Sidney Bradford went blind at 10 months of age, but regained sight on both eyes at 52.
He was the subject of many scientific tests of vision, that demonstrated that he was impervious to many forms of optical illusion, like the ambivalence of Necker cubes or the appearance of various "impossible objects" that, to him, looked like what they are - flat figures.
However, his regaining the gift of sight left him with the vision of a world he did not know, and he preferred to work with his eyes closed, so that his hands could "see" his familiar tools.
Two years after regaining sight, he fell ill and died. Blind, he knew the universe where he lived intimately, and was a happy man.
When he finally saw the world, its sheer incomprehensibility killed him.
Let's be honest...
We understand him plenty.
Of course he could not understand the visual world. His brain had not developed the neural networks required for all sorts of pattern recognition. This usually happens in a critical period, at a rather specific young age, and cannot be caught up on. Tests with baby kittens proved this... (No joke, look for "Colin Blakemore" and "kittehz" on youtube).
ReplyDeleteI think you are over-interpreting his story.
Maybe a bit... I am some of a storyteller, not a scientist, so the sad-romantic twist was too hard to resist for me.
DeleteHowever, what I find intriguing is that the visual world gave him plenty of distress.
I do not think that nowadays the physicians would be too keen to restore his vision, but back then the ideas about the neural activities connected to vision were more sketchy - they probably thought he was on the fence, as he had seen for a few months after he was born (otherwise the exercise would have been completely futile, as the neural connection between eyes and brain would not have formed at all).
I've recently doing some more reading on the workings of the mammal and human brain, and found some astonishing infos about how and why we become who we are, and how to influence it.
DeleteThere is a nice, popular science book on neuroplasticity, which might interest you, here:
https://www.brainmaster.com/software/pubs/brain/contrib/The%20Brain%20That%20Changes%20Itself.pdf
I think you might like the book.
It explains the development of all sorts of kinks and sexual preferences as well as the phenomenon of internet pornography addiction. It even explains why porn has to get more and more extreme and violent to keep the viewers interested...