You die and your consciousness wakes up in a void. You have none of the 5 senses - no external stimuli at all. Do you think it would be possible to learn anything new just by rehashing things from memory or does learning require external stimuli?
You die and your consciousness wakes up in a void. You have none of the 5 senses - no external stimuli at all. Do you think it would be possible to learn anything new just by rehashing things from memory or does learning require external stimuli?
Memory works partly through the same mental routes as new sensory stimuli. For instance, if you think about a sunset, your brain uses some of the same pathways that would be used if you were looking at an actual sunset. So, if you can recall things you’ve sensed before, you could figure out new things about them.
And then there’s a-priori things like math. If you already have learned a notion of logical consistency, and if you have a good enough memory, then you could (for instance) work out new theorems or geometric constructions.