That's exactly what I wanted to say. It's very hard to imagine how hard it is for blind people to imagine something they can't touch, hear or smell. But I guess I get it now a little bit more. When I try to imagine the real distance between the planets or the stars, or how deep is the ocean, my brain just can't do that doesn't matter how much I try
Something happened to me a few years ago. I was visiting my parents, and I was hanging out on their front porch. I could see both the sun and moon in the sky. It was late afternoon, the sun was fairly low in the west, about the time you'd need to use your sun visors in your car. The moon was just barely east of zenith, and a thin crescent. Because they appear the same size, my mind first drew an isosceles triangle between them and Earth. Then I thought about the lunar terminator. "No, that's not right, to cast that shadow on the moon the sun would have to be from that angle" and so my mind re-drew the triangle based on that, and for about a second I felt the true scale of the solar system. It...wasn't comfortable.
When you talked about the Grand Canyon, I immediately thought about how cool it would be if someone could 3D print a tangible version of it for you. A scaled model that is small enough for you to touch but large enough for you to get your fingers into so you could start at the top of a cliff and work your way down all the way to the river basin. You could feel the twists and turns carved out by the river, and how the basin narrows as it goes down to the river. Maybe there could even be an itty bitty person scaled down so that you could get an even better idea of just how giant the canyon is. You feel an itty bitty speck that is a scaled version of you, standing at the edge of the canyon. Then you feel around this tiny you, and realize "Oh wow, I am standing on the edge of something vast and deep and immense."
Jonas van Nijnatten Jonas van Nijnatten but the difference is that he doesn't have visuals connected to how he perceives the world. his whole world is the same as ours minus sight, so really if someone made what the original commenter described it would be like someone showing you or me a picture of the grand canyon. he's felt other shapes before and he understands the concept of size so relative to the other things he's felt before it would be easier for him to understand than just trying to visualize it out of nothing you know it would technically just be a concept but if you think about it everything everyone knows is just a concept. sure it wouldn't be quite like what we know as the grand canyon, but nothing in his life involving sight is the same as how it is in our lives
Jonas van Nijnatten i think he would understand size, cause you don't really need sight to understand size if you think about it. as people who can see we just tend to assign size to sight but you can feel a difference in size if you're holding a key or a box of cereal you can tell which one is bigger without looking. maybe large areas would be more difficult to conceptualize because you can't physically feel the empty space that makes up large areas but if you can understand the difference between smaller changes in size you can just apply that to a larger scale and pretty much understand. i'm not 100% sure though, i don't know anyone who is blind so i can't really confirm any of this lmao it's just a guess based on what he says in his videos
Jonas van Nijnatten yeah i completely understand that i didn't really explain very well what i meant lol. i mean that because he has never been able to see his way of determining size would be different than ours. so yeah, we do visualize items when we compare size because that's what we have always done. but to him when he was a child i think it would still be relatively easy to learn what size means and small vs large because the concept of size isn't completely reliant on sight. so we do use sight when thinking about size but it's not completely necessary. like if i handed you two completely foreign objects that you had never felt or seen before in your life and you couldn't look at them you'd still be able to determine which was larger just by feeling that one takes up more space. i think the same would apply to a blind person as long as someone explained to them the concept of size and demonstrated what small vs large was i think they could definitely be able comprehend
Actually he said if he could, he wouldnt because then he will have to learn everything in life e.g learning to know how beautiful people look etc. Though I agree with you he should definitly be the first.
loki352 I feel like if he ever got sight he would take forever to get everywhere cuz he would just be looking at everything... It would be nice though cuz he would enjoy it and not take it for granted like everyone else that c an see.
Not only need eyes and optical nerves... They'd need an implant in the brain, since his brain did not learn(!!!!) to know how to see things. He would not understand what his eyes would send. He would see no pattern. It's like seeing an abstract paint. He would still be blind, despite looking at things, he'd not see.
Daniel Rocha how would you implant something in his brain to do that though? Are you an expert on this and know this as a fact? If so thats interesting and id like to know more
Cochlear Implant recipients have been learning how to hear since the first successful operation in 1978. Recipients that were born deaf would not have had any knowledge of what "right" sound is, so they would have to learn, and they have, even without brain implants. There is much more information coming from the eyes, so learning will be more difficult and time consuming, but not impossible. Optical implants (also called "bionic eyes") already exist in simple forms and are improving in quality every year.
He didn't sound particularly upset to me, and he was smiling. I find it weird seeing people make all these comments about how sorry they feel for him... He seems curious about these things but not actually all that upset. Sometimes it seems like people are projecting their own feelings on him... he seems fine.
+junbh2 Well he has said before. It is his normal. He does not know different, so he doesn't feel like he truly lost out on anything. People who lose their sight often have a different outlook, but everyone I have met who was born blind felt this way.
It's symbolic... I will say that you did manage to take something that was meant to be nice and rip it apart. If you want to be so literal then you should have started taking my eyes out in surgery, putting them in him, and then putting them back into me. How do you know he will be in pain because of it? He seems pretty happy with his life as it is. Please be careful on how you come off. It can be offensive. Have a good one.
The Factoid Super sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude. What you said was really true, I mean I think we would all love to be able to give him sight, but what I honestly meant was, even if there was some was that you could give him your eyes for a day, how hard it would be for him to give that up. Like if you had no legs and somebody offered you legs for a day, but then at midnight took them away again. It would be pretty heartbreaking. But I did understand the idea that went into your words, and I'm very sorry to have offended you. Happy Holidays :)
candybar379 I don't think you came off as offensive in your reply (the reply you got after was unnecessarily snarky though). Anyway =) I'd have to disagree on your point, I imagine it would be a really special gift for a blind person to see even if only for a day, to look around and see the people you care about and get to keep that mental image with you is the first thing that came to mind.
candybar379 There's no telling if he would want to keep it. I imagine that so much new information all at once would be overwhelming. It can also be disconcerting if you've formed your own perception of things and imagined what things would look like, and then what you see doesn't match what you've been thinking it to be like your whole life. Does that make sense? Kind of like how you'd be a little taken aback if you've been talking to a guy online for months and he presents himself as a handsome, successful man, and you meet him and he turns out to be a bum that smells like piss.
I feel like space is just about the only thing he could maybe half visualize, because isn't space just this big space of darkness besides some stars, planets, and other space stuff? Idk, when I imagine it, besides seeing what's in the solar system, I see black with some stars floating around so besides the stars maybe he can already get a feel for what it looks like. But of course, it can never compare to actually seeing it.
+Olivia Hesson He was born blind, he doesn't know what its like to be able to see. His body and senses have adapted to it, and he doesn't rely on anything that would require his eyes. Think of it like this, the average human is able to see, but we are unable to see specific frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum with our naked eyes (radio waves, micro waves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and Gamma). To us, not being able to see those patterns of light around us is completely normal, whereas if a bee could only see what we see, it could potentially be debilitating to its life because they can also see ultraviolet radiation, and most likely make use of it (I don't know much about bees lol). Thats the best example i can think of, given what i have gathered about how he feels about his situation :)
sure it is, go to the beach, and pick out a single individual grain of sand, that is our planet, and all of the other grains in that entire beach is the universe.
Here's an interesting one: because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to get from its source to you. That means whenever you look at something, *you are literally looking backwards in time*. Light travels about 300 million meters per second, so when you look at somebody standing ten meters away, you're seeing them as they appeared 33 nanoseconds ago, which is a span of time too short to even be perceptible to humans, but when you look at the Sun, which is 149.6 million kilometers away, you're seeing it as it appeared about eight minutes ago. When you look at the Andromeda galaxy, which is 24 trillion kilometers away, you're seeing it as it appeared 2.5 million years ago.
Thank you.... for telling him about how interesting and wonderful it is to see... and how cool the concepts he doesn't understand are, like the millions and trillions of meters... PS: the data is interesting and would rock in another context, but I don't think this is the appropriate place.
Also loved the video on josh stupidstien. Keep up the good work. Also, you should consider doing more commentaries like that. It reminds me if armored skeptic
maqueterobcn Understanding concepts like millions and trillions of meters...doesn't require sight. It is probably safe to assume he has a sense through touch of basic measurements. Processing the idea of millions and billions is likely no different than anyone else's.
You really help me realize how privileged i am to have the ability to see. I think many people, including me, take sight for granted. I just want to say thank you. Your videos are amazing and you are as well.
0:42 "same colour as the daughter" that caught me SO off guard haha, had to go back twice to figure out what he actually said... gotta love this guys spirit
gmansplit SW20 for sure, the mk3 was a bit disappointing but the other 2 were certainly great, the mk2 being one of my attainable dream cars currently.
Tommy. I've been really depressed lately, but watching videos of this happy go lucky blind guy talk about anything and everything with a smile has made me feel totally and completely content for the first time in a year. Thank you so much for making me laugh and ponder and reflect.
The horizon is like the where you stop feeling something. Like if you put your finger on a table and don't move it, where your finger curves and you can't feel the table on your finger anymore.
I think the feeling of looking at something like a sunset can be likened to the feeling of listening to a really relaxing, beautiful piece of music. The different colors and their different shades are a lot like the sounds of different notes on different instruments. The instruments and notes played together the right way are like all the colors of a sunset put together the right way. Your other senses definitely affect the experience too, though.
Yes, and I notice that places where you see far tend to trigger 'beautiful, relaxing, exciting' feelings, too. It's like it feels good to your eyes to be able to stretch or something? But it feels good, like some sounds or tastes or textures just feel good to the senses.
these videos are awesome they've changed the way i view life...literally, if Tommy can be such a positive guy without sight, then I (someone with sight) should try to be positive as well.
the grand canyon part had me laughing so hard. isn't it jus a hole, like a mile deep hole? LOLOLOL. it is. and its stupidest we love it so much, but yeah its beautiful in its own majestic epicness, but ya, never thought about how stupid it really is.
"Sight must be fun" and he laughs... What a great person he is! Made me tear up a little. Love how he makes the best of it... It is amazing. God blessed this man
Tommy, the further away something is, the smaller it appears. So it's easy for a cloud to block it. Clouds appear bigger than the sun because although they're much smaller than it, they are much closer to us as well
the best way I can think of to describe the horizon to a blind person would probably be the following... 1) find the following items:rotating chair ( no backing) or some other rotating platform, a large fan, a bowl of water. 2) stand/sit on the rotating platform/chair. 3) dip your hand in water then place it close to your body (like above your heart) 4) have the fan blow on you (same height as your hand) and slowly rotate the chair/platform making sure to pay close attention to your hand. 5) notice as you turn away from the fan the wind is no longer blowing on your hand. that is the same concept as a sun setting behind the horizon.
Yeah, some of the things he says he can't grasp seem like they could be understood with a physical model. Depth perception for example. If you understand how levers work, then you can sort of understand how distance can make a difference in terms of the size of what you see. It may be the same angle regardless of where along the lever you are, but the distance traveled by the lever when it gets rotated is greater at the far end than the distance traveled closer to the fulcrum. In terms of sight, the farther something is, the more you can see of it (though the amount of detail you see is decreased).
I'm slowly going blind and I'm 24.. I have no idea what I will do with my life when I am blind.. does Tommy have any videos with advice for people like me?
This just really shows how much people take for granted. I LOVE taking pictures of the sky, sunrises and sunsets and saying you cant really comprehend it, and you cant comprehend what people mean by its beautiful just made me feel idk, somewhat melancholy if you will.
Hey Tom, more Intangible concepts I'd like you to explain: What does "to see" mean for you? How do you understand concepts like "image", "picture" or "view"? And the concept of light? Has everyone ever managed to explain you what is any of the concepts I mentioned before, in a way you can understand it? How? Thank you in advance.
I saw another of your videos where you say you used to see light, or at least distinguish whether a room had light or not. One less concept to explain :)
maqueterobcn right? People seem to assume there aren't programs and such for connecting and enriching peoples lives, even if they have a disability like blindness.
Man... When he started talking about the beautiful colors of the sunset and all that... It brought tears to my eyes I mean how many times we've seen a beautiful sunset and don't even appreciate it anymore, God we really do take things for granted... Damn how I wish he could see all this wonderful things.
"The sky is a big long thing with nothing in your way." Fascinating. This is the second time in the video that you've related vastness to things blocking your path to it. This is a wonderful insight to what it must be like to have no sight.
Something that is really hard for sighted people to get their head around is what it's like to be blind. To us we automatically think that blind people can visualize what sighted people describe to them, but you can't (if you've been blind your whole life), simply because you have never actually been able to use that lobe of your brain. It's quite fascinating and amazing, really. It's quite impossible for us to get our minds around. It's also a scary thing for us to think about not being able to see.
Something interesting I heard is that blind people can touch and tell a cube apart from a sphere no issue. But say that blind person magically gained vision and are immediately shown a cube and sphere, you’d think they might be able to see the cube looks pointier and guess it’s the cube at least most of the time but seems they can’t. The moment they gain sight they have almost zero ability to correlate visual shape with the shapes they know from touch
The horizon can be imagined like this: If you kneel down next to a table, so that your eye level is right above the surface of the table, and then put your finger on the table and draw an imaginary line with your finger away from your eye and out as far as you can reach, then imagine that you could reach infinitely far. Now, as I presume you know, sighted people see things as if they are larger the closer they are, and paired with depth perception that's how we tell the real size and distance of things. Right? So when something moves far away, it looks smaller and smaller. A car in the distance is the size of an ant eventually. With a horizon, you get to trace the ocean, like the surface of the table, off into the distance. But it's so incredibly far, with no obstructions, that things are eventually so far away that it's too small to even see. Now, where it gets really cool, is that it's caused by the curvature of the earth. So if you try to place a flat surface on top of a sphere, like a book on a ball or whatever, you see that while the ball and the book will share a tiny bit of contact, the ball eventually curves away. This is what's happening with the horizon as well. We want to see a large flat surface, but when we can see "forever" without obstructions, it's so far that earth curves down and out of our sight. Imagine you're in the middle of the book and the ball. You can only see along the book, straight forward. But the earth, like the ball, curves away from you. So since the earth spins, moving our view of the sun , we see the sun move across the sky in the course of the day, and then go "behind" the horizon when our view of it moves too far. Our human brains can't quite parse what's really going on, because our depth perception can't sense any difference in depth that far out. It's simply too far. So to use it looks very two dimensional actually. The bright light just goes behind the flat "wall" in the distance. I hope you get to read this, haha!
Tommy, I've watched almost all of your videos, and as a video editor, I think you should tell Ben Churchill that this is his greatest Tommy Edison work. On a totally separate note, I like your videos because, as a very religious person, it reminds me to understand the blessing of sight. I have been blessed to meet and guide some blind folks before, and I was never able to understand the depth of a blind person's world, but you are fantastic at helping understand what a world without sight is like. Thank you for your videos. - C.M. Hegg
I have no idea how these videos ended up in my recommended, but I am SO HAPPY that they did. Tommy, you have an absolutely adorable personality and your outlook on everyday things are incredibly insightful! I wish nothing but good things for your future. Your dad jokes get me every time lol
it freaks me out trying to think of not knowing anything. it's like trying to imagine what you see when you are dead (if there was no heaven). your brain can't even fathom that idea because it doesn't know how to see not seeing something.
Sight is powerful because you can see the shape, size and texture of everything without touching it. If you have touched something before, then you will remember the shape and texture of it when you see it again.
As a legally blind person - the craziest thing for me to imagine is people just … well seeing. Like staring at a piece of paper and being able to read it or recognizing someone from a far and being able to know who it is. Just the concept of seeing perfectly is wild to me.
"I guess the sky to me is really just this big wide open thing with nothing in your way at all. You know, as long as you're above the trees and buildings and stuff, there's nothing blocking you. You could just go and go and go and go and go. It'd be fun. I need a place like that here on earth."
Most people just accept things they've heard allot without thinking about it. The great wall of china one annoys me quite a bit, since it doesn't take much thinking to realize something being especially long doesn't make it anymore visible (I'll let Tommy off, but sighted people have no excuse xD)... like a 10 meter long magicians thread is no more visible than a meter long thread.
This should be a good read for you guys. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-made_structures_visible_from_space There's just so many things to take into consideration when defining "visible from space".
yeah we would have to define "space" first, where do space even starts?, and how far into space. I mean sure if you are barely outside the earth atmosphere you might be able to, but surely if you go to a neighbouring galaxy, you would barely be able to see the earth, let alone the great wall of china, both positions would be "space"
There’s many silly myths out there that have travelled around millions of people like Chinese whispers, pun not intended. Like sharks being immune to get cancer, that’s another dumb one.
This is one of the most beautiful videos on youtube. Makes me almost feel like I'm looking at the sun, horizon, etc. for the first time, or closer to how I saw it when I was very young.
In terms of sounds, the sun is like a deep bass fiddle during the day with blue sky and yellow light, and the moon at night is a lone violin with a soft glow and blackness surrounding it, but the colors you see during a sunset or sunrise is like a full orchestra all playing at once only for a few minutes each day.
I would explain to a blind person that the horizon is sort of like the edge of a table, with the table top being the surface of earth and the space beyond the top being space...
I cried when he talked about sunsets and sunrises. I think we often don't appreciate what we have. And I wish someday he is able to see and appreciate the beautiful things we have.
Am I the only one who finds some of these just as intangible, as a sighted person? Like all the things he says about space blow my mind just as much...
Wow, He is incredibly accurate for somebody that has never seen before. I would like to see what he imagines stuff looks like in his imagination. I wonder if it is as accurate as it seems.
***** well put. his mind and memory work in a completely different way then that of a person who can see. in other videos he's said things like: "how do you remember what all the different colors are? how do you walk into your room and know where everything is? how do you remember what everything, and everyone looks like?" we have visual memories that allow us to remember, and process so much information instantaneously. for him, he doesn't have that ability. he can't connect the information in his brain with visual references. his brain had to learn and remember things in a totally different way.
VHunterBillyBob I wish i could hook up my brain with his just to experience what his mental layout is. its workings have got to be so different and interesting from any sighted persons, its such a dominant sense to us. people dont often wake up and think, "i wonder what kind of things i'll hear today" or anything like that. he must have so many rich thoughts and feelings about things we often ignore or skip over.
***** absolutely. so much of our world is based on visualization, and his is based on everything else. the thing is, his mental process is not just effected by being blind, but also being blind from birth. so that would be the only way to understand his perspective. you would have no visual reference for anything, not even color. those who have lost their sight at some point in their life can still visualize, and remember colors. in those cases, some have said that their world is black, others have actually said their would is white. for him however, he has no concept of white or black.
***** well in certain places yeah, but probably not a mall though. malls are really big, so the acoustics alone are going to make it more difficult, with sounds bouncing all over the place. and with so many people it's gonna be hard to narrow down one person, among such a large crowd.
***** Well I've heard blind people tend to associate colors with sensationss like hot or cold. So... I guess maybe when Tommy thinks of the sun as yellow, he thinks of a warm feeling?
All these years later, I still come back to video. His description of the sky and the horizon are so beautifully true. What a different way to experience the universe
I have a question, do you not have any kinda visions at all in your mind? Like say if you feel a ball, you can feel it's a smooth round object and you can feel it's shape, doesn't your mind create a representation of a ball at all? Guess it's just hard for me to understand as if I was to feel an object with my eyes shut I'd get a image in my head of what the object roughly looks like but then I have a memory bank full of different shapes and how they feel so I guess sighted peoples minds can generate visions but would just imagine that your mind must do something similar??
You have to understand that his hands ARE his eyes. If you close your eyes and touch a ball, you're gonna think of what the ball looks like because you've seen it before but as he's never seen a ball before, only touched them, if he thinks of a ball he's not gonna think of a graphic representation of the ball, he's gonna think about how it feels like. The same goes with his other senses. If you think banana, while an image of a banana pops up in your head, what pops up in his is how a banana feels, smells and tastes like. It's a concept that's hard to understand but if you wanna try to know what it feels like to be blind, try to see with the back of your head. Notice that you're not seeing ''black'' like when you close your eyes you just don't see at all... there is nothing. Now imagine living like that since birth. You're in a world where your only contact with things are your other senses so all your memory builds up from those senses!
I'm sighted and the vastness of the universe is no more understood by us, trust me. I can't imagine 93 million of anything either. You see these little dots of light in the night sky and you know they're very far away but even that isn't even close to the extent of it all. The vastness of the universe baffles us all.
MrSchmolko Well I'll be damned, I wasn't aware of the existence of braille displays. As for your snarky comment sir, I don't suppose that. I know blind people can surf the web. I'm well aware that your computer/phone can read for you, but reading and being read to are not the same thing.
Digital Citizen my comment wasnt snarky...let's not make this channel like all the others where ppl. in the comments just insult and put down each other.
Does the concept of things seeming smaller as they go further away make sense to you? That one guy that uses echo location to sense objects around him must have some sense that objects seem to get bigger the closer they are and vice a versa. Also, have you ever tried any form of echo location like clicking etc?
he honestly deserves my sight more than me. All his videos always cheer me up even if they are about some of the sensitive topics. Love ya Tommy, keep doing what you doing
I feel like maybe yes, since it's his eyes that are the problem rather than any part of his brain responsible for processing the visual information. But maybe at this age he doesn't want to take the risk of cutting edge bionic eye surgery that would only restore partial black and white vision and also take a lot of maintainence.
He has a underdeveloped optic nerve, which there is no cure for. The optic nerve goes from the back of your eyeball and goes deep into your brain. The risks of even trying such surgery would be extremely high and not worth it. Have a look at these two pictures. discoveryeye.org/wp-content/uploads/Optic-nerve.jpg image.slidesharecdn.com/anatomyofopticnerveanditsclinicalsignificance-150301083328-conversion-gate02/95/anatomy-of-optic-nerve-and-its-clinical-significance-1-638.jpg?cb=1425199033
malangens Yeah, I wrote that when I thought that he just had some sort of infection-induced damage to his eyes, which causes blindness in some young children, and could have vision restored using a bionic eye. But then I heard that he has an optic nerve problem, which means he can't be cured using a bionic eye since those rely on cameras that are connected to the optic nerve; he hasn't got a functional optic nerve so that's no option for him. Oh well, Tommy seems pretty happy just the way he is. :)
It's so interesting hearing your perception of things. It brings up questions I might never have even thought about. And at the same time, it makes me really grateful that I can see.
“Sight must be fun” - that hits hard. Makes me appreciate my sight. I feel bad for him, I wish we could figure out a way for the blind to see and the deaf to hear.
I am not an emotional person usually, but i cried at the thought of him not being able to see a sunrise or sunset. I just wish I could have his happiness and joy for life. No pitty party please... I love this man and respect him.
Obviously. So what part don't you understand? He can't see the Grand Canyon, someone 3D prints a replica of the Grand Canyon, he feels it and has an idea of what it looks like. Do you not understand what 3D printing is?
Jennifer Mocarski How is that going to help him? He's blind. He can't see it. To get an 'idea' of what it 'looks' like, he would have to travel up and down cliff faces. It's not practical to spend that much time mapping out each square foot, nor would he be allowed to.
Blind people very often travel...it's nothing to do with whether they can "see" the Grand Canyon. So he may have gone and could totally do so if he wanted to and even enjoy it. Some national parks have plastic scale models of the mountains or canyons in their visitor centers, though. I guess they're often "no touch" so it doesn't damage it, but I bet they'd let a blind person touch it or find some other thing for them if they wanted it.
I guess that I would try to put it into terms that you could relate to. If you figure that using *all* of your strength, you could jump vertically about 17 inches. To reach the moon, you would have to do that 786,514,358 times to actually get there. To *drive* to the moon at a constant 60 miles per hour, 24 hours a day, would take you 166 days. (I don't think I could go that long without a gas station to relieve myself.) To "see" the sun, hold your fist out in front of you at arm's length. Stick your thumb out horizontally. The very end of your thumb would cover the entire view of the sun. Yet, that tiny white ball gives all of that warmth. Pretty hot stuff, huh! Did that help?
Do you have any concept of "black"? I've always imagined being blind by shutting my eyes. All I can "see" is black. Is that roughly the same thing you "see" all the time? Just black? Or is it literally just...blank?
THAT'S NOT NOW BLINDNESS WORKS. WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES YOU ARE STILL SEEING SOMETHING, BUT IT'S JUST THE INSIDE OF YOUR EYELIDS. Try closing one of your eyes. Do you see anything? Now imagine that in both of your eyes. You can't. It's as impossible for us to imagine blindness as it is for a blind person to imagine what sight would be like.
Ryan Queen Well, not exactly. I imagine blindness is the closest thing to being dead. Nothing can be seen. No concept of color or dimension besides what you've been told, it's like your parents telling you not to do something. You don't know why they say it or how it works, but you know it should work so you assume it to be fact. Also, I have found it is literally impossible to describe color. I remember him saying "How could ice and the sky be the same color?" It was so hard to even think of a response in my head. You can't say that it's a lighter shade, because blind people can't tell shade or even understand it. So I would describe it as a series of layers. One layer is thick, so that's darkest. And there is a thin one, lightest. The blue of ice is like the thinnest layer and the sky's blue is the thickest. (at times)
Open both your eyes. Now ask yourself, what can you see from the back of your head? The answer to that question is what it's like to be completely blind.
2:25 To be fair, I think that's what most people are afraid of. But, as they say, "it's not the fall that'll kill you, it's the sudden stop at the end."
"I can't imagine that distance"
Neither can we.
but better than he can
henryscp 07 I honestly doubt how well even fully sighted people can comprehend things that large.
That's exactly what I wanted to say. It's very hard to imagine how hard it is for blind people to imagine something they can't touch, hear or smell. But I guess I get it now a little bit more. When I try to imagine the real distance between the planets or the stars, or how deep is the ocean, my brain just can't do that doesn't matter how much I try
or how small the atoms are, god, I just keep trying to imagine the size of an atom and it just doesn't work
Something happened to me a few years ago. I was visiting my parents, and I was hanging out on their front porch. I could see both the sun and moon in the sky. It was late afternoon, the sun was fairly low in the west, about the time you'd need to use your sun visors in your car. The moon was just barely east of zenith, and a thin crescent. Because they appear the same size, my mind first drew an isosceles triangle between them and Earth. Then I thought about the lunar terminator. "No, that's not right, to cast that shadow on the moon the sun would have to be from that angle" and so my mind re-drew the triangle based on that, and for about a second I felt the true scale of the solar system. It...wasn't comfortable.
Wow he could win a contest for the world's most likeable personality
Yeah
"What color's the sun? ...Same color as the daughter!" 😂😂
some people would not like him just because he is blind
this guy's attitude is great. the fact that he is so open to talking about his blindness is really eye opening... sorry I had to.
Cyrus Yousefian HAHAHA I LOVE YOU
BAHWHAHA So true...
.... I see what you did there...
+Jaer Nihiltheus I see what you did there too!
hes older.. i think you age gracefully.. accept what you cannot change and he has with the best foot forward.. whats the alternative?
When you talked about the Grand Canyon, I immediately thought about how cool it would be if someone could 3D print a tangible version of it for you. A scaled model that is small enough for you to touch but large enough for you to get your fingers into so you could start at the top of a cliff and work your way down all the way to the river basin. You could feel the twists and turns carved out by the river, and how the basin narrows as it goes down to the river. Maybe there could even be an itty bitty person scaled down so that you could get an even better idea of just how giant the canyon is. You feel an itty bitty speck that is a scaled version of you, standing at the edge of the canyon. Then you feel around this tiny you, and realize "Oh wow, I am standing on the edge of something vast and deep and immense."
Tazzi Joyner i like the way your mind works this was a sweet comment :)
Tazzi Joyner thats the first thing i thought too! Someone make this happen!
Jonas van Nijnatten Jonas van Nijnatten but the difference is that he doesn't have visuals connected to how he perceives the world. his whole world is the same as ours minus sight, so really if someone made what the original commenter described it would be like someone showing you or me a picture of the grand canyon. he's felt other shapes before and he understands the concept of size so relative to the other things he's felt before it would be easier for him to understand than just trying to visualize it out of nothing you know it would technically just be a concept but if you think about it everything everyone knows is just a concept. sure it wouldn't be quite like what we know as the grand canyon, but nothing in his life involving sight is the same as how it is in our lives
Jonas van Nijnatten i think he would understand size, cause you don't really need sight to understand size if you think about it. as people who can see we just tend to assign size to sight but you can feel a difference in size if you're holding a key or a box of cereal you can tell which one is bigger without looking. maybe large areas would be more difficult to conceptualize because you can't physically feel the empty space that makes up large areas but if you can understand the difference between smaller changes in size you can just apply that to a larger scale and pretty much understand. i'm not 100% sure though, i don't know anyone who is blind so i can't really confirm any of this lmao it's just a guess based on what he says in his videos
Jonas van Nijnatten yeah i completely understand that i didn't really explain very well what i meant lol. i mean that because he has never been able to see his way of determining size would be different than ours. so yeah, we do visualize items when we compare size because that's what we have always done. but to him when he was a child i think it would still be relatively easy to learn what size means and small vs large because the concept of size isn't completely reliant on sight. so we do use sight when thinking about size but it's not completely necessary. like if i handed you two completely foreign objects that you had never felt or seen before in your life and you couldn't look at them you'd still be able to determine which was larger just by feeling that one takes up more space. i think the same would apply to a blind person as long as someone explained to them the concept of size and demonstrated what small vs large was i think they could definitely be able comprehend
I love how positive this guy is. It makes you realise how you take everything you can see for granted...
Nice profile pic!/Fiinna profilgovvá
The distance to the sun and it's scale is hard to grasp even if you aren't blind.
toddbod94 true
That’s why we still have flat earthers.
If we can fix blindness, I vote for this guy to be the first one.
Actually he said if he could, he wouldnt because then he will have to learn everything in life e.g learning to know how beautiful people look etc. Though I agree with you he should definitly be the first.
Zag khan I thought he changed his mind at the end of the video, though! He said it seemed exciting. Meh, might be wrong haha.
tommy is awesome but he is used to it and is satisfied with it. why wouldn't you recommend a little child?
***** I don't think Benutzer means he's too old. I think he means a child would have an entire lifetime to enjoy it.
I would vote for the wonderful pianist Tamas Erdi - but then again would it be a shock to any blind person to suddenly be able to see? Dorothee
You really make me appreciate being able to see. We take things for granted.
I was just thinking the same thing
i was thinking the same thing too
+MothaFxck "Normal" people take a lot of things for granted. If I only had one wish I would spend it on removing my stutter. Hands down.
+Mike Wright As much as I want to say I would wish for something more impactful. My speech impediment would probably sit at number one too.
exactly what happened to me when i found out i might have stage 4 melanoma
I hope that someday scientists will find a way to get people like Tommy to be able to see...
loki352 very far into the future, this guy would need new eyes and new optic nerves that work
loki352 I feel like if he ever got sight he would take forever to get everywhere cuz he would just be looking at everything...
It would be nice though cuz he would enjoy it and not take it for granted like everyone else that c an see.
Not only need eyes and optical nerves... They'd need an implant in the brain, since his brain did not learn(!!!!) to know how to see things. He would not understand what his eyes would send. He would see no pattern. It's like seeing an abstract paint. He would still be blind, despite looking at things, he'd not see.
Daniel Rocha how would you implant something in his brain to do that though? Are you an expert on this and know this as a fact? If so thats interesting and id like to know more
Cochlear Implant recipients have been learning how to hear since the first successful operation in 1978. Recipients that were born deaf would not have had any knowledge of what "right" sound is, so they would have to learn, and they have, even without brain implants. There is much more information coming from the eyes, so learning will be more difficult and time consuming, but not impossible. Optical implants (also called "bionic eyes") already exist in simple forms and are improving in quality every year.
"People love looking in a hole... I don't get it! "
Thanks, I've corrected it.
This conversation has restored my hope in humanity *cries*
Thats crazy we take everything for granted until someone just comes along and reminds us to be grateful.
Do you guys realize that I was just making a (cheap) dirty joke ?
David M. Johnston i think I'm the only one who found that funny
What I think is cool is that even though he hasn't seen anyone smile before, he still naturally smiles.
MaxSchumm Biology baby!
Actually peolple taught him to hold his face a particular way
+Zach Rice not when he laughs ...
+Zach Rice Nope, it is proven that smiling and laughing is coded genetically in all people :)
+MaxSchumm lol you dumbass, its our natural way of communicating without words.
he sounded so upset when he said "sight must be fun" made my heart break:(
2:00
Me too 😢
+Alannah Selva lol, it seems like he is saying it in the irony
He didn't sound particularly upset to me, and he was smiling. I find it weird seeing people make all these comments about how sorry they feel for him... He seems curious about these things but not actually all that upset. Sometimes it seems like people are projecting their own feelings on him... he seems fine.
+junbh2 Well he has said before. It is his normal. He does not know different, so he doesn't feel like he truly lost out on anything. People who lose their sight often have a different outlook, but everyone I have met who was born blind felt this way.
I wish I could give him my eyes for a day.
Only a day? Imagine the pain of realizing you would only be able to see beautiful things one.
It's symbolic...
I will say that you did manage to take something that was meant to be nice and rip it apart. If you want to be so literal then you should have started taking my eyes out in surgery, putting them in him, and then putting them back into me. How do you know he will be in pain because of it? He seems pretty happy with his life as it is. Please be careful on how you come off. It can be offensive. Have a good one.
The Factoid Super sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude. What you said was really true, I mean I think we would all love to be able to give him sight, but what I honestly meant was, even if there was some was that you could give him your eyes for a day, how hard it would be for him to give that up. Like if you had no legs and somebody offered you legs for a day, but then at midnight took them away again. It would be pretty heartbreaking. But I did understand the idea that went into your words, and I'm very sorry to have offended you. Happy Holidays :)
candybar379 I don't think you came off as offensive in your reply (the reply you got after was unnecessarily snarky though). Anyway =) I'd have to disagree on your point, I imagine it would be a really special gift for a blind person to see even if only for a day, to look around and see the people you care about and get to keep that mental image with you is the first thing that came to mind.
candybar379 There's no telling if he would want to keep it. I imagine that so much new information all at once would be overwhelming. It can also be disconcerting if you've formed your own perception of things and imagined what things would look like, and then what you see doesn't match what you've been thinking it to be like your whole life. Does that make sense? Kind of like how you'd be a little taken aback if you've been talking to a guy online for months and he presents himself as a handsome, successful man, and you meet him and he turns out to be a bum that smells like piss.
I cant even imagine what it would be like to not know what space is or not be able to see it, i wish you could see it i really do
I feel like space is just about the only thing he could maybe half visualize, because isn't space just this big space of darkness besides some stars, planets, and other space stuff? Idk, when I imagine it, besides seeing what's in the solar system, I see black with some stars floating around so besides the stars maybe he can already get a feel for what it looks like. But of course, it can never compare to actually seeing it.
Wow.. this really gives me a new perspective on life. How do you remain so positive?
+Olivia Hesson He was born blind, he doesn't know what its like to be able to see. His body and senses have adapted to it, and he doesn't rely on anything that would require his eyes. Think of it like this, the average human is able to see, but we are unable to see specific frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum with our naked eyes (radio waves, micro waves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and Gamma). To us, not being able to see those patterns of light around us is completely normal, whereas if a bee could only see what we see, it could potentially be debilitating to its life because they can also see ultraviolet radiation, and most likely make use of it (I don't know much about bees lol). Thats the best example i can think of, given what i have gathered about how he feels about his situation :)
+Tonyy Starrkk (Tony Stark) Damn you're one of those people who type up a damn storm😂. But yeah everything you said is true.
+Abraham Lincoln lol I was just trying to get a good example
I think he stays positive because he doesn't what to feel sad or depressed and just not want to do anything but I realy don't know if that is it
I think he stays positive because he doesn't what to feel sad or depressed and just not want to do anything but I realy don't know if that is it
Even with sight, the vast distances of space are almost impossible to imagine.
sure it is, go to the beach, and pick out a single individual grain of sand, that is our planet, and all of the other grains in that entire beach is the universe.
Here's an interesting one: because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to get from its source to you. That means whenever you look at something, *you are literally looking backwards in time*.
Light travels about 300 million meters per second, so when you look at somebody standing ten meters away, you're seeing them as they appeared 33 nanoseconds ago, which is a span of time too short to even be perceptible to humans, but when you look at the Sun, which is 149.6 million kilometers away, you're seeing it as it appeared about eight minutes ago. When you look at the Andromeda galaxy, which is 24 trillion kilometers away, you're seeing it as it appeared 2.5 million years ago.
Thank you....
for telling him about how interesting and wonderful it is to see...
and how cool the concepts he doesn't understand are, like the millions and trillions of meters...
PS: the data is interesting and would rock in another context, but I don't think this is the appropriate place.
maqueterobcn Maybe brush up on grammar before you tell someone their data ARE out of context!
This is the fifth time or so I've said this to you but you're literally everywhere
Also loved the video on josh stupidstien. Keep up the good work. Also, you should consider doing more commentaries like that. It reminds me if armored skeptic
maqueterobcn Understanding concepts like millions and trillions of meters...doesn't require sight. It is probably safe to assume he has a sense through touch of basic measurements. Processing the idea of millions and billions is likely no different than anyone else's.
You really help me realize how privileged i am to have the ability to see. I think many people, including me, take sight for granted. I just want to say thank you. Your videos are amazing and you are as well.
You are so pretty, philip? strange name for a chic
Your not ""privileged" to be able to see its a normal human thing he was born blind him being able to see would be like you learning to walk again
your spirit and positivity is so admirable. your videos bring a smile to my face, every time.
0:42 "same colour as the daughter" that caught me SO off guard haha, had to go back twice to figure out what he actually said... gotta love this guys spirit
I would gladly give up my sight for a while so this man could see a sunset. Everyone deserves to see a sunset.
lucy Eh, I have never understood people's love of sunsets. To me a Ferrari F12 is much more beautiful.
gmansplit try this concept: a Ferrari F12 in front of a sunset
With an mr2 in the shot!
clayton8or_2 Which MR2? The SW20 and AW11 are good, but the spider not so much.
gmansplit SW20 for sure, the mk3 was a bit disappointing but the other 2 were certainly great, the mk2 being one of my attainable dream cars currently.
Tommy. I've been really depressed lately, but watching videos of this happy go lucky blind guy talk about anything and everything with a smile has made me feel totally and completely content for the first time in a year. Thank you so much for making me laugh and ponder and reflect.
God bless you, Tommy. Your light humor and perspective on life is refreshing, and inspiring. Thank you.
"Sight must be fun..." Why did that make me feel sad? :(
It's called "empathy". To place yourself within the experiences of another. It's a good thing to have to be a decent human being.
I think it was his way of saying "that sounds really boring but if you like it there must be something entertaining about it."
The horizon is like the where you stop feeling something. Like if you put your finger on a table and don't move it, where your finger curves and you can't feel the table on your finger anymore.
+Epcot lp (dawnqwerty) That took me a while to understand, but it's a very clever explanation! :)
Because of your mindblowing comment, I am now in an existential crisis
I call bullshit, if hes blind why can we see him.
♛ Huffdaddy™ now THAT is a good point lmao
close your eyes and ask yourself.... Am I awake or not? Thats how he knows
+Gamming Geek are you joking or what
his name is Gamming Geek hes clearly 7 and plays minecraft. Has not learned sarcasm yet
you know about everything that you used to insult me with not sure if your insecure about yourself.
I think the feeling of looking at something like a sunset can be likened to the feeling of listening to a really relaxing, beautiful piece of music. The different colors and their different shades are a lot like the sounds of different notes on different instruments. The instruments and notes played together the right way are like all the colors of a sunset put together the right way. Your other senses definitely affect the experience too, though.
Yes, and I notice that places where you see far tend to trigger 'beautiful, relaxing, exciting' feelings, too. It's like it feels good to your eyes to be able to stretch or something? But it feels good, like some sounds or tastes or textures just feel good to the senses.
Fog is like background noise. Like a loud hum that doesn't let you hear distant conversations and stalk people from afar.
That's actually a really good example!
these videos are awesome they've changed the way i view life...literally, if Tommy can be such a positive guy without sight, then I (someone with sight) should try to be positive as well.
What a nice comment, which conflicts a bit with your username. I agree though, He is very inspirational.
James Hardy lol
Intangible concepts should be a youtube series!!!
Your videos are very educational for sighted people. I am so glad you have made these videos!!
the grand canyon part had me laughing so hard. isn't it jus a hole, like a mile deep hole? LOLOLOL. it is. and its stupidest we love it so much, but yeah its beautiful in its own majestic epicness, but ya, never thought about how stupid it really is.
to be honest i agree with you, the grand canyon's overrated
+Tyrion Lannister I have. I agree with jimpikles.
+Alex Folland why do you think it is overrated to the point that you wouldn't think it is fun to go there?
+Hitler Rants Productions It just seems no more fascinating than many other unnamed scenes visible while driving in the US.
tyroin hows your sister doing? how much do you hate joffrey huh? what about shae?
'' _Crying: Acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon_ ''
- *Ron Swanson*
"Sight must be fun" and he laughs... What a great person he is! Made me tear up a little. Love how he makes the best of it... It is amazing. God blessed this man
Tommy, the further away something is, the smaller it appears. So it's easy for a cloud to block it. Clouds appear bigger than the sun because although they're much smaller than it, they are much closer to us as well
the best way I can think of to describe the horizon to a blind person would probably be the following...
1) find the following items:rotating chair ( no backing) or some other rotating platform, a large fan, a bowl of water.
2) stand/sit on the rotating platform/chair.
3) dip your hand in water then place it close to your body (like above your heart)
4) have the fan blow on you (same height as your hand) and slowly rotate the chair/platform making sure to pay close attention to your hand.
5) notice as you turn away from the fan the wind is no longer blowing on your hand. that is the same concept as a sun setting behind the horizon.
Yeah, some of the things he says he can't grasp seem like they could be understood with a physical model. Depth perception for example. If you understand how levers work, then you can sort of understand how distance can make a difference in terms of the size of what you see. It may be the same angle regardless of where along the lever you are, but the distance traveled by the lever when it gets rotated is greater at the far end than the distance traveled closer to the fulcrum. In terms of sight, the farther something is, the more you can see of it (though the amount of detail you see is decreased).
He smiles in every thumbnail. IN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
I'm slowly going blind and I'm 24.. I have no idea what I will do with my life when I am blind.. does Tommy have any videos with advice for people like me?
Hey are you ok?
27 now eh?
hope you’re doing well
This just really shows how much people take for granted. I LOVE taking pictures of the sky, sunrises and sunsets and saying you cant really comprehend it, and you cant comprehend what people mean by its beautiful just made me feel idk, somewhat melancholy if you will.
His sense of humor is incredible and I love how positive he always is.
Hey Tom, more Intangible concepts I'd like you to explain:
What does "to see" mean for you?
How do you understand concepts like "image", "picture" or "view"?
And the concept of light?
Has everyone ever managed to explain you what is any of the concepts I mentioned before, in a way you can understand it? How?
Thank you in advance.
I saw another of your videos where you say you used to see light, or at least distinguish whether a room had light or not.
One less concept to explain :)
***** Oh no. Again someone with that line...
Please, he doesn't have to read, the software does it for him.
maqueterobcn right? People seem to assume there aren't programs and such for connecting and enriching peoples lives, even if they have a disability like blindness.
Man, I have been watching your videos for about an hour now. Very fun to watch
The Great Wall of China is actually not visible from space. That is a VERY common misconception.
Man... When he started talking about the beautiful colors of the sunset and all that... It brought tears to my eyes I mean how many times we've seen a beautiful sunset and don't even appreciate it anymore, God we really do take things for granted... Damn how I wish he could see all this wonderful things.
"The sky is a big long thing with nothing in your way." Fascinating. This is the second time in the video that you've related vastness to things blocking your path to it. This is a wonderful insight to what it must be like to have no sight.
Something that is really hard for sighted people to get their head around is what it's like to be blind. To us we automatically think that blind people can visualize what sighted people describe to them, but you can't (if you've been blind your whole life), simply because you have never actually been able to use that lobe of your brain. It's quite fascinating and amazing, really. It's quite impossible for us to get our minds around. It's also a scary thing for us to think about not being able to see.
Something interesting I heard is that blind people can touch and tell a cube apart from a sphere no issue. But say that blind person magically gained vision and are immediately shown a cube and sphere, you’d think they might be able to see the cube looks pointier and guess it’s the cube at least most of the time but seems they can’t. The moment they gain sight they have almost zero ability to correlate visual shape with the shapes they know from touch
Your jokes at the end are awesome, and your laugh makes everything funny!
The horizon can be imagined like this:
If you kneel down next to a table, so that your eye level is right above the surface of the table, and then put your finger on the table and draw an imaginary line with your finger away from your eye and out as far as you can reach, then imagine that you could reach infinitely far. Now, as I presume you know, sighted people see things as if they are larger the closer they are, and paired with depth perception that's how we tell the real size and distance of things. Right? So when something moves far away, it looks smaller and smaller. A car in the distance is the size of an ant eventually.
With a horizon, you get to trace the ocean, like the surface of the table, off into the distance. But it's so incredibly far, with no obstructions, that things are eventually so far away that it's too small to even see.
Now, where it gets really cool, is that it's caused by the curvature of the earth. So if you try to place a flat surface on top of a sphere, like a book on a ball or whatever, you see that while the ball and the book will share a tiny bit of contact, the ball eventually curves away. This is what's happening with the horizon as well. We want to see a large flat surface, but when we can see "forever" without obstructions, it's so far that earth curves down and out of our sight. Imagine you're in the middle of the book and the ball. You can only see along the book, straight forward. But the earth, like the ball, curves away from you. So since the earth spins, moving our view of the sun , we see the sun move across the sky in the course of the day, and then go "behind" the horizon when our view of it moves too far. Our human brains can't quite parse what's really going on, because our depth perception can't sense any difference in depth that far out. It's simply too far. So to use it looks very two dimensional actually. The bright light just goes behind the flat "wall" in the distance.
I hope you get to read this, haha!
you got a degree in phy or chem. This was interesting to read
I am not! Haha! I'm just interested and fascinated by ideas like these :)
jeez, you sound like you've got a PHD. wow! you must be really facinated.
haha! Thank you! Yes, I love stuff like this. I am a social educator, so I've got an interest in pedagogy and ways of communicating and relating :)
ahh, that explains it all.cool.
Tommy, I've watched almost all of your videos, and as a video editor, I think you should tell Ben Churchill that this is his greatest Tommy Edison work.
On a totally separate note, I like your videos because, as a very religious person, it reminds me to understand the blessing of sight. I have been blessed to meet and guide some blind folks before, and I was never able to understand the depth of a blind person's world, but you are fantastic at helping understand what a world without sight is like. Thank you for your videos. - C.M. Hegg
I have no idea how these videos ended up in my recommended, but I am SO HAPPY that they did.
Tommy, you have an absolutely adorable personality and your outlook on everyday things are incredibly insightful!
I wish nothing but good things for your future. Your dad jokes get me every time lol
people love looking at a hole. giggity
Bow chika bow wow
4 years late, but I love your profile picture.
I've Held An Alien In My Arms 2 months late but I love yours
😂😜
it freaks me out trying to think of not knowing anything. it's like trying to imagine what you see when you are dead (if there was no heaven). your brain can't even fathom that idea because it doesn't know how to see not seeing something.
I am a sighted person I don't get what the big deal is about the Grand Canyon either. To me, you described it more accurately as "a big hole".
I feel sorry for you.
*****
beautiful... :')
AprimalDwarf
De gustibus non est disputandum
"i am a sighted person"
no shit
*****
Really? Here we fucking go again.... Smh..
Sight is powerful because you can see the shape, size and texture of everything without touching it. If you have touched something before, then you will remember the shape and texture of it when you see it again.
One thing I love about your videos is your great sense of humour. You always say something to make me laugh.
Other things do block the sun from the planet occasionally, it's called a solar eclipse.
i hope, in his lifetime, that someone managed to cure complete blindness so that he can see. I'd kill just to see his reaction.
Dude I know
This guy is just so full of joy, it's contagious! I'd love to meet Tommy someday.
As a legally blind person - the craziest thing for me to imagine is people just … well seeing. Like staring at a piece of paper and being able to read it or recognizing someone from a far and being able to know who it is. Just the concept of seeing perfectly is wild to me.
You are always smiling and laughing in every video of yours. Makes me feel so silly about stressing on stupid matters. What an inspiration!
"I guess the sky to me is really just this big wide open thing with nothing in your way at all. You know, as long as you're above the trees and buildings and stuff, there's nothing blocking you. You could just go and go and go and go and go. It'd be fun. I need a place like that here on earth."
That's the exact feeling I get when I look at the sky.
I don't get why people think that the great wall of china is visible from space it makes no sense to me.
Most people just accept things they've heard allot without thinking about it. The great wall of china one annoys me quite a bit, since it doesn't take much thinking to realize something being especially long doesn't make it anymore visible (I'll let Tommy off, but sighted people have no excuse xD)... like a 10 meter long magicians thread is no more visible than a meter long thread.
This should be a good read for you guys.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-made_structures_visible_from_space
There's just so many things to take into consideration when defining "visible from space".
yeah we would have to define "space" first, where do space even starts?, and
how far into space. I mean sure if you are barely outside the earth
atmosphere you might be able to, but surely if you go to a neighbouring
galaxy, you would barely be able to see the earth, let alone the great
wall of china, both positions would be "space"
There’s many silly myths out there that have travelled around millions of people like Chinese whispers, pun not intended. Like sharks being immune to get cancer, that’s another dumb one.
What a truly fantastic guy
This is one of the most beautiful videos on youtube. Makes me almost feel like I'm looking at the sun, horizon, etc. for the first time, or closer to how I saw it when I was very young.
In terms of sounds, the sun is like a deep bass fiddle during the day with blue sky and yellow light, and the moon at night is a lone violin with a soft glow and blackness surrounding it, but the colors you see during a sunset or sunrise is like a full orchestra all playing at once only for a few minutes each day.
I would explain to a blind person that the horizon is sort of like the edge of a table, with the table top being the surface of earth and the space beyond the top being space...
So much to learn from someone with such a different point of... non-view. ;-)
You dont have to be blind to not get the fascination with the grand canyon. I can see just fine and I dont get it either.
Its nice to look at as a painting but it's too big in life to look real.
GroovingPict its just so big
@@danboah2501 it looked cool going over it in a plane
I think if you're into geography than maybe
2:01 “Sight must be fun”
Really makes you realise what we take for granted every day. Sending good vibes, Tommy! 😊
I cried when he talked about sunsets and sunrises. I think we often don't appreciate what we have. And I wish someday he is able to see and appreciate the beautiful things we have.
I've seen this video like 10 times and on the eleventh time I finally understand the "same color as the daughter" joke.
Can you explain?
Sun sounds exactly like son.
+God he was saying the sun as in "son" is the same color as the daughter
Stacia Stracener Ah, ok. Thanks :P
+God gotta work on your omniscience ;)
Am I the only one who finds some of these just as intangible, as a sighted person? Like all the things he says about space blow my mind just as much...
Wow, He is incredibly accurate for somebody that has never seen before. I would like to see what he imagines stuff looks like in his imagination. I wonder if it is as accurate as it seems.
***** well put. his mind and memory work in a completely different way then that of a person who can see. in other videos he's said things like: "how do you remember what all the different colors are? how do you walk into your room and know where everything is? how do you remember what everything, and everyone looks like?"
we have visual memories that allow us to remember, and process so much information instantaneously. for him, he doesn't have that ability. he can't connect the information in his brain with visual references. his brain had to learn and remember things in a totally different way.
VHunterBillyBob I wish i could hook up my brain with his just to experience what his mental layout is. its workings have got to be so different and interesting from any sighted persons, its such a dominant sense to us. people dont often wake up and think, "i wonder what kind of things i'll hear today" or anything like that. he must have so many rich thoughts and feelings about things we often ignore or skip over.
***** absolutely. so much of our world is based on visualization, and his is based on everything else.
the thing is, his mental process is not just effected by being blind, but also being blind from birth. so that would be the only way to understand his perspective. you would have no visual reference for anything, not even color.
those who have lost their sight at some point in their life can still visualize, and remember colors. in those cases, some have said that their world is black, others have actually said their would is white. for him however, he has no concept of white or black.
***** well in certain places yeah, but probably not a mall though. malls are really big, so the acoustics alone are going to make it more difficult, with sounds bouncing all over the place. and with so many people it's gonna be hard to narrow down one person, among such a large crowd.
***** Well I've heard blind people tend to associate colors with sensationss like hot or cold. So... I guess maybe when Tommy thinks of the sun as yellow, he thinks of a warm feeling?
All these years later, I still come back to video. His description of the sky and the horizon are so beautifully true. What a different way to experience the universe
Fog is like trying to talk and listen underwater. You can sometimes make out what is there, but it is all fuzzy and garbled.
I have a question, do you not have any kinda visions at all in your mind? Like say if you feel a ball, you can feel it's a smooth round object and you can feel it's shape, doesn't your mind create a representation of a ball at all? Guess it's just hard for me to understand as if I was to feel an object with my eyes shut I'd get a image in my head of what the object roughly looks like but then I have a memory bank full of different shapes and how they feel so I guess sighted peoples minds can generate visions but would just imagine that your mind must do something similar??
Michael Whitney for the ball example if you hold a ball I'm sure he can kinda grasp how it's like
You have to understand that his hands ARE his eyes. If you close your eyes and touch a ball, you're gonna think of what the ball looks like because you've seen it before but as he's never seen a ball before, only touched them, if he thinks of a ball he's not gonna think of a graphic representation of the ball, he's gonna think about how it feels like. The same goes with his other senses. If you think banana, while an image of a banana pops up in your head, what pops up in his is how a banana feels, smells and tastes like.
It's a concept that's hard to understand but if you wanna try to know what it feels like to be blind, try to see with the back of your head. Notice that you're not seeing ''black'' like when you close your eyes you just don't see at all... there is nothing. Now imagine living like that since birth. You're in a world where your only contact with things are your other senses so all your memory builds up from those senses!
Imagining to see out the back of my head makes me dizzy :/
Son Of Montreal , wow what a great explanation!
+Mari thank you!
I'm sighted and the vastness of the universe is no more understood by us, trust me. I can't imagine 93 million of anything either. You see these little dots of light in the night sky and you know they're very far away but even that isn't even close to the extent of it all. The vastness of the universe baffles us all.
he can't read your comment.
Digital Citizen
why not ? you can easily use automatic reading or some braille translator. do you suppose he cant surf the web ?
MrSchmolko Well I'll be damned, I wasn't aware of the existence of braille displays.
As for your snarky comment sir, I don't suppose that. I know blind people can surf the web. I'm well aware that your computer/phone can read for you, but reading and being read to are not the same thing.
Digital Citizen
my comment wasnt snarky...let's not make this channel like all the others where ppl. in the comments just insult and put down each other.
MrSchmolko agreed
it made me so happy when he said there was 9 planets
i love the fact that he describes something insignificant for some of us that we are used to them, like something relic
I've gotta be honest; This mans videos and happy attitude have brought me a lot of entertainment. I'm glad to have found this channel.
Sight must be fun :|
TorkoalRETRO broke my heart
Does the concept of things seeming smaller as they go further away make sense to you? That one guy that uses echo location to sense objects around him must have some sense that objects seem to get bigger the closer they are and vice a versa. Also, have you ever tried any form of echo location like clicking etc?
his jokes at the end are the best
he honestly deserves my sight more than me. All his videos always cheer me up even if they are about some of the sensitive topics. Love ya Tommy, keep doing what you doing
I got teary eyed watching this.. May God reward you for everything you've put up with in great spirits.. You're a amazing man
is there any kind of surgery that would give him sight? I would gladly pay for it when I get rich
i think he would have enough if every subscriber gave a dollar or 2
I feel like maybe yes, since it's his eyes that are the problem rather than any part of his brain responsible for processing the visual information. But maybe at this age he doesn't want to take the risk of cutting edge bionic eye surgery that would only restore partial black and white vision and also take a lot of maintainence.
He has a underdeveloped optic nerve, which there is no cure for. The optic nerve goes from the back of your eyeball and goes deep into your brain. The risks of even trying such surgery would be extremely high and not worth it.
Have a look at these two pictures.
discoveryeye.org/wp-content/uploads/Optic-nerve.jpg
image.slidesharecdn.com/anatomyofopticnerveanditsclinicalsignificance-150301083328-conversion-gate02/95/anatomy-of-optic-nerve-and-its-clinical-significance-1-638.jpg?cb=1425199033
malangens Yeah, I wrote that when I thought that he just had some sort of infection-induced damage to his eyes, which causes blindness in some young children, and could have vision restored using a bionic eye. But then I heard that he has an optic nerve problem, which means he can't be cured using a bionic eye since those rely on cameras that are connected to the optic nerve; he hasn't got a functional optic nerve so that's no option for him. Oh well, Tommy seems pretty happy just the way he is. :)
Its so amazing to hear the world from such a different angle! :]
I think space is intangible to anyone really...
This guy makes me feel so great. His personality has made me feel so great when I'm just having one of those days.
Thank you Tommy.
It's so interesting hearing your perception of things. It brings up questions I might never have even thought about. And at the same time, it makes me really grateful that I can see.
“Why does nothing come between earth and sun”
Someone needs to explain an eclipse to him
I want you to talk about more space stuff!!!
dont feel left out... a lot of sighted people dont get these things either!!
“Sight must be fun” - that hits hard. Makes me appreciate my sight. I feel bad for him, I wish we could figure out a way for the blind to see and the deaf to hear.
I am not an emotional person usually, but i cried at the thought of him not being able to see a sunrise or sunset. I just wish I could have his happiness and joy for life. No pitty party please... I love this man and respect him.
Someone please 3D print a replica of the Grand Canyon so he can feel it. :-D
He can't see
Obviously. So what part don't you understand? He can't see the Grand Canyon, someone 3D prints a replica of the Grand Canyon, he feels it and has an idea of what it looks like. Do you not understand what 3D printing is?
Dagobah 359 Couldn't he just go to the Grand Canyon?
Jennifer Mocarski How is that going to help him? He's blind. He can't see it. To get an 'idea' of what it 'looks' like, he would have to travel up and down cliff faces. It's not practical to spend that much time mapping out each square foot, nor would he be allowed to.
Blind people very often travel...it's nothing to do with whether they can "see" the Grand Canyon. So he may have gone and could totally do so if he wanted to and even enjoy it. Some national parks have plastic scale models of the mountains or canyons in their visitor centers, though. I guess they're often "no touch" so it doesn't damage it, but I bet they'd let a blind person touch it or find some other thing for them if they wanted it.
I guess that I would try to put it into terms that you could relate to.
If you figure that using *all* of your strength, you could jump vertically about 17 inches. To reach the moon, you would have to do that 786,514,358 times to actually get there. To *drive* to the moon at a constant 60 miles per hour, 24 hours a day, would take you 166 days. (I don't think I could go that long without a gas station to relieve myself.)
To "see" the sun, hold your fist out in front of you at arm's length. Stick your thumb out horizontally. The very end of your thumb would cover the entire view of the sun. Yet, that tiny white ball gives all of that warmth. Pretty hot stuff, huh!
Did that help?
Do you have any concept of "black"?
I've always imagined being blind by shutting my eyes. All I can "see" is black.
Is that roughly the same thing you "see" all the time? Just black? Or is it literally just...blank?
Ryan Queen OMG mind blow
THAT'S NOT NOW BLINDNESS WORKS. WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES YOU ARE STILL SEEING SOMETHING, BUT IT'S JUST THE INSIDE OF YOUR EYELIDS.
Try closing one of your eyes. Do you see anything? Now imagine that in both of your eyes. You can't. It's as impossible for us to imagine blindness as it is for a blind person to imagine what sight would be like.
Ryan Queen Well, not exactly. I imagine blindness is the closest thing to being dead. Nothing can be seen. No concept of color or dimension besides what you've been told, it's like your parents telling you not to do something. You don't know why they say it or how it works, but you know it should work so you assume it to be fact. Also, I have found it is literally impossible to describe color. I remember him saying "How could ice and the sky be the same color?" It was so hard to even think of a response in my head. You can't say that it's a lighter shade, because blind people can't tell shade or even understand it. So I would describe it as a series of layers. One layer is thick, so that's darkest. And there is a thin one, lightest. The blue of ice is like the thinnest layer and the sky's blue is the thickest. (at times)
Open both your eyes. Now ask yourself, what can you see from the back of your head? The answer to that question is what it's like to be completely blind.
AndorianBlues dude amazing explanation 👍
2:25 To be fair, I think that's what most people are afraid of. But, as they say, "it's not the fall that'll kill you, it's the sudden stop at the end."