For simplicity, I will treat the brain like an electronic device for this question:

What if human eyes were wired to the hearing part of the brain and the ears to the visual part of the brain such that all attributes of the sense are lined up perfectly with the corresponding degrees of the sense?

What if you mixed around smell or taste or touch? They would all produce patterns of electrical signals. Would you be seeing sound and hearing pictures?

Light waves telling your hearing that something is more intense in light or a different color with different pitches and volumes... And sounds making colorful moving wavy patterns in your vision.

Will you be able to function normally?

I find this fun to think about

hi Kivi. This actually happens under influence of certain drugs. And it's called synesthesia. Well, maybe that's not exactly what you mean, but anyway, that's my reply

The biggest problem here would be that the other sensory organs aren't set up to recieve that sort of information. Your eyes aren't designed to recieve and transfer sound, your ears don't have light sensing parts to them. I'd think the two easiest to switch would be smell and taste, but then again those two senses are linked closely anyway.

I have heard about synethesia (sp), but have never experienced it myself. Always thought it was a neat concept, tho:)

I think Kivi meant if the "input" from your ears was "translated" by the part of the brain that deals with sight (or any other senses). Would a loud bang be represented by a big red explosion of colour? Or would being burnt on the hand taste like sausage when it happens?

Do we all even experience senses the same? Its like that old "do we see colours differently" thing. Maybe what i experience as "sight" is different to yours.

Different parts of the brain can be forced into other types of work.

It usually requires an injury or cutting of nerves but there is ample
evidence that the brain can rewire itself. People who are blind are
known to use the visual cortex to learn and read braille. Most see-
ing people have great difficulty learning to read this but if you cover
their eyes they'll pick it up right away. There are even individuals
who are using echo location to "see" what's around them. There are
no doubt limits in what rewiring can take place in the brain but we are
somewhat flexible and highly adaptive. Almost anything can come to
be seen as normal by people.

There's a similar thread on the alternative history forum right now;

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...howtopic=112293

Yeah Synesthisia it often goes hand in hand with other mental ilnesses some people see music in flashes of colour, or see certain letters in a different colour or see numbers, however it doesn't over write the other sence for example if they can see colour when listening to music they still have fully functioning vision.

It is common with Savants. I watched a show about an Autistic Savant who was able to comprehend and express emotions by seeing them as numbers (which he saw as shapes) his whole world was numbers and he was a fully functional human. He allso could do maths subconciously and stuff pretty cool. It's high ranking on google video not on my usual computer so I don't have a link.

ironically its doable

all senses are an accuter form of the 1 sense Touch

ears dont hear they feel air vibrations [sound]

eyes simply feel different light

and taste and smell [are the same] gauge chemical consistensy

but anyone in5th grade knows this

something I've always thought interesting... isn't reading a form of LEARNED synesthesia? I mean we learn to associate letters on a page with sounds to the point that you almost hear it in your head when you see it on the screen and can't avoid it.

Interesting thought. yes, I guess you are right. And the thing you can't avoid it always amazed me. You don't have to read it - you look at the word and know what it means. You can't look at text without reading it. crazy