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So today I was contemplating how much I value my senses of sight and hearing*. Hypothetically, I'd certainly raither become a paraplegic than lose either of them. I figure most of you would agree, so that's not really the question, this is: would you rather lose one or both of these senses or become a (total) quadriplegic?

I consider sight to be my best sense, but hearing and music in particular is hugely important to me as well. Ultimately, I think I'd rather become a quadriplegic than lose either (but not both) of these senses—however, there's an immense assumption being made there: that I'd be able to afford a good standard of care and have someone to assist me with both the practical things and the more fanciful (e.g. dictacting musical compositions). If not practical, and in reality it wouldn't be, I'd take the sense loss.

I voted "Prefer loss of best sense to quadriplegia". I'd rather be blind than be in a wheelchair for life.

[ortsz edit: I removed my poll because it didn't seem to fit and also it was starting to confuse me.]

I'd happily lose my sense of hearing before I lost sight or mobility.
After that, I'd prefer to lose mobility over sight; coping with loss of organic limbs is easier to deal with via modern medicine than the loss of senses.
My life would suck without sight. Sight is my most stimulating sense; I prefer visual art to music.


Although, just for the record, the notion that we only have five senses is horribly antiquated. We also have sense of pain, temperature, balance (i.e. weight distribution), acceleration, orientation (i.e. finding gravity), limb position, the passage of time, emotional sensitivity... the list goes on. Aristotle was the one who decided on the five; you'd think common sense would have improved since his day.

I guess this question assumes a permanent loss, because deafness is getting more and more fixable by the year. Anyway, I've thought about this a lot, and I honestly don't know if I could choose. I can't imagine being blind, I can't imagine being deaf, and I can't imagine being unable to move on my own. No answer.

I know this isn't a provided option, but I'd lose my ability to speak before anything. I think I would take so much more of the world in if I couldn't talk. You basically lose your ability to speak when you lose your hearing anyways.

Blackson wrote:I know this isn't a provided option, but I'd lose my ability to speak before anything. I think I would take so much more of the world in if I couldn't talk. You basically lose your ability to speak when you lose your hearing anyways.

I totally agree with this. If fact, here's my list, in order of importance.

Sight
Movement
Hearing
Speech

Aside from the most important sense (sight, imo) I feel the least is the sense of smell. Through extension of smell, it goes hand in hand with taste.. its proven they're connected somehow (I believe). But I'd much rather lose both of those than any of the other senses, though the sense of touch would be a stretch.

im_bad_at_n wrote:Aside from the most important sense (sight, imo) I feel the least is the sense of smell. Through extension of smell, it goes hand in hand with taste.. its proven they're connected somehow (I believe). But I'd much rather lose both of those than any of the other senses, though the sense of touch would be a stretch.

I would give up sight or hearing before giving up taste and smell. No tasty food? Can't imagine life like that. And if you had the sense of touch but not taste or smell, all you could feel while eating is mushed-around stuff in your mouth. Ewwww.

In regards to the original question, I'd give up either sight or hearing before my limbs, but not both.

Fuck taste. Texture is everything. Chips are still Chips, I say.

I only said that because my sense of smell is already practically gone, and my taste is a little diminished (proof: I can't tell Pepsi, Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc from each other.)

Id give up hearing before limbs, but sight and limbs is another tricky question.

=w= wrote:Fuck taste. Texture is everything. Chips are still Chips, I say.

No fry, chip. No Coke, Pepsi.

I've always thought there was a certain nobility that goes along with blindness. Making your way through a world in which vision is a near necessity to do the simplest things does seem a bit daunting, however. If I had to choose between mobility and sight, I would choose sight. If I had to choose between mobility and hearing, I would choose hearing. It's weird, you really don't think about how important /all/ your senses are to you until you think about which one you would be most willing to part with.

I'd much rather give up sight than mobility. My internet life would be demolished, sure, but I could still go mountain biking and shit.

Yeah, some blind people can mountain bike better than sighted people. Megahearing gives them echolocation or something.