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Comment by modernerd | Hacker News Reader

Daniel Kish was featured in Derren Brown's 'Misdirection' series. The clip here shows him using echolocation to describe the shape of a car and ride a bike: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFcvixIRxs

'You might think of it like being in a choir or an orchestra... The world is like a living symphony... This car is kind of like an instrument, except that, instead of making its own sound, it's reflecting sounds I'm making.'

Extraordinary.

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Indeed! Unfortunatly we will never be able to practice Echolocation. Imagine if we are able to give him back vision.... What will he be able to do from there !

Why won't we be able to practice echolocation? There's nothing stopping you (apart from the fact that it's not very useful when you can see)...

Well when you grow up without any vision, your other senses develops at a much faster rate, especially the hearing. Because we grew up with vision, we know what it is to see and our ears will never have the capability to develop the same way.

The article mentions that he has successfully taught echolocation to someone that lost sight at 14 years old, so you seem to be underestimating the powers of the human brain.

Then it is a field that we must take advantage of. We are barely using the full capacity of our senses; we're too lazy with our eyes. It's something we should consider in the future, try to develop the human senses.... I'm sure there's a little budget for that in the 3 trillion they spend on military ventures!

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