A philosophy riddle from 1688 was recently solved. The riddle in question is Molyneux’s problem:
If a man born blind can feel the differences between shapes such as spheres and cubes, could he, if given the ability, distinguish those objects by sight alone?
Now take a moment and think about it. Did you learn to relate your sense of touching an object to what it would look like, or were you born with the ability to do so? Take a guess.
Quick answer: In 2003 five people had their sight restored though surgery, and, no they could not.
The subjects also had a hard time figuring out why objects travelling away from us seemed to get smaller. Perception is something we developed growing up, not something understood. They performed the test almost immediately after sight was gained and the person just seeing a shape struggled to properly identify it. The brain is weird, because within a few days they had 90%+ accuracy so I it was probably just the brain not being used to seeing things more than anything else.
There are actually many things attached to vision – perception, colour, opacity, shadows etc. are all simple to us but explaining it to a blind person would drive both of you insane. Those things are really incomprehensible without vision.
Isn’t it weird that they can feel 8 points of a cube and no points on a sphere and not be able to visually see 8 points on a cube and no points on a sphere? Like our brains automatically associate the feeling of “pointy-ness” to a corner. I mean, a sphere would feel the same all around but a cube would feel sharp and edgy and have feel straight, yet they cannot imagine visually what a completely smooth object would look like. I guess we have taken our vision for granted.
At last, we have successfully answered a philosophical question through science.
Molyneux would be proud.
Tze Donn 