How do babies think? - Page 2

jabidas · 03-02-2002, 06:19 PM

I would say that if it thinks it has a mind so I would say yes for babys but it is debatable when they start to think. As for how, well i dont want to be the one taking baby brains apart with a scapel to know, hell we dont even fully understand normal full grown brains completly.

Aelia Jusa · 03-02-2002, 06:33 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jabidas:
I would say that if it thinks it has a mind so I would say yes for babys but it is debatable when they start to think. As for how, well i dont want to be the one taking baby brains apart with a scapel to know, hell we dont even fully understand normal full grown brains completly.

LOL well I don't think taking babies' brains apart would really help all that much

. We have moved on slightly from there [img]tongue.gif[/img] . I was actually thinking how I might go about testing this, if I had a nice large grant and some guinea pigs.. uh, I mean babies

. Imaging obviously would be what you'd use.

I was thinking maybe you could show an adult a ball or something, and have them think about the ball. So using a blood flow dependent imaging techinque you'd get activity in both the visual areas and other areas that are associated with thinking about the ball. Language areas, probably, but also associational areas. Then you could show babies the ball, and see whether they are using not just the visual areas, but the associational areas as well. So that would tell us (maybe) whether they are thinking or not, but not what their thoughts are...

jabidas · 03-02-2002, 06:41 PM

Im not sure how it would work with an adult, like you say to a mathematician, Circle! and he will respond with the general formula for one. Do the same thing to a philosophy student and they will fall on the ground going oh the meanings, the meanings! Meannnnings, cycles, symols, nature, and so forth. Humans are very complex which is why they experiment on apes these days.

Just looking back at the original thread title I guess now I fell like saying, depends on how old they are.

Aelia Jusa · 03-02-2002, 06:47 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jabidas:
Im not sure how it would work with an adult, like you say to a mathematician, Circle! and he will respond with the general formula for one. Do the same thing to a philosophy student and they will fall on the ground going oh the meanings, the meanings! Meannnnings, cycles, symols, nature, and so forth. Humans are very complex which is why they experiment on apes these days.

Well that's not actually true, when using brain imaging techniques to see how the brain functions they use humans, apes' brains are quite similar, especially in structure, but often areas are used differently than humans do, an obvious example is the language and speech areas - primates have the same structures but they are used for different functions.

Obviously my experimental method is a little flawed, I just came up with it then

, but of course there would be guidelines as to what the adult would think, for example they would be instructed to see a picture of a ball in their head, or think to themselves, 'that's a ball', or something, to standardise it. Or perhaps using a young child would be better than an adult, who would have less "baggage" tacked onto their representation of ball.

jabidas · 03-02-2002, 06:55 PM

Im not sure if I got it across propery about the apes but thats what I meant, they are the same but a lot less complex so easier to work with. Anyway the problem is the simpest things encompass huge ideas because big thing are made up of little things. I dont know what would provoke a unifyed response or something really measuarable.

Aelia Jusa · 03-02-2002, 07:48 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jabidas:
Im not sure if I got it across propery about the apes but thats what I meant, they are the same but a lot less complex so easier to work with.

But they're not the same. Primate's brains are extremely complex, as are human brains, but they have fundamental differences that mean doing imaging in apes in order to understand human brains better is not very helpful in a lot of cases, especially if you're looking at the more 'recent' brain areas (evolutionarily speaking), ie the cerebrum. For example, a lot of what we 'know' about the reticular formation is based on animal research, which is actually not analagous to the functions of the human reticular formation.

Glorfindel · 03-03-2002, 01:47 AM

gee Aelia... havent you ever watched Baby Genisus??? All babies are super intelligent and know the meaning to life and what not.... they speak a language that they all understand... but we dont... [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

03-03-2002, 11:39 PM

Glorfindel,
That is very close to the truth!
I know, knowing me now (as if any of you really do lol) you might not believe it but I was born with a photographic memory...I have memories that go back to times when the adults and older siblings and cousins around me thought I could not understand or would not remember what they were saying. The truth is...I did.

I started talking at a very young age but the only person who could understand me was my dad.
To illustrate, take for example the day JFK was assinated...it was November 1963...I was 22 months old, sitting up in a corner of the couch with a cloth picture book while my sister watched the motorcade on television...I knew who John F Kennedy was, I was familiar with the term Camelot and knew that my family loved them. I was not, however informed that John F Kennedy was the president and when my sister got up screaming "The president's been shot, the president's been shot!" I had no idea who she was talking about or what a president was.

My dad worked in the city (we lived 30 miles away in the country) and he would come home every week or every other week during the winter months. It just so happened that during this period of time, it took him two weeks to come home...two weeks of my mother having me ask everyone she could drag in front of me what a president was and no one being able to understand what I was asking. She was alarmed that I had seen the assination on television and had suffered some trauma similar to my sister (who had to go into counseling to deal with having seen it all happen on TV).

By the time my dad came home, she was frantic. She told him what had happened to my sister and that I was there as well and had been asking a question that no one could understand (although in my head it sounded plain as day like "What's a president?").
My dad kneeled down in front of me and told me to ask him which I did. He almost laughed, he was so relieved and then he looked at my mother like she was an idiot for not being able to hear it in my words. "She's asking what a president is!" he told my mom and then he explained to me what a president was, asked me if I had seen JFK get shot (which I hadn't) and that was that.

Babies do understand.

I could even go farther back to prior to being a year old and breaking my leg when a box spring cover our neighbors were helping me "jump" on ripped and my leg went into the springs...understanding the words being spoken around me but not understanding what was going on since I felt no pain just prior to losing consciousness in my mother's arms after she took me out of the springs.
After it healed I got mad at her for taking my brace off and she told me to stop whining, I wouldn't remember it anyway.

I don't have the privelege of having a photographic memory anymore.
My brother threw a rock off of a three-story cliff onto my head when I was 9, fracturing my skull and leaving me with what to me have been "learning disabilities" related to memory that otherwise classify me as "normal" LOL.

Aging hasn't helped any either.

[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Moni ]

Aelia Jusa · 03-04-2002, 01:16 AM

Wow, that's really interesting, Moni. Thanks for sharing [img]smile.gif[/img] . An interesting thing about that is that you say you were talking really early, so maybe you were thinking and understanding things because you had language. I don't think most babies have the gifts you had, so maybe this agrees with the idea that you can't think until you have language.

Glorfindel · 03-04-2002, 01:25 AM

So that unfortunately still doesnt really answer the qeustion..... So maybe they dont really think at all.... I man sometimes it seams like that.... they possibly dont even understand what hunger or fatigue is.... so all they know is that they dont like it so they cry... so maybe its even more simple than wants but what they dislike like.... dont like being hungry... dont like being tired.... dont like cat....

So maybe babies are simply act on what they dont like and slowly learn what they DO like and then they learn language and begin to think of things like we do.

03-02-2002, 06:19 PM	#11
jabidas Silver Dragon Join Date: March 14, 2001 Location: Agharti. Mountains of Madness Posts: 1,673	I would say that if it thinks it has a mind so I would say yes for babys but it is debatable when they start to think. As for how, well i dont want to be the one taking baby brains apart with a scapel to know, hell we dont even fully understand normal full grown brains completly. __________________ <br /><br />Non Serviam.

03-02-2002, 06:33 PM	#12
Aelia Jusa Iron Throne Cult Join Date: August 23, 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Age: 42 Posts: 4,867	quote: Originally posted by jabidas: I would say that if it thinks it has a mind so I would say yes for babys but it is debatable when they start to think. As for how, well i dont want to be the one taking baby brains apart with a scapel to know, hell we dont even fully understand normal full grown brains completly. LOL well I don't think taking babies' brains apart would really help all that much . We have moved on slightly from there [img]tongue.gif[/img] . I was actually thinking how I might go about testing this, if I had a nice large grant and some guinea pigs.. uh, I mean babies . Imaging obviously would be what you'd use. I was thinking maybe you could show an adult a ball or something, and have them think about the ball. So using a blood flow dependent imaging techinque you'd get activity in both the visual areas and other areas that are associated with thinking about the ball. Language areas, probably, but also associational areas. Then you could show babies the ball, and see whether they are using not just the visual areas, but the associational areas as well. So that would tell us (maybe) whether they are thinking or not, but not what their thoughts are... __________________

03-02-2002, 06:41 PM	#13
jabidas Silver Dragon Join Date: March 14, 2001 Location: Agharti. Mountains of Madness Posts: 1,673	Im not sure how it would work with an adult, like you say to a mathematician, Circle! and he will respond with the general formula for one. Do the same thing to a philosophy student and they will fall on the ground going oh the meanings, the meanings! Meannnnings, cycles, symols, nature, and so forth. Humans are very complex which is why they experiment on apes these days. Just looking back at the original thread title I guess now I fell like saying, depends on how old they are. __________________ <br /><br />Non Serviam.

03-02-2002, 06:47 PM	#14
Aelia Jusa Iron Throne Cult Join Date: August 23, 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Age: 42 Posts: 4,867	quote: Originally posted by jabidas: Im not sure how it would work with an adult, like you say to a mathematician, Circle! and he will respond with the general formula for one. Do the same thing to a philosophy student and they will fall on the ground going oh the meanings, the meanings! Meannnnings, cycles, symols, nature, and so forth. Humans are very complex which is why they experiment on apes these days. Well that's not actually true, when using brain imaging techniques to see how the brain functions they use humans, apes' brains are quite similar, especially in structure, but often areas are used differently than humans do, an obvious example is the language and speech areas - primates have the same structures but they are used for different functions. Obviously my experimental method is a little flawed, I just came up with it then , but of course there would be guidelines as to what the adult would think, for example they would be instructed to see a picture of a ball in their head, or think to themselves, 'that's a ball', or something, to standardise it. Or perhaps using a young child would be better than an adult, who would have less "baggage" tacked onto their representation of ball. __________________

03-02-2002, 06:55 PM	#15
jabidas Silver Dragon Join Date: March 14, 2001 Location: Agharti. Mountains of Madness Posts: 1,673	Im not sure if I got it across propery about the apes but thats what I meant, they are the same but a lot less complex so easier to work with. Anyway the problem is the simpest things encompass huge ideas because big thing are made up of little things. I dont know what would provoke a unifyed response or something really measuarable. __________________ <br /><br />Non Serviam.

03-02-2002, 07:48 PM	#16
Aelia Jusa Iron Throne Cult Join Date: August 23, 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Age: 42 Posts: 4,867	quote: Originally posted by jabidas: Im not sure if I got it across propery about the apes but thats what I meant, they are the same but a lot less complex so easier to work with. But they're not the same. Primate's brains are extremely complex, as are human brains, but they have fundamental differences that mean doing imaging in apes in order to understand human brains better is not very helpful in a lot of cases, especially if you're looking at the more 'recent' brain areas (evolutionarily speaking), ie the cerebrum. For example, a lot of what we 'know' about the reticular formation is based on animal research, which is actually not analagous to the functions of the human reticular formation. __________________

03-03-2002, 01:47 AM	#17
Glorfindel Ma'at - Goddess of Truth & Justice Join Date: January 9, 2002 Location: Mt. Gambier, Australia Age: 36 Posts: 3,337	gee Aelia... havent you ever watched Baby Genisus??? All babies are super intelligent and know the meaning to life and what not.... they speak a language that they all understand... but we dont... [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/biglaugh.gif[/img]

03-03-2002, 11:39 PM	#18
Moni Guest Posts: n/a	Glorfindel, That is very close to the truth! I know, knowing me now (as if any of you really do lol) you might not believe it but I was born with a photographic memory...I have memories that go back to times when the adults and older siblings and cousins around me thought I could not understand or would not remember what they were saying. The truth is...I did. I started talking at a very young age but the only person who could understand me was my dad. To illustrate, take for example the day JFK was assinated...it was November 1963...I was 22 months old, sitting up in a corner of the couch with a cloth picture book while my sister watched the motorcade on television...I knew who John F Kennedy was, I was familiar with the term Camelot and knew that my family loved them. I was not, however informed that John F Kennedy was the president and when my sister got up screaming "The president's been shot, the president's been shot!" I had no idea who she was talking about or what a president was. My dad worked in the city (we lived 30 miles away in the country) and he would come home every week or every other week during the winter months. It just so happened that during this period of time, it took him two weeks to come home...two weeks of my mother having me ask everyone she could drag in front of me what a president was and no one being able to understand what I was asking. She was alarmed that I had seen the assination on television and had suffered some trauma similar to my sister (who had to go into counseling to deal with having seen it all happen on TV). By the time my dad came home, she was frantic. She told him what had happened to my sister and that I was there as well and had been asking a question that no one could understand (although in my head it sounded plain as day like "What's a president?"). My dad kneeled down in front of me and told me to ask him which I did. He almost laughed, he was so relieved and then he looked at my mother like she was an idiot for not being able to hear it in my words. "She's asking what a president is!" he told my mom and then he explained to me what a president was, asked me if I had seen JFK get shot (which I hadn't) and that was that. Babies do understand. I could even go farther back to prior to being a year old and breaking my leg when a box spring cover our neighbors were helping me "jump" on ripped and my leg went into the springs...understanding the words being spoken around me but not understanding what was going on since I felt no pain just prior to losing consciousness in my mother's arms after she took me out of the springs. After it healed I got mad at her for taking my brace off and she told me to stop whining, I wouldn't remember it anyway. I don't have the privelege of having a photographic memory anymore. My brother threw a rock off of a three-story cliff onto my head when I was 9, fracturing my skull and leaving me with what to me have been "learning disabilities" related to memory that otherwise classify me as "normal" LOL. Aging hasn't helped any either. [ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Moni ]

03-04-2002, 01:16 AM	#19
Aelia Jusa Iron Throne Cult Join Date: August 23, 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Age: 42 Posts: 4,867	Wow, that's really interesting, Moni. Thanks for sharing [img]smile.gif[/img] . An interesting thing about that is that you say you were talking really early, so maybe you were thinking and understanding things because you had language. I don't think most babies have the gifts you had, so maybe this agrees with the idea that you can't think until you have language. __________________

03-04-2002, 01:25 AM	#20
Glorfindel Ma'at - Goddess of Truth & Justice Join Date: January 9, 2002 Location: Mt. Gambier, Australia Age: 36 Posts: 3,337	So that unfortunately still doesnt really answer the qeustion..... So maybe they dont really think at all.... I man sometimes it seams like that.... they possibly dont even understand what hunger or fatigue is.... so all they know is that they dont like it so they cry... so maybe its even more simple than wants but what they dislike like.... dont like being hungry... dont like being tired.... dont like cat.... So maybe babies are simply act on what they dont like and slowly learn what they DO like and then they learn language and begin to think of things like we do.

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