What would happen if we didn't have reflexes?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand the question but reflexes are how our bodies automatically respond to stimuli. If you put your hand on a hot surface, your reflex is to jerk your hand away before you even realize what the problem is on a conscious level. So if you didn't have an automatic reflex, you would keep your hand on the hot surface longer and you would have to make a conscious choice to remove your hand from the area to stop the pain you are experiencing.

Without reflexes your eyes wouldn't automatically blink to clear away debris, you wouldn't sneeze in response to irritants, you probably wouldn't even cough if something were caught in your throat and preventing you from breathing unless you made yourself consciously cough. Forget vomiting, if you ate something that was hurting your stomach it would just stay down there and continue to hurt your stomach--vomiting is (generally) an involuntary response a.k.a. a reflex.

Without reflexes you would be a terrible driver and you would be very clumsy in general. Reflexes are that unconscious part of you that responds to your environment, often before you become consciously aware of what you NEED to respond to. Reflexes make soccer moms throw their arms over their children's bodies right before they hit the brakes. But, thinking of that, a soccer mom without reflexes probably wouldn't hit the brakes until it was too late and would hit whatever it was her reflexes would have otherwise stopped her from hitting.