andy_d

Common sense would indeed indicate that even if deprived of sight, organisms would develop sensory capabilities that matched their needs.

They wouldn't simply be like us but lacking sight. They could easily be able to sense their environment as effectively as us. Therefore, there isn't any major barrier to them developing methods of investigating that environment (ie: science)

Re: geometry.
Many animals have senses beyond our 5. They can sense magnetic fields, movement, heat, etc. Even sound can map objects.

Sight isn't the only way to build up a detailed 3D picture of your environment.

sophie

andy_d : Common sense would indeed indicate that even if deprived of sight, organisms would develop sensory capabilities that matched their needs.

What about limits of evolution, limits to which energy and matter can combine to produce inverse relationships to what is out there. You must admit viability admits to itself an inverse relationship to envoronment. Admittably, if there is no man eating tiger, we would hardly have to rub smelly stuff over us to discourage the puss.

andy_d : Therefore, there isn't any major barrier to them developing methods of investigating that environment

I believe there is a major barrier and this is embedded in the nature of energy and the resulting mass-energy, entropic relationships which resulted from the big-boom-boom-bang.

leyline

the question is

Suppose mankind evolved without eyesight. You know, the planet was really foggy and dark or something, and too damp for fire or whatever. Would the history of science still be possible? Would the theory of relativity still be developed for example by using geometry in mathematics?

i think all of us would agree that if we developed electromagnetic sensory aids, or evolved bat like ways of creating images, that there doesn't seem to be much of a problem. But what do we need to develope those gadgets? And personally its been a long while since i uttered an ultrasonic squeak, and it had nowt to do with geometry.

The point is, is our eyesight the thing that crucially enables us to develope the history of science, and what philosophical implications might there be if the answer is yes.

Celsus

Ok, in that case, the question is silly. At least a plausible question worth asking might be: Suppose we were dolphins and didn't have opposable thumbs (and even then, who knows? Who cares?). Is there a larger point trying to be made? Evolutionary development of light sensitive cells is an extremely easy step to take, while sonar, electricity, light emission, etc. though difficult steps, have since been done, multiple times and independently.

The questions asked only show ignorance of evolution. Would a highly developed animal with strong cognitive ability ever develop sentience without an external detection organ? Obviously not, because higher order animals need to kill or avoid being killed--just about everything from amoeba to blue whales have light-sensitive or other detection organs because the evolutionary advantages outweigh the costs so heavily. Cognition is a far more expensive evolutionary development than simple sensory equipment--and leaps are never favoured. In such a dull world where any sensory organs are unnecessary, then there would be no race in the development of cognition and other survival skills and hence no sentience would occur (sentient fungal blooms anyone?).

So the point is, any rhetorical points you are trying to score are undermined by your ignorance of evolutionary processes.

Joel

leyline

just to compound my ignorance and further your authority, and deep philosophical insight...........

my view of evolution is not that it is some form of progress, but an adaptation to the environment. This can include 'degenerative' evolution in your oh so superior understanding. eg some fish have 'evolved' to lose their eyesight under no light environments. Similarly for us before the developement of science if the conditions had demanded it.

But the real question is about the relationship of our human senses to the developement of the scientific paradigm. We could shift the debate to one of purely concentrating on whether we can imagine the scenario ever occuring in evolution, 'ignorantly ' or otherwise, and avoid the context of the original question altogether unless we can prove it is possible. But to do so would forbid ever considering how science is related in the sensory or evolutionary context at all since it cannot be proved.

"Suppose we were dolphins and didn't have opposable thumbs (and even then, who knows? Who cares?)."

What insight and creativide imagination! And so final too. Its a brilliant philosophical arguement for not discussing the topic further.

Who cares indeed, and in what sense?