I think if you come at it from the idea of "awakening experiences" that are talked about in every spiritual tradition, i.e. being extremely present in the now, I think you come to a very different conclusion. It is the adult ability to ruminate that creates suffering, and the sense that you are separate from the world. The pure emotion of a baby would essentially pass right through. Spiritual awakening is often described as returning to something we once had. I don't know for sure if this is an accurate description, and it would start to change as the ego develops, but certainly something to think about.
Paul I think you make some assumptions about the life of babies in the blog that are not universal. Being left alone in dark is a curious example (WEIRD, indeed), for a start. In some cultures, babies and small children are rarely put down. In many, never alone. This bbc article is the top of an iceberg of research in both sociocultural and evolutionary anthropology that would need to be considered ahead of your hypothetical study. Extrapolating (or seeing as typical when researched) what is WEIRD could be unwise, I'm guessing. (The sling-carried baby, with attentive alloparents supporting her mother, might have a very pleasurable life?) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210222-the-unusual-ways-western-parents-raise-children
Paul, you already have spent 5 minutes as an infant, and as a two-year-old. Considerably more, in fact. You found those occasions conspicuously unmemorable.
From the clinical handbook of transcultural infant mental health:
“How much crying is normal for a baby? Even though this seems a simple question, there is wide variation on the amount of time babies cry in different cultural groups. Some studies have found an enormous difference, tenfold if one compares time of crying between babies in England or the United States on one side, and babies in some regions of India or Africa (St James-Roberts et al. 1994).
Indeed, it has been shown that increasing carrying of the young infant is associated with lesser duration of crying per day (Hunziker and Barr 1986; Bensel 2006). Carrying the baby is practiced in most traditional societies for extended periods of time during the day, compared with the typical regime in the United States or the United Kingdom.”
I think about this a lot because I remember how unhappy I was as a child, despite having every reasonable comfort handed to me. I don't remember being a baby, but I doubt it was any better. So I'm very sympathetic to the related passage in Augustine's Confessions that shocks many readers, where he characterizes babies as sinful - full of greed and jealousy that we think of as cute and innocent only because they're incapable of acting on it. I think we tend to idealize childhood retrospectively in a way that doesn't do justice to the experiences. I would *love* to see the kind of study you recommend, where people actually observe the proportion of happy-seeming and unhappy-seeming behaviours among babies.
You were here in Tucson? Can't imagine leaving.... :-)
Our kid's first year of life was miserable. Only when they could move and communicate did they cheer up. But I've known other babies who were fine. At least from the outside.
"Anyone who listens to a child's crying and understands what he hears will know that it harbors dormant psychic forces, terrible forces different from anything commonly assumed. Profound rage, pain and lust for destruction." -Wittgenstein
Omelas reminds me of Majalis (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode ’Lift us where suffering cannot reach’). It bothers me that I instinctively chose to walk away the first time I read Le Guin’s story, yet also felt strongly that the First Servant must be rescued. It must be the way the stories were told.
"Putting together such a study would be expensive and time-consuming, and I can’t think of a theoretical reason for doing this—I’m not sure what deep questions about developmental psychology it would address. Still, it would be very cool.”
Kinda how I feel about this article. Stay cool, man.
I watched all eight minutes of babies laughing and was surprised how similar they sound. Started watching Cute and Funny Babies Crying and couldn't get past the second video. My husband felt the woman was wrong; what I felt was closer to rage. I’d rather watch several minutes of this woman bursting into tears than to see this baby wail. (I'm not a sadist though.)
Since baby’s true feelings are unknowable for the outsiders they wake up in us the true horror of the unknowable other feelings. Their total abandonment to it find in us the urge to care for them. (For most people at least.)
I think if you come at it from the idea of "awakening experiences" that are talked about in every spiritual tradition, i.e. being extremely present in the now, I think you come to a very different conclusion. It is the adult ability to ruminate that creates suffering, and the sense that you are separate from the world. The pure emotion of a baby would essentially pass right through. Spiritual awakening is often described as returning to something we once had. I don't know for sure if this is an accurate description, and it would start to change as the ego develops, but certainly something to think about.
Paul I think you make some assumptions about the life of babies in the blog that are not universal. Being left alone in dark is a curious example (WEIRD, indeed), for a start. In some cultures, babies and small children are rarely put down. In many, never alone. This bbc article is the top of an iceberg of research in both sociocultural and evolutionary anthropology that would need to be considered ahead of your hypothetical study. Extrapolating (or seeing as typical when researched) what is WEIRD could be unwise, I'm guessing. (The sling-carried baby, with attentive alloparents supporting her mother, might have a very pleasurable life?) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210222-the-unusual-ways-western-parents-raise-children
Paul, you already have spent 5 minutes as an infant, and as a two-year-old. Considerably more, in fact. You found those occasions conspicuously unmemorable.
From the clinical handbook of transcultural infant mental health:
“How much crying is normal for a baby? Even though this seems a simple question, there is wide variation on the amount of time babies cry in different cultural groups. Some studies have found an enormous difference, tenfold if one compares time of crying between babies in England or the United States on one side, and babies in some regions of India or Africa (St James-Roberts et al. 1994).
Indeed, it has been shown that increasing carrying of the young infant is associated with lesser duration of crying per day (Hunziker and Barr 1986; Bensel 2006). Carrying the baby is practiced in most traditional societies for extended periods of time during the day, compared with the typical regime in the United States or the United Kingdom.”
I think about this a lot because I remember how unhappy I was as a child, despite having every reasonable comfort handed to me. I don't remember being a baby, but I doubt it was any better. So I'm very sympathetic to the related passage in Augustine's Confessions that shocks many readers, where he characterizes babies as sinful - full of greed and jealousy that we think of as cute and innocent only because they're incapable of acting on it. I think we tend to idealize childhood retrospectively in a way that doesn't do justice to the experiences. I would *love* to see the kind of study you recommend, where people actually observe the proportion of happy-seeming and unhappy-seeming behaviours among babies.
You were here in Tucson? Can't imagine leaving.... :-)
Our kid's first year of life was miserable. Only when they could move and communicate did they cheer up. But I've known other babies who were fine. At least from the outside.
"Anyone who listens to a child's crying and understands what he hears will know that it harbors dormant psychic forces, terrible forces different from anything commonly assumed. Profound rage, pain and lust for destruction." -Wittgenstein
Omelas reminds me of Majalis (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode ’Lift us where suffering cannot reach’). It bothers me that I instinctively chose to walk away the first time I read Le Guin’s story, yet also felt strongly that the First Servant must be rescued. It must be the way the stories were told.
"Putting together such a study would be expensive and time-consuming, and I can’t think of a theoretical reason for doing this—I’m not sure what deep questions about developmental psychology it would address. Still, it would be very cool.”
Kinda how I feel about this article. Stay cool, man.
I watched all eight minutes of babies laughing and was surprised how similar they sound. Started watching Cute and Funny Babies Crying and couldn't get past the second video. My husband felt the woman was wrong; what I felt was closer to rage. I’d rather watch several minutes of this woman bursting into tears than to see this baby wail. (I'm not a sadist though.)
Since baby’s true feelings are unknowable for the outsiders they wake up in us the true horror of the unknowable other feelings. Their total abandonment to it find in us the urge to care for them. (For most people at least.)