Philosophical problem
I bumped into this whilst bonking around the ‘tubes this evening, and I found it rather interesting. The gist of it (for those of you who can’t be arsed to follow the link) is as such: a blind man learns to recognise a cube and a sphere by touch. If a cube and a sphere are placed before him, and his sight is miraculously restored, would he be able to tell them apart just by looking at them?
John Locke and William Molyneaux said no. I’m assuming that Peter Molyneaux also says no, but fuck him. Darien, on reflection, says yes. Here’s why.
First, we need to lay down some fundamental assumptions; ground rules, if you will, that were left vague in the original problem statement. Feel free to call me out on any of these if you think they "cheat" the problem in the man’s favour; to my mind, they seem to stack it against him, but what do I know anyhow.
• The only two objects the man can see are the sphere and the cube, so he can’t see (for example) the cube-like corners of the table and infer from that that the one that feels most like the edge of the table and the one that looks most like the edge of the table are the same object.
• The man has not done any complex study or preparation. He unerringly knows the difference between the objects by touch, but does not understand the mathematical principles of "sphere" and "cube," so he can’t cheat by falling back on any theoretical knowledge.
• The man has been totally blind since birth; no hazy memories to be drudged up.
Even given these strictures, I still think the man can do it. The reason is that there is one fundamental property that I believe he can translate from the tactile to the visual, and that property is regularity. The sphere looks exactly the same from any angle of view, and feels the same from any angle of touch. The cube does not, and does not. Note that this answer does not rely on the man having any preconceived notion of what things "should" look like — only the ability to recognise when two images are not identical (without which the whole experiment is moot anyhow).
Now, it is the case that this answer relies on a peculiarity of the sphere; I concede that he probably cannot, under the same conditions, distinguish a cube from an octahedron. But I don’t think that’s disingenuous on my part; those were the conditions of the problem as stated. And I do believe I’m correct. Any thoughts?
