Does a baby already have a preconceptual worldview?

Philosophy of Mind
82

Okay I was specifically thinking in utero, although vibs between parents matter, so point taken.

No, that isn’t what I was thinking about, it’s way more subtle. I think emotionally charged memories leave imprints that influence the lens through which we process incoming data. More like cellular memory.
Of course the days race by once a child is born, and those imprints get reinforced with more concrete memories directly received from caregivers.

That’s what I’m trying to figure out, what is this “worldview” is supposed to entail? What is missing?

As for the cause - prerequisite to grasping that requires developing deep appreciation for the fact of evolution and the reality that living bodies possess the cumulative total of a half billion years worth of generations within them.

Furthermore, we have the mammals to learn from. When I look at the mammalian kingdom of animals, those babies must have a “worldview” considering how fast they can step up to self survival skills.

How do they do it? I don’t know, but we witness it in action.

A human baby is different because a good portion of its gestation occurs outside of the womb. But still to hear people tell me an infant has no worldview, it sounds like they are saying a baby is a blank slate. Which doesn’t make any biological sense when viewed against the backdrop of biological evolution and what we witness in other mammals.

Not to mention what I see and experience when I look into an infants eyes along with the following exchanges between us.

Okay thanks for the clarification. My unschooled mind considers infants mainly as that first 100± day stage, baby taking over from there, by three years old, seems to me the toddler stage is already well underway. Thanks for the clarification, I’ll try to keep it in mind.

Although that muddles up this “worldview” concept even more, considering the amazing changes and development that happens in the first year, let alone those first three years.

That’s the blasé of a clinician, I guess.
To someone attentive to the moment and attached to the child, it is miracle in action, watching those eyes track and react to various stimuli. Seeing how much they are actually aware of that most other totally miss.

Watching that those eyes pay attention and mimic others, etc., etc.. But I guess that’s why other’s have hung the moniker ‘baby whisper’ onto me, since I am totally enthralled, and infants picks up on it and relationship ensues. May not be philosophical acceptable, but from a humanistic (Earth-centrist) real world perspective, it’s a peak of experience, if one can tune into it.

Until they wake up from their birth sleep. After that the world is what is in front of them, and yes they do engage, though it’s of the subtle variety, well until they want something, then they know how to get the attention of even the most disinterested. That says something about their awareness - doesn’t it?

Oh boy now there’s path to the abyss. :zipper_mouth_face:

83

Most of what?
This happens automatically by the subconscious receiving information from the senses.
No conscious action is required.

84

During this period, they are not conscious.
Getting attention by crying is a reflexive action.
They are activated solely by the subconscious, so no awareness.

86

After all it’s not like a baby is turned on at birth.
It already has a few months of a world to experience, like why is it so nice to suck on something. (me thinking of those precious pictures of in utero thumb sucking)

And some of us are fortunate enough to have a wombie to share the time with. Perhaps even starting the pecking order before birth, I’m the big sister and you are the little brother.

Agreed.

Thanks for that summary.

87

I can understand this concept, but it strikes me the same way most new-agey thinking does: What mechanism could have this working? I’m not aware of any process or structures that could allow this to happen. It’s essentially a supernatural claim, imo.

This seems to be roughly hte same sort of prevaricative “feeling” statement. It doesn’t tell me anything I could grasp about how a baby could possibly be born with “memory” (accepting your subtler version) of their parents or prior generations. If you mean they literally have genetic markers which were preserved over thousands of years, sure, but that isn’t going to result in any conscious structures - well, not to my knowledge.

I don’t quite think this gets off the group. Reactions are different to responses.

Sure, but if you don’t know - that doesn’t then suggest a “worldview” (which we don’t think any other animals really have, anyway)

Well, I’d say that is on you. Because, what’s said, is what it sounds like to hear what is said. Not your interpretation.
That aside, though, how is that an issue? If a baby is born as a blank slate (in the sense of a conscious blank slate) what would be missing from what you see? I can’t see anything.

Which I contend to be the development of a worldview. Is this a bit more palatable, even if you don’t think i’m right?

Hmm. Interesting. It’s actually the take of a two-time father who’s wife works with newborns in our home almost daily.

Yeah, this is a great experience. It doesn’t seem to indicate a worldview - which is a set of concepts into which incoming data sits neatly - updating each time new data does not fit neatly into it (this is how I see it - I can’t really understand other conceptions I’ve heard - they don’t seem to speak to how we use that world, in any context).

I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you mean “until they’re born” I would prefer this was said. If you mean “within the first few months” I would prefer this was said, as those are terms every one else uses and can actually deal to.
In the former, I think you’re objectively wrong. Babies can’t even delineate between themselves and their mother at birth. If you mean latter, yes, that’s what I’m roughly saying. THe first few months are essentially a “coming into focus”, the way we have to rub our eyes when we wake up. There’s no “view”, just amorphous stuff we don’t quite grasp. Then, shortly, things come into view and we get depth, colour, reflection, shadow etc.. etc.. and all comes to us in short order from there (assuming no aberrations).

I think this is patently false. Newborns don’t do most of that, whether consciously or not.

Yeah, this is, I think, the correct take.

88

You ask some very good questions.
Gonna need to ruminate on them a little, but get to bed first.

In fairness, how much have you looked into it?

Are you familiar with Michael Levin?
This isn’t an answer to your question, but it does show there is stuff scientists are getting to understand better and better and it shows that the complex systems are being teased out, they exist, to fully understand them, still take time.
Though the overlying Evolutionary reality of Earth, means none of that should be a surprise. Still fun to know in the kind of detail, only science can offer.

89

Ish. My understanding is that he’s, while a great scientist, prone to speculation that even he isn’t necessarily taking seriously. I don’t think I’ve seen anything of his which would be all that relevant here.

Enough to have, at one point, believed DMT was the seat of genetic memory (in the sense you are needing, rather than the scientific term). I’ve been searching for these things for decades.

Can you say more about this? There’s nothing about hte overlying concept of progress/change that would lead me to believe a purportedly supernatural ability to retain other individual’s worldviews through birth was possible.

One thing I would say, that probably puts us on closer footing and might make this a bit more interesting of a chat, is that I am intuitively fairly amenable to the idea that mind is, if not independent of, a separate entity to, the brain.

90

Well Okay, but I wouldn’t know what you are talking about. Could I?

Well, okay, then why not approach it in a more collegial manner, and try to point out what I’m missing? Perhaps share from what you’ve actually learned, that I don’t have a clue about. … and such.

Lost me there. Are you sure you’re talking about something I’m talking about?
For instance, supernatural is not a part of my outlook, so please explain why you are injecting here?

I don’t have a thin shell, it’s okay to tell me - “Dude have you thought about WTF you are saying in this paragraph or line???” “What about … Are you aware of … ?” Like perhaps you could be misunderstanding me and I should strive for more better facts and more clarity, or a better idea.

But that doesn’t happen without feedback.

Here’s my starting hand of cards:

I am a biological evolved animal (Earthling) product of an internally impeccably consistent and harmonious evolutionary process.

Sense + Body + Brain + interactions (interior & exterior) = our sense of self, the I Am, awareness leading to the consciousness spectrum, mind, as creature complexity increases.

Cheers.

91

If you could point out where I have not, that would be helpful. I’ve been polite, direct and there’s nothing abrasive in my responses, prima facie. Fairly confusing response tbh…

I’ve made this pretty clear back here:

So you’ll need to give me some reason to bring this back to the natural realm for a discussion in that context. This isn’t a charge on you, it’s my telling you how your thesis (so far) appears to me. I think you’re being a little defensive, and I suggest its best not to take things personally and instead apply them to your words. I am giving you fairly direct feedback on most of these points, but your responses seem to indicate that this isn’t true:

From what you’ve said, you’re describing the same type of “generational memory” very common in new age circles who think reincarnation is, in some sense, actually happening.

I can’t quite work out where your cards leave us. That description doesn’t seem to enter into the biological discussion, as opposed to your personal philosophical take on what a “being” is in the Human sense. Nothing wrong with that, but I do not think you are really confronting the question you started with.

A newborn does not carry with it any kind of sensational memory from prior generations, nor is there a mechanism which could explain how that might be possible. I am, mainly, asking for you you let me know what mechanism you think might be at play so I can wrap my head around this without so many glaring explanatory gaps.

92

And I didn’t make that claim.

It’s called genetic heritage, and scientists are still discovering new aspects and tricks. DNA, Chromosomes, Genes, Alleles (dominant and recessive), Genetic “blueprints” that help start brain wiring. Within our cells, mitochondria, the nucleus, ER, Golgi, ribosomes, lysosomes, the cytoskeleton, dark proteome, cytoskeleton, non-coding RNA and regulatory logic, regulatory RNAs, chromatin organization, plus a not insignificant number of items floating around in our cells that scientists still don’t have a clue what it is or what its doing. - Plus turns out many well know components (mitochondria being a great example - are turning out to be vastly more complex and important than suspected a couple decades ago).

So from first principles, it seems obvious that the cells have capabilities we haven’t a clue about yet.

A new born is equipped to engage with the world and learn according to the feedback it receives.

Early on @Joshs touches on a part of it

Yeah that’s been unsettling to read recently, and it seems quite bizarre (almost as weird as Spock Mind Meld Envy), who came up with that?

I mean at three years old a child that has had loving, engage, intelligent parents have kids that can, follow directions, share in choirs, tell coherent story, and keep up with one on the trail.

An “infant,” for me, is the first 100 days (I learned this via tales of some South Sea islanders, who consider their newborns as “holy” during their first hundred days, during which the Child’s feet are never allowed to touch the ground. Then at 100 days, there’s a ceremony where the baby’s feet are brought into contact, and it gets demoted to simply another human and member of the tribe. )

I’ve found this tracks wonderfully with the awakening of Ego within the baby, that is the beginning of a personality developing and dawning recognition of the world, now that the little creature is well on the way to getting its body figured out. By the end of a year most kids are walking, and I see toddlers, heck by three years, calling them babies is increasingly weird - even resented by some.

Oh, worth bring up, the “world view” of a newborn baby is its body and the people who interacted with it.

Oh but guess I’m rehashing #81 now.

We come from very different places.
Considering you accept that P-zombies exist, and that apparently biology is subordinate to your philosophical beliefs, we are probably wasting each other’s time.

Thanks for the challenge, wish you’d have had more to offer.

93

Fair enough - It certainly sounds like it throughout these replies.

This might be true, but I see no reason to think any major function is missing from our story. Nothing you’ve outlined seems to point to any kind of transitive empirical information.

Hmmm. To me, that does not, in any way, point to a “worldview” as far as I can tell. But again, this might just boil down to what we’re seeing as a “worldview”. I have never, until this thread (And a couple of related ones) seen this term used to refer to anything other than a conscious, intentional developed view of the empirical facts of the world, such as one knows them, and the subsequent sorts of feedback we experience as deliberative beings. Newborns, and indeed, infants (toddlers being a bit older and having developed certain degrees of self-actualization) cannot do the things which indicate a conscious, deliberated view of the world. They, in fact, aren’t yet aware there is a world to be viewed. I don’t thikn Joshs has said anything worth much there - and that’s not to be disparaging, but you’ve entered it here and I don’t see it’s worth as between us.

Yep, I agree with that. A three year old, generally speaking, is going to have a low-res world view.

I think the story is bizarre, but I think this is right. It seems to indicate you may also think a worldview does not obtain until this time. I’d be fine with that.

Right. See, this massages the meaning of “worldview” into almost irrelevance as far as I can tell.

Being underhanded and quippy is not helpful when we’re engaging cordially. Unfortunately:

I don’t think you’re going to get far by being derogatory to those who present you with coherent, consistent objections to which you are not adequately responding.

94

Okay, I hear what you are explaining. I’m good. A baby is not born with a “worldview” - and I’m at fault for being sloppy with terminology.

The worldview is just that, the growing awareness, in degrees, of knowing the world. Of course, that can’t happen until a child is born. Interestingly, it’s said that we are all born premature compared to other mammals, so that while still in a “gestation phase” the infant is directly subjected to it’s environment. This fact is at the root of how humans could conquer the globe and all sorts of climate conditions - because the “gestating” creature has direct contact with the environment as it’s still developing.

To clarify. What I was really railing against was the notion of a newborn, as blank slate.
The baby’s biological system itself is increasingly “aware” as it developes in the womb, of course the development is intimate to the little creature itself as the hardware of its body is being developed.

By the time a baby is born, it is equipped with what information it needs, it’s biology is programmed with a drive to thrive, and the equipment it needs to immediately start making sense of what the outside world is throwing at it. Of course, that world starts with a titty and a caress, voices, feelings, hopefully including being bathed in love. So maybe it’s simply a “tittiesview” that under healthy circumstances all else is built upon.

I can agree with that also, my real point was that a newborn is equipment with a drive to develop a worldview. It’s equipped with what it needs to engage and step up from day one, though it’s all about discovery and collecting impressions - upon which all other lessons will added to constructed that worldview.

I can appreciate that now and stand corrected and will be much more careful with the term “worldview” in the future.

Though, allow me a wise crack … referring to a newborn having a worldview is as odd as referring to a three years old toddler as an infant. Heck call that toddler a baby and they’ll get mad at ya and give you lip until ya backpedal. Now that requires a worldview, doesn’t it? :wink:

Someday I’ll find out how that happened to begin with.

That wasn’t meant for you personally, it was a more general primal scream of frustration towards today’s philosophical facade.
Sadly it’s more than a quip, it’s a reflect of the contempt toward considering biological that I’ve receive from more learned people than you can imagine. I’m sure my attitude hasn’t helped - but that problem goes way beyond a punk’s uppity attitude - it’s a problem at the core of today self-indulgent philosophy that’s easier to ignore than engage with.

The whole blank slate thinking, and the Cave, and Mary, is all about side stepping biological evolutionary reality - and keeping it to our just-so mind experiments and metaphysics - as though we were god’s luminous beings.
As a professor told me, “I do metaphysics, not biology” - as if the two can be that easily divorced.

Admittedly evolutionary biology’s insights hadn’t really flowered until recent decades. Still philosophers definitely have some serious catching to do.

Sorry, unfortunately sometimes the only way not to be ignored is to pound a fist on that table. I suspect you would not have written your thoughtful insightful clarification if I hadn’t pushed some buttons.

I don’t feel good about it (I’m actually quite a nice guy who loves the no-drama zone, but there is that hot-head demon in there, dealing with a society that has totally gone off the rails.), action and reaction are what they are. I can handle being scolded, corrected, criticized, even insulted up front. but that collective philosopher’s penchant toward superiority attitude and dismissive quips, is also worth pointing out.

I’m an unhappy tormented spectator to humans willfully and ignorantly destroying our biosphere, not to mention our ruthless attitude toward others, be they human or animal, or the desire for a healthy biosphere. While arguing over whether a biological creature can create their own consciousness - when every ounce of scientific evidence, along with simple honest logic points to exactly that.

All the while refusing to discuss the clear indications that we ourselves create our own God through our own biology, heart and mind, in response to a lonely unforgiving existence.

That’s a phenomenal revolutionary insight, so why does no one seem to want to do anything with?

One thing leads to another and it’s all interwoven.

@AmadeusD, thanks for taking the time to write your informative comment.

95

Yep, fair enough. I figured there might actually be some pretty clear common ground here :slight_smile: Thank you for the charity.

I’m not quite so sure. Babies are absolutely useless. They only have a drive to try to cause other people to ensure they thrive.

Absolutely! This is bang on imo.

Hmm. Do you not think that, perhaps, philosophy has something to say about it? Evolutionary biology has to be assumed for a lot of stories to hang together. Philosophy of science, and biology specifically(it’s an entire field) treats the questions of how to interpret data and sort of coherent stories can be told by it. I think it goes hand-in-hand. The mere presentation of biological theory doens’t, I don’t think, give us a huge amount to go on. Particularly because the real questions are about what we do in light of whatever data we’re looking at.

LOL. I can’t argue, but I can’t agree either. I don’t disparage this approach at all - but mods may.

Ok, fair enough. This makes a lot of sense of you (and I mean that with some amount of admiration). I can’t say I share tihs view - many here probably will, I think - so you may not need to be quite so frontal with your wordings - but it’s, at least, a totally reasonable approach to have and makes a lot of sense of where you’re coming from when you respond to stuff.

My response is that I don’t think many people are experiencing a truly existential crisis. There’s the lip-service to it, and the human need for drama that informs people looking for it - but I don’t, personally, think we’re at risk of destroying the biosphere, ending our species or any other historically interesting events. We may we have to live through it though, as did many other species before us who did absolutely nothing we could consider “wrong”.

96

After a pleasant start, he drops this grenade in my lap

But I dare not mention that this is exactly what I meant about self-absorbed and self-serving human, a baby is absolutely useless?? Isn’t that an excellent example of how we blind our selves, to everything going on around us that isn’t of immediate perceived benefit?

Unaware (¿ nor interested in?) of what transpires as parents first look down at their new born bundle of miracles. The internal earthquake that blossoms into of a level of love and commitment never hinted to before and barred from regular people who’ve never experienced it. Of course, the pressures of our society get in the way of that unfolding as naturally as in actually nuclear families who are afforded time with their children.

I mentioned this comment to my wife and her first response was — he’s never experienced engorged titties that are screaming in pain, longing for that little one to latch on them to drain and relieve the pain.

Nor how playing with that growing child, then joined by more kids, signal the physically worn down old 60 year old Napa’s body, to pick up the beat and renewed vigor and strength in order to keep up with these growing kids. Can you imagine a baby impacting another’s human physical health significantly - yet here a learned man is assuring me: “babies are useless.”

What do you think, given my experience and personal awareness, should I do with that?

Philosophy has a great deal to say about it - how much of that is worth teaching and believing is another matter. Also, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think philosophy has bone in this struggle.

My complaint is how can philosophers expect to get anywhere in understanding humans - who are after all, evolved biological animals, made out the same stuff and milieu as all other creatures upon this planet - without incorporating the insights modern biology and evolutionary awareness has achieved?

97

I don’t encourage it either, but backing someone into a corner, human is as human does.

:zipper_mouth_face:

Okay, many people don’t think about our biosphere and at this point it’s probably just as well, we’re racing through the tipping points nonetheless.
For me, that route isn’t open since I’ve been pro-actively learning about Earth’s geophysics and evolution and climate system, which includes the oceans since the early '70s. I’m also casually familiar ocean chemistry over the eons and how its fluctuations has impacted life on Earth and the radical changes we’ve brought about in past century. Plus I live within the Colorado River basin, and the future is a scary place indeed, like what do we do when the water faucets, no longer spew water. Or is that just a local problem? Nuff said.

So you think the human race has done nothing wrong?
I find it hard to wrap my head around that concept.
But, that’s a different discussion and there’s no point in a tit for tat. It’s enough to simply be aware of where we stand.

Cheers :clinking_glasses: Amadeus, here’s to future happier dialogue.

98

Oh come now. You’re on a forum of adults. This isn’t a serious claim is it?

Again, you think so. I don’t think we’re at that risk - the same claims have been made for 50 years. I’m not a denialist. Obviously climate change is happening. The only point I get off that bus is to say we’re hurtling toward an existential tipping point. That, to me, appears to be pure fantasy.

It is quite hard not to quip at this - it’s the kind of response you expect from angry Twitter users. I’ll do my best to just clarify without that. What I said was:

There is no intimation, anywhere here, about what I think humans have done.

Slainte!

100

Alrighty then.
nothing much to add to that.
Momentum is as momentum does.
We live and learn.

101

You are continually multi-posting. Please don’t do this - just edit your first post with your further thoughts. There is a reason I am missing your responses. So, i’m picking this one up now…

You ever had a baby my guy? They are literally useless. They cannot do anything for themselves. They are designed to piss off those around them to ensure their survival. I’m unsure why you’re getting twisted over this statement. There’s nothing self-absorbed about literally witnessing the totality of all babies being useless. Your entire response is predicated on a complete false view you have decided underlies my statements. You’re wrong. It’s almost impossible to respond to this because you’re off on some tangent that has nothing to do with what i’ve said, or intimated. I tried so hard to remain cordial, sort through your misguided responses and make something civil of this - but you seem hell-bent on being insulting.

Has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the capacities of a baby. That’s about your capacity as a parent.

You realise I have two children, right? A woman saying that the physical bond between a mother and a child somehow means the child is capable of things they aren’t is, sorry to say, flowery nonsense. I don’t deny any of the emotional, psychological and motivational import of a baby. I didn’t say anything about them. You have either lied to your wife about what was said, or she has no clue what I am talking about anyway. Fwiw, I showed this exchange to my wife and she just said “Yes, well, there are idiot parents too”. Take that as you wish… I should also suggest, your underlying point would have you accepting that what your wife said is merely an evolutionary trait which cannot be said to be more than biological ‘fate’. Also, take that as you wish.

I don’t think it has anything to do with me, and asking me this is genuinely a weird way to take this.

…but they do. That you claim otherwise is objectively wrong, so I’m not sure where to go from there. There’s nothing to be said if you’re not aware of this, that is true. But i suggest there is a lot more to be said if you’re willing to learn.

102

I’ve run out of time. :zipper_mouth_face: