[optacon-l] Re: Sight Versus Blindness
- From: "C. Pond" <cpond@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 20:15:19 -0400
Dr. Oliver Sacks also wrote of Virgil, a man who received his sight, and how
he, like others, was baffled by it all. I knew of a guy named Nick from
England who received his sight after having had none for his life.
Eventually, he committed suicide because of the static and noise (as he
described it) in his brain/mind. I knew another guy bnamed Wyl from
Toronto who received his sight at about age 7 or 8, and the first thing he
felt was physical pain as in light being much too bright. This topic has
both baffled and fascinated philosophers for centuries, and the question of
would a blind person "see things" and know them in the same way as does a
sighted person, and one who received sight. In the Bible, our Lord and
Saviour Jesus healed a blind man, but he had to take two passes at it. One
wonders if the first pass was to heal the sensory mechanism, because the man
said he saw people but they looked like treees walking about, and the second
pass was to heal the man's visual psychological and sight-oriented
comprehension. Remember that visualizing is not the same as seeing.
Now then, what does this topic albeit interesting have to do with the
optacon, listers?
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 4:21 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Sight Versus Blindness
I think a lot of the research concludes that if one lost their sight before
aged 5 or so, then the adjustment is almost impossible. Short of miraculous
intervention, the image processing and interpretative correlations have been
formed by the optic nerve and visual cortex by that time.
This is butressed by Mike May's experiences when he had his vision restored
in his mid-forties. He had lost it around age 4 in a chemical mishap. The
last chapter of his book "Crashing Through" written by Robert Kurson
discusses this in a lot more depth. What I recall is the hand-eye
coordination stuff like playing catch was good, but you couldn't recognize
what would appear to be basic stuff like the gender of a person walking down
the street.
I'm really anticipating a self-driving car more than a restoration of my
vision.
Now, people who lost their sight even after the age of ten may likely have
much different experiences. Some of the vision restoration done with a
bionic eye in the Netherlands appears to have found better results with
people who lst their vision later in life.
Steve
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