the perception that something has occurred or some state exists; "early detection can often lead to a cure"

becoming aware of something via the senses

Detecting, interpreting, and monitoring energy with electric, electronic, fluid, and mechanical devices.

Sensory instrumentality is the means by which a living being comes to know its environment, its milieu. If the totality of a creature's environment is physical then its sensory apparatus will be limited to that alone, but if it is psychological and spiritual, then it will have the requisite mechanism to know the total dimensionality of its world.