A Figment of my Imagination

To lose one eye when you have two is unfortunate, but to lose an eye when you only had one to begin with is nothing short of a catastrophe

In general, as we grow older, our imagination diminishes. Such a shame, I’m still trying to cling to mine. It’s all that I’ve got going for me. Being able to pull crazy ideas out of the air is something I’ve gained some notoriety for…well no, I haven’t. The only thing I am notorious for is not being notorious. It should probably stay that way, maintaining a reputation is hard work. Being a nobody means you can do what you want and nobody cares. Obviously, it also means that nobody cares when you do something worth notice – like solve the meaning of life, cure cancer, or end world peace. It just so happens I’ve done all of those things over the past week – at least I have in my mind.

Huzzah for the mind! Huzzah! Of course anything is possible - especially if you have a decent imagination and the loosest grip on the social view on ‘reality’. Reality is indeed what you make of it, mainly because reality is what you perceive through your senses. You see what your eyes are capable of seeing, you feel what you can feel, and you smell what your nose can smell. It’s a fairly obvious concept. But we must remember that our senses are limited to what our sense receptors are capable of receiving.

Sight is a wonderful example of the limitations of our senses. Light is just a type of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic radiation will exhibit different characteristics based on the energy of the photon involved in the wave of radiation (my physics knowledge is limited at best). The radiation that reaches our eyes is electromagnetic radiation in the visible wavelength. The radiation can adopt other energies, starting from low energy radio waves, to the highest energy gamma radiation. Light is somewhere in the middle. The receptors in our retina are only capable of detecting light in this small region of visible light. Other animals seem to be able to see radiation of other wavelengths. For example, snakes can see in the infrared wavelength, the wavelength of radiation lower than light. Bees and some birds can see in the ultraviolet wavelengths (the wavelength higher than light). The colours we see are only a small part of the radiation bombarding us. There are sounds that we can’t hear as they are out of our frequency range, yet dogs can hear them. Moths, beetles and dogs can also smell smells that we can’t. There’s another world out there that we are incapable of detecting, sometimes I feel that we are missing out.

Whatever we sense, it influences the way our body reacts, how we behave and so on, but it will also indirectly affect our imaginations and our thoughts. If you’ve not experienced something before, you won’t be privy to the sensation therefore you won’t be able to reproduce it in your mind and thoughts. You don’t miss what you haven’t had. Somebody who is born blind has no concept of sight, as they have never experienced sight. If they suddenly did learn to see, they would probably be overwhelmed by the sensory overload as they haven’t had time to get used to it like people who were born with sight. Somebody who goes blind in later age will probably miss their sight as they have experienced the visible world, and have adapted a life to live accordingly. This is all stuff of philosophical debate, and my thoughts are bound to be challenged by other people who think I’m an absolute tit – they’re probably right. Other people usually are right. They’re other people.

We have approached an interesting point in science, where the walls between philosophical debate and scientific pursuit are becoming ever less defined. There are now bionic ears and bionic eyes. They can be hard-wired into the afferent nerves (the input nerves to the brain) to perform the function for the faulty sense organ. Prosthetics have gone from performing mechanical function for a missing leg or arm to receptive sensory function. Pretty cool stuff. But of course, there are questions which have a philosophical origin that crop up. If they implant these bionic organs in people who have never seen or heard before, what will be their reaction? Will they be able to handle the information? Especially in older people. They’d have to learn what various things are. They’d be amazed by the sight of an apple. Or they’d have to learn to understand language. How would somebody who had spent their lives as being deaf react to music? Music, one of the greatest human achievements. It can induce feelings in us-who take our senses for granted, who don’t usually appreciate the wonder of being able to hear. Imagine the reaction of this weird type of sound to somebody who had never heard before. Currently, these bionic organs are still being developed and their quality of sensing isn’t quite up to biological standard yet, but their technology is improving, and the understanding of the nervous system is also increasing as time goes on. These are the rapidly growing areas of science currently, and I deem this a pretty exciting time in these areas of science; the science of the brain and the science of mimicking nature’s glory – the advanced mammals. Imagine an artificial digestive system… you’d need a pretty strong stomach to develop something like that (no pun intended).

What is the imagination like, of somebody who has never been able to see, or somebody who has never been able to hear? Our imaginations and thoughts are composite of all the sensory information we receive. Thinking about this, makes me try to imagine what life would be like without sight – and it is a terrifying concept. I rely on my sight so much. But I’ve had all of life to get used to my eyes. If I lost my hearing, I would never hear birdsong again, or my favourite music. It is a frightful scenario for somebody who has had the privilege of having all senses working adequately and I pray that they remain functional. We do indeed take our senses for granted, they give us some perspective on the universe that we live in, and they fuel our imaginations. And without imaginations, where would we all be? For all I know, everybody in the world could just be a figment of my imagination. In which case, without certain senses, none of you would exist. In the most part, I would probably unaffected by this notion, but there are some people out there who are truly special and make life worth living – the loss of which would be personally catastrophic.