch, chemicals (smell), and sound to convey their messages to cohorts.

5. Sense of Vision
Finally, it's Vision! This is the most important one among all other senses because even though one can feel, smell, taste, hear, if one cannot see this world then we can say, in no time without a second thought, it is missing the most beautiful perspective of this world. Even the word 'beauty' is not justified in the absense of vision. Few animals are blind and few of them have under developed vision. Even animals like cows, goats have fully developed eyes but due to the position of their eyes they don't have unified sights like us. In simple words, they have more blind spots than humans.

If you look at the overall picture, it's so clear that all the animals pretty much comfortably do their jobs with their limited senses and have no complaints. That's because nature has given the necessary alternative senses to fulfill their needs, required for its existence. For example, mammals in the oceans use their sense of sound not only to communicate but also to find their food in the dark deep bottom of the ocean where there is minimum or no light. In my next posts, we will see how each of these senses helps one to perceive this world in terms of 'perceptions and consciousness'.