03-02-2002, 05:04 PM | #1 |
Iron Throne Cult
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I've come from Yorick's "Beginning of Human Life" thread, where I posited a theory that human life does not begin until the brain begins to develop, because our ability to think and reason etc is something that we as humans consider intrinsically human. But then I wondered, how do babies think? Children and adults think with language, thinking essentially is language - I think in sentences, words etc, I can't think any other way.
So what about babies, who don't have language yet? Do they even think at all; do they just feel and experience? There are many many experiments where using preferential sucking/looking etc techniques they've found that babies prefer looking at their mother compared to other women, and prefer listening to certain kinds of music over others, and prefer hearing their mother's voice to any music at all. But does this involve any thinking, or is it just seeing and responding? I believe that some higher order animals can think, apes certainly can, so how do they think? Do they have some language or is it a sort of image or pictorial representation? If so, maybe babies also use an image representation for thinking. What do you think?
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03-02-2002, 05:12 PM | #2 |
Silver Dragon
Join Date: March 14, 2001
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Well initially a child thinks in terms of wants, you know I want more food, warmth and so forth. It dosnt really have what you would call thoughts, it is what freud dubbed the ID. They have no personality to speak of but they develop a personality when they have to learn how to deal with the rest of the world to get what they want. Initially this is visable in too ways the dominant demanding kind of requests and the sort of begging ones. You can see it much easier in toddlers I suppose, love is born out of perhaps dependancy, I dont know perhaps thats too cynical. Anyway the person develops as they grow older and learn how best to deal with the world. Does that help?
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03-02-2002, 05:15 PM | #3 |
Harper
Join Date: October 6, 2001
Location: Iceland
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have you seen how some people act around little babies
They probably think "Who are those retarts? do I really have to spend my life with them?" No actually I think it's not a "thought" as such, more like "unprocessed brainactivity" what ever that means [img]smile.gif[/img] |
03-02-2002, 05:19 PM | #4 |
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quote: Well not really [img]smile.gif[/img] . I know what babies do at that age, and that they are into what they want and what they need, eg crying when they're hungry etc. What I'm interested in is how and if they even DO process these wants into thoughts, or if they are simply responding to how they are feeling. Do they think "I'm hungry", obviously not in that way, since they don't have language, so how do they do it, if at all?
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03-02-2002, 05:31 PM | #5 |
Silver Dragon
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I think its sort of sensation as in, I dont like, cry and somebody will do something about it. The child is in pain it cries. Any better? thought comes eventually but it takes time for a mind to really come about.
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03-02-2002, 05:37 PM | #6 |
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quote: Okay, so you think that we can't think until we have language, at least some rudimentary form. That's interesting [img]smile.gif[/img] . What about if a baby sees their ball or something. Do you think they have some image in their mind of a ball, which could be classified as a "thought" about the ball, or do they not have any representation of it in their mind at all? What about animals? Do you think they think at all, and if so, how?
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03-02-2002, 05:51 PM | #7 |
Silver Dragon
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A baby who is playing with a ball has been around for a while, the mind in some rudimentry form has developed by then. As for animals, Im not really sure. On a side note a theory for the eveloution of language is that back in the stone age when we were all in tribes or something like that, when a tribe saw say atiger coming up the hill they all saw a tiger and tried to scare it away. It was a group thing. Anyway say one of the cavemen goes off by himself for whatever reason he sees a tiger coming up a hill and he has to find a way to communicate this, but what if hes angry at the tribe and says nothing. This supposedly was the begginings of language and indiviuality. With that in mind I think its probable babys have minds before they speak they just have to learn the lingo. Sure their ID is still mostly in control making demands but there is a mind there.
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03-02-2002, 06:07 PM | #9 |
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quote: Well the id is a part of the mind, if one subscribes to Freud's theory, which I don't really . It's the most primitive part, later tempered by the ego and the superego, but it is all part of the "mind". I think that babies have words before they learn to vocalise them, whether they understand the significance of symbolism between words and objects is another matter, but assuming they do we could say that a baby thinks with language, primitively, when they're about 6 months or so. But before this time, babies are playing with things, seeing things. When a baby sees its mother when it's a few weeks old, what happens in their brain? Do they have an image of their mother? Is this a "thought" then, or is it just their visual system playing back what they are seeing? Now as for evolution, apes also use this means of communication between themselves, they do not have the appropriate larynx etc so they can't vocalise, but in the same way your cavemen are indicating the tiger, so too do primates. So then they are thinking? How are they doing it? Is it images or something sort of symbolic representation?
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03-02-2002, 06:16 PM | #10 |
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quote: Thanks for finding that, Mouse [img]smile.gif[/img] . But I already know about how the brain develops inside and outside the womb. They seem to be implying that there is no cognition for a while after birth because the brain, cerebrum especially, is too immature, I thought that might be the case myself. But the visual and tactile systems are fully developed after birth (except higher order associations), so there must be some sort of representation of objects in the brain soon after birth, albeit not very good because babies can't see very well. So is this thinking, or does thinking involve something more than just representation, like association, or does it indeed require language? [ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: Aelia Jusa ]
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