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The awesome thing is that our brain is great at learning how to use and make sense of new inputs. The big one being literacy, you never think about it but you l
by throwaway316943 6y ago
The awesome thing is that our brain is great at learning how to use and make sense of new inputs. The big one being literacy, you never think about it but you learned to interpret strange little patterns first as sounds that you hear in your head and then as entire concepts like “cat” or “happy”. The same can be said for spoken language or mathematics or musical notation. I don’t doubt that the human brain will have little trouble learning that X pattern of electrical inputs to a group of neurons means “cat” or the sound of A or even an image of a bird. It won’t come instantly and it won’t be identical to the thing it represents without wiring directly into the visual or auditory regions but it will give us a new sense and a new language.
- ewindal 6y agoIt’s not really all that good at taking in new inputs, at least if our brains are anything like other mammals. There have been experiments where animals have certain senses depraved (eye sewn shut, for example) early in life, and then opened after their brain had fonished developing. Their brains never «learned» to take in the new sensory signals afterwards. At least not to the extent of a regular individual with all their senses since birth.
- hobs 6y agoYep, famously done with two kittens, one with agency to move and the other paws dragging on the ground - it was effectively blind and did not react to stimulus because it did not create meaning.
- throwaway316943 6y agoI’d be more interested in studies on people who have been deaf from birth and received cochlear implants later in life.
- woliveirajr 6y agoI remembered those body modifications where people insert small magnets under some finger's skin. After a while a new feeling arises...