You die and your consciousness wakes up in a void. You have none of the 5 senses - no external stimuli at all. Do you think it would be possible to learn anything new just by rehashing things from memory or does learning require external stimuli?

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    4·
    22 hours ago

    Requires external stimuli. The human brain is kind of designed to take in lots of information and process it. Interact with things etc.

    • naeap@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      17 hours ago

      If I remember that correctly, the brain mostly interacts with itself and only a little part is new “outside” information

      The work we experience is just a construct of our brain and it wouldn’t be stable, if it only relied on external stimuli.
      As for example our eyes don’t really take in a full picture, but only small parts, and the brain uses existing models to adapt to the new inputs.

      So we’re mostly living in our heads anyway.

      Edit: but yeah, without any external inputs, I’m not sure what that model could look like and if it would be functional in any way - although functional always is linked with the physical surroundings and if the expectations are met.
      The only thing, I can think of, is basic logic and math, that wouldn’t require external input

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        1·
        17 hours ago

        As far as I remember, these experiments have been done. Like letting people float in luke warm water in complete darkness and depriving them of any sensory input. And that seems to lead to hallucinations, anxiety… And is more a turture method than anything else. I’m not sure if the brain takes permanent damage from that. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t like it.

        Sure, the brain is more tightly interconnected within itself, than it is coupled to the outside world. But I think that holds true for lots of complex systems other than the brain. Their thing is to be tightly coupled on the inside and more loosely to the outside. But the whole point of the brain is to be a computer which forms models about the world. That’s why evolution gave us a (more advanced) brain. It’s kind of pointless without an interactive connection to the world. And not designed for that.