It strikes me sometimes, how often we use the word "sixth sense" in our daily life, and yet, never think about it in the literal sense. Of course, it would be absurd to think that such a sense exists in humans at all. Everyone of us has grown up with the belief that the world we live in can very clearly be understood by the five basic senses that we possess.
What is this sixth sense then, that we oft talk about?
In the sense that we usually use it, the sixth sense is a superstition. The ability to precept things that others cannot. It is a form of vibe, if you will. This form of the sixth-sense, I strongly disagree with. I can see how someone's wild guess can come true at some point in their life.
With over 7 billion people currently alive and with an average lifespan of nearly 80 years, it shouldn't come as a surprise, applying the principles of probability, that people can at some point randomly guess something that has not yet happened.
But that is not the form of sixth-sense under consideration.
As a species, humans tend to be rather proud. I wouldn't criticize them for that. Not because I happen to be a part of them, but rather because they really have achieved a great deal during their short time on this planet.
Has it ever occurred to you, if you look from an evolutionary view- point, that the species that existed millions and millions of years before us, could have been considered the perfect organisms at their time, much in the same way as we consider ourselves now?
First came the unicellular beings, simply capable of keeping their species alive. Then the simple multi-cellulars, slowly turning into the more complex, Platyhelminthes and then the Aschelminthes, all the while evolving new and more efficient sensory organs, starting with touch and chemo-receptors and slowly evolving their way towards a more receptive nervous system. With the development of new and evolved sensory organs came new ways of interpreting the world and these little worms and parasites, really were the pinnacles of evolution in their respective eras. We look at them now as insignificant little pests, destroying our food and causing diseases.
After a while came the annelids and then the arthropods and mollusks and then after some more steps, the chordates, of which we are the most evolved. We possess the five senses, necessary to interpret the world in the way we do. But is it really the perfect or the complete way?
I strongly believe we are not in the position to answer that, not if evolution is real and still has some way to go. Much in the same way as arthropods before us were not in the position to answer that, because they were, at their own time, the perfect organisms that existed and yet, we know they are not complete in the way they sense the world.
How are we able to state that? Because they came before us and we came afterwards.
There is an interesting example that I have to prove all of this.
Almost a year ago I read about an animal called the "Mantis Shrimp" and it instantly became my favorite animal. Why? There are a number of reasons for that. The chief one being that they have very different eyes from ours. Most of you may know, if you have studied biology, that our eyes have specials cells called rods and cones that form the basis for our sight in the dark and in light respectively. Our cones are normally of three types, red, blue and green, and these three colors mix to form the versatile palette of colors that we see in our daily life. The Mantis Shrimp, it has been observed, possesses as many as 16 different types of cones! That means it is capable of seeing colors that even we can't see, although research is still going on regarding this theory. Scientists believe that the Mantis Shrimp might not be using all of its cones for color perception, but it goes without saying that the way the organism interprets the world, at least visually, is radically different from the way we do.
There may be a sixth-sense waiting to be evolved and we can't say anything about it. Because we might be limited in our observations by the very things we use to make those observations.
I say "may be", because there is no way to prove if evolution really has produced the perfect organisms to ever exist, or if evolution exists at all.
I wrote all of this from the perspective of an evolutionist, but I have to explicitly state that I am not one. I found the idea intriguing and the only way I could explain it was from this particular view point.
But we know, from the Holy Quran itself, that there are things that we, as humans, are not capable of seeing and that might, very well, be left unseen.
Keep making choices.
Keep taking action.
Thought provoking article
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