When Your Eyes Can’t See, but Your Brain is Still Watching
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Credits:
Narrator: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault
Editor: Dylan Hennessy (www.behance.net/dylanhennessy1)
Illustrator: Jacek Ambrożewski
Illustrator/Animator: Kirtan Patel (kpatart.com/illustrations)
Animator: Mike Ridolfi (www.moboxgraphics.com/)
Sound: Graham Haerther (haerther.net)
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster ( / forgottentowel )
Producer: Brian McManus ( / realengineering )
REFERENCES
[1] www.hunimed.eu/news/the-futur...
[2] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
[3] www.amnh.org/explore/ology/br...
[4] www.bps.org.uk/research-diges...
[5] journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...
[6] zenodo.org/record/853235
[7]royalsocietypublishing.org/do...
[8] www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kish...
[9] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
[10] • When Blindsight is 20/20
[11] academic.oup.com/nc/article/2...
[12] www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
[13] journals.plos.org/plosbiology...
[14] elifesciences.org/articles/40766
[15] www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/h...
[16] ec.europa.eu/research-and-inn...
"The Human brain is the most complex form of matter in the universe" - The Human Brain
The brain is the only thing in known existence that named itself.
[Insert *"Obama putting 🏅 around Obama's neck"* meme here]
@@BrainInjuredTortellinniwhat about the cuckoo
@@BrainInjuredTortellinnialso i think whales dolphins and even bats have ways to address other individuals it’s just that we don’t understand their language yet
@@elmersito3kWhat? We still named those.
I have a blind cat (no eyes.) She not only survives, but thrives and will try to fight other cats. She's significantly bigger than them (15+ lbs, not fat) and has some razor sharp claws. She listens better than any dog I've ever owned. Literally responds to commands like "come", "sit", and "where's your bed?" Amazing little kitty. The shelter I rescued her from named her Helen Keller lol.
Good to know. Perfect name. We've adopted a one eyed white cat who showed up in our woods. Maybe a granddaughter(?) of our older white male cat (also a showed up adoption). She's more trusting with my husband, but is still very leary from being feral. She shows no lack having just one good eye. Vet doesn't know if she was born with the bad eye or acquired it, but says it's not fixable.
I am blind and run a blind fitness company so I'm putting out information on visual impairment a lot. This video was SO good and enlightening on many aspects of blindness which even we in the blind community misunderstand. I learned the name for my hallucinations and everything! I can't wait to share so many parts of this video with others!
🤨🤨
how u typin brodie 😭
@@jjkembo8810speech to text exists, as well as getting someone else to type for you
🤣🤣 can't figure out whether you're being serious or being sarcastic
@@hescrem9316how did he read the title then ?
I snuck out of the house a lot as a kid, mapping out movements in the house by sound, noticing things like when someone is silently standing in the hallway because the air flow from the overhead vents was 'interrupted'... then when i got older, i started doing blindfold tests on myself, just to see if i could hear/feel my way around the house without falling or tripping over stuff. I'd do it for hours a day sometimes. My birth mother was legally blind, and i think i worried i might lose my sight someday and need to know how to get around.
"Weaponized autism"
"silently standing in the hallway" what are you sneaking past?
My mom was a big eavesdropper, so she'd silently patter down the hallway and stand outside my door to listen in on my phone calls and stuff. I've always had outstanding hearing, so the disruption of the airflow in the hallway was noticeable to me. (It came in handy) :) @@shinobiighost6946
I can relate too well with learning how to map my surroundings and those in it. I hope you were just mischievous, and REALLY HOPE you are now safe and happy!!!!!!!!!!!
So is this basically why we get that "Someone is watching me" feeling or when you get the sense you're not alone or when someone is behind you? Amount of times I notice people around me without actually looking at them
My idea to why the brain hallucinate when losing vision could be because it's not use to NOT receiving any signals for sight. If a person loses a limb, their brain will make them feel as if the limb is still there and even feel pain when it isn't there. Maybe the brain hallucinating vision is similar to that
After being partially blind for many years I lost the rest of my sight, but I do still feel like I see the world around me. It's not a clear or accurate picture necessarily, but I see it like the input is coming thrgh my eyeballs. And I do think of it as being similar to long-term phantom limb, or my body is just putting the input from other senses into visual stimulous. Interesting stuff.
@@addaptinginthedark I am curious, when you dream, do you have vision still? Or do your dreams look different after losing your sight?
Like when we are in a dark room trying to sleep and those funny shapes with all sort of colors appear?
I have discovered that my dreams intensify when I don't have a creative outlet and become more subdued when I do. Based on this idea of visual hallucinations of people going blind, I have to wonder if the brain doesn't have some mechanism to generally avoid atrophy. Like maybe it has some feature that purposefully stimulates itself if its not getting enough use?
Maybe the brain 🧠 was always hallucinating arm movements and you 🫵 only noticed when the arm was removed.
Yes, an apt description, I lost my side 25 years ago, I was fortunate enough to be fully sighted and have a photographic memory at the same time When my eyesight slowly began to deteriorate, and finally go, it felt as though some other vision switched on in my brain Reinterpret in the world around us in a visual form drawn from the photographic memory of the childhood, past, basically makes the every day feel like a bit of a film Not only this but sound present themselves as colours and the slightest change in the norm shift the colours so you instantly know something has changed. It’s a very odd experience Excellent video, good work
I can see perfectly well but I love the idea of echolocation and have tried to learn it a little bit. I have had a couple of cool moments where I get information by clicking that I couldn't see, for example an opening behind dense treeline: I heard an echo that sounded wrong, and when I went to look, there was an empty space behind the trees that had made a hollow echo.
How do you train for that?
@@derekfrost8991 not the person you're asking; but as someone who's been experimenting a bit (emphasis on the "a bit"), i've personally found wandering around my flat blindfolded is quite good; both passively listening and clicking. I'm not good, but I can usually detect open doorways, some corners, and situate/orrient myself along one particularly acoustically distinct corridor. Again, this isn't particularly systematic; and I still have a lot to learn, but that's what i've been experimenting with thus far. Things that I keep an ear out for; any particular resonating (long/narrow geometries seem to have this, and I find useful to orient myself in corridors), amplification (usually corners), delayed echos (the more echo-y a sound is, the further away the thing is), sound quality changing as you move past something (usually happens as I pass an open door or other abruptly changing geometry; the sound stops bouncing against the wall, and into the room behind the door). Something I find unintuitive (or am doing wrong), is that since a click will echo more the further away the wall is, a nearby wall won't echo; identifying a lack of echo as something being nearby is weird, and not something i've fully figured out yet. Additionally, just trying to figure out the quality of large vs cramped rooms also helps (they sound qualitatively different in a useful way). Something that apparently also works is having someone else hold a plate/bowl around your head, and trying to figure out where it is as it amplifies the click back, but i've not experimented with this. Again; i'm still very much experimenting; so can't offer much substantial; but hope that can offer some insight...
I have a visual impairment. I'm not completely blind but I have unintentionally experienced echolocation on numerous occasions. Its not a skill i have learned enough to be able to use effectively but its a very strange experience. This is actually quite an effective technique to get used to the feel in my experience. Blindfold yourself in an area you are somewhat familliar with to the extent you know it is safe and just try walking along and listening. stop as soon as you feel what I can only describe to me as a slower urge to flinch or stop. Keep repeating until you start to have an element of trust in this. As I said, I haven't actively learned this and don't really know how best to explore this further but I feel its an effective starting point
Tree canopys have a wonderful sound, don't they?
@@derekfrost8991 So far mostly by just trying things, clicking in different environments and trying to figure out what things sound like. On walks or skiing across fields I try to hear echoes from forests or barns, and I used to go to my old school area on late winter evenings to try echolocation around the buildings. Just try to listen to everything. You know by looking what's around you, so eventually by trying enough you'll learn to connect the dots and start visualizing what you hear around you. That's my theory anyways, I'm still at the stage of figuring out what things sound like and far from visualization..
Definitely a really interesting topic. Due to poor health, I've found my vision to become intermittent after playing badminton over 30-90 minutes. Despite not consciously seeing much, I can still hit the shuttle just as consistently as normal.
Ive had something similar with migraines causing me to not be able to see but still being able to recognize objects and even read despite an aura blocking basically all my vision
Diving into the wonders of the human body is awesome. One of my favorite topics cause we act like we know ourselves, but don't realize how magical we actually are. Life is incredible.
My father suffered an atypical stroke a few years ago. He was blind but could still react to things and even seem to see some detail from time to time, but couldn’t describe what he had seen or understand what he was going on. Was both fascinating and sad.
Its as if sight and our awareness of sight are two distinctly different things.
I have known blind piano tuners who echolocated. It is also said that the brains of tuners who tune entirely by ear have measurably different brains than those who use tuning machines, sighted or not. Also, in creating eyeglasses with prisms, some studies have been done (I wish I could site the source - I think this is primarily a story told by the optometrist who was trying to make glasses for me that would help my vision stop getting in the way of my hearing - before my autism diagnosis) where an optometrist was changing filters for a blind person who was there and at one point, that person could tell where the flowers were in the room. They had smelled, them, but didn't know where they were until the right filter was in front of them.
Even people who don't use echolocation I suspect use their ears to map their environments a lot more than they realize. I've long held a pet theory that that "there's someone watching me/there's something behind me" feeling is the result of your ears picking up information your eyes haven't spotted yet, and my younger brother independently noted that his sense of those things completely vanishes when he wears headphones. Yet another reason not to plug in while out walking alone.
That could also be the headphones blocking sub-sonic sounds, a la the "Ghost Effect"
I'm a teenager, your channel is the science channel i appreciate the most and is also very entertaining as well, for some reason i do not want you to change anything unless you feel it's better that way
Stay curious, please, because too many people are not.
Sci=Show channel and of course Kurzgesagt are both loaded with bangers too (although Kurzgesagt does feel like it's there to educate 11=yearolds sometimes)
I remember doing the blind spot experiment in highschool. It was pretty cool, didn't know it was a thing, and everything told me it doesn't sound right. However you can take an object, place it in front of your eyes, and slowly move the object around. Sooner or later you will find a spot where its disappeared from one eyes vision.
In case you don't know why the blind spots exist, it's because the nerves (and blood vessels) of the retina sit in front of the light sensitive cells. All of those nerves and blood vessels have to get to the back of the retina somehow and somewhere. They all pass through the retina at the same place and so there's no room for light sensing cells there. We can't usually notice the blind spots for several reasons: while both eyes have a blind spot the two blind spots aren't in the same place on the visual field so they cover for each other, the blind spots are off in our peripheral vision where we can't see detail anyway, our eyes are constantly moving around to look at things and so we're aware of what's at the blind spot even if we can't see it "right now", and lastly our brain does what our brain always does and edits out the hole in our vision by assuming that the surrounding visual features are also present in that spot (even if we just moved a finger into the blind spot and now there's no finger to be seen 8).
To add to gildedbear’s comment, our retina works that way because they grew in backwards millions of years ago in our furthest common ancestors and has fucked us over ever since. Meanwhile, cephalopods like squids and octopuses have retinas growing in the right direction, and have their optic nerves _behind_ the retina, not on top of it, and therefore have no blind spot.
@@Appletank8 Just goes to show that evolution only cares if something works, not how well it works.
I believe I heard that is the spot on the retina where the nerves enter / exit the eye so there are no cones or rods there.
I have a strange way of navigating. I don't really use my eyes so much as I use an internal visualization of my surroundings. This has lead to interesting situations like turning off a light, navigating partway through a dark cluttered room and only realizing that I can't see at all only after getting most of the way through the room. Because I was using my mental model and memory of the room. This also makes for annoying situations where closing my eyes don't stop me from "seeing" the rest of my bedroom and difficulty falling a sleep because I feel like my eyes are open. If I hear the cats, my mind will integrate that into my "vision" and I'll think I see the cats where I think I hear them.
Ive experienced this before. Fascinating, perhaps from a time before artificial light when a mental model was absolutely necessary to escape predation.
You probably also have a good proprioception sense
@@BodyMusicification Good point. I wonder how accurate this is for most people. I've always taken it for granted that I can do pretty decent dead reckoning navigation with my eyes closed. On this subject, I actually find that when I need to make quick and accurate movements, sometimes looking away or even closing my eyes allows for BETTER accuracy. Like this one time I was attempting to unload my wife's vehicle that had a bunch of stuff and parked close against the wall of the garage. After the 3rd or 4th time that I hit the body of the car trying to get these things out quickly, I started closing my eyes before getting out and suddenly I stopped hitting stuff. My theory is that integrating my vision is slower and less accurate than using my minds eye and proprioception.
Try doing that in a place you don't know, I thought I could see well in the dark because I can do the same but it turned out it only applied to places I knew.
I know my house perfectly and can navigate it blindfolded without issue this is untrained imagine what training can do
2:16 The human eye has a cornea on the outer surface, but the lens is INSIDE the eye and acts as the focusing agent for the light onto the retina. We don't have a "lens called the cornea on top".
To me, it was really fascinating to learn, that we constantly 'see' our own nose, but our brain doesn't completely filters it out.
Try drawing a little coloured dot on the side of your nose. You'll notice it then.
Wait until you grow a hair on the tip of your nose. You'll find out your brain doesn't filter it out completely!!!
this put me at ease for if i ever go blind lol. we as humans are very adaptive but its so interesting to know sight isn't just in the eyes. you can see in a way without them. that's so cool
I have Aphantasia aka mind blindness, not able to produce mental imagery. But, I do have closed and open eyed visuals, which is the name for non psychosis hallucinations. At least I think, thats the only name I can find for it. I see a deep indigo color over my vision with my eyes open and closed. Its only ever been the same thing and never anything else. Its like a translucent light thats constantly in motion and moving like a lava lamp but with cascading flashing light as well. Its always there it just changes in transparency, and so most of the time my brain filters it out when its really translucent but it leaves my vision not completely sharp. Its the most intense the more relaxed I am and can be like a full on light show. But Im not able to picture anything in my mind, its totally blank. I have no inner audio either.
Wow thats incredible. Can i ask what age you first noticed that?
I wonder if this could be a form of synesthesia...? Really neat stuff, thanks for sharing
Aphantasia is something my anxious and imaginative mind just can't comprehend!
If you have no internal audio or visuals how do you think? What’s the alternative?
I would like to recommend lots of meditation for you. Just meditate on nothing at all, keeping your focus between the brows. Do this as much as possible, you will begin to learn and see past the colors. If you remain focused between the brows you will get a swirling deep indigo color, swirling in or swirling out. Please do start the practice of meditation often, you wont regret it. Wishing you the best!
I've noticed when working and comparing numbers, my eyes naturally drift towards the correct numbers without me consciously thinking about it. It's facinating.
Ohhh.... Does that work on tests? LOL.
This topic is so fascinating. Thank you so much for creating and sharing it.
Amazing facts about the blind and the brain that I had no idea about! Thank you RS! This topic really had me thinking about how much of our full brain capacity we don't use.
I think it's down to the parts of the brain that don't arise in consciousness. Still doing things like storing memories, collecting sensory information, and avoiding danger, all while never being noticed by our conscious mind.
Fascinating. When you explained that "seeing with clicks" is like a flashlight flashing for an instant it made total sense (like a strobe light on a night club). But it made me remember that I learnt from documentaries how bats increase or decrease their clicks to be able to locate better, like right before catching their prey they increase it a lot. Maybe blind people who echo locate could or do the same thing. I wonder if anybody has tried it yet and if it helps them even better
It's funny that you thought of strobelight in nightclubs where as my defauit analogous memory was that scene in Saw 1 where the photographer is trying to navigate around his house with just the flash on his camerabefore the inevitable jump scare happens. This is also super ironic to me because I spent half my adult life working in and/ or enjoying night clubs. A good lighting system can make you feel like you're literally in a glitch The Matrix.
I think a variable click rate would be a great thing because you have to figure sometimes you need more information and sometimes you just want to have a seated conversation.
Fun fact, after helmets were introduced for the first time in world war 1, there was a steep increase in head injuries. This was due to more soldiers surviving a hit to the head, thus increasing the injury rate vs death rate.
ah yes, the survivor's bias
I was born w bad eyesight, pretty darn bad. It wasn't discovered until like 4th grade. Very nearsighted. But yea my hearing has always been really super. Even today when im much older and spent years blasting loud music. My ears have always alerted me of things near and far and way before anyone around me. One time at night I even heard a spider climbing up a sheet hanging off the side of my bed. No joke, stealthy wolf spider and I heard its footsteps on fabric.. lol. Thank god too because it would have been on me if i hadn't.
It is amazing how complex the human brain is and how it analyzes information, despite even having cognitive hindrances leaving one to believe it would be impossible to do so.
The rudder is amazing, but I have to give some love to those cap rails! Great job
I was in a car accident that gave me a lazy eye, I was amazed when I learned it was from brain damage from the concussion and my eyes were both perfectly healthy. One cause (and mine) of lazy eye is double vision, when the brain can't process both images together so it turns one eye away so it's easier to ignore that information. However I also will admit I hate when car collisions are called "accidents" because ignoring the rules of the road is not an accident and can permanently fuck someone up.
this is such a great topic for philosophers. great content.
2:14 - " ... a lens called the cornea ..."? That is a very poorly-worded sentence. The cornea and the lens (which wasn't even listed among the parts of the eye) are two separate structures.
About echolocation - it's interesting to think that for the majority or their existence, mamals were small, nocturnal, ground dwelling creatures (in contrast to most other vertibrates) that relied on senses besides vision. You can see that in how mammalian eyes often lack cones, and are often suited to low light environments. I wonder if there aren't other mamal species that echolocate to a degree that isn't obvious. Deer whistling comes to mind.
I was literally just commenting on a video recommending the book "Blindsight" by Peter Watts, and this popped up on my recommended. I'm sure the KZhead algos picked up on it, but your videos usually pop up on my recommended anyway, so great timing!
So what would visual-cortex-damaged people "see" when given hallucinogenic substances? Like LSD for example.
This is an extremely common question you should google it, really interesting and differs between people.
I just recalled something relevant to this, and specifically to blind sight. In a visual novel about disabled high schoolers, one of the characters, who was born blind, could still form a mental image of what the protagonist's face looks like based on touch alone, and she commented that she thought he was quite handsome.
another amazing and intriguing video
this reminds of of david eagleman's research of extending human senses i remember the demonstration of the skin of someone's back being used as a makeshift retina, stimulus comes as touch laid on the 2D surface of the back
I think a really simplified example of how this works is like when you’re trying to find a stud in a wall. You can’t see through the wall obviously, but by knocking you can tell where a stud is. A lot of times when I’m doing this I feel like I can see or have some sense of where the stud begins and ends width wise from a single knock
As a child i couldnt be in the house if the parents were watching a scary movie, especially one with exceptional sound design, because even if i was in another room or had my eyes shut, i could "see" the terror on screen in my minds eye.
I wonder if a sighted person could learn echolocation just as easily as a blind person, or would the brain override the synapse creation with visual stimuli? I would love to learn that skill, if for no other reason than "seeing" in the dark.
Your videos are always A-Grade studies of any given subject, but I have to say that this one is really really _Super_ good. I didn't know about a lot of this phenomenon despite studying psychology, listening to many science podcasts for years, and having an actively seeking knowledge on my fascination with human and animal perception. SSUUUUUUPERR GOODDD 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟💯
This is interesting I had an eye exam about 15-20 years that one of my eyes should not see anything at all, but I saw perfectly. What they concluded is my brain made it possible for me to see through both eyes yet one was blind
Can't thank you enough for videos like these! I am an engineering student but I made notes of this video and love to learn about biology and chemistry :)
Brilliant, as always 👏 👍
I’m fully sighted but there have been quite a few times when my eyes closed before I even realized there was something flying at them. The idea that decisions are being made entirely in the subconscious is fascinating, it reminds me of CGP grey’s video “you are two”
13:19 "The human brain is the most complex form of matter in the universe" -The human brain
The whole human body along with brain and other organs/part is just insane, there is just no words to describe about them.
Fascinating 😮
11:25 This would certainly explain why I have occasionally been spooked by something before I realized I saw it
I’ve been blind now for a little over 11 years and those hallucinations still persists here and I’m glad for it and I also have a good conscious of memory or what to correlate so becoming blind aren’t as horrible as I thought it’s more an inconvenience than anything but yeah, if I could, I would like to get my vision back immediately
Really great video here!
That was a nice slide into a plug, did not see that coming. Kudos
I am mind blown at the inner workings of the brain. The entire processes of passing on information via chemicals and electrical energy.
and also your eyes usually jump around rather than moving smoothly, which the brain corrects for not by simply ignoring the time in between. for years now i’ve been able to look around in my peripheral vision more actively and follow faster moving objects, and usually when doctors do that test where you follow a light or their finger or whatever, my eyes stop moving halfway thru because my brain decides actually moving my eyes wasn’t important enough, so i have some personal experience that gives me some insight on how it might work. the analogy i use is like pointing a camera at a screen (but no moire), you can move the camera around, and look at different things. basically the brain subtracts where it’s trying to look with where the eyes go, to figure out how to move around what’s coming in, before it goes thru most processing. the bit about there being another path to the amygdala seems relevant here, since i gained this ability while i was extremely depressed, with depression increasing while looking at people, especially their eyes, and that this helped prevent that, suggests that the amygdala gets the raw signal in and is where the depression affects your perception of those around you, while stuff after it does what i’d talked about above. it’s a pretty neat thing to be able to do, sometimes i can get what feels like reverse tunnel vision and give up detail for more awareness of my surroundings, and it’s given me a look at some of how the brain visually processes the world around us.
the book I am reading makes a really strong case for smell being way more important than anything else.
"They thought the damaged eyes might still be providing information" so do the test again and blindfold them, seems simple enough
Dr jordan peterson was talking about this year's ago in an old lecture when he was explaining how we see things as their utility before we see them as objects, he said we don't see a cliff we see a falling off place lol, and how people who have damaged eyes can still detect things
Awesome program.👍😁
It is realy amazing what the brain can do. I think one reason we don't notice our blind spots is because we have two eyes, they must fill in each others games when the signals hit the brain. That being said I wonder how it's like for someone who has adapted to only using one eye.
this video made me self-diagnose blindsight when every doctor I've seen didn't say anything
perfect ❤
On one occasion during psychosis I was able to see my whole apartment with my eyes closed, even walking around it was just like seeing with my eyes open. I've found a few different case of others that could do this all the time that were not in psychosis. If we could find what allows for the mind to see with the eyes closed, it could help the bind to see just like every one else, only with there minds eye instead!
I think you're just talking about imagination. I can close my eyes and picture my apartment end even walk around in it. But will my actual apartment line up with my mental model? That just takes practice. My cousin who went blind did exactly that by memorizing how many steps to each room and object. I don't believe in metaphysical stuff but I did once find a lost set of keys with my eyes closed. That was a bit trippy.
Great video Thank you
This video made me think of Eşref Armağan, a Turkish painter who was born blind but who understands colour and is capable of using it in his paintings (check out the painting he made for Volvo to see an example). I love that this is even possible and I love how baffling it is to me. There's also a research paper about Armağan, where two researchers monitored his brain activity while he painted. I highly recommend checking out the article, you can find it in the references on the English wikipedia page about Eşref Armağan.
As a newly blind person (under 5 years) with a brain injury (my blindness is in my visual cortex) it’s amazing what my brain still helps.. it remembers places and unless something is changed from what my brain remembers I can navigate it
How did you type this comment?
@@rickyrickstan563 with Siri and blindness doesn’t mean total that’s a really ignorant comment
I think that with having vision through the eyes is all just a distraction. When you’re not able to see through your eyes, your brain will find another way to detect, visualize, and sense things around you through mental images. So, you choose to focus and tune into something using your other senses. I was looking for a video that shows you how to see objects in front of you when you’re blindfolded. Which I know is possible but I’m very interested and eager to learn!
Can you guys make a video about the pineal gland, very interesting subject
It's really cool to know that the concept of the superhero character Matthew Murdock's/Daredevil's superhuman abilities are actually more in common with reality than I would've ever thought possible. Though of course Daredevil's abilities went far beyond the abilities of real echolocator individuals. Like Batman, Daredevil in my esteem is now a somewhat "grounded" superhero.
I just had two eye surgeries on my right eye which is my good eye meaning I've been effectively blind for about a month now (I only have peripheral vision in my left eye) so having eye related videos come out right now is really weird for me lmao
I'd also like to point out that 100% blindness is nearly a myth in a person. Rarely does one loose all aspects of sight. Many blind people simply can't focus on details but their vision is flooded with shading of light to the point they can distinguish solid objects from those otherwise.
I was cited until Halloween 2004 when I went completely blind from two detach retinas. I do things on a daily basis that makes people think that I am not blind. I love this video. Now, I do not believe it is safe for a blind person to do echo location without a cane. I do not see how they can locate the curves or small objects. I use echo location with my cane, since I walk really fast. Also, I like to tell people that I heard something that either isn’t making noice or doesn’t make noice.
Nice real engineering plug there
This would be a great use of the mindvideo technology. Which uses ai to create a video based on electrical impulses in the brain and by showing someone a video of something the ai can produce a remarkably similar video.
Loved this on Nebula. Leaving a comment here because it’s good for the algorithm.
where do you find so much information on topics?
On the damage to the visual cortex, is it possible its the connections between the visual and prefrontal cortex that are damaged, preventing communication with the more conscious thought areas but leaving connections with more unconscious regions intact
Back in the early '90s I had this same idea to design something to do echo location for blind people. But I didn't have the technical skills or equipment to pull it off. I am so glad to hear that it became a real thing. Re Brilliant, I wish the gov't could come up with a federal grant to make it free to everyone. It's far too valuable to be kept behind a pay only portal. Speaking of that alternate path in the visual system, I wonder if that accounts for highway hypnosis? I have always attributed highway hypnosis to attention, in that you only remember what your attention is on so if you are day dreaming while driving, your fresh memories are only aware of what you were thinking about, not what you were in fact looking at. But maybe there is more there. Maybe the memories and consciousness is only aware of what passes through the one main path even though there are other paths. Does the imagination appear as a portion of the brain distinct from the visual cortex?
Reminds me of the amazing game "Dark Echo" where you move without any light or sight.
Fascinating details. Especially about the blindsight (I knew at least some of the stuff about human echolocation already). Thanks for doing this! However, despite the popular view, we actually have *eight* senses. Not mentioned: vestibular (balance) sense; proprioceptive (where body parts are in relation to each other and in space); and interoceptive (bodily sensations related to organs, temperature, and pain). So what percentages do those involve with experience and learning?
Another vision sense i read about years ago: under your eyes above your cheekbones there is light sensors in or under the skin that sense the amount of long term light, these give you a sense of the seasons. Of course with modern man, the non natural light can throw it off, or you were raised near equator you learn to ignore it.
The latter two are derivative of your sense of touch while the first is derivative from your sense of hearing + vision.
I wonder if this could be a partial explanation for reports outer body experiences..
Carpe Diem is my motto. If you watched the 70's TV series " Kung Fu ". Master Po, Kwai Chan Caine tutor monk, capabilities weren't completely fantasy, it was based on a real human capability to process visual input and output spatial information, all without having visual sensation. " How you can't see it (the cricket/grasshoper on his sandal) ?.." Master Po to K.C.C, since then "grasshoper" became his moniker.
I can see, but my friend says I have eyeballs in my fingertips. I know I mainly shut off my other senses when I'm doing it, because changing one sense into another is hard... but I AM "seeing" what I'm touching when I do it.
🙌🏻
The real engineering on that phone was subtle😂
I wonder if there is any way a sighted person learn echolocate like blind people. Seriously doubt it but the brain is to powerful I can't help but think with crazy dedication it could be possible
It took me forever to realize that eyes were literally just extensions of the brain that can gather sensory input
You can see perfectly in your dreams. You can induce light you see with your eye lids closed. Both would be impossible if the physical eye ball(s) was the only mechanism of vision.
I've always wondered how it is possible for my eyelids to automatically close themselves when cycling at full speed and encountering a tiny fly head on. Somehow it closes just in time, bouncing the fly off and then a millisecond after it happened I receive the realization it just happened. So interesting that /something/ decides to bypass the default path and choose the quick reflex one instead.
If the image hallucinations stop after about to years its possible the brain is trying to remap or repair the area.
It's hard to fathom what people who have never seen imagine when thinking about people who can see.
Thus has happened to me many times. I've even interpreted another language without knowing once.
But in that 1% you learn with your taste, trust, that's a lesson you'll never forget!
Funny thing, I do indoor bouldering and during the peak of covid, I'd see people's facial expressions in my memories instead of their masks. Brains be wild
My eyes are fine, though even I have dodged plenty of doors, stopped in front of walls and such, or avoided banging my head against things hanging from the ceiling - in the dark. Ambient sounds, my own footsteps, talking and even my breathing helped me in those cases. Yes, I run around in the dark a lot.
Great now I'm manually blinking.
Can people with blindsight detect (subconsciously) things that our body senses as danger? like evading a thrown ball to the head even though they can't see the ball.... since our body seems to go out of its way to protect us from harm
13:16 You don't know that. The universe is a big place.
This video doesn't seem to be doing as well as the others on this channel... I hope that view count picks up! Thanks for the always excellent content!
That's why I lower music volume while parking
the speed of light vs sound has no bearing on relative "importance"