Assuming you equate senses with their receptors, such as the retinas in your eyes and the cochlea in your ears, then the traditional answer to this question is five – seeing, hearing, touch, smell and taste. They’re called the ‘exteroceptive’ senses because they carry information about the external world. But your body also has receptors for events occurring inside you, such as your beating heart, expanding lungs, gurgling stomach and many other movements that you’re completely unaware of. They’re traditionally grouped together as another sense, called ‘interoception’.
SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT…
Yet a proper answer to this question is even more complex and interesting. For one thing, your body has receptors to carry other types of information, such as temperature, that we don’t usually consider to be senses. Also, some of your receptors…