can blind people "see"?

Responding to a friend, born totally blind, who believes that she understands sight. 

 

 

I understand that you honestly believe that you have a sense of what sight is like.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Can a totally deaf person really know what hearing is like?  What do they compare it to? 

The person with no sense of smell or taste.  How do they know the sweet flavor of a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie? 

And speaking of smell.  Can we even begin to understand the complexities of what our furry friends are inhaling?  Imagine being able to smell cancer.  Or smell when a person is about to have a seizure.  We simply don't have a clue. 

45 years as a total blind man and I can still visualize colors and imagine houses, buildings, cars, parks, mountains, the moon, a sunset or a pretty girl.  But many changes have occured and I have no idea of what many new products look like.  The way people dress today is so much different than how I dress them in 1965 attire.  And what about all of the subtle facial expressions that tell another sighted person so much?  Tell me what a "twinkle in her eye" looks like.  Can you look fetchingly at a fellow across the room? 

How do you recognize an angry glare from a puzzled stare? 

No, there is no way that we totals can pretend to understand the complexities of sight.  Nor the importance of sight.  This does not mean that we are less competent than our sighted counterparts, but we do need to understand that we are not going to compete on visual terms. 

 

Curious Carl