Dociled and humbled in an alien world
I think that it might be very worth while for all of us to empathize with a new born infant. Apparently most of what a person turns out to be is determined greatly in those first five or six years of life. Our challenge is to learn to comprehend this character forming years in the life of an infant.
I empathize with a person not to give approval or to condone the actions of that person, but to create a means whereby their actions have meaning to me. When their actions become meaningful to me I can thus walk in their shoes and perhaps through such empathy I will be able to act in a way that will improve the situation in which both that person and I am involved.
Empathy is the first step to comprehending and thus to solving situations in which I find my self. Ignorance is generally not bliss; ignorance is not the path to peace, harmony, or freedom.
When I try to place myself in the ‘shoes’ of the new born infant I shall imagine myself as a captive of aliens who whisk me off into their world. I imagine myself in a world of giants who terrify me. I imagine that my vision is distorted and my hearing is overly sensitive so that I hear appalling shouts and noises that add to my shock and awe. I am naked and it is very cold.
One giant takes me into its arms and embraces me with frightening but warm strength. This giant stills my first feeling of terror and I am overcome with a feeling of joy, impotence, and dependence. I have found a refuge in this new and awful world of noise and fearsome creatures; I have found one creature that stills my terrible dread.
Before this creature held me I felt the same frightening feeling I had once when I was about to drown. This creature also seems to anticipate my needs for food and security.
Alarm! Alarm! My savior has gone! I was drowsy and I closed my eyes; I had such fearsome dreams, and now I am again all alone. The one agreeable aspect of this horrifying experience is gone. I am completely alone in a world of creatures who stomp about crushing things beneath their hulking horrifying bodies. I can hardly see and the sounds are horrifying and painful. I sense that one of these strange terrifying creatures is approaching me now!!
I was taken to a place and circumcised; without any pain killer!
The creature with whom I had begun to feel somewhat comfortable with handed me over to another creature that smelled very bad and that creature proceeded to cut on my body with a metal instrument and the pain was beyond describing. They all crowded around me and seemed to be in high spirits and ignored completely my screams. I think I fainted with the pain. When I again became conscious the pain was unbearable yet I had nothing to do but bear it.
I am exhausted from the screaming and the pain and cannot even eat or even think about eating. I drift off into a long sleep. Fortunately there is sleep, even though my sleep is filled with dreams that are beyond my ability to describe or to comprehend.
One great consolation out of this experience has been the bond that has formed between me and Affection. Affection is the name I have given to the only creature here who has made me feel secure and calm. Affection has made me warm when cold and has made me calm when frightened and stressed. The one great thing that has come about from my very painful experience has been Affection.
How can an adult empathesize with an infant?
Is there good reason to try to empathesize with an infant?
Dociled and humbled in an alien world
Dociled and humbled in an alien world
The observation by Shakespeare (I forget the play) sticks in my mind, where he notes the similarity between the infants and ourselves as we grow very aged ... bald, blind, and disoriented, and dependent on others. We even get smaller. Kinda like we return to the state we arrived in ... if we live long enough.
Dociled and humbled in an alien world
One of the reasons we need to learn something about psychology, i.e. about our unconscious, is because the first five years of an infant's life determines to a great extent what the personality of that individual will be for their entire life.
Only when we begin to comprehend our self can we begin to solve many of our problems that if left to fester may well destroy our civilization. We have developed a strong technology, which if left without proper understanding may well destroy our civilization.
We can no longer afford the luxury of just intellectually coasting through life. We either become part of the solution or we remain part of the problem. We must become self-actualizing self-learners when our school daze are over.
Only when we begin to comprehend our self can we begin to solve many of our problems that if left to fester may well destroy our civilization. We have developed a strong technology, which if left without proper understanding may well destroy our civilization.
We can no longer afford the luxury of just intellectually coasting through life. We either become part of the solution or we remain part of the problem. We must become self-actualizing self-learners when our school daze are over.
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Clodhopper
- Posts: 5115
- Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:11 pm
Dociled and humbled in an alien world
Hi there coberst:)
There's an artistic philosophy - my memory of what and who is now a bit imprecise - about looking at the world with the eyes of a child. Probably find it can be traced back to ancient Greece or somewhere. Big around the turn of the 19/20 centuries in Europe I think.
Very much on the lines of what you are writing about.
Glad to see you synthesizing! Some of your posts have tended to be information without much analysis, which is fair enough in most ways (this isn't an exam, after all :wah:), and one needs the information to work with but I've felt you are looking for something more. You achieve it here.
This is meant to be criticism in a positive sense of the word. If you find it offensive, my apologies.
There's an artistic philosophy - my memory of what and who is now a bit imprecise - about looking at the world with the eyes of a child. Probably find it can be traced back to ancient Greece or somewhere. Big around the turn of the 19/20 centuries in Europe I think.
Very much on the lines of what you are writing about.
Glad to see you synthesizing! Some of your posts have tended to be information without much analysis, which is fair enough in most ways (this isn't an exam, after all :wah:), and one needs the information to work with but I've felt you are looking for something more. You achieve it here. This is meant to be criticism in a positive sense of the word. If you find it offensive, my apologies.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"
Lone voice: "I'm not."
Lone voice: "I'm not."
Dociled and humbled in an alien world
Clodhopper;833471 wrote: Hi there coberst:)
There's an artistic philosophy - my memory of what and who is now a bit imprecise - about looking at the world with the eyes of a child. Probably find it can be traced back to ancient Greece or somewhere. Big around the turn of the 19/20 centuries in Europe I think.
Very much on the lines of what you are writing about. Glad to see you synthesizing! Some of your posts have tended to be information without much analysis, which is fair enough in most ways (this isn't an exam, after all :wah:), and one needs the information to work with but I've felt you are looking for something more. You achieve it here.
This is meant to be criticism in a positive sense of the word. If you find it offensive, my apologies.
I have come across some hints at what you speak about. It is in “play" that we truly learn the joy of action. The task is to find a way to make play out of learning. I think that I have happened to stumble across the answer here. The play comes into view when one studies disinterested knowledge rather than interested knowledge.
I am a retired engineer with a good bit of formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.
I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge.
Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.
I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.
We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.
The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.
There's an artistic philosophy - my memory of what and who is now a bit imprecise - about looking at the world with the eyes of a child. Probably find it can be traced back to ancient Greece or somewhere. Big around the turn of the 19/20 centuries in Europe I think.
Very much on the lines of what you are writing about.
Glad to see you synthesizing! Some of your posts have tended to be information without much analysis, which is fair enough in most ways (this isn't an exam, after all :wah:), and one needs the information to work with but I've felt you are looking for something more. You achieve it here. This is meant to be criticism in a positive sense of the word. If you find it offensive, my apologies.
I have come across some hints at what you speak about. It is in “play" that we truly learn the joy of action. The task is to find a way to make play out of learning. I think that I have happened to stumble across the answer here. The play comes into view when one studies disinterested knowledge rather than interested knowledge.
I am a retired engineer with a good bit of formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.
I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge.
Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.
I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.
We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.
The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.