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Ectryon
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17 Jun 2014, 3:01 pm

If someone were to be born without sight touch taste hearing balance or a nervous system which could send proprioceptive information to the brain.What would go on inside their head? What kind of consciousness would emerge? Let's also say that this individual is profoundly intelligent. How would they create ordered thoughts?

Put any scientific issues aside also. Just assume that the child has been born deaf blind and with a strange dissociative disorder that sets the entire body numb. Would they be able to become conscious?

If consciousness is a result of interacting with the world and receiving feedback leading to a model of the self vs the outside world could consciousness ever develop?


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17 Jun 2014, 4:20 pm

Oh I don't know, it's not something I've given much thought to.


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17 Jun 2014, 11:58 pm

I have a feeling it would be impossible for intelligence to exist like this, without some way to hear, see or feel.

I have seen stories on children who have lost more than one sense. sight and hearing, for instance, and they were born this way, not like Helen Keller, who lost them a few years from birth. These children have never heard sounds or seen anything and they are not what most people would call extremely intelligent.



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18 Jun 2014, 5:08 am

Ectryon wrote:
If someone were to be born without sight touch taste hearing balance or a nervous system which could send proprioceptive information to the brain.What would go on inside their head? What kind of consciousness would emerge? Let's also say that this individual is profoundly intelligent. How would they create ordered thoughts?

Put any scientific issues aside also. Just assume that the child has been born deaf blind and with a strange dissociative disorder that sets the entire body numb. Would they be able to become conscious?

If consciousness is a result of interacting with the world and receiving feedback leading to a model of the self vs the outside world could consciousness ever develop?

'You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough' - William Blake

Thus starts my treatise on asensory processing.

People will often ask me; 'what does it feel like to have Autism?' 'What do those 'meltdowns' feel like? 'How the hell do you still remember the number plate of that red Ford that passed us 10 minutes ago'? 'Why can't you stand being hugged or touched'? why do you always win at Trivial Pursuit? what's your 'big secret'? do tell us...

Now, the best way I can explain this to a NT, is by saying how the brain is like a TV set, but what you all get to see is 'controlled' and there are many things out there controlling or filtering your perceptions...location and geography, a tiny aerial, a poor quality TV set, inability to afford cable, film rating classifications....lots of things.

There are many things out there that stop you from watching what you want to watch on TV (and hence why Youtube was created).

Anyway, NT's are limited by their own 'filters' so they can watch a TV show (of limited choice) and even change the channels when they get bored...

To the Aspie, the remote control is stuck on one channel, with every station vying for that same limited airspace...OR it feels like 'every station is playing at once' and we're unable to just block it out like other people do, because we lack that crucial filtering mechanism.

So, in your scenario, we are going the exact opposite of this. so reaching the end of sensory stimuli and the lack of stimuli, ultimately leads to the same mental space.

Simple terms? I know what it's like to be constantly overwhelmed, that I also know the experience of being totally underwhelmed in the 'sensory dept' and in the process.

A while ago, 'sensory deprivation' was big business...there were float tanks, vision quests and even a movie made called 'Altered States' (William Hurt).

Sensory Deprivation is all about artificially creating a state that blocks off all senses, leading to the mind turning within (as it has no reason to turn without anymore) and attain a extra-sensory state called Moksha/Samadhi/Nirvana or just plain old Spiritual Enlightenment.

I was born with functioning senses, but the inability to interpret data correctly from them and I also have a limited range of emotion and emotional expression.

I've had to learn all of this for myself and I think those in a similar state would choose a path where 'senses weren't important' and become a Buddhist monk or something.



khaoz
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19 Jun 2014, 1:29 am

Consciousness has many forms.



Shadi2
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19 Jun 2014, 2:06 am

Ectryon wrote:
If someone were to be born without sight touch taste hearing balance or a nervous system which could send proprioceptive information to the brain.What would go on inside their head? What kind of consciousness would emerge? Let's also say that this individual is profoundly intelligent. How would they create ordered thoughts?

Put any scientific issues aside also. Just assume that the child has been born deaf blind and with a strange dissociative disorder that sets the entire body numb. Would they be able to become conscious?

If consciousness is a result of interacting with the world and receiving feedback leading to a model of the self vs the outside world could consciousness ever develop?


Can you even live without a nervous system?


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Ectryon
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19 Jun 2014, 2:24 am

Shadi2 wrote:
Ectryon wrote:
If someone were to be born without sight touch taste hearing balance or a nervous system which could send proprioceptive information to the brain.What would go on inside their head? What kind of consciousness would emerge? Let's also say that this individual is profoundly intelligent. How would they create ordered thoughts?

Put any scientific issues aside also. Just assume that the child has been born deaf blind and with a strange dissociative disorder that sets the entire body numb. Would they be able to become conscious?

If consciousness is a result of interacting with the world and receiving feedback leading to a model of the self vs the outside world could consciousness ever develop?


Can you even live without a nervous system?


I didnt say that they dont have a nervous system. I said that they have a "strange dissociative disorder".

I personally think that a person under these circumstances would not develop any meaningful inner life. They would be aware of such things as changing emotional states but only very dimly aware. Their emotions would be extremely limited too since our emotional life is informed by the way we experience the outside world


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khaoz
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19 Jun 2014, 3:32 am

There is store consciousness, mind consciousness, sense consciousness. In your theoretical reality which of these senses would be eliminated, and explain how these senses work together to create our reality, and how any reality would be altered with any one of these states of consciousness missing