This video is about a boy who lost his eyes due to cancer, and ended up blind (obviously). The interesting thing, however, is that he seems to have managed to develop a navigational system based on the principles of echolocation: emitting small sounds in the forms of 'clicks,' and listening to their reflection in order to determine not only distance, as I would have thought possible, but also density and other details that are just remarkable.
On the one hand, it does make sense that the brain resources originally devoted to visual processing would have been allocated to perform and develop new functions. On the other hand, the extent to which this child has managed to exploit and fine-tune these resources is simply remarkable.
It would be an interesting philosophical exercise to explore the implications this phenomenon has on David Hume's epistemology, and on Thomas Nagel's subjective/objective phenomenology.
What is it like to be a bat?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment