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Comment by evanriley | Hacker News Reader

I have a (fairly stupid) question after reading this...

Is the human brain hard-coded for vision through eyes or is it possible to a (at least similar) form of vision without eyes, or like a much less exaggerated form of sonar like Daredevil, is the human brain REALLY that adaptable?

In an attempt to restore vision to those that lost it, is their a way to mentally rehab someone to "see" in a different way?

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I read about a blind guy who had a camera hooked up to an array of electrodes on his back and eventually was able to 'see' using it. That was a long time ago, but it looks like it's still a thing nowadays, see 'Brainport' [1] and 'Visual Prosthesis' [2] (aka 'bionic eye'). It's amazing how plastic brains and nervous systems seem to be!

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-blind...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis

That’s amazing and actually reminds me of a book I read about young Merlin. As a child Merlin was blinded but learned to “see” by sensing objects with magic. Eventually he became so good at it that even though he didn’t use his eyes, it was just as good as normal sight.

Very much so. Besides adaptation like Human Echolocation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation), there is also active research for devices to help. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_substitution#Tactile%E... for example, and there are videos of the various devices in use by blind people, eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s1VAVcM8s8

This episode of the 20,000 Hz podcast talks about blind gamers able to play Killer Instint solely by listening to the audio. Players gave input to Microsoft on how they could make the game even more accessible by tweaking the audio cues, and Microsoft patched the game in response. Amazing.

https://www.20k.org/episodes/levelup about 16 minutes in.

Microsoft has been doing some great things for accessibility in gaming. Whether it’s because the CEO has a profoundly disabled son or unrelated, it is great for so many disabled people for whom gaming is a deliciously escapist experience.

People who cannot see often turn to echolocation: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/echolocation-blind-p...

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