Comment by ecjhdnc2025
1 year ago
She uses the word consciousness but she was clearly conscious beforehand, in terms of the definition: awareness of surroundings and knowledge. She was remarkably capable and had come up with untrained signs for wants and needs. She wasn't a blank canvas with no ability and no information.
Really what she is describing is the development of her self-consciousness, self-image, self-awareness, and awareness of the process of thinking within that, that comes from being introduced to language.
On the wikipedia page for her there is a quote:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!
It is as if what she's saying is that the loss of her sight and hearing locked her away from a dim sense of who she was before.
Most of us can't remember things from 19 months old as adults and likely wouldn't have been able to remember them at the age of seven. But she was locked away with sense memories of her 19-month-old experience of the world for all that time.
Her writing really is fascinating and eloquent. It brings to mind Harold Bloom's theory that Shakespeare essentially invented a terminology and model for describing our inner monologues.
It depresses me that there will now be a phalanx of motivated reasoners trying to shoehorn her story somewhere into their projections onto the current technological obsession.
Your comment reminded me a time during my childhood (age 4 to 7 or so) in which I did not have a strong concept of being a discrete person from my younger sister. At the time, we used to confuse our memories. We were never sure if we were remembering our own experience, or the other sister's recollection of her experience. It's like we were sharing one collective identity, until we were old enough to have formed stronger senses of self.
Right - when you’re very young, what you think in your head and what you model of the outside world don’t have the boundaries that we have as adults. Like, I have a nearly physical sense of my thoughts being behind my eyes and between my ears, now. But I also remember falling down the stairs as a young kid… only it actually wasn’t me who fell, it was my sister.
I have a hilarious photo of my then very young nephew, who was hiding from us behind a curtain, but only his face is covered. I think about it often when I wonder if my perception of the world is actually still that removed from that of others.
I think it's important to understand that being an adult doesn't magically make you immune to this. I wonder how many people's childhood memories are heavily shaped by retellings of other people and photographs or videos.
The reason you remember falling down the stairs is that this was a big and important event and there was a lot of pain and fear and you heavily empathized with the person it happened to. Empathy in children is often more direct and unfiltered but this is also not unique to children. The pain and hurt and fear happened to you, it just wasn't yours directly. You didn't physically fall down those stairs but you experienced the event itself. This can still happen as an adult.
It's not so much that memories are unreliable, it's more that our self-narratives are unreliable. We have memories of moments and emotions that feel intense or important but it can be difficult to lump them into a coherent narrative, especially when that narrative contradicts how we think of ourselves.
That photo of your nephew on the other hand demonstrates the cognitive development of Theory of Mind: your nephew likely wasn't yet able to understand that other people know and see different things than he does.
EDIT: To help get the point across about adults not being immune: this is essentially the basis for how propaganda works. National pride doesn't make sense if you look at it from your self-narrative: none of the accomplishments are your own and your association with them is completely arbitrary. Likewise nothing "your enemy" has done likely happened to you personally - often it didn't even happen to "your country". And yet you're taught to heavily empathize with "your enemy's" alleged victims and to dehumanize "your country's". The brave Mujahideen warriors defend the innocent Afghan people from the Soviet brutes - it could happen here - only to later return as the crazed Taliban who hate our freedom and need to be defeated because they want to hurt your family. None of this ever was true but it felt emotionally true.
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My twin and I often have these experiences, even for events which occurred in our teenaged lives. Who did do what..?
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I've gotta wonder at what priors of the HN gender ratio we must have, to prompt this comment?
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> consciousness ... definition: awareness of surroundings and knowledge
A stone is conscious: when it's cold, its inner state reflects its surroundings. Abrasion marks is long term information: knowledge.
Consciousness does not have a good definition. It is something very specific in humans, compared to other animals. Language and spatial relation of time seem to play an important role.
What I was initially imagining was a complete lack on sensory information and was trying to image what type of mind would emerge from that.
Inside a sensory deprivation chamber I have experienced losing your sense of time, space has no meaning, therefore your mind just assumes that you take up all the space. But you don't keep spiraling down into unconsciousness only to awaken later. The mind eventually settles down and you are very much conscious except any concerns relating to your body and others quickly become distant memories of long forgotten dreams.
That's the reaction of a mind used to sensory input being cut off. How would a mind with not sensory input from the start evolve?. That would more closely resemble what Helen Keller first talks about about not knowing what she was. I'm both fascinated to know and terrified and hope I never do.
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This is similar to what happened to Eve and Adam when they ate from the tree of knowledge. Became self aware, aware of their nakedness. Man became aware of their vulnerabilities, death and so on.
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