Can a deaf and blind person think?
Posted by khuram on October 23, 2008
Humans have senses. And Humans have Mind. Senses do not “Think”. It is “Mind” who “Thinks”. Senses only “sense”.
Mind suitably and meaningfully “organizes” those “senses”.
Mind consciously reminds, reviews, recalls, reflects and analyzes that “organized stuff”. And this is the act of “Thinking”!
Mind can organize sensory data only in few possible styles. I will try to explain this point in my future posts.
In order that mind learns some standard language … it MUST be able to listen. Or it must have been familiar to listening experience, may be of just early life!
A born (totally) deaf and blind person can never learn any language.
And … a person devoid of all the senses canNOT “Think”!
M U Toor said
Don’t you know we have more than 10 senses. we know where our hands and leg lie, even without seeing them. And, can’t a person who’s blind and deaf write, etc????
khuram said
When you do not see, you know where your hands and legs lie. Why? Because you already have some previous experience of touching, feeling and seeing your hands and legs. Suppose you had no such experience at all,,, then?
A totally deaf and blind person can hold a pen and can draw meaningless lines on paper.
khuram said
And … I never stated that humans have 4,5,6,10,12 or n senses!
M U Toor said
Yes, you never did. I didn’t assume so anywhere.
SO when’s your next post publishing here?
khuram said
well,, draft is ready … but publication may take a month or two. Because that article will be the centeral theme of all my work.
Hari said
Having worked for several years with people who are deaf-blind I have to add here that I was able to teach them to work with large woodwork machines like I taught people who could see and hear. They taught me their sign language and I taught them the table saw, radial arm saw, power tools, hand tools, etc. The problem was the employers who could see that these people worked like people who could see and hear, but did not want to take the risk. A risk that was more defined by their own perceptions then by the perception of any person who was deaf-blind and who I worked with. So my experience is that a person who is deaf-blind is mostly limited by their social environment then their own thinking.