Sunday, August 9, 2009

Matchbook Numbers

How do babies think? Obviously they don't think in terms of language. Life must suck for a baby. I've written about this before but I still find it interesting. Infants experience some extreme things and have no way of working it out in their minds and no historical knowledge to base these experiences on. No wonder they cry so much! They have no other options. One of my best friends, who's a bit of a musical genius, addressed this subject when he wrote a song years ago making references to a child teething, implying the confusion and strangeness of the experience from the perspective of the child who has no idea what is happening to their mouth. His band's name is Code Hero, check them out.
Anyway, Michelle suggested the possibility that they just experience pure emotion and don't really have firm cognitive thoughts. Perhaps. I think they probably do think, but I really don't know. I can't possibly go further without making this religious. I believe we were alive before life on Earth and I believe we will live after our physical bodies die. And I believe we were intelligent enough before this life to use and understand language, so maybe babies think in that language but lack the ability, and knowledge of how to use their new muscles and body, to create speech.
When I started writing this I didn't plan on leading it to this area, but here we are. I just don't know what goes on inside the minds of children. I don't remember. But I bloody well wish I could.

4 comments:

Unused Account said...

I don't think babies have logic in place yet. I don't think they wonder why the teeth are coming in or why it hurts...they just scream from reflexes.

Otherwise...circumcision would seriously suck.

P to the S...my word verification is SOMBER.

It's Me...shell said...

i did suggest another option, if you will recall. I too want to know what they think or how they think. i think one day we will know...I hope

Kathryn said...

Tron. I was on FamilySearch.org today, and my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather's name is Tron. Just Tron. And he was born around 1682 in Norway.

Jon, Liz, Max and Luke said...

A lot of psychological theorists talk about early infancy as a constant stream of sensation without mediating thoughts, language, ideas of cause and effect or even a sense of being a self separate from the world. You could say the baby simply is the world, whatever sensations come his or her way. When I imagine it, it seems at first to be pretty terrifying, but that's just me thinking with a self and a memory. For the baby its awful when its awful and its great when its great and the two aren't connected. Or so some people say.