Substituting Change
The ecosystem is constantly changing. First scientists must identify how all the other species are existing, what senses will need to be developed in order to keep on being able to perceive as much of the world as possible. Then they compare them, trying to find the similarities between these new sensory stimuli and the systems that we already have, or had years ago. The physical molecular mechanisms will likely have to be made from scratch, but the pathways can be reused from some previous sense, one that hasn’t been necessary in weeks, maybe even months, sometimes even years. We used to have three, back before the planet started spinning out of control, and the lifespans and reproductive cycles of all the creatures around us sped to thousands of times faster than our own. Now we have six, on average. We try to avoid having more than seven at a time, as the neural pathways overlapping can cause confusion. But it’s better to think that you can tell the magnetic fields of the creatures ...