Touching is Seeing
October 12, 2005
With closed eyes, I found that I can easily feel a hair between my thumb and forefinger. I roll it back and forth. It is an obvious object beheld by the sense of touch. If I multiply my touch with an atomic force microscope I can behold the world of the very small. I can display each sub-micronic tactile perception as an array and thus build up a visual image of the surface of a thing much too small to be seen with the eyes alone.
If I receive a touch sensation to my body, and if an expected friend or object is thought to be near, does not that sensation arouse a mental image of the person or object in question?
Touch can thus be like vision. A small amount of tactile information can stimulate the same awareness as a raft of visual information. To be efficient we derive a lot from a little data, through touch or vision, or any of the senses.