Does A Senseless Man Dream?

[Necros140606]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

Well what really is thought then? Everything is just chemistry.

yes. life is a cycle of chemical reactions that collectively try to gain more stabilty.

[korny]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

They're memories of experiences you could only have because of your senses. How is your brain going to create memories of something you can't and never could experience? It can't. That would be impossible.

[Necros140606]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

yeah. mind is composed of few automations (breathing, heartbeat etc), and everything else is developed from the internalization of external inputs in regard of the previously received experience. no experience means no brain activity.

[Izzy]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

yes. life is a cycle of chemical reactions that collectively try to gain more stabilty.

I agree with that. which is why I think that the whole humans having souls thing is a bunch of bull, which is the reason I'm not religious and why I find religion to just be forced ignorance.

Well, I'm going to bed.

[richhhhhard]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

yes. life is a cycle of chemical reactions that collectively try to gain more stabilty.

Well what really is thought then? Everything is just chemistry.

How is your brain going to create memories of something you can't and never could experience? It can't. That would be impossible.

These were my thoughts exactly. If all we are is a body of organic compounds that without working senses is nothing more than a waste of space, then why do people have the notion that we are so special? I am not saying that life is meaningless, but nor does it really seem to have much of a meaning. We think and feel based off our bodies chemical reaction to external stimulus. But at the same time, it is kind of cool because we are a collection matter that seeks to understand itself.

People look at religion as providing meaning and beauty to a otherwise bleak existence, but I think in a lot of cases it works the other way around. Without life after death, this is our only time to "exist." If this is true, there is no excuse for killing someone. In a religious world that person continues to exist, in this world that person is gone. In a religious world you are rewarded for suffering in the next life, in this world you only have so much time so you should try not to suffer. In a religious world a higher power will help you in a time of need, in this world you learn to help yourself.
Also, if this world was sculpted I think it makes it seem less beautiful. That everything we see is just a chance combination of subatomic particles, that they combined in such a complex way, seems kind of beautiful to me. Also the fact that we are made of particles of matter that have always existed is comforting too, and that "dying" is just returning to a less complex state. Obviously we will not remain conscious in that state but I still like the thought that we are just a complex form of matter and that after we decompose the elements that form our body will disperse into countless of new combinations.

I am not saying that religion *IS* wrong, just that this is what seems most likely to me.

[dsliscoo]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

But dreams don't actually have anything to do with senses themselves. They are just memories of senses.

How do you actually remember a taste or a smell? You don't need whatever you are trying to remember present at the time to remember it. Once it's a memory it is only produced by something in the brain. I'd like to think the brain is capable of creating these connections of memory even without the senses. Maybe somehow the brain can produce the memory of the taste of a banana in the exact same way someone with taste can just by accident or coincidence.

I think thats not true. If you eat a banana without a sense of taste you will still be able to call it a banana taste but it wouldnt taste the way it does to everyone ele. A brain isn't going to calibrate itself to right without sense. If you never tasted something you can only imagine what it tastes like. Never having taste you will only be able to use some other senses to imagine taste. difficult i think.

without any senses a person wouldn't be able to learn how to define themselves. Unless they were truly gifted, they wouldn't even be able to come up with words in their mind or ways to express themselves. It would be a very.. weird life. And with the case of helen keller well, somebody else had to define the world to her in order for her to understand anything. If you could find a way to communicate with essentially a corpse, it could live life.

[dore]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

In Johnny Got His Gun (a novel later adapted to film and probably more well-known for inspiring Metallica's song One), a man who can only feel can dream/think with all his senses even though he only has one in real life. It's just a movie but it seems like someone who had and lost senses would still be able to imagine those senses even if he no longer had them. However, I doubt someone who has never had a sense (born blind, for example) could ever figure out what that sense is supposed to feel like. If you had the sense you have a reference point, but if you have never had it, all you can have are biased descriptions from people capable of sensing a dimension you will never know.

I think someone who never had any senses would not be able to sense existence. There's no way that someone could realize he's a part of this universe when he has no way to relate to that universe.

[richhhhhard]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

I think thats not true. If you eat a banana without a sense of taste you will still be able to call it a banana taste but it wouldnt taste the way it does to everyone ele. A brain isn't going to calibrate itself to right without sense. If you never tasted something you can only imagine what it tastes like. Never having taste you will only be able to use some other senses to imagine taste. difficult i think.

without any senses a person wouldn't be able to learn how to define themselves. Unless they were truly gifted, they wouldn't even be able to come up with words in their mind or ways to express themselves. It would be a very.. weird life. And with the case of helen keller well, somebody else had to define the world to her in order for her to understand anything. If you could find a way to communicate with essentially a corpse, it could live life.

I think the point is that you can't communicate with them because they have no senses. There is nothing you could do (aside from medically manipulating the neuronal reactions in their brain that form memory. Perhaps how school could work in the future??????) that could cause a reaction from them.

[dsliscoo]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

I think the point is that you can't communicate with them because they have no senses. There is nothing you could do (aside from medically manipulating the neuronal reactions in their brain that form memory. Perhaps how school could work in the future??????) that could cause a reaction from them.

its possible.. would you want to give him memories of something he could never experience. I think that would be an even worse torture., Being able to have conscience and realizing theres a world out there, but you are nothing at all. Ignorance is bliss I'd say in that situation.

[Brycexx]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

What does a blind man see in his dreams?

I watched a show on a blind guy that was an incredible painter. He was born without any eyes at all so im assuming if he was able to paint some of the pictures he did his dreams couldnt be to far off from our own. that is just one guy so i have to clue if any other blind people have the same visions has he does.

[insanefreddy926]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

Our senses. They're triggered by things happening in the outside world which stimulate neurons in our bodies. These then send an electric signal to the brain. There's a different part of the brain for each sense, which makes sense of these signals. Each center interprets these stimuli and turns them into something we can understand. A sound doesn't really "sound" a certain way, our brains just perceive a vibration in the air, and transforms it into an electrical signal.

This may be wrong, but if dreams are just random firings of neurons in those centers of our brains, I think an senseless man would be able to dream. Just because he can't sense the outside world, doesn't mean his brain can't still create these random impulses in his sleep. It would probably just be a whole bunch of colors and sounds and smells which make no sense at all, since his brain has never needed to make sense of them, but he would still experience them. And over time, his brain would try to make sense of these random things. He would recognize a random burst of "blue" light. He wouldn't actually think "that's blue light," he wouldn't know that it is called a color, but he'd remember that certain sensation from previous dreams.

Of course this is assuming his disability does not damage those parts of his brain which process the senses....

[Cavernio]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

"Just because he can't sense the outside world, doesn't mean his brain can't still create these random impulses in his sleep."

As has been the general consensus in this thread, what you said here is wrong. Our brain develops only because we sense things. As it senses things, it structures the information in ways that are useful. If it never, ever receives sensory input, it will never actually form beyond what genetics make it form. And even then, our genes tell neurons to form and make connections only when they're stimulated, or else they're told to die. You may have heard that babies and kids actually have more neurons than adults. That's because their brains haven't been organized enough to prune out cells which aren't part of that organization yet...they've got hardware laying around so to speak.

If, of course, what you said is about people who have had sensory development as usual for most of their lives, and then they somehow lose all their senses later in life, yes, I agree that they will be able to dream and 'sense' in their heads.

[Izzy]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

Our brain develops only because we sense things. As it senses things, it structures the information in ways that are useful. If it never, ever receives sensory input, it will never actually form beyond what genetics make it form.

Why exactly are you giving your opinion in the form of factual information?

[windsurfer-sp]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

So in other words this thread is asking if there are more senses then the basic physical ones (proper list of senses not the "5" we are taught in school)?

Personally I say yes. ESP to me has some validity, it would take a good degree of close mindedness to say we know it dosn't exist or to say we know exactly how it works.

[MrRubix]

Re: Does A Senseless Man Dream?

Blind people do dream, but the nature of the dreams depends on exposure to given senses.

If you were born without eyes, you wouldn't be dreaming with images. Dreams usually build themselves from your experiences/senses.

It would be like asking if humans can dream in sonar or can dream in ultraviolet. If you don't have the sense, you simply don't have much idea what it means or feels like. If a blind person is used to experiencing the world through sound, touch, smell, taste, etc, then those are the senses that would be put together to form dreams.

If you want to know what it "looks" or "feels" like to have no eyesight, think about what you see with the eyes in the back of your head. Or how about the eyeballs that you have in your arm? What, having trouble? You can't do it because you don't have those senses there. If you're trying to imagine "what the eyeballs in your face would see if they happened to be in the back of your head or your arm," you're still synthesizing an experience based on what you've already felt. If we haven't been exposed to a certain sense at all, it's not going to be something our dreams are going to readily build from.