I've been ruminating on the manner in which we experience the world at large, and the manner in which we experience the world in our heads, what the philosophers would label 'phenomenal' and 'noumenal' - sensory input versus mental states. But first, a digression.
If we consider our 5 basic modes of sensory input, they hardly constitute comprehensive coverage of the myriad possibilities of experiencing phenomena, yet they have evolved to fulfil our basic requirements and provide us with a means to 'get by' in the physical world.
To further digress, I'm interested in the possibility of using some of our current senses in the manner in which we use others. As an example, I've tried what might be termed 'light music', not undemanding tunes but music composed only of light. I conjecture that as virtual reality technology further develops, it will be possible to experience a kind of touch-music, via controlled use of an all-over body-suit designed to stimulate the nerves in our skin. This could even be extended to symphonies of smell and taste with the correct technology, certainly once nanotechnology is more fully realised. I'm imagining an unobtrusive nasal insertion that releases controlled waves of molecules in sufficient concentration to be detected by our crude olfactory sense.
But I wonder whether we will ever be able to interface with instruments capable of sensing, say, electrical fields and experience them in some way? Perhaps to integrate with sight data so that we can turn on the option of 'seeing' electrical fields present around objects. Again, this is only another form of sense data, and therefore belongs to the phenomenal world.
So finally, we return to what can be our only experience of the noumenal world, that of the, for want of a more precise term, psychical landscape. Experience of the noumenal can only occur when the experiencer directly undergoes the experience, with no mediation which inevitably leads to the problem of interpretation. This now calls to discussion what is meant by the 'I', the self, that experiences. In everyday life, 'I' refers to the biological entity/thought process/self-awareness combo. Here, 'I' can only be the self-awareness part of this trinity of what constitutes a person. Perhaps this, stripped of the layers of intellect and body, is the soul?
I believe that certain psychoactive compounds are able to, at least partially, unshackle what our senses and intellect have constrained, to open, in Huxley's phrase (borrowed from Blake), the "doors of perception" and allow us to 'see' so much more of the psychic landscape such that both sense data and 'otherworldly' perceptions can sit comfortably side-by-side in a new 'panception' of so much more than what we now see.
Perhaps one day, or so I'd like to think, such experimentation with consciousness will be a routine aspect of a more enlightened lifestyle, freed forever from the slavery of work. But until then, it's left to the few brave psychonauts to risk the disapprobation of the establishment in order to research the very tools that threaten to undermine it. Go to it, and keep alive the hope of a better way!
