Tag: philosophy
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Beyond the five senses: a history of human perception from antiquity to neuroscience
Ask most people how many senses humans have and they’ll say five. Ask a neuroscientist and you’ll get a longer pause. This is a history of that pause – from Aristotle and Avicenna through Buddhist philosophy and classical Chinese medicine, all the way to interoception and what we’re still figuring out.
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The role of scent in Eastern Orthodox spirituality
We’ve been taught to think of religious experience in terms of visions and voices. But what if we’ve overlooked something far more ancient? In Eastern Orthodox spirituality, scent isn’t decoration, but theology. Fragrance fills us, enters us, transforms us. It’s the sense that grace most resembles: unbidden, pervasive, and impossible to fully contain.