Knowing your age and sex

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I have such a question for you all, such a thought experiment to perform: let's say you just woke up from a coma with an amnesia - you don't have a mirror and you aren't even allowed to see your hands so you don't know if they are the hands of a man or a woman, if they are the hands of someone young or on the opposite - wrinkled and covered with liver spots. And out of a sudden, you get asked if you know how old you may be and if you are a man/boy or a woman/girl. Would you be able to guess, estimating this by your very thought process that takes place in your head; thought process typical of average representatives of particular age groups as well of representatives of particular sexes, your age and sex?

I'm personally not sure I would be able to do this, in all honesty - just because I don't feel a representative of any age group or sex. Quite as if I was a disembodied brain floating in a jar . And what does it look like for you in this respect; would you be able to guess - after a long session of such mental exerting yourself - if you are a man/woman and how old you are - a teen, young adult, someone middle aged or a senior citizen?

If I can see my physical form, I'll be able to ballpark those answers. I will notice that I have an outie, not an innie.

If I can't I'd probably struggle, especially if my autobiographical memory was impaired at all.

The OP did not say we could not look at our feet, so I would look at my feet.

(Eww . . . old guy, for sure!)

As for sex, just squeeze my old-guy thighs together, and if I feel any pain or discomfort shooting up to my chest, then I know I am male.

Now, don't go changing the rules just because I figured a way around them!

I automatically assumed our feet are covered by the quilt so one can't see them

I don't have an answer either.


I don't need to wake up from a coma with amnesia to 'forget' my own age and biological sex.

To me, my own age and sex is...
A factor of how much I spent my time in this earth and how this body works.
It's like I treat it like a situation -- whether it's something that can make my life easier or harder, not who I myself identify as.

Everyone else's age and sex is more like sociocultural dynamics data on top of everything health related.

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I could probably tell my gender from my visceral feelings about naked women and naked men, but that would be assuming I had a simple binary gender. According to this, statistically that would be a fairly safe assumption, though obviously not perfectly safe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binar ... ed_Kingdom

The depth of my voice would be another clue. I don't suppose there are all that many women (or should I say females?) who can sing a 104Hz note (the lowest A flat possible on a normally-tuned guitar).

I don't think I could tell my age very accurately, but I'd probably notice from my moderate aches and pains that I was either not very young or that I was young but not in excellent health. I used to feel more ill when I was in my 40s than I did in my 60s, so it would be a very rough guess how old I was. Another clue would be from being able to sing that 104Hz note - it's very unlikely that anybody under the age of 10 would be able to do that.

It might be nice not to know how old I was. No more nagging feelings about being unlikely to live more than another 10 or 20 years.

You might not even know your species!

There is also that humorous short story by some well known Polish author Sławomir Mrożek, that is discussed in our schools - "Wedding in Atomice (Atomsville)" At the end, the narrator, exposed to the radioactive rain at said wedding, turns into a beetle with "three pairs of additional legs on each side, a green horn on the forehead, and a chitin shell on the back" https://newleftreview.org/issues/i6/art ... in-atomice