Question for Geniuses.

OK, now that I've gotten all the geniuses to click on this... I want to know everyones thoughts on the following question.

This may not be the right forum but I'm hoping to get better responses here than in OOT.

A friend and I are debating whether or not somebody born with 0 of the 5 standard senses, and fully paralyzed, would ever know that they were alive?

Example: A baby is born fully paralyzed and without the senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hear.

Would their person ever understand that it was alive???

[DougShrapnel]

This baby would certainly die, without ever knowing it was alive.

Why would it die?

Say it doesn't die. Say it is paralyzed during birth somehow and it is fed intravaneously.

This person lives to be 20 years old. Does this person know they are alive?

Could he/she feel his/her heart beating? Could this person dream? What would this person's brain dream up? This person never really had any stimulated experiences...what would it dream of? Blackness? Would he or she know they were dreaming?

Discuss.

[Dominic]

whatdoes it matter if the person isparalyzed or not? Without the other senses, it still won't know what it is or have any feeling whatsoever - not even pain.

Only sensation I think he could feel would be if it fell off a high place.

He certainly wouldn't be able to feel falling off a high place. Falling off a high place is like driving in a car. There are two things in a car that would tell you you are moving.

1) you would see things moving in your window. so relative to you, your brain would "sense" movement.
2) you would feel the pressure on your back against the chair created as your mass increases slightly.

If you were to fall off a building you would
1) see the world approaching and sense movement
2) feel the friction of the air on your skin

A child born without sight or touch would certainly never fully understand or even sense the idea of movement.

[brassnuts]

I don't think it would have much of an understanding of its existence. By definition, this being would be without sentience. It's brain would operate on a very basic and most likey subconscious level. Not only is brain developement dependent upon input, but the only functions I can think of the brain performing would involountary reactions to things like hunger and thirst.

[RJT]

I like the question.

I don’t know too much about science and it might have a relatively basic scientific answer. We’ll see, here. I am curious to see if the scientific answers are theoretical or certain.

If there is not a scientifically certain answer, then of course, the answer is going to be something like “we would never know for sure, but most probably.…”

I do know he wouldn't play a mean pin-ball, though.

[etgryphon]

[ QUOTE ]

I do know he wouldn't play a mean pin-ball, though.


[/ QUOTE ]

Dun Dun Da DA DuDA!...

nice...

-Gryph

[purnell]

My guess is that the infantile mind, never having been stimulated, would not be aware of the concept of aliveness, or anything else.

Another thing that occurred to me is that a fetus with no developing senses might also have a severely underdeveloped brain. Such a fetus, it seems to me, would likely be spontaneously aborted.

[RJT]

Right, the baby is basically a fetus. Instead of in the womb, outside the womb and hooked up to tubes.

Not gonna comment from here. Just wanted to say it seems a good analogy, Purnell.