It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

Does a blind man know darkness?

page: 1
1
<<   2 >>

log in

join
share:

posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:02 PM
link   
Does a blind man know darkness?

I had a dispute with a friend a long time ago over this question.

He said a blind man cant know darkness

What due you wise philosophers and mystical thinkers think?

[edit on 10-7-2010 by inforeal]



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:09 PM
link   
I just want to know how long it took you to come up with this thread.


It depends on the blindness, if their completely blind they cannot sense it. But some blind people can see, or sense light. So in that case, they can.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:15 PM
link   
Did I inspire you in anyway?

www.abovetopsecret.com...



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:30 PM
link   
Inastellaburst: It took me 20 years to come up with this thread since it was about that time my friend asked me the question.

Of course it is assumed the blind person has always been blind.


The question BTW is from a Hindu Guru


EndTimes Possibly, since I did notice your blind thread though I didn’t feel the need to read it.


As for this question, it seems to me that the blind person absolutely knows darkness even if he can’t identify or quantify it, since assumingly he doesn’t know it’s opposite--light. That’s the reasoning of my friend and the Guru, that the blind man can’t know darkness because he doesn’t know light.

I disagree



[edit on 10-7-2010 by inforeal]



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:35 PM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


Well appreciate the honesty if even not reading mine, however I will give my opinion. When I close my eyes, in a completely pitch black room, I see darkness or nothingness if you will. A blind person could experience this same thing and therefore experience what I experience but they may not exactly know or perceive what they are experiencing. So I believe the answer to your question is yes and no. Possibly maybe depending on their degree of blindness, im sure not all are the same.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:35 PM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


I started to go blind from a drug reaction and everything was white. Mostly things looked white and foggy.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:39 PM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


yeah i would say he knows darkness because it contains all the aspects of complete darkness that a seeing person would know. depending on the type of light used for the illumintaion you could feel it become dark to.

So there is more then one sense in which darkness can be sensed. Also there are many frequencys of light that bounce around us in or visual representation of darkness that we cannot detect... that makes it far more complicated of a question though.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 10:45 PM
link   
I say yes they can.

We are to be the light of this world.

The evil of this world lurks in the darkness.

Many who are keen the fact that they are not just flesh and blood but are also a spiritual being, can and do sense both evil and good in people.

Every one has noticed that person that makes their hair stand up.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:19 PM
link   
Easy answer really, darkness is the absence of light, therefore someone who is fully and completely blind experiences darkness at all times. Your question is like asking if a deaf person can experience a lack of sound.

Arguably most folks with vision have not experienced darkness, even at night, in almost all rooms there is some light. It may just be the light of the clock. Some of this light will leak through the eyelids even during sleep. If you enter a cave, go 300 feet underground, and then turn off all the lights, you will experience something very close to true darkness. Trust me it is very different from anything experienced above ground.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:30 PM
link   
Very good input

The question obviously is a philosophical paradox that deals with the principle of yin yang. The question itself is a theoretical expression of this principle in action, or in, inaction, since a blind man can’t experience light.

He knows the yin but not the yang, therefore he can’t even know [the darkness] that he is immersed in all the time!

My friend and the Guru were adamant, HE CANT KNOW DARKNESS!

The Guru is trying to tell us that one knows something from its opposite, philosophically speaking, and if that opposite is absent and only half of the equation is present in the experience then the individual can’t know one side because he has nothing to compare it to.

That theoretically makes sense . . . but asks yourself this: if a blind man doesn’t know what he is constantly immersed in then how can a fish know water?

Also I emphasize that a blind man indeed knows darkness existentially . . . though he might not have a label for it.
For he knows by the greatest knowing--that of immersion.

Many mystics disagree with me, but thats why I am me, and they are they.

So IMO the Guru and my friend are wrong!



[edit on 10-7-2010 by inforeal]



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:35 PM
link   
reply to post by The Endtime Warrior
 



Your description is the best I have seen so far - I agree!



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:39 PM
link   
I read something about this long ago.
Blind since birth.
Although he could not describe what he "saw", he did say that the other senses produced a knowing awareness of the world around him.
He could tell the shape and texture of a room just be the ambient noise.
He was able to tell the layout perfectly as well as contents.
His best explanation was being able to remember what something felt like as if it were still in your hand, literally.


[edit on 7/10/2010 by reticledc]



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:43 PM
link   
I'm speaking in the metaphysical...

A blind man cannot truly know darkness for darkness is reflected most of all in what one can see. In that, the blind man is blessed.

He cannot see a mass grave. He cannot see a field of bullet ridden bodies. He cannot see someone beheaded, or maimed, or tortured.

He can sense it. He can feel it. Without, however, the sight of it, the stark realization of humanity's cruel nature is lost on him... and that's a good thing... perhaps the best of things. In that, I am envious of the blind man.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:49 PM
link   
reply to post by Legion2112
 


Excellent post.

I would add though that without sight he also misses out on the beauty around him and has one less sense which can be used to distract and redirect him from the darkness that every man battles within. Less perception of the darkness without but perhaps more perception of that within,..... I do not necessarily agree that I would envy such a man.



posted on Jul, 10 2010 @ 11:54 PM
link   

Originally posted by inforeal

Does a blind man know darkness?


Does a sighted man know the light?

In both cases ... depends on the man.



posted on Jul, 11 2010 @ 12:07 AM
link   



He knows the yin but not the yang, therefore he can’t even know [the darkness] that he is immersed in all the time!


If he experiences it he knows it on some level, although he may not have the same depth of understanding about it that a person with vision would, or perhaps he would have a greater understanding? If your definition of "knowing" includes a certain level of understanding,... then arguably none of us know anything.




The Guru is trying to tell us that one knows something from its opposite, philosophically speaking, and if that opposite is absent and only half of the equation is present in the experience then the individual can’t know one side because he has nothing to compare it to.


Only if the principles of yin and yang apply. I would argue against the philosophers that darkness by its nature is all encompassing and does not need light to exist whereas the same does not hold true for light. Another way of thinking about this is the default condition is darkness, complete entropy, nothingness.

You do not always know something from its opposite, this is foolishness. I know my children for what they are not what they are not. Likewise ask a child who has never eaten a meal that filled them up if they know hunger and you will get your answer. Amazing how reality can often escape such "wise" men.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
Albert Einstein

[edit on 11-7-2010 by slane69]

[edit on 11-7-2010 by slane69]



posted on Jul, 11 2010 @ 12:42 AM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


I know a blind man. He does not have concepts of light and dark, He has no concept of colors. He has concepts of touch, hearing, smells. Pain, happiness, joy, sadness, etc. He knows when something is cold or hot. He has no concept of what might look like hot and cold to those that can see.

In fact, when I was once asked, what does the color blue mean to you? And I said, warmth. Oh, no, how wrong I was! Blue is cold!!!!!! Yeah, to most of those people who see colors. Cold, blue, winter, etc. But I was thinking of my friend, when he stuck his foot into the blue of water in the Caribbean waters. He said this is so warmmmmmmmm, I want to get into it. And the water was blue to me.So, Blue, between me and him, together equaled warm.

My friend, by the way, is totally blind. What color does he see? LOL LOL

He sees nothing. He can't relate it to a color at all. lol. Color doesn't exist to him.

Consider a person who has never heard a sound. Well, gee, buddy, what does nothing that you hear sound like?




posted on Jul, 11 2010 @ 12:49 AM
link   
reply to post by slane69
 


Interesting thoughts. However, my dear friend, who can't and has never seen a damn thing, hears much more than I can hear.

While I enjoy my sight, he knows nothing about sight, but he knows great and wonderful sounds I can never hear.

I'm not sure who is happier. Him or me. We are both happy. I can paint. I can see. He can hear much more, and he can produce much greater wonderful sounds using various musical instruments than I can. And I can see where my fingers fit to make sounds on instruments. My friend, however, can feel the places to put his fingers, even before he puts them there.



posted on Jul, 11 2010 @ 12:50 AM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


Good question. I don't personally know the answer, but I do have 2 blind dogs, both had sight previously and due to a hereditary problem they went blind. They can 'see' better in the dark, than in the light.

With lights on they carefully manuveur around, bumping into things, outide in daylight they can't find their way. But in the dark or at night, they are like they aren't even blind.



posted on Jul, 11 2010 @ 12:56 AM
link   
reply to post by inforeal
 


I think you might be wrong my friend. Lightness and darkness is not just in the realm of those of who have experienced lightness and darkness visually. My blind friend knows very well lightness and darkness. But not visually.

True darkness and light is not just sight, or hearing, or touch, it is in the mind of each individual. And in their experiences.

And, most of all, just damn well within them.



new topics

top topics



 
1
<<   2 >>

log in

join