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Does A Senseless Man Dream?
I posted a thread a few days ago about time and existence, but it was more a response to my thoughts on these questions-
What does a blind man see in his dreams? Does he experience his dreamworld in total darkness? What of a deaf man? In his dream does he read lips? Does a man that lacks all 5 senses dream at all? Does he even perceive that he exists? These are philosophical questions that have profound implications on what "life" is. Helen Keller lacked 2 of the 5 senses, sight and hearing, but she was still able to feel, taste, and smell (just try to imagine the world without sight or sound, it is almost impossible[actually it is impossible, you can't imagine life without something that you already have]). With these abilities she was still able to gain an understanding of the world. What if she had not had those senses either though? From a religious standpoint would such a person, that could never be reached, be able to be saved? They could never sin because they could never act. On the other hand, they could never choose to believe in God because they could never experience the world. This person could live a full "life" if kept alive, but never experience anything. From a philosophical standpoint would such a person even exist? Clearly they exist in the physical sense that they have a body, a beating heart, and a developed brain. But do they perceive that they exist, and that they are a part of the universe? Do they have any thoughts at all? Does anything, aside from anatomy, separate them from a plant? Does anything make them more than an aggregation of biological building blocks? |
Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?
I don't know why they wouldn't exist... Even someone who has no senses can still think. Just because they don't think in forms that relate to things we perceive doesn't mean they don't at all. Think about someone who is deaf and doesn't know any written languages, but can see. Obviously they would be able to think and see that they exist. But how would they think to themselves. It wouldn't be in a language thats for sure. He would just use whatever he can to form some kind of connections to things he can see.
Also I remember in psychology that blind people have reported that they do dream. They just don't know how to describe in a way that relates to seeing. |
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If there were a person born lacking all senses with full mental capacity I'm assuming. Someone lacking all senses would be the result of serious underdevolopement of the brain, through the period of conception until birth, unless such a person actually exists, regardless of whether that's even the point or not.
So another question could be imposed being; would a senseless person with full mental capacity, ever hope to achieve a way to tap into the use of their brain at all? How would such a person know anything about basic instinct or simple emotions even? I don't think it becomes a philosophical question at all when you observe the basic concepts that make people understand any part of their lives. Without senses their is no understanding of anything. We rely on our senses to understand the world around us. Without the sense of sight, sound, and touch alone, what understanding of anything could possibly be generated within a person. Emotions help dictate our thoughts and create our basic instincts, and ultimately shape and define our reality. For instance a person with no sense of touch, would have no fear of pain. In the end there would be no fear at all. Without our senses to define our reality, we would be nothing but a living body that breathes, eats, sleeps, and excretes would we not? I guess what it would really come down to is knowing the true nature and science of our dreams and their relationship with our brain and body chemistry and so forth. I would think that one without senses, would have absolutely no perception of his own reality, but it's hard to say what the brain is truly capable of understanding without the senses to guide it. To answer your thoughts and questions I would say no. There would be no way of doing so. |
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What percentage of the brain is actually taken up by areas that help us sense things? The rest of the brain is probably doing something other then sense our surroundings.
Also, has there been any recorded cases of people being born without the sense of touch without just being completely paralyzed? |
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Even if our senses took up .001% of our brains capacity, what understanding of anything would our brains be able to deduce without a sense of anything? Without ever having a sense for anything, how would it not render your brain useless to any form of understanding is the fundamental question here.
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Because wouldn't the brain still create some form of thought even the only thing it can perceive is itself?
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Ok, but how would the brain have a perception of itself? You assume as if the brain has an ability to know what it is without any real way of knowing. That just doesn't make any sense because without any sense, you would have no guide for thought.
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Well since at this point it is all opinion that is what i am doing. I'm assuming the brain has some knowledge of itself even if at a subconscious level. If there is ever some kind of conclusive study on this and I am wrong I will change my mind.
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Well even if the brain miraculously knew it was a brain, then what? " Hey I'm a brain better cram it with knowledge err wait what?” Your brain knows it's a brain, but what does it really know? That without any sense ever to guide it, it was able to naturally know what it is AND utilize it's capabilities to retain and understand knowledge? The only thing your brain is naturally able to do is tell your body what to do. Nothing learned, nothing experienced, and that is the key difference.
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Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?
Well no, I don't think it would be able to obtain any kind of knowledge we find useful. But maybe since it is using absolutely no resources on senses it develops some way to think about what its doing subconsciously. So in essence since the subconscious and whatever is controlling the body is the only thing is has, that could maybe turn into it's only conscious thought. Clearly the person would be servery trapped in his own little world, but it would still be trying to maintain it's own survival by staying alive. In the same way single celled organisms and other small organisms try to stay alive. Seems like they acknowledge they exist in some way by just living.
Maybe a man with no senses would just die at birth because he cant acknowledge hes even there. I don't really know. |
Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?
okay, let's begin saying that dreams are the fictional expletation of a desire not satisfied during the day.
lacking a sense probably keeps that person to use that sense in his/her dreams, too, but i'm not sure. the mind might make up for the desire of the lacking sense, in some way. a senseless person is a paradox because the brain would not receive any data from the outside, not even from the inside of the body, causing death. if you want to magically make this person live, its encephalograph (is this word correkt?) would be completely flat. |
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But that's just it. Just like the single celled organisms, all a senseless person would be doing is living until their bodies could operate no longer without any understanding of their life. It would ultimately make no difference whether their brains were fully developed or not.
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But dreams don't actually have anything to do with senses themselves. They are just memories of senses.
How do you actually remember a taste or a smell? You don't need whatever you are trying to remember present at the time to remember it. Once it's a memory it is only produced by something in the brain. I'd like to think the brain is capable of creating these connections of memory even without the senses. Maybe somehow the brain can produce the memory of the taste of a banana in the exact same way someone with taste can just by accident or coincidence. |
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that's just chemistry. or maybe you're implying that when i put salt in water the Na+ and Cl- ions have a perception of their existance and decide to separate to gain a greater electron stability. yea. |
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They're memories of experiences you could only have because of your senses. How is your brain going to create memories of something you can't and never could experience? It can't. That would be impossible.
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Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?
yeah. mind is composed of few automations (breathing, heartbeat etc), and everything else is developed from the internalization of external inputs in regard of the previously received experience. no experience means no brain activity.
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Well, I'm going to bed. |
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These were my thoughts exactly. If all we are is a body of organic compounds that without working senses is nothing more than a waste of space, then why do people have the notion that we are so special? I am not saying that life is meaningless, but nor does it really seem to have much of a meaning. We think and feel based off our bodies chemical reaction to external stimulus. But at the same time, it is kind of cool because we are a collection matter that seeks to understand itself. People look at religion as providing meaning and beauty to a otherwise bleak existence, but I think in a lot of cases it works the other way around. Without life after death, this is our only time to "exist." If this is true, there is no excuse for killing someone. In a religious world that person continues to exist, in this world that person is gone. In a religious world you are rewarded for suffering in the next life, in this world you only have so much time so you should try not to suffer. In a religious world a higher power will help you in a time of need, in this world you learn to help yourself. Also, if this world was sculpted I think it makes it seem less beautiful. That everything we see is just a chance combination of subatomic particles, that they combined in such a complex way, seems kind of beautiful to me. Also the fact that we are made of particles of matter that have always existed is comforting too, and that "dying" is just returning to a less complex state. Obviously we will not remain conscious in that state but I still like the thought that we are just a complex form of matter and that after we decompose the elements that form our body will disperse into countless of new combinations. I am not saying that religion *IS* wrong, just that this is what seems most likely to me. |
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without any senses a person wouldn't be able to learn how to define themselves. Unless they were truly gifted, they wouldn't even be able to come up with words in their mind or ways to express themselves. It would be a very.. weird life. And with the case of helen keller well, somebody else had to define the world to her in order for her to understand anything. If you could find a way to communicate with essentially a corpse, it could live life. |
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In Johnny Got His Gun (a novel later adapted to film and probably more well-known for inspiring Metallica's song One), a man who can only feel can dream/think with all his senses even though he only has one in real life. It's just a movie but it seems like someone who had and lost senses would still be able to imagine those senses even if he no longer had them. However, I doubt someone who has never had a sense (born blind, for example) could ever figure out what that sense is supposed to feel like. If you had the sense you have a reference point, but if you have never had it, all you can have are biased descriptions from people capable of sensing a dimension you will never know.
I think someone who never had any senses would not be able to sense existence. There's no way that someone could realize he's a part of this universe when he has no way to relate to that universe. |
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I think the point is that you can't communicate with them because they have no senses. There is nothing you could do (aside from medically manipulating the neuronal reactions in their brain that form memory. Perhaps how school could work in the future??????) that could cause a reaction from them. |
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Our senses. They're triggered by things happening in the outside world which stimulate neurons in our bodies. These then send an electric signal to the brain. There's a different part of the brain for each sense, which makes sense of these signals. Each center interprets these stimuli and turns them into something we can understand. A sound doesn't really "sound" a certain way, our brains just perceive a vibration in the air, and transforms it into an electrical signal.
This may be wrong, but if dreams are just random firings of neurons in those centers of our brains, I think an senseless man would be able to dream. Just because he can't sense the outside world, doesn't mean his brain can't still create these random impulses in his sleep. It would probably just be a whole bunch of colors and sounds and smells which make no sense at all, since his brain has never needed to make sense of them, but he would still experience them. And over time, his brain would try to make sense of these random things. He would recognize a random burst of "blue" light. He wouldn't actually think "that's blue light," he wouldn't know that it is called a color, but he'd remember that certain sensation from previous dreams. Of course this is assuming his disability does not damage those parts of his brain which process the senses.... |
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"Just because he can't sense the outside world, doesn't mean his brain can't still create these random impulses in his sleep."
As has been the general consensus in this thread, what you said here is wrong. Our brain develops only because we sense things. As it senses things, it structures the information in ways that are useful. If it never, ever receives sensory input, it will never actually form beyond what genetics make it form. And even then, our genes tell neurons to form and make connections only when they're stimulated, or else they're told to die. You may have heard that babies and kids actually have more neurons than adults. That's because their brains haven't been organized enough to prune out cells which aren't part of that organization yet...they've got hardware laying around so to speak. If, of course, what you said is about people who have had sensory development as usual for most of their lives, and then they somehow lose all their senses later in life, yes, I agree that they will be able to dream and 'sense' in their heads. |
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So in other words this thread is asking if there are more senses then the basic physical ones (proper list of senses not the "5" we are taught in school)?
Personally I say yes. ESP to me has some validity, it would take a good degree of close mindedness to say we know it dosn't exist or to say we know exactly how it works. |
Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?
Blind people do dream, but the nature of the dreams depends on exposure to given senses.
If you were born without eyes, you wouldn't be dreaming with images. Dreams usually build themselves from your experiences/senses. It would be like asking if humans can dream in sonar or can dream in ultraviolet. If you don't have the sense, you simply don't have much idea what it means or feels like. If a blind person is used to experiencing the world through sound, touch, smell, taste, etc, then those are the senses that would be put together to form dreams. If you want to know what it "looks" or "feels" like to have no eyesight, think about what you see with the eyes in the back of your head. Or how about the eyeballs that you have in your arm? What, having trouble? You can't do it because you don't have those senses there. If you're trying to imagine "what the eyeballs in your face would see if they happened to be in the back of your head or your arm," you're still synthesizing an experience based on what you've already felt. If we haven't been exposed to a certain sense at all, it's not going to be something our dreams are going to readily build from. |
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Agian lets not turn this into a disprove Christianity thread we are simply trying to see how religion (assumedly Christianity judging by the context given) would relate to the senseless man. If the Christian God (along with living Christian Theoology) and a senseless man exist do they contradict? Well if the senseless man can think then he can sin and thus will have a need for salvation. He can not obviously be told anything about God or Jesus etc. so if he was to be saved it would require a pagan salvation (savlation of someone who does not know about Jesus or Christianity). The bible does say (in Romans I belive) that all men know of God and of good and evil. Thus even a senseless man will have an ability to love God even if he knows no theology. Many people belive this is enough for salvation. No one knows for sure who is saved though but I do not see it as an impossibility. So in conclusion the idea of a senseless man does not seem to directly contradict God. Really the root of this question lies in the ideal of pagan salvation etc... |
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Hello, I am new to this site, and don't exactly know quite how the system works, so if I am doin' anything wrong just let me know. I have been glancing through some of the critical thinking posts and I think that yall have some really interesting debates going on.
I was a preacher for 13 years up in Montana, so I can't say that I necessarily agree with everything yall have been posting, but I try to keep an open mind. My grandson recently told his parents that he no longer believes in religion, and we had a long talk. He showed me some old posts on this site that had influenced his opinion. Now I do not blame anyone or hold any kind of grudge, but I thought that I might try putting in my two cents on a few of these debates and see what thoughts I might get in return. I can't figure out how to work yall's fancy quotation system, so I apologize for doing it the old fashioned way: "From a religious standpoint would such a person, that could never be reached, be able to be saved? They could never sin because they could never act. On the other hand, they could never choose to believe in God because they could never experience the world. This person could live a full "life" if kept alive, but never experience anything." -richhhhhard Now what I think you are trying to argue here is not that a senseless man and God "contradict" as Mr. windsurfer-sp suggests. My interpretation was that you were suggesting that a senseless man would not experience anything at all. Which would be a contradiction to Mr. windsurfer-sp 's claim: " that all men know of God and of good and evil" If a senseless man does not experience anything without external stimulus than I believe Mr. richhhhhard's argument is that he cannot experience good or evil. However, though this makes logical sense, there is no proof to support that a senseless man would have no knowledge. "No one knows for sure who is saved though but I do not see it as an impossibility. " -Windsurfer-sp Though it is true that no man knows who is saved, I think if you read the Good Book it is made very clear what is required for salvation. This is clearly stated in the most well known Bible verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16 Given this criteria, I believe that a senseless man could not be saved. It is my belief that in order to be saved you must truly believe, and to truly believe you have to experience things and make a conscious choice. With no senses this does not seem as if it would be possible, but when has there ever been a man born without any senses? I am very eager to hear your thoughts on the matter Mr. richhhhhard, and Mr. windsurfer-sp, and of course anyone else who has a thought on the matter. |
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The correct answer is you only dream with the senses you use in the real world. We know this from research.
Also, if you go deaf/blind/etc during your life, you can still dream, but usually only after a certain critical period age (e.g. about 7 for deafness and perceiving sound during dreams). If you completely lacked any sensory input processing it would be equivalent to being dead. Assuming the brainstem is still intact, you would still be alive (see babies with anencephaly), and would maintain your posture and react to things that poke you and things like that, but you would not be in any way, shape or form aware of your existence. It's not just the presence of the material brain that makes us who we are, it is the experiences we have that take that brain and shape it into it's current form. Without experience we have nothing, as the material brain never develops properly. |
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Hey Korny, you know what's not a good idea? Ban evasion.
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However, it is also not a very good thing to accuse someone of something that they are innocent of (ironic I know cause that is basically what I was banned for). Unless you were were writing this to korny to warn him that it is not a good idea in general, that is exactly what you have done too. I am Richard, richhhhhard, and though I am tempted to say that my grandfather is RangerPete, I will not do that because that would detract from the fact that this is one of my first *completely* honest posts. I am also RangerPete, and all of this has basically been a game to me. However, in *my* being banned, korny was also banned, called a jack ass, and accused of ban evasion. In reality what did he do? Look up his latest posts and see if he has done anything ban-worthy. If you believe that me and korny are the same person you could say that he has, because I have done plenty of things that are ban-worthy. However I think it can be shown pretty easily that me and korny are in fact two separate people if you search the threads by post for "richhhhhard" and see me and korny's interactions a few years ago, or even a few months ago. I made that account 3 years ago to join his super smash bros tournaments. If you read any thread that we both talked in (there are not that many, I don't think i had more than 90 posts total) we are usually arguing. If I was korny why would I sign in as a different user to argue with myself? I think this is most clear in the critical thinking thread entitled "economy fix or fail". A few months ago, korny was taking that debate very seriously, and I made only one comment, and it was just to piss him off. (go look i think it is post #35 or close to it). If you can think of one rational explanation to why korny would have signed out of his account, signed into one that had been inactive for at least a year just to say that, and then signed back into his normal one and continued the debate I would love to hear it. If I was a new user, who's only posts were in the critical thinking forum, I could understand how korny would be accused, but since there is a 3 year history in the threads that shows pretty clearly that me and korny went to high school together, and are friends (*not* the same person) I don't get why he is repeatedly being blamed and punished. In all reality the only crime korny committed to be banned was using my computer the day that I decided to go out of my way to try to get banned. Did he know when he signed on that I was going to do that later? No. Have any of you ever signed onto your ffr account at a friends house? Would you be upset if you did and then tried to sign on the next day and couldn't simply because you had used their computer before they did something really dumb? I don't know, I know no matter how you look at it, it is at the very least *mostly* if not completely my fault that he was banned, but after it happened I had a long discussion with one of the moderators that had been involved in the whole situation and he seemed to be sympathetic to korny's situation. He said he would forward the conversation to the one that controlled korny's ban, but nothing ever came of it. Devonin, I messaged you my complete thoughts on the situation, as well as Tasselfoot. Before I am banned yet again I hope you will read it. And if you want to delete this post feel free, but I hope you will also remove the one claiming that korny is responsible for this. Oh, and thanks to everyone who contributed to my threads when I took this seriously, it really did open my eyes to a lot of new ideas. |
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I was hoping someone would post something like that. Is there actually any examples of adults with no senses? I highly doubt it.
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that's why he can be blind *and* a good painter. |
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2. Again, depending on whether he ever had sight, he may or may not. 3. Depends on whether or not that man has ever been able to hear. 4. Again, depending on whether he was ever able to hear, maybe, maybe not. 5. Those who lack all 5 senses generally die before we can really ask them objective questions, or pull any information out of them at all. Seeing as they cannot taste, feel, hear, see, or smell, we have no way to get information or response from them. 6. Probably not. The subject is most likely dead (literally) before reaching the age at which most humans start to perceive existence. 7. She probably would have died long before she did. 8. From a religious standpoint, I tend to doubt the logic of most religious people, however, I doubt that a person with no sensory input could get enough information to make a choice. 9. Yes, but they would never attain any enlightenment or achieve any answers, since answers generally require sensory experience (reading, speaking, etc.). 10. Doubtfully. Such thoughts REQUIRE sensory input. 11. I'd bet they did, but you'd never know of them. They would have no way to communicate them. Sign language requires sight, braille requires touch, and English (or any spoken language) requires at least sight to learn (by reading lips), but hearing is preferred. 12. Yes, from certain plants. Certain plants can feel, in a way, most notably ivy and vine-type plants. 13. Not really, in any way I can see. |
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(I should note there is one sense that requires a bit of expansion - feeling. For example, pain - even with the brain removed, an individual could have nociceptors, receptors used to pick up pain stimulus. However, in say, babies with anencephaly, they would not be able to experience that pain, because without the material brain to process that pain information there is no conscious perception of pain, only mere reaction to it from the spinal cord/brain stem. It's the same reason you wouldn't really argue a fly could feel pain - it lacks a properly sophisticated brain to process that pain information consciously, despite having pain receptors.) |
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I posted my answer here as fact because I believe that a lot of what I learned from my science degree in psychology is factual.
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