Another deep thought cometh.
What does the world look like through the eyes of a blind person?
A blind person knows they cannot see, yet how do they know what "seeing" is? If all they have known was a world of darkness, how can they comprehend what a world of light would reveal? How do they think other people. those with full sight, see the world around them?
How do blind people dream?
How do they imagine the appearance of things they have never had sight to verify?
Do they think in color? Might their minds perceive colors our own minds could not have imagined?
Might a person blind since birth, having suddenly gained full sight, be relieved to see the world is better than they imagined...or dissappointed that it was not as fantastic as they had pre-visualized?
If future science somehow invented a way for a sighted person and a blind person to see into the other's minds to share each other's visions of the world and life itself, imagine how each person would experience the other person's visual memories compared to their own.
Imagine having a blind person work for ILM or any sci-fi special effects company, designing space ships and aliens. They would surely come up with shapes and styles we could possibly never imagine. I would be interested to see drawings of everyday objects made by blind people. Whether you can draw or not, try drawing something with your eyes closed and then look to see how close it is to another you drew with your eyes open. I wonder how close or different a drawing made by a blind person, and by a sighted person with his eyes closed, would be to each other, of the same subject.
Sometimes, I have awoken from dreams I had trouble remembering. I couldn't recall the dream itself, yet I had vague images of something or set of things I saw, that I knew were from the dream but could not form a shape or color to the images to see what they were. Other times I've awoken with clear as crystal memories of what I saw in my dreams. But I wonder if the vague, hard to distinguish images are some of what a blind person attributes to the objects he touches, hears, or is told about. In other words, I wonder if the images he creates to identify what he knows is around him, are crystal clear, or vague and hard to define.
Have you watched M.A.S.H.? In one episode Hawkeye Pierce was blinded by an explosion, and they didn't know if it was temporary or permanant. Pierce wanted to go back to work and assist regardless of his blindness. At the operating table where the other surgeons were stitching the insides of a severely wounded soldier, Hawkeye sensed that the perforated bowel was not fully stitched, by sense of smell. No other doctor detected it by smell, or saw the loose stitch by sight. In another, non-medical instance, it was raining and Hawkeye noted that the rain hitting the ground sounded like sizzling steak on a grill. He also was able to hear distant incoming helicopters before anyone else could (Radar was good at doing that, though he wasn't blind), and realized that without his sight all of his other senses had been highly enhanced to compensate.
So from a certain point of view, a blind person might be seeing more of the world than we ever can. Like I said, from a certain point of view.
More to come, at some point later. That's right, I did say "later", which comes now from a certain point of view.
