Id like to chime in about Beethoven, although his ears began to fail, his brain did not, still allowing him internal audition. After a while of studying music, one becomes able to represent pitch and different pitch relations internally (can you think a melody to a tune without singing it?; can you use solfege [do, a deer, a female deer, re (ray) a drop of goldel sun...] to hear pitch relationships?) All in all, professional musicians can read and compose music internally, so although he was unable to really hear the music aurally, by reading it or composing he could hear it internaly. Im not saying there wasn't any tactile overlap, but i strongly doubt he was dependent on such things in anyway.
That being said, could you imagine a life never having heard anything? What would you correlate your tactile vibrations to if you never knew sound? How would you pick up language and verbal communication if you were not exposed to the prosody and syntax of language continuously as a child? Again, although beind blind is extremely detrimental to one's independence, i think being deaf is much more of a social detriment than people think, not that this was really my intention with this thread.
~Donovon
Edit, for those of you who do not know, Beethoven was not born deaf.
Would you rather... be blind or deaf?
My high school was kind of a local area "deaf hub" and had dedicated services and teachers for deaf kids. I had all the deaf kids of my year in my homeroom class and in many of my subject classes, and I remain friends with one of the deaf kids. I don't think being deaf is a serious detriment to being independent. I don't really know about the other deaf kids, but my friend Clayton is as independent as anybody else of our age that I know. Being deaf does require specialised teaching as a child, but if you receive that I don't think it's a particularly debilitating handicap.
This.Jeremy wrote:Being deaf does require specialised teaching as a child, but if you receive that I don't think it's a particularly debilitating handicap.
I was both born with moderate hearing loss in both ears, but as a result of speech pathology, socialisation and parents who took the time to work on my reading and pronunciation with me, I handle my deafness well and I speak with only a little bit of a lithp.
I have hearing aids but I mostly get along fine without them - most people can't even tell. I need to be able to look at people when they're talking to me which can be a bit intense for some people, or so I've been told. If you have your back turned to me then I won't be able to hear you clearly but other than that it's fine.
My boyfriend is a mumbler but I'm used to it
So yeah, hearing impairment is definitely better than sight impairment.
-
lotus
- Multidex Master
- Posts: 295
- Joined: 16 Apr 2007 04:50
- Location: Western Australia, Australia
- Contact:
i'm choosing blind, for a couple of reasons ...
i have always been a very visual person, from childhood into adulthood where i have worked in the fields of graphic design, painting, installation, performance art, and now wilderness photography. i often feel that along the way i may have neglected some other sensory aspects of my physical reality ... so if life was going to throw me such a surprise, i would hope it would do so to help me grow as a person and experience new sensations amidst the pain of losing my beloved sight.
focusing on the way things look all the time can make one see things in a shallow way [that girl is hot, that shirt will look good on me, that house is pretty, etc], rather than seeing through the veneer to a more honest and complete reality. a deaf person will know the exact moment when someone is about to touch their face, thus they have already prepared themselves for this reailty and the sensation will oftentimes be diminished. a blind person may be aware that someone may touch their face, but will not know the exact moment and will encounter such sensory experiences in a far less prepared, and potentially less cerebral, manner. i believe this could lead to a world full of anticipation and sensitivity well beyond that experienced by most people.
in our age of visual bombardment through media and entertainment, perhaps the loss of sight would return one somewhat back into their own skin, into a deeper knowledge of themselves and of others?
one of the nicest things i've experienced in my 37 years, was the way my first born son used to say "daddy" when he was first talking ... i have no record of it now, as i never recorded audio or video of him saying it in that soft, loving way that he did ... if i was not such a visual person, i feel it may still be with me to this day
.
i have always been a very visual person, from childhood into adulthood where i have worked in the fields of graphic design, painting, installation, performance art, and now wilderness photography. i often feel that along the way i may have neglected some other sensory aspects of my physical reality ... so if life was going to throw me such a surprise, i would hope it would do so to help me grow as a person and experience new sensations amidst the pain of losing my beloved sight.
focusing on the way things look all the time can make one see things in a shallow way [that girl is hot, that shirt will look good on me, that house is pretty, etc], rather than seeing through the veneer to a more honest and complete reality. a deaf person will know the exact moment when someone is about to touch their face, thus they have already prepared themselves for this reailty and the sensation will oftentimes be diminished. a blind person may be aware that someone may touch their face, but will not know the exact moment and will encounter such sensory experiences in a far less prepared, and potentially less cerebral, manner. i believe this could lead to a world full of anticipation and sensitivity well beyond that experienced by most people.
in our age of visual bombardment through media and entertainment, perhaps the loss of sight would return one somewhat back into their own skin, into a deeper knowledge of themselves and of others?
one of the nicest things i've experienced in my 37 years, was the way my first born son used to say "daddy" when he was first talking ... i have no record of it now, as i never recorded audio or video of him saying it in that soft, loving way that he did ... if i was not such a visual person, i feel it may still be with me to this day
.