Imagine a baby is born with no senses. In hopes of one day being able to at least partially heal their child, the parents remain determined to keep the baby alive, doing so through an IV that provides all sustenance, tubes that handle excretion, machines that move the baby’s limbs as much as needed for healthy blood flow, etc. etc.—assume all physical needs are taken care of. Though the baby is never able to be healed, it successfully grows into a child, then into an adult and eventually to an old age, before dying of natural causes at 80.
Throughout their life, repeated tests show that the person has a normally functioning conscious brain, just like the rest of us. But the person never sees, hears, feels, smells, or tastes anything. There’s nothing anyone can do to the person that the person will perceive, since there are no senses to perceive anything.
The question is: What would it be like to be this person?
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