Sorry for the confusing title, but earlier when I was sipping some coffee I felt the heat emanating off of the liquid in the cup without touching the cup.

So it made me think, why don’t we treat heat sensitivity as a distinct sense to touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing? I’d love to hear a catchier name for ‘temperature sensitivity’ for its distinct sense as well, since those other ones are less of a mouthful.

Thank you for coming to my shower thought!

  • frostedtrailblazer@lemmy.zipOP
    3·
    17 hours ago

    Huh that’s neat!

    It makes sense that it is the touch sensing the heat, but it’s not like a physical touch against an object so that’s the only reason I thought it could be treated differently for the purpose of this shower thought.

    • rockerface🇺🇦@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      2·
      5 hours ago

      You’re physically touching molecules of air and water vapor that got heated up by the cup. And also physically touching infrared photons emitted by the cup. The sensation of hot and cold is technically the sensation of receiving or losing energy of your body particles jiggling around.

      That said, the other commenters are also right in that “touch” is just a catch-all term for all the different types of receptors our skin has

    • nomad@infosec.pub
      7·
      16 hours ago

      But it is. Heat is nothing but very fast Brownian motion of particles. So the kind of very warm light touch comes from fast moving particles in a gas emanating from your cup of Joe and touching your upper lip.