Topics Mind

Question It seems that most of my thoughts are expressed as reflections of familiar stimuli received through the agreed-upon 'five senses' (this includes spoken and written language). Is there any appropriate way to speculate on what form the thoughts of a hypothetical person born without access to sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste might take? I guess what I mean is: "please speculate!"

Accepted:
October 12, 2005

Comments

I take it that you mean to ask about the thoughts of an individual whohas been utterly deprived of sensory experience? Sadly, we likely knowthe answer to that question, for we know something about the mentallives of individuals who have been reared in very sensorily deprivedcircumstances. They are cognitively damaged, usually beyond repair. Itseems humans require (and require early enough in their development)rich experiences to feed the development of their mental lives. Absentthese, thoughts, and indeed anything like our familiar mental life,fail to develop.

There was a real life case of a girl named Genie (a pseudonym) who was deprived of any real sensory stimuli for much of her young life because of the abuse of her father. Her story is told in a book called Genie by Russ Rymer. Her case suggests, in line with what Alex says above, that the absence of early senory stimuli prevents a human being from developing a normal mental life.