主题：【Just for your interest】Do we see by eye or by brain? -- 三丰子

An NPR radio program caught my interest the other day in a morning traffic. A born blind Turkish painter was reported to be able to paint realistic images. What impressed me most was not his painting techniques (which I have no idea), but his capability to draw perspectives. As a Harvard neurologist asked him to draw a road leading away with poles on either side, the blind painter drew the width of the road thinner and thinner it is leading away.

This will raise some interesting questions on how our brain works, as summarized in a website:

“ Because if he can represent images in the same way a sighted person can, it raises big questions not only about how our brains construct mental images, but also about the role those images play in seeing. Do we build up mental images using just our eyes or do other senses contribute too? How much can congenitally blind people really understand about space and the layout of objects within it? How much "seeing" does a blind person actually do?”

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524841.700

This site also presents other interesting tests of brain scanning done by the Harvard scientists.