Blindness cured?

Some guy on a forum I frequent who always exaggerates his topic titles(i.e that whole deal with North Korea and that sub he titled the topic as though a war is starting ) posted "BLINDNESS CURED!!" and linked here: http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/05/03/2341209/Gene-Therapy-Restores-Sight-To-Blind

For someone who's not scientifically literate, is this a general cure or only very specific?

probably just a really common type of blindness. Don't see how it could be all in one swoop.

/

if you become blind because of accident that won't help, it seems to help hereditary blindness

edit

some types of blindness have been cured for years via cornea transplants etc. it depends on why you are blind.

there must be some sort of incredible joke about masturbating yourself blind we are overlooking here

I heard that these people that get cured from genetic blindess, once they are adult, they really cannot comprehend what they are seeing, it just makes no sense, because their brain never learned to process sight. They see the shapes and generally learn to recognize specific things, but their sense of depth is wrong. Instead of seeing a cube they see three quadrilaterals smushed together, that change shape when rotated, they have to learn new things specifically. Once they learn what a cube is, what it does, they'll know its name when they see it, but they really can't comprehend what it is spatially by nature, everything has to be memorized by touch and description from other people for them to really understand what they are seeing, especially when it comes to depth and things in motion, changing shape over time, things getting bigger/smaller as they move closer/further, etc.

  On 5/5/2010 at 2:00 AM, Bubba69 said:

I heard that these people that get cured from genetic blindess, once they are adult, they really cannot comprehend what they are seeing, it just makes no sense, because their brain never learned to process sight. They see the shapes and generally learn to recognize specific things, but their sense of depth is wrong. Instead of seeing a cube they see three quadrilaterals smushed together, that change shape when rotated, they have to learn new things specifically. Once they learn what a cube is, what it does, they'll know its name when they see it, but they really can't comprehend what it is spatially by nature, everything has to be memorized by touch and description from other people for them to really understand what they are seeing, especially when it comes to depth and things in motion, changing shape over time, things getting bigger/smaller as they move closer/further, etc.

That's incredible. I bet people would pay for that experience. People like Paris Hilton who like to push the boundaries etc

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I saw a documentary on this once. A man had been blind since birth but a new surgery was devised that allowed him to see for the first time (he was around his 30s i think). He indeed had to learn what every image meant. He said he had particular difficulty with curbs, he couldn't tell if the curb was a step down or a step up. The show suggested that visual learning for the most part turns off as you get older so his brain might never be able to process visual information as well as average people.

 

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Yea, I remember something similar to this. One particular example was a chair: he would be able to look at a chair and learn what it is, but if you changed the angel (i.e. turned the chair around), he wouldn't be able to recognize it anymore. This really gets at how fascinating the human brain is. After all, a chair does look radically different from different angles.

 

interesting stuff fo sho.

man, i'm really paranoid about going blind later in life. my eyes are shit enough already (-6 on each eye). hopefully by the time i have to worry about that, there will be technology that can just replace the whole eye and optic nerve if they get screwed up enough.

  On 5/5/2010 at 2:07 AM, data said:

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I saw a documentary on this once. A man had been blind since birth but a new surgery was devised that allowed him to see for the first time (he was around his 30s i think). He indeed had to learn what every image meant. He said he had particular difficulty with curbs, he couldn't tell if the curb was a step down or a step up. The show suggested that visual learning for the most part turns off as you get older so his brain might never be able to process visual information as well as average people.

 

 

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Yea, I remember something similar to this. One particular example was a chair: he would be able to look at a chair and learn what it is, but if you changed the angel (i.e. turned the chair around), he wouldn't be able to recognize it anymore. This really gets at how fascinating the human brain is. After all, a chair does look radically different from different angles.

 

 

interesting stuff fo sho.

Yes it's amazing. This kind of crosses over into a thread where we talking about AI. Ai is way better now at recognising objects in different lighting/locations/angles which is an amazingly difficult thing to do. A great way to realise how amazing we are is to develop an interest in Ai and Robotics.

  On 5/5/2010 at 2:00 AM, Bubba69 said:

I heard that these people that get cured from genetic blindess, once they are adult, they really cannot comprehend what they are seeing, it just makes no sense, because their brain never learned to process sight. They see the shapes and generally learn to recognize specific things, but their sense of depth is wrong. Instead of seeing a cube they see three quadrilaterals smushed together, that change shape when rotated, they have to learn new things specifically. Once they learn what a cube is, what it does, they'll know its name when they see it, but they really can't comprehend what it is spatially by nature, everything has to be memorized by touch and description from other people for them to really understand what they are seeing, especially when it comes to depth and things in motion, changing shape over time, things getting bigger/smaller as they move closer/further, etc.

lol I that African James Bond artist is the only person who managed to convey this through art

I didn't see a cure coming in a near future.