The Molyneux problem Posed in 1688 by the Irish scientist and politician William Molyneux (1656–1698) in a letter to John Locke. This seemingly innocuous question posed the problem of whether a man who has been born blind and who has learnt to distinguish and name a globe and a cube by touch, would be able to distinguish and name these objects simply by sight, once he had been enabled to see. This was to awaken great interest among philosophers and other scientists throughout the Enlightenment period up until the present day. In 2003 a medical program which treated children suffering from congenital blindness provided an opportunity to answer Molyneuxs problem empirically. This study showed that in a touch-to-vision exercise results were barely better than if the subjects had guessed. However, such cross-modal mappings developed rapidly, in the course of a few days. Thus, to see is not to feel and to feel is not to see.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 02:15:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015