Do blind people understand vision?

October 13, 2025

Have you ever imagined what it might be like to be blind? I don’t mean to lose your sight, but rather to never have had it in the first place.

I’d argue that people who can see can never truly imagine congenital blindness — once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Your sense of vision has so deeply shaped your brain development and life experience, that you can’t meaningfully understand what it would be like to live without it.

I recently stumbled upon an intriguing YouTube channel run by Tommy Edison, who has been blind since birth. He shares videos about his life — for instance, A Blind Person’s Perspective of Colors. One of his most fascinating videos, embedded above, explores how difficult it is for him to comprehend how vision works for sighted people.

In essence, he’s exploring the reciprocal question to the one I raised earlier: if you’ve always been blind, how can you begin to understand what it’s like to see? It’s a reminder that our minds are shaped not only by what we know, but also by the boundaries of our experience.