Thoughts...

[Boerseun]

So how does blind and deaf people experience 'thoughts'?

 

They have no visual cues to picture things, and no audio experience or history to have an 'inner voice' for their thoughts. Language means little to them.

 

What do their dreams consist of?

 

Are their thoughts and dreams just a load of smells, tastes and feelings?

 

Obviously not, because that will limit the extend to which they can function mentally. And our experience with blind and deaf people (from birth) shows that they're mentally quite capable. So, to put it simply - how the heck do they 'communicate' with themselves? Does every one of these individuals invent his own mental 'language'? Or is our ability to think and reason with ourselves something more fundamental than just 'talking' in our heads?

[Racoon]

My friend, a kid I know, is Blind. Went to Blind school, reads braille: (not the Braii! :) ). They see by touch. (duh?%)

 

Anywho's, He can Tune a Piano like nobody's business. :gift: :hyper:

But, he has to feel all the walls to go to the Bathroom...:(

 

How they think is a mystery, unless you share a similar disability. :steering:

 

Does any two people even think the same?

regardless of Handicap??

 

They seem to manage.

Friends always help... :wink:

[Jay-qu]

I have thought this before... and have no idea:confused:

[infamous]

So how does blind and deaf people experience 'thoughts'?

 

I can't give you folks a reference to this information because I can't remember where I read it. At any rate, the article spoke about an experiment where blind people were asked to distinguish the color of sample materials just by touching them. If my memory serves me correctly, there are a significant number of blind people which can accomplish this otherwise impossible task. Very curious indeed...................Infy

[Drip Curl Magic]

Have you ever just sat down in a quiet room.... and decided to think without your internal voice?

 

I've done it a couple times... and although it's hard... it definately is possible.

 

I can only do it for a couple seconds at a time.

 

I mean, of course... humans have all these labels for everything... and that's kind of become our natural way of thinking.... but that's only because we are conditioned to think like this.

 

We can think and imagine with all of our senses. try this- Imagine a smell. Imagine a texture. Imagine a scene. Imagine a sound. Imagine a taste.

 

Congrats, you just thought with all 5 of your senses.

 

Now imagine that you don't have all 5 senses. The 3 or 4 senses that you DO have.... will make up for it by becoming more keen. Now imagine how much more vivid the thought of a smell would be if your experience with smell has always been a lot stronger than a normal person with 5 senses.

 

I dunno, it's just not something we can really imagine because we've never experienced it. But when I really think about it... it makes total sense to be able to think with all 5 of your senses. Maybe, your internal voice, when you're deaf from birth, takes shape as another sense. less of a voice... and more of a "sight consciousness".

 

 

Wow, I'm rambling my fragmented thought hardcore. Usually, I'd go back and edit the post and make it sound less rambly and more constructive.... but I'm far too lazy and tired ATM.

 

but you get the idea.

[Drip Curl Magic]

Also- remember... that in dreams... ALL of your senses are stimulated so much... that you can imagine things that are seemingly real.

 

Perhaps a blind person can see images and scenes in his/her dreams.

 

Perhaps a deaf person can muster up and imagine what a sound might sound like.

 

Obviously there are many people who learn from dreams.

 

Especially lucid dreams.

 

So, why can't a blind person learn how to see in it's dream? Why can't a deaf person learn how to hear in it's dream?

 

I mean... just the fact that we are able to create entire scenarios that don't actually exists should be proof enough that our subconscious mind's sense of sense is completely seperate from our actual senses.

 

Perhaps our subconscious mind naturally has the 5 senses built in. I mean, isn't it possible for our subconscious mind to have evolved that way?

 

baahhhh, yet again, I am too lazy to edit this and make it more constructive.

 

Have fun with it.

[Binary_Branflakes]

Interesting question. But, i THINK it has a simple answer...

 

The blind & deaf still use brail and touch to communicate. They are able to communicate, thus they have a relationship with the outside world. like Drip said, they more than likely have dreams consisting of most if not all there senses, but for instance if they dreamed of being in the woods...their "picture" of a tree in the dream could appear a bit different than ours (who have all 5 senses). Their depiction of a tree would be from whatever they have felt and "read" about. Same goes with everything else.

 

And i think they have an internal voice. I have a deaf friend and while she can't speak clearly, she makes noises based on what vibrations she feels from others speaking.

[InfiniteNow]

What do their dreams consist of?

If I had some problem with my sexual machinary, I imagine that I'd dream about having awesome sex all of the time, even though I couldn't do it while awake... Following this logic, I'm led to believe that blind people can see in their dreams, and deaf people can hear in them...

 

 

Cheers. :steering:

[Jay-qu]

Have you ever just sat down in a quiet room.... and decided to think without your internal voice?

 

Yes, and I have also tried reading without saying the words through your head, I think it would be possible to read really fast in this manner if you where to perfect it :steering:

 

Imagine having a dream with a 6th sense, (no nothing to do with dead people!), do you think its possible to fully grasp what it would be like to have an extra sense? I dont think you can unless you have felt it before..

[Buffy]

Chomsky sez language is genetic. Facinating topic. Implies that without *any* input, its likely that it doesn't take much to "hear" stuff. Ask Helen Keller.

 

Deaf, dumb, and blind boy he's in a quiet vibration land, :steering:

Buffy

[Boerseun]

Chomsky sez language is genetic. Facinating topic. Implies that without *any* input, its likely that it doesn't take much to "hear" stuff. Ask Helen Keller.

 

Deaf, dumb, and blind boy he's in a quiet vibration land, :steering:

Buffy

I suppose they'll probably have their own "inner voice", but it would be unique to the individual. They can feel other people's throats when they speak, but how to imagine what the vibrations would 'sound' like?

 

Else, maybe if they could somehow let us know what their 'language' is like, it might be the fundamental genetically inherited universal 'human language'?

 

In other words, a normal baby brought up in a silent world, where nobody speaks to it (ala 'Nell') would invent and speak a language rather similar to what deaf and blind people would invent for their 'inner voice'?

 

Dunno, fascinating, nonetheless...:hyper:

[Buffy]

Its true that it might be "their own", but Chomsky posits that the *structure* of languages are similar, so its mainly a matter of matching the "inner" language to an external one. Not really any different that translating English to Afrikaans!

 

There's also a very interesting debate ("war" really) in the deaf community between "mainstreaming"--teaching deaf people to read lips and speak--versus joining the "deaf culture"--exclusive use of sign language only. I find advocates of the latter are just like the French: they are total snobs about their culture, but secretly, they all learn to read, write and even speak and lip read in English. This has interesting sociological implications, but that goes way beyond the scope of this thread...

 

What?

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

Check out some of the following:

 

http://www.discovery.com/area/skinnyon/skinnyon971128/skinnyon.html

"My best answer to this," Hauser wrote, "is that the brain has a special capacity to develop phonological representations, even when it does not have auditory input. The representations might be dramatically different from what hearing individuals hear. Nevertheless, they function in the mind as 'sounds.'" Deaf schizophrenics, he continued, have auditory hallucinations, and blind schizophrenics have visual ones.

 

 

The brain, it seems, has a mind of its own.

.

So yes, deaf people can have an auditory inner voice. They can also have a signing one.

 

 

 

http://www.psychminded.co.uk/news/news2005/May05/deafwhohearvoices.htm

 

However, what is interesting about Paul's experience is that he is deaf. Yet he "hears" voices.

 

Paul is one of seven deaf people diagnosed with schizophrenia who, over recent months, have been meeting at a building in Balham, north London, run by the deaf charity Sign, to openly discuss, in sign language, their voices.

 

Facilitated by trainee clinical psychologist Jo Atkinson, herself deaf, and hearing occupational therapist Tamara Hallett, it is a ground-breaking initiative. Never before have the accounts of deaf "voice-experiencers" been so comprehensively explored.

 

To hearing people, the question begging to be asked is how can it be that deaf people experience a voice?

 

There are no studies on the sensual properties of the voices of deaf people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Which is why Atkinson's research, due to be published next year, is likely to be met with huge interest.

 

"A voice to a hearing and a deaf person may be different concepts," she explains.

 

Research also suggests that, during sub-vocal articulation, speech and sign correlate with activity in the same area of the brain, the primary auditory cortext. This may be why deaf people say they experience voices.

 

[Buffy]

There you have it. Good stuff Now!

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Boerseun]

Good post, Infinite - however...

 

Seeing as deaf people (from birth, I presume) can hallucinate 'voices', a sense of which they have been deprived, being consistent, shouldn't we take freaky stuff like 'ESP', or the so-called 'sixth sense' more serious?

 

Won't these things also be just throwbacks to a sense that we used to have thousands of years ago, which have atrophied, but most of the wiring is still there?

 

Back in the stone ages when language wasn't so advanced as it is today, it might have been to the individual's benefit to be more in tune with things like body language and the subtleties and nuances of what was being said, not so much as the actual words, like today. You could have one grunt with ten meanings, the meanings depending on lots of other cues that we mistake for ESP today.

 

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm...

[Buffy]

Back in the stone ages when language wasn't so advanced as it is today, it might have been to the individual's benefit to be more in tune with things like body language and the subtleties and nuances of what was being said, not so much as the actual words, like today.

I'd say Hypography is an excellent example of how not having those gestures causes lost meaning--nay, complete miscommunication! ( :confused: (nudge) (nudge), get it, B?)

 

The length of time that we've "had language" should also not be underestimated: as you can see in the complexity of dogs and most middle-mammals, there's a lot of meaning in those barks, grunts and growls. Even bees have a "language" albeit gestural. Now I know that your main point is the sounds themselves, but I'd argue that there's genetic hard-wiring there too: the "sophisticated", "word-like" sounds may go back millions of years in the homo-australopithicus lineage... :hyper:

 

Huh,

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

I've actually heard a statement that we think in sound. It's also much more difficult to concentrate when there is chaotic sound in the background (i.e. sounds that can not easily be tuned out or ignored). However, I'm led to believe that it's more of a rhythm thing... The nerves which fire constantly certainly must create some sort of perceptual tympany. :confused: