Are the senses useful?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Helen Keller would disagree

-Imp

No see would not. She knew very keenly that he birth had robbed her of one of the senses and this trapped her, in her early life, in a prison away from human discourse.
That being limited by the loss of hearing had a profound effect on her life.

The interesting question we might want to ask is, what might it be like to meet another species that had other senses, that we could never imagine what the experience of them would be like. For a person with no hearing, there is nothing in their experience that could hint to them what it felt like to hear a symphony, or the wind in the trees.

how did you know this? she told you via human discourse...

not through senses but language - terms defined sometimes through senses...

-Imp

What is your point, if you have one?

[Impenitent]

No see would not. She knew very keenly that he birth had robbed her of one of the senses and this trapped her, in her early life, in a prison away from human discourse.
That being limited by the loss of hearing had a profound effect on her life.

The interesting question we might want to ask is, what might it be like to meet another species that had other senses, that we could never imagine what the experience of them would be like. For a person with no hearing, there is nothing in their experience that could hint to them what it felt like to hear a symphony, or the wind in the trees.

how did you know this? she told you via human discourse...

not through senses but language - terms defined sometimes through senses...

-Imp

What is your point, if you have one?

"In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses."

her world of consciousness was devoid of sight and sound -

-Imp

[skakos]

According to the myth, Democritus pulled out his own eyes so as not to be decieved by his senses.
Could it be that our senses obscure our view of the world?
Could it be that what we see with our eyes makes it difficult to see with the eyes of our mind?

Surely our senses seem to be our only window of the world.

But many important discoveries, many important notions of philosophy and science were "discovered" not with the human eyes but with the eyes of the mind. For example the notion of "infinity" is something we "saw" with our mind. There is nothing "infinite" in the cosmos we see. In the same way the notion of "atoms" that Democritus "discovered" was not something "seen". He saw them with the eyes of his mind and his mind alone. The catalogue can go on and on.

In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses.

What is your opinion?

My opinion is that this is the most stupid question I've seen on a long time.

Without your senses there is no world to understand. No context. Nothing to be conscious of.

If Democritus was less stupid he might have realised that instead of plucking out his eyes, he could just have easily worn a blindfold.

Actually what we "see" with the senses is constantly interpreted via the things we know. And these things can be things we know "a priori", i.e. without having sensory input about them...

[Pluto]

Innate knowledge. We come into a world already framed.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

wish we didnt have any sense. just dead. nonconsciousness

[thedoc]

And these things can be things we know "a priori", i.e. without having sensory input about them...

There is nothing "a priori" in a humans visual memory at birth, there are a few audio memories, but mostly a human is "tabula rasa" in sensory memory at birth. Most of what a baby does from birth is from instinct up till several years with only a small, but growing, amount of learning from the environment.

[hammock]

Actually what we "see" with the senses is constantly interpreted via the things we know. And these things can be things we know "a priori", i.e. without having sensory input about them...

In mechanistic appearances or naturalism context (mind as brain): What's innate [not strictly a priori] would be the brain's operating system or the functional structure / scheme for processing sensory information. Which many today would not so easily classify under the heading of "knowledge", even though form alone might be classified as such in older circles. After birth, environmental input or lack of it can additionally modify in some respects the "what came with the box that makes it work".

One meaning of a priori [that is, from general to particular] could become marginally applicable for even neural-based cognition if the latter does involve associating general concepts to concrete entities [Example: How the brain assigns objects to categories]. But there the categories are memory inventions that fall out of accumulating enough empirical examples. Any initial, extremely broad ways of understanding data which were indigenous to the pre-natal brain are later refined with hordes of specialized, interaction-fabricated ones.

[GreatandWiseTrixie]

No see would not. She knew very keenly that he birth had robbed her of one of the senses and this trapped her, in her early life, in a prison away from human discourse.
That being limited by the loss of hearing had a profound effect on her life.

The interesting question we might want to ask is, what might it be like to meet another species that had other senses, that we could never imagine what the experience of them would be like. For a person with no hearing, there is nothing in their experience that could hint to them what it felt like to hear a symphony, or the wind in the trees.

Can blind persons dream visually?

"Whether or not congenitally blind people dream in images has been studied, but the findings have been mixed – some studies conclude that congenitally blind people do not dream visual images, while other reports conclude that they do.

Helen Keller addressed the topic of dreams in her landmark work, The Story of my Life. Her dreams are discussed in Part. III, Chap. V "

Can deaf persons hear an internal voice?

"I believe I am well qualified to answer this question. I was born deaf and have been deaf my whole life. I do not wear hearing aids or cochlear implants (and have no desire to wear either). I speak American Sign Language (ASL) and it is my primary language. I am a mother of two born-deaf children, so our being deaf is genetic for us.

I have a ‘voice’ in my head, but it is not sound-based. I am a visual being, so in my head, I either see ASL signs, or pictures, or sometimes printed words."
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 12669.html

What other senses would there be?

[HexHammer]

Yes, people are heavily influenced by visual and audial impressions.

We all know that sex sells, that big breasts and cute smiles makes male buyers buy more, even when it's about million and billion dollar contracts.

Another famous example is when Kennedy stood against Nixon, then the TV viewers was seduced by by his smile, but the radio audience would vote for Nixion because of his mature voice.

[Hobbes' Choice]

According to the myth, Democritus pulled out his own eyes so as not to be decieved by his senses.
Could it be that our senses obscure our view of the world?
Could it be that what we see with our eyes makes it difficult to see with the eyes of our mind?

Surely our senses seem to be our only window of the world.

But many important discoveries, many important notions of philosophy and science were "discovered" not with the human eyes but with the eyes of the mind. For example the notion of "infinity" is something we "saw" with our mind. There is nothing "infinite" in the cosmos we see. In the same way the notion of "atoms" that Democritus "discovered" was not something "seen". He saw them with the eyes of his mind and his mind alone. The catalogue can go on and on.

In a world of consciousness, we seem to rely too much on our senses.

What is your opinion?

My opinion is that this is the most stupid question I've seen on a long time.

Without your senses there is no world to understand. No context. Nothing to be conscious of.

If Democritus was less stupid he might have realised that instead of plucking out his eyes, he could just have easily worn a blindfold.

Actually what we "see" with the senses is constantly interpreted via the things we know. And these things can be things we know "a priori", i.e. without having sensory input about them...

A person born senseless remains so, and has no concept of a priori.
To suggest other wise is idiotic.

A priori, is only knowable with reference to things sensed.
A priori is a complete misnomer.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Innate knowledge. We come into a world already framed.

No.

[skakos]

Could it be that our senses obscure our view of the world?

Yes that is possible, we see the world not as it is, but as it appears through the apparatus of the eye, of sight. But what other way of 'knowing' the world are you talking about, other than what we know from our senses?

The example of "infinity" is a good one. How do you "experience it" so that you can talk about it?
And yet so many things are based on that thing we all "know" but which we have never "experienced"...