MW:
Concepts cannot be grounded without vision.
So . . . . explain how people who are blind from birth are functionally intelligent.
It is impossible to completely "understand" natural language without vision.
MW:So . . . . you believe that blind-from-birth people don't completely understand English?
This is an error that keeps being repeated. Blind people can draw reasonable outlines of objects. Perception and reasoning do not derive from one sense but from common sense - all the senses working together. Blind people are able to draw objects because they have built up graphics through touch (and possibly other senses too). In talking about grounding most people talk mainly about vision because that's arguably the predominant sense, but ALL the senses are involved and work together. And I suspect it took an awful lot of evolution to get them all working together.
Your ability to understand statements about piercing pains and other sensations, to take another example, and what it feels like to have burning lusts and other emotions, derives much more from your inner kinaesthetic than your visual sense. The grounding of our symbolic languages is an extremely complex and sophisticated business.
The idea that symbols, especially words, can work without grounding is a common "magical" illusion. Remember: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Er no. Only at the very, very, extremely belated end of evolution (like two seconds ago, so to speak), came the Word.
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