Is it possible to develop self awareness if you're born without senses?

[WeRDivine]

So I typed: Is it possible to develop self awareness if you're born without senses? into google search and the first answer it gave was.


"Yes, you will be conscious without your five senses. Consciousness is a necessary requirement to produce thought. One only needs to prove that you would think or feel something without all of your senses."

The thing is, without your senses, you wouldn't have any thoughts. If you were born without senses, there would be no things to think about lol. You wouldn't know anything at all. And we don't even know what the word consciousness means. Consciousness is a made up word in my opinion. All it means is self awareness, and that self awareness comes from everything you've ever experienced in your life from........the five senses.

[FallingLeaves]

if you wanna say hey you can't sense anything whatsoever, then it may not make sense that you would be conscious of anything. But I find that akin to wondering why anything exists at all? Why should it? Why should it not? But it does.

Anyway I notice the specific quote you gave was about the five known senses... it may be there are ways to sense things without eyes,nose, mouth,ears, or hands.

[inavalan]

You can't get an answer, or discuss the merits of that question without defining terms: self-awareness, thought, senses, you, consciousness, ...

As I understand those terms, there is consciousness in everything, not only in man, not only in living organisms. There is awareness too. There are more than the 5 senses. Your physical self is a (small) part of your whole-self.

There are people who are blind and deaf, and who don't "vegetate":

https://www.google.com/search?q=peop...ome&ie=UT F-8

Surely, if somebody has none of the 5 senses they can't be contacted in any physical way. Neither are the people in coma. Those who recover from coma tell stories about their quite rich experiences. There is also the possibility of contacting a self locked-in-from-the-physical using altered states of consciousness.

[WeRDivine]

Originally Posted by inavalan

You can't get an answer, or discuss the merits of that question without defining terms: self-awareness, thought, senses, you, consciousness, ...

As I understand those terms, there is consciousness in everything, not only in man, not only in living organisms. There is awareness too. There are more than the 5 senses. Your physical self is a (small) part of your whole-self.

There are people who are blind and deaf, and who don't "vegetate":

https://www.google.com/search?q=peop...ome&ie=UT F-8

Surely, if somebody has none of the 5 senses they can't be contacted in any physical way. Neither are the people in coma. Those who recover from coma tell stories about their quite rich experiences. There is also the possibility of contacting a self locked-in-from-the-physical using altered states of consciousness.

Those in comas have already had experience from their five senses. No one had answered the question.

[WeRDivine]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

if you wanna say hey you can't sense anything whatsoever, then it may not make sense that you would be conscious of anything. But I find that akin to wondering why anything exists at all? Why should it? Why should it not? But it does.

Anyway I notice the specific quote you gave was about the five known senses... it may be there are ways to sense things without eyes,nose, mouth,ears, or hands.

I wonder what other senses there are?

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by WeRDivine

So I typed: Is it possible to develop self awareness if you're born without senses? into google search and the first answer it gave was.


"Yes, you will be conscious without your five senses. Consciousness is a necessary requirement to produce thought. One only needs to prove that you would think or feel something without all of your senses."

The thing is, without your senses, you wouldn't have any thoughts. If you were born without senses, there would be no things to think about lol. You wouldn't know anything at all. And we don't even know what the word consciousness means. Consciousness is a made up word in my opinion. All it means is self awareness, and that self awareness comes from everything you've ever experienced in your life from........the five senses.

There has to be a sense of oneself to be self aware ..

Some like the notion of awareness can be aware of that but this won't relate to a self in a way where one can think I am that .

self awareness of 'what exactly' is what is required to know as part of the question .



x daz x

[Anala]

Originally Posted by WeRDivine

So I typed: Is it possible to develop self awareness if you're born without senses? into google search and the first answer it gave was.


"Yes, you will be conscious without your five senses. Consciousness is a necessary requirement to produce thought. One only needs to prove that you would think or feel something without all of your senses."

The thing is, without your senses, you wouldn't have any thoughts. If you were born without senses, there would be no things to think about lol. You wouldn't know anything at all. And we don't even know what the word consciousness means. Consciousness is a made up word in my opinion. All it means is self awareness, and that self awareness comes from everything you've ever experienced in your life from........the five senses.

If we are talked about the 5 senses (smell, touch, sight, taste and hearing) I think we are always aware of ourselves, but we’re not always aware of others.

Many of my friends just happen to live without 1, 2, or 3 of their senses. And while many lost them at some point, some are born without. Everyone has a sense of self. We all have a sense of hunger, tiredness, pain,... etc.

Originally Posted by WeRDivine

Those in comas have already had experience from their five senses. No one had answered the question.

In your original post you asked about "those born without senses".
It's true that there'll be activity in some parts of the nervous system during a coma but that assumes the victim was born with senses.

Originally Posted by asearcher

Sorry if I come out as dumb but who is born without senses? I mean, without any of these: smell, touch, sight, taste and hearing? Please, if you can specify so I can follow you?

Usually if one is out of for instance sight, if one is blind, then the brain creates images before the eyes.

One too compensate for a lost or minimized sense, survival mechanism.

Once in hospital a doctor was sure I was out and that there was no way I could register what had been said, but I did. My hearing worked, but he figured as I was out - I was out. He said something to make me realize how serious the situation was, but I could not communicate back (as I was out...). When I later came out of it and stabilized it was pne of the first thing I asked. The doctor who had said it went pale. This was something he had said to a colleague, not something that was for my ears (and conscious).

It was probably a question of no intrinsic value except to the asker.

What you say here is true, though. Neuroplasticity is about the brain transferring sense stimuli from its 'regular' part to a different part. You give some good examples. Blind people who can navigate with echo-location because of developing a tie-in between the visual cortex (spacial part) of the occipital lobe with the hearing (the auditory part of the temporal lobe). Likewise, research has shown that the Braille a blind person reads is processed in the visual cortex. So a person born with some senses can develop a kind of role-swap in their brains to compensate.

In your case (about hearing) it's likely that the analytical part of your brain had been temporarily switched out (parts of the frontal lobe) while your auditory functions worked fine, went through the usual input channels and got sent off to memory after temporal processing, regardless of being unable to bring it into conscious awareness. (That same part of our brains switches out during dreaming.)
Quite something, that!
.

[WeRDivine]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

In your original post you asked about "those born without senses".
It's true that there'll be activity in some parts of the nervous system during a coma but that assumes the victim was born with senses.

Let's just say none of your senses ever worked from birth. You would never experience anything, thus your brain would have no memories. So you would never have dreams or anything. Not sure if one could develop self awareness being born without senses.