First question for you all...
If you had...
no sense of smell...
no sense of sight...
no sense of taste...
no sense of touch...
and no sense of hearing...
...what knowledge about the world could you have?
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PHS IB TOK at Play!
The purpose of this blog is to open a discussion forum for ideas, ramblings, debates, and random thoughts that pass through the heads of the students presently in Poudre High School's Theory of Knowledge Program.
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20 comments:
You could only know that you yourself exist. You would be your entire universe, you would be your own god, your own devil, your own creator, your eventual destroyer. You could only know that you youreself existed, and you would know that you are the only thing that exists.
How...? Would you "know" that you existed? or just believe so? What's the difference?
I would not have any knowledge of the world what so ever. I wouldn't even know as to whether I exist. I would not know if there was even a world around me. I might have mind ability, but I would not be able to use it in any way. My mind might be telling my body to stay alive and yet I would not be able to feel that I existed. I wouldn't even know whether or not I was approaching death. Beacause sooner or later, without senses, I would just lay dead, having acquired no knowledge of a world that I didn't percieve even existed.
Yes you would have no knowledge of the world outside you, but your limited perception would allow you to see yourself as the only thing in existance. Since all of our knowledge is based on our perceptions of the outside world, based on our experiences, then if we could only percieve ourselves, and experienced our own mind, then that is all that we would have knowledge of.
Sorry... my friend Jenny would like to respond...
"I think it needs to be clarified as to whether the sense of touch also includes internal sense of self. Would you be able to feel air moving in and out of your trachea and lungs? Would you be able to feel internal pain and body processes? If so, then I'd argue that without the 5 senses, you WOULD know of your own existence. What do you think?" - Dr. Jenny
So Wolf... how would you know you existed if there is no world to exist in?
To Jenny:
I agree, and even if we couldn't feel those internal things, then we still would have knowledge of our own mind. If that is all that we can percieve then that is all that we know. However, if it holds true that in order for the brain to develop it is necessary to intereact with ones environment, then it may not be possible for the brain to advance far enough along to hold any of this.
To Malone:
Because even if you put someone in a room devoid of all senses, then you stillhave your mind, and that keeps going, no matter the environment, or lack of a percived one.
Thinking about this problem brought memories up of the book Stiff and the story of the monkey brain being transplanted into the belly of another monkey. If that had been the case since the monkey's conception, would it, assuming human mentality, be able to percieve anything. It is alive, but without any senses, so would it develop a mind and be abel to creat thoughts on it own.
Another point that might be interesting to bring up is the idea that when we lose one of our senses the others become stronger. So if there was some kind of barely recognisable "6th Sense" would it, under this situation, come to full frutition, and could you use that to create your awareness?
When I posted my comment earlier, I was viewing the matter of not having a sense of feel to the point of semi-consciousness. However, if we do have the ability to think, we would perhaps know of our own existance and most likely nothing past that point. Besides that, I have a question for Wolf. What would we be aware of if we supposedly had only this "6th sense", without knowing that we posses any other?
Perhaps other consciousnesses (sp), i have no idea, it is purely speculation.
Perhaps the 6th sense is telepathy, or perhaps another form of spacial awareness, or a way to see heat paterns, or anything. Something we are not used to using in our regular lives that becomes important when that is the only thing we have.
On the 6th sense idea, i'm going ot ramble, perhaps your 6th sense would be your conciousness, however doesn't that imply that you are not only aware of yourself, but aware of your surrounding's, sensation's, and thoughts? Which poses the question of language. Does surroundings mean feel the wind on your skin, or simply be aware that you are right here right now, but you would have no sense of time. It doesn't seem that you would have any knowledge that you were here in the world, the only real knowledge it seems you could have is simply that you are here. to be continued... after i sleep
For me, this definitely brought to mind Johnny Got His Gun, the novel we all read in ninth grade by Dalton Trumbo. Though he still had a sense of feeling, he was also pretty much imprisoned in his own consciousness. But he had the advantage, or maybe the curse, of having those five senses for a time before losing them. Which brings me to my question- would it be better to have all the senses, and then lose them, or to have never had them at all? I think that by once having them, then one can perhaps make better sense of what might be going on, even though one has lost all ability to perceive it, and one has memories on which to reflect. However, it might be more difficult to develop a method of coping,as Wolf said, with a sixth sense. Although I think being left alone with my consciousness would drive me insane. But would you even know what insane was?
And I would like the seniors to notice that I did in fact spell definitely correctly.
I'd say that the question brought up as to whether or not the subject had had the senses previously and lost them or never had them at all is most important. I'm not sure that the mind would do anything if it had no external experience, but if there were a sixth sense that would change everything. However, I think speculating on a sixth sense is rather pointless, because without evidence of any one you can't prove its existence.
However, if the subject had at one point been aware, known language and higher level thought, I think it would be a chance for deep reflection on this very question. It makes me think of The Stranger, by Camus. Mersault reflects on whether or not life would be worth it if one had just one foot of land to stand on, surrounded by nothing. He also talks about how a man who has lived only a day could live one hundred years in prison, because that one experience would be enough to think about and try to remember to satisfy the mind for all that time. Thoughts? Seniors, you know what's up, so let me know. And good spelling Adrienne.
I think that it is far better to have never had senses at all then to have had them, even if for a brief period of time, and then lost them. In Johnny Got His Gun, for example, the narrator is constantly unhappy and even sometimes wishing for death. The human condition, by its very nature, wishes and needs to experience, because experience is the only thing that drives us forward in life. If one were suddenly trapped in a black void for what could be an extended lifetime, with doctors most likely attempting to keep you alive, it would be, for me, experiencing hell. The memories of what had been would only be further torture, because I could no longer live through experiences such as those again.
As to Meursault, I don't think we can believe anything he says, thinks, or does in The Stranger, because for all intents and purposes, he is not human.
He is a man entirely devoid of bias, bias is essentially unjustified belief, and "we are what we believe", are we not?
What this post made me think of was an unfortunate experience of mine a few years back, where I was accidently locked in a boiler room. The room was absolutely pitch black and completely silent. While I did not have empirical proof of the world outside at that moment, I did emphatically believe that it existed. At no point did the world cease to exist because I could not perceive it or interact with it. So knowledge does not need to be based on sensory perception and a person can still believe and know even if they have no senses.
However, it is impossible for the person to distinguish between knowledge and belief in such a case. I would argue that a person with no senses would still develop a cognizance, but it would be a kind of warped cognizance because their only justification would be faith.
I think that a person born with no senses could still have knowledge about their world, but that it would be limited to self-awareness. Since you don't need senses to believe, and your beliefs comprise who you are, you can still be a person and thus have self-awareness. Through skillful logic I'm sure such a person could deduce some facts about the external world as well.
Props for great IB speak A. Koss, but we're still arguing two different sides of the issue. Can we believe anything if we have absolutly nothing on which to base our beliefs? Everything we believe is based on some sort of external stimuli- even something as ambiguous as eating ice-cream with the taster spoon, becomes completely meaningless if we have no experience with ice-cream, eating, or taster spoon. It becomes once again the argument of whether or not the senses were first present, and then taken away, or if they were never there in the first place.
I'd like to go back to what Evan said about the mind ceasing to function if all sense was lost. I have to agree with him there, I think that one would drive one's self to madness, and bigin to imagine things. For example, in Johnny Got His Gun, he still has feeling, and so, he is still connected. He can still picture what is going around based on that feeling.
However, I think that being completely without senses would be like being lost in a cave. There have been many instances of dimentia associated with this, because people begin to hallucinate, often to imagine what they want to see. Now, if this were the case, I think the mind would drive itself mad and die, or in doing so, create a new reality for the person to live in.
As for if the mind had never had senses to rely on, I think that it would be impossible for it to develope. The reason for this is that we all think in terms of something. We thing in language and in concept. But even with an awareness of one's self, if possible, that would be the only concept we could grasp. With no language or notions to grasp, the mind could not prosper.
So not being alive means you don't exist? what about rocks? They aren't alive, and I am pretty sure they exist.
bqjdkb.
Now I'm going to try and redeem myself. If a person did not have any of the five senses, they could only know in Pragmatic. [insert comment for debate here], quite frankly I disagree.
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