Thoughts

[Salar]

Say a child is born without any senses. He can't smell, he can't taste, he can't see, he can't feel and he can't hear.
You somehow manage to keep the child alive for 20 years.

Now will this 20 year old have any thought's going through his head?

Now boys and girls, what do we learn from the senseless child?

 

[Amara]

How would someone have anything to think about with a total lack of senses to stimulate the thought process? Every thought you have relies on you having seen, experienced or having touched something. Being essentially a vegetable, with no knowledge of what life consists of, would negate the necessary elements of creating thoughts...

 

[Glockmatic]

^^ i agree, the child is pretty much brain dead.

 

[Salar]

well done Amara
Now let me quote this
To follow Kant one must also understand something about the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume had previously submitted that
if one follows the strictest rules of logical induction and deduction from experience to determine the true nature of the world, one must
arrive at certain conclusions. His reasoning followed lines that would result from answers to this question: Suppose a child is born
devoid of all senses; he has no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste...nothing. There’s no way whatsoever for him to receive
any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for
eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If
so, where does it come from? How does he get it?
Hume would have answered that the eighteen-year-old had no thoughts whatsoever, and in giving this answer would have defined
himself as an empiricist, one who believes all knowledge is derived exclusively from the senses. The scientific method of
experimentation is carefully controlled empiricism. Common sense today is empiricism, since an overwhelming majority would agree
with Hume, even though in other cultures and other times a majority might have differed.
The first problem of empiricism, if empiricism is believed, concerns the nature of "substance." If all our knowledge comes from
sensory data, what exactly is this substance which is supposed to give off the sensory data itself? If you try to imagine what this substance is, apart from what is sensed, you’ll find yourself thinking about nothing whatsoever.

Since all knowledge comes from sensory impressions and since there’s no sensory impression of substance itself, it follows logically
that there is no knowledge of substance. It’s just something we imagine. It’s entirely within our own minds. The idea that there’s
something out there giving off the properties we perceive is just another of those common-sense notions similar to the common-sense
notion children have that the earth is flat and parallel lines never meet.
Secondly, if one starts with the premise that all our knowledge comes to us through our senses, one must ask, From what sense data is
our knowledge of causation received? In other words, what is the scientific empirical basis of causation itself?
Hume’s answer is "None." There’s no evidence for causation in our sensations. Like substance, it’s just something we imagine when
one thing repeatedly follows another. It has no real existence in the world we observe. If one accepts the premise that all knowledge
comes to us through our senses, Hume says, then one must logically conclude that both "Nature" and "Nature’s laws" are creations of
our own imagination.

 

[chaos]

Interesting post, although I dont see how two parallel lines can ever meet

 

[groobz]

The thoughts he would have would be the bump bump of his heart beat.

 

[Glockmatic]

Except the child could not feel the heart beat because it doesn't have that sense. I just remembered we had this topic in our philosophy class, 90% of the class beleived the child would be considered brain dead hehe

 

[groobz]

Except the child could not feel the heart beat because it doesn't have that sense. I just remembered we had this topic in our philosophy class, 90% of the class beleived the child would be considered brain dead hehe

Yeah i did philosophy last year at Uni, our class had the same discusion. I guess it depends on what you consider an inner sense. I've read some random stuff by Humes, not a big fan of him.

 

[something]

Even if you have no senses, it's still possible for the brain to perceive things. Like if you get hit in the back of the head hard, the part of the brain that interprets signals from the eyes makes contact with the skull causing the flash of light that you sometimes see. So there are ways of triggering experiences in the brain directly. Anything like that would allow the development of some kind of thought processes.

If it were possible to completely isolate only the part of the brain involved with active thought, then I don't know. I would think that there were would still be neurons firing because the brain is still alive and healthy, so there would still be some sort of thought, but it would be completely meaningless and random to us.

 

[Rukas]

I actually think the thought process of imagination would be made stronger without the limitations or percieved experiances. Our imagination is somewhat limited to what we know to be true. If you have no other experiances to learn from, your thought possibilities are endless.

However, without being able to know langauge, those thoughts would be totally alien to us.

Having said that, it is also possible that the lack of any senses, the brain would somehow adapt and use other parts of its brain to make up for the loss. Like a blind person being able to hear better.

I think this would open the brain up to its raw potential.

Its like a computer, with free will that is not limited by its programming or hardware limitations and is free to do anything it wants.

I think it would be total darkness at first, but somehow a spark would ignite, a flash of light when the head is hurt, something. The brain can still sence temprature change for example, because it is a direct manipulation of the brain. Not to mention all the experiments done on the poor kid. I think something would spark and once it did, it would send the ball rolling. A brain like that must be hungry for knowledge, and once the ball gets rolling i think it would be an infinite roller coaster ride.

 

[Mr Marz]

I actually think the thought process of imagination would be made stronger without the limitations or percieved experiances. Our imagination is somewhat limited to what we know to be true. If you have no other experiances to learn from, your thought possibilities are endless.

However, without being able to know langauge, those thoughts would be totally alien to us.

Having said that, it is also possible that the lack of any senses, the brain would somehow adapt and use other parts of its brain to make up for the loss. Like a blind person being able to hear better.

I think this would open the brain up to its raw potential.

Its like a computer, with free will that is not limited by its programming or hardware limitations and is free to do anything it wants.

I think it would be total darkness at first, but somehow a spark would ignite, a flash of light when the head is hurt, something. The brain can still sence temprature change for example, because it is a direct manipulation of the brain. Not to mention all the experiments done on the poor kid. I think something would spark and once it did, it would send the ball rolling. A brain like that must be hungry for knowledge, and once the ball gets rolling i think it would be an infinite roller coaster ride.

the thought process of imagination cant just be from scratch. our imagination is based on what we perceive as reality. and our perceived experiences are the only thing that our imagination has to build off of. having no experience their reality is blank.
i agree that the brain would eventually adapt and work differently under these conditions. i believe there is however a sense of ones self that would be retained- even if there is no sense or knowlegde of another world. i think that the person might develope its own world and create its own way of thinking and thought process. i could not describe something like this because there is no way any of us could possibly grasp a concept like that. i think if this person could coerce their thoughts into words we would learn a lot from them.... or be very frightened.

 

[Jokerman]

I'm just like such a person, and I have thoughts.

 

[Default MX]

having no feelings and emotions whatsoever, i know how the kid feels