[palimpsest]

I think a pedantic breakdown of extra-sensory perception as a necessary word follows that there are indeed stimuli beyond what our 5 physical senses function with -- wavelengths of light outside of infra-red and ultraviolet, for example, and notes that we can't hear but dogs can.

The brain's function includes interpreting sensory input from the periphery (5 senses) but is certainly not limited to that! It's part of the central rather than peripheral or sensory nervous system, and we don't say extra-central. MRI scans highlight areas of brain activity and were able to map the parts of the brain active during the use of motor skills and processes like memory, emotion, logic, and imagination. It's certainly an amazing organ. Consciousness in the brain will allow experience far beyond the 5 senses, because it also initiates activity. There's even a word for what the brain feels like, quale (that is, mind and possibly spirit is the quale of the brain.)

What I wonder is why it seems materialism and spirituality must be mutually exclusive. Herman Hesse's Siddharta put it best when the titular character saw the physical world as representations of the divine rather than the illusion that draws one away from it, but I see them as one and the same (for lack of better words.) To condemn the material mechanics for ensnaring us in an illusion I think betrays our own failure to appreciate this facet of the world-- why be so intimidated by what understanding of its mechanics (like the brain) can be interpreted as? It's like being scared of your own shadow.