The brain is one of the most enigmatic organs in the human body. It can adapt to all types of physiological conditions and be programmed to see the environment in a certain type of way, whether it is deliberate or not. Oliver Sacks discusses the state of being blind and the role of sensory functions in his essay, The Mind’s Eye. He discusses the concept of connections and perceptions, in which the former leads to the latter. A connection is the interaction between the senses simultaneously, while perception is defined as the interpreted reality caused by the connection of the available senses. Perception is partially constructed by one’s environment, which allows the creation of different interpretations of reality. In blind and sighted individuals, …show more content…
Based upon the accounts he introduced and explained, to see the environment is to willingly use all available senses and to interact with all spaces, consciously and physically. The validity of reality is then brought into question, which Sack suggests that those with sight may be blind to reality. Those with sight are prone to rely heavily on specific connections and ignore other vital ones. Ignored connections may deny unimaginable sensory enrichment and enable narrowed perceptions, which is how sighted individuals remain blinded and unaware of the gravity of oneself and the physical space one inhabits.
Humans have five senses. Sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing are what paint reality, but the lack of one these senses, particularly sight, can enrich the remaining four. The remaining senses become a crutch, or prosthetic leg that constitute the gateway to one’s environment. Yet for these senses to construct one’s environment non visually, the four senses left must work
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Sight is not only to have a visual image of one’s environment and reality, but to be aware of all connections and use them to have the most broad and open perception. In his essay, Sacks suggests that sighted individuals are blind to reality because people tend to ignore connections within themselves, relying heavily on others. By ignoring these connections, a limited perception is developed, an interpreted reality that does not use all the senses at one’s disposal. With blindness, Sacks describes how these individuals have a more open and enriched reality and environment because they utilize all of the senses. By doing so, “Dennis...had increased his sensitivity to moods in other people, and to the most delicate nuances in their speech and self-expression… He felt he had become far more sensitive to others’ emotional states since losing his sight, for he was no longer taken in by visual appearances, which most people learn to camouflage” (8). Perception is an interpreted reality, but by having literal sight is not to have sight to every aspect and detail of one’s environment. Not using all connections builds an inaccurate reality, an environment that is not truly seen and is brought upon by self-deception. To not see reality, or have perception, is to not see the world and environment at all. Yet it is still possible to share perceptions with someone else, and to become enriched perceptually by another person’s
Another speaker, Margaret Livingstone delves into the visual aspect of our senses. Livingstone mentions how artists recognize things about vision that neuroscientists are not privy to until years later. Livingstone discussed the differentiation between color and lightness, and how the two contribute differently to a work of art. Color is thought of as “comparing activity” whereas light is thought of as “summing them.” Livingstone indicates that the visual system is subdivided into a ventral system and a dorsal system. The ventral system is responsible for object recognition, face recognition, and color. The dorsal system is responsible for navigating through the environment, special organization, and emotional recognition. The ability for humans to see distance and depth is carried via our colorblind part of our visual system. As a result, Livingstone concludes that one cannot see depth and shading unless the luminance is right to convey three-dimensional.
Within Oliver Sacks, “To See and Not See”, the reader is introduced to Virgil, a blind man who gains the ability to see, but then decides to go back to being blind. Within this story Sacks considers Virgil fortunate due to him being able to go back to the life he once lived. This is contrasted by Dr. P, in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat”, Sacks states that his condition is “tragic” (Sacks, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat (13) due to the fact that his life will be forever altered by his condition. This thought process can be contributed to the ideas that: it is difficult to link physical objects and conceptualized meanings without prior experience, the cultures surrounding both individuals are different, and how they will carry on with their lives.
The narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s disability stops him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is unaware he is so completely blind to the reality of the world.
His, "idea of blindness came from the movies", where, "...the blind move slowly and never laughed" (Carver 98). These misconceptions of blindness form barriers between the blind and the sighted. Carver breaks down these barriers as he brings the vastly different lives of these two men together. Those of us with sight find it difficult to identify with the blind. This man, like most of us, can only try to imagine what life is like for Robert.
we are afraid of different thing in our lives, And one of them is is a fear of emptiness,so that makes people don’t feel the reality. And exactly like Bub ,Bub by being able to visualize he did not have the advantage to feel the true reality of anything in his life including himself.car is a good example,some people just see how a car look likes but other see what is beneath that massive piece of metal, and they are who enjoy the most out of a car because they truly understand how it works . so lets move on from cars and talk about Bub, from the begging Bub did not put hime self in Robert’s shoes to understand being blind is bad or good, he instantly thought about perspective of being blind in the movies ,as he said “his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs” (Carver 28) so thats a strong example of just visualizing rather than trying to understand the concept of being blind in grater depth . so when people are using this method to understand others around them they will start to fill the same thing about themselves too.which makes them to have a low self-esteem “My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn't like what she saw. I shrugged” (Carver 31) someone say something like this about theme selves because they don’t know what they are capable of.when bub said “she did’t like what she saw.” (31) it was more like i did not like what i see in myself, because he thinks Robert is better than him and he cant be like Robert.this makes people weaker and weaker every day when they think this way about them selves.and then they want to forget about it beca...
The ‘where visual pathway’ is concerned with constructing three dimensional representations of the environment and helps our brain to navigate where things are, independently of what they are, in space in relation to itself (Mishkin & Ungerleider & Macko, 1983).... ... middle of paper ... ... The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Adaptation to unpredictable conditions is a key force in driving human evolution. The ability to overcome predicaments with poise is one of the greatest assets humans possess. In “The Mind’s Eye”, Oliver Sacks recounts various perspectives of individuals coping with blindness. Each individual took a different path to becoming accustomed to their blindness and each of the case studies showed compensatory mechanism unique to the individual. Throughout the article, Sacks credits each person for playing to their assets because he views adaptability as a person’s capacity to alter their mode of thought in order to fit their circumstance. Although Sacks shows many examples of neuronal plasticity as an adaptation to blindness, he eludes to the impact
Many people view blindness as a disability, but could these people be blind to their surroundings? Even though the narrator can perfectly see with his eyes, he lacks in understanding awareness. The narrator blindness isn 't physical, like many vision impaired people. His blindness is psychological, and his blindness causes him to become jealous. His blindness blocks his perception of viewing the world in a different way. This only causes him to see the physical attributes of humans, and thus shut off his mindfulness of viewing human personalities. As a result of a closed mind, the narrator doesn 't understand how Robert was able to live with the fact that he was never able to see his wife in the flesh, but the narrator fails to see that Robert vision of his wife was intimate. On the other hand, Robert blindness is physical. This causes Robert to experience the world in a unique manner. Without Robert eyesight, he is able to have a glimpse of a human personality. He uses his disability to paint pictures in his head to experience the world. By putting his psychological blindness aside, the narrator is able to bond with Robert, and he grasps the understanding of opening his eyes for the first time, and this forms a new beginning of a
However, for the blind man, he does not have the ability to rely on his sense of vision in order to understand what activities he partakes in. Therefore, although both men have the ability to understand how each other’s senses work and/or feel, their experiences with vision, taste, smell, touch, and hearing can only be shared with themselves and no one else. For this reason, Nagel would say that both men could not know what it is like to be the other person because of the lack of prior knowledge, memories, or experiences.
E. H. L. Leung and M. Hollins, Understanding Blindness: An Integrative Approach, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989.
In today’s society, people are more concerned with their own “little world,” rather than looking at the extensive perspective of life. One reason why people can sometimes be classified as being “blind” is because people fear the unknown, and rejects the unfamiliar. Many people are not comfortable with stepping out of their shell and exploring their surroundings, let alone trying to look through the eyes of the segregated minority. In the novel Blindness, Jose Saramago metaphorically uses the word “blindness” as a term meaning, the truth that we cannot bear to see. To avoid the outside world, many people tend to shelter themselves from the obvious reality, and tend to focus of their “own” meaning of reality.
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
In literature, blindness serves a general significant meaning of the absence of knowledge and insight. In life, physical blindness usually represents an inability or handicap, and those people afflicted with it are pitied. The act of being blind can set limitations on the human mind, thus causing their perception of reality to dramatically change in ways that can cause fear, personal insecurities, and eternal isolation. However, “Cathedral” utilizes blindness as an opportunity to expand outside those limits and exceed boundaries that can produce a compelling, internal change within an individual’s life. Those who have the ability of sight are able to examine and interpret their surroundings differently than those who are physically unable to see. Carver suggests an idea that sight and blindness offer two different perceptions of reality that can challenge and ultimately teach an individual to appreciate the powerful significance of truly seeing without seeing. Therefore, Raymond Carver passionately emphasizes a message that introduces blindness as not a setback, but a valuable gift that can offer a lesson of appreciation and acceptance toward viewing the world in a more open-minded perspective.
By absorbing information and convert them into a meaningful information, that could help us to understand the life and make good and wise decisions. There is minimal amount of stimulations have to occur, so our organ can detect these stimuluses and that is the absolute threshold, which is basically means that you will not be able to smell something really far from you, unless that thing hit the minimal amount of stimulation and your nose can smell it now. The lack or the loss of one or more sense would make a big gap in how we experience things around us and a perception failure will make it harder to understand the full image of what is going on around us and it will cause an inability to respond to a current situation. For example, if someone is blind, it will be hard for the brain to get the full image and to understand it in order to make a wise decision. But amazingly our brain relays on other sensory organs to get the information that is needed to get a full image in order to survive. I have a friend who was blind since he was two years old, when I asked him how do you see or how do you imagine the chair, he described the chair exactly as we see it, but with no color. His brain works with the lack of visual information as a way to relay on other sensory organs to achieve the same results that we can see and he cannot. It does not mean
Visual perception plays a big part on how we perceive life. If we didn't have perception I don't know where we would be now.