The 6th Sense

The Sixth Sense.
Right, intriguing, a movie that created a bunch of emotions and has stayed with us for years.
I see dead people.
That sentence… a very controversial one. Getting up from my chair, threw a bucket of popcorn on the floor full of those non-exploding pellets — perfectly capable of pulling out a tooth — and abruptly withdrew.
“That movie is a sham,” said hours later at a Bar.
-Sixth Sense? I thought it was excellent, ”said another person.
-“Let’s see if I can explain myself.” The movie is not bad, but the title is an insult to intelligence. It should be called Augmented Fifth Sense, or something like that.
-“I’m not following you.”
-“I mean, if we’re going to talk about a supposed sixth sense, then explain to me what the sense of vision has to do with all that.” In fact, seeing dead people necessarily implies the use of vision, and excludes the intervention of a new sense, or atrophied, let’s say, but objectively functional.
-“Then you reject the possibility that the sixth sense exists.”
-No. What I reject is that it can be experienced through the five senses. Seeing involves using vision, you know, photons bouncing off matter, and all that.
“Well, maybe the boy in the movie didn’t really see dead people, but experienced those presences through vision.”
—It was pretty clear about it: I see dead people, he said. He also seems to listen to them, with which the sense of hearing also intervenes, and to feel it physically, through the sense of touch. And if he saw them, and also heard and felt them, then he was using three of the five senses that we all know.
-“I understand, the other person said, but consider for a moment the possibility of a metaphor.” The boy perhaps saw the dead in his mind, not in the physical plane, hence no one else could see them, or hear them.
-You believe? So the boy could see dead people with their eyes closed? Because what would be the need to look if the eyes are not involved in the process.
—Some spiritual and philosophical currents propose the existence of a third eye, capable of capturing what ours do not see.
—I don’t deny it, but what is the difference between an image captured by a supposed third eye with, say, an image that is generated through the imagination? Would you be able to tell the difference?
-Interesting.
“I think so, then added. I do not rule out that in our brain there is something similar to a sixth sense, perhaps numb, atrophied, but physically real. What I reject is that its functioning, or rather, its perception, coincides with that of the other five.”
“The real question here, then, would be: how does sixth sense feel?”
-“Exactly. Simple reasoning leads us to conclude that it could not be felt through vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Which is why seeing dead people is an unforgivable contradiction in a movie called Sixth Sense.”
—But according to his reasoning we could never feel the sixth sense, since for this to be achieved we would have to do without the other five, and we already know that outside of that orb there is not much else.
“There is fear.”
-“Afraid?”
-“Indeed. Fear is perfectly felt without the intervention of any sense, yet you can easily identify it. Example: you have just had coffee and someone informs you that you have been poisoned. What do you feel?”
-“Afraid.”
-“Right! He feels fear, and perhaps some regret for the absurdities of his love life, I would dare to add. But the important thing is that this fear is felt without the participation of the other senses, and then added. Someone deprived of sight, of hearing, someone whose nasal glands are removed and is kept in an environment of absolute emptiness, without the possibility of activating their sense of touch, could feel fear as well.”
“Or Love, or for that matter any other feeling.”
“It could be, of course, but Love rarely goes off as hard as fear.” In evolutionary terms, fear is useful, and love a social convenience. Compare the intensity of your happiest moment with the certainty of having been poisoned, and you will surely notice that fear wins out over several bodies.”
“You’ve convinced me.” How about we go see another movie together?
“I accept, but first finish your coffee.”