tilthat: TIL a philosophy riddle from 1688 was recently solved. If a man born blind can feel the differences between shapes such as spheres and cubes, could he, if given the ability, distinguish those objects by sight alone? In 2003 five people had their sight restored though surgery, and, no they could not.

nentuaby: I love when apparently Deep questions turn out to have clear empirical answers.

  • @SludgeyyEnglish
    8•1 year ago

    It does seem straightforward

    If you closed your eyes and felt a sphere and a cube you’d be easily able to feel and picture the shapes in your mind because you knew what a sphere and cube looked like before you closed your eyes.

    Blind people “see” or experience the world completely different

    They have no image in their mind what a sphere or cube would look like. They have only their idea of feeling it.

    Seems like an easy conclusion to draw that the blind person would be able to tell the shapes. Sharp corners vs. round object.

    But saying that they can’t tell the difference, which they can’t, seems like a stretch because it’s almost unbelievable to someone who can see.

    And there’s no way to know if they could or couldn’t tell the difference without a blind person actually doing the experiment. They couldn’t test it, so all they would do was think and debate.