Empirical Senses

Ben V. W. Andrews

There is a great misunderstanding about the meaning of the word “empirical.” It is an adjective, indicating that something is “based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.” By observation or experience means that the knowledge is obtained through the physical senses of one’s sense organs. We have a multiple number of sense organs, not only the five which were indicated by Aristotle: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Some animals can sense electrical or magnetic fields. Internal sensors send signals to the brain such as itch and pain, which are not always caused by external stimuli. Here we are concerned with those sensors that give us knowledge about the environment we live in and therefore tell us about the reality of our existence. When we talk about a sixth sense, we usually mean an imaginary capacity to sense a realm outside the ones we observe as real.

Individual senses are not perfect and sometimes wrongly interpreted or impaired and therefore we cannot consider anecdotal information as real but only that which is observed or experienced in general. Gravity is real, an empirical fact, because we can observe it and experience it, even if we don’t know what it actually is. It exists and is part of our reality.

What am I trying to get at? To prove that something is true and real we must demand empirical evidence to accept it. There is no other way. Philosophy and logic can lead to a great discovery but they are only suggestions or guesses until we can confirm it by empirical means. Some of these suggestions and logical conclusions have been empirically proven and are then accepted as fact, but many are disproven or are still waiting.

Empirical is an adjective. It is not a verb or a noun. It cannot be false or imperfect by itself, it indicates the method by which knowledge is obtained, through the only senses by which we are connected to the reality of the environment we live in. These senses have been cleverly extended by instruments we have developed that have given us a greater capacity to observe and experience to extend our knowledge.

Some people, such as psychics and parapsychologists, insist that some people have ESP, extra sensory perception. Many have been researching and investigating for more than a century but none have been able to provide convincing empirical evidence that it exists. Many claims have been made. They have been investigated by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and found wanting or debunked. No evidence of a so-called sixth sense exists. In itself that is not proof that it doesn’t exist; perhaps it does. But until it is proven to exist one cannot use it to advance true knowledge. It is still a speculation.

The same is the case with religion, which frustrates many theists. Religious philosophy and logic, often very well put together, all start with the premise that a supernatural realm exists and then take it from there. We must however insist that they first provide empirical evidence that it does exist. The only method we have, to arrive at the truth, is through our well known existing senses. Things like “Look around you” and “The universe is finely tuned, therefore…” do not do it and are also easily dismissed by applying logical arguments. Other attempts to use new scientific discoveries, such as in particle physics, by misinterpreting or misunderstanding the principles behind it, have also failed so far.

ESP, parapsychology, supernaturalism, numerology, religions (all of them), ghosts, spirits, souls, goblins, superstitions, aliens, and so on — although they could exist, they must be put on the shelf until any of them are empirically, scientifically proven to exist.