ABSTRACT
How many senses do we have? According to an article published in the January 2005 edition of New Scientist, the answer is 21. Or ten. Or 33. Or possibly three. But not, apparently, the ®ve senses that we were taught in school ± vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Where are these numbers coming from and why should it be a source of disagreement? Surely the number of senses that we have cannot be a matter of opinion; it must be answerable by science. However, for most scientists who study the senses this question is not seriously debated because the question itself is regarded as ambiguous or unanswerable. Even the New Scientist article concludes that `senses may one day be consigned to the scienti®c dustbin'. In order to understand why it is hard, if not impossible, to count the senses, we will have to engage in a radical rethink of what our senses are, what they do, and how they work.
