Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Why do you trust people who say they can see? (self.Blind)
submitted by Tuhawaiki
Hi guys, I'm really interested in talking to those people who have been blind since birth about why they take sighted folk to have a cognitive faculty that blind folk lack. In particular, I'm wondering if there is any compelling evidence other than the following:
(1) Sighted people agree among themselves a bunch about what they are seeing.
and
(2) They can predict some things that you can't. (e.g. sighted people can predict that some friend is on the other side of the road, which you might only discover after crossing the road and talking to them)
Is there anything else that you find to be particularly compelling evidence for sighted people's claim that they have a genuine cognitive faculty that blind folk lack?
Cheers for any help!
(1) Sighted people agree among themselves a bunch about what they are seeing.
and
(2) They can predict some things that you can't. (e.g. sighted people can predict that some friend is on the other side of the road, which you might only discover after crossing the road and talking to them)
Is there anything else that you find to be particularly compelling evidence for sighted people's claim that they have a genuine cognitive faculty that blind folk lack?
Cheers for any help!
fastfinge 9 points 6y ago
The fact that print exists. I can print something out from my computer, take a picture of it with my phone, and run OCR on the phone. If I give a sighted person the printed page, they will always read back text that exactly matches what I wrote on my computer, and what my phone detected with OCR. I can prove for myself that print cannot be detected by touch or smell. Therefor, it is obvious that there is information on the page that came out of the printer that I am unable to detect.
Tuhawaiki [OP] 3 points 6y ago
What a great wee experiment!
What do you make of a sighted person's claim that they can't read the print in the dark? How do you go about determining wherher it's dark or not?
What do you make of a sighted person's claim that they can't read the print in the dark? How do you go about determining wherher it's dark or not?
fastfinge 2 points 6y ago
There are light detector apps for IOS. Plus, it's a matter of Occam's razor. The simplest explanation for the amounts of money people spend on lightbulbs, candles, flashlights, street lights, is that they need these things, just as they say they do.
painwizard 3 points 6y ago
I'm not blind but I'm fairly certain that predicting, or gaining knowledge about, things at a distance is the entire function of sight. If I could "predict" things across a span of time rather than a span of 3-dimensional space surely that would count as an extra faculty.
LaV-Man 2 points 6y ago
You can perceive events unfolding and predict the outcome. For instance, a car out of control down the street headed for you.
Even more so, being in a car and seeing someone cross the line toward you.
You can know by seeing them before you hear them what the likely outcome will be.
Even more so, being in a car and seeing someone cross the line toward you.
You can know by seeing them before you hear them what the likely outcome will be.
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