GENIUS FORUMS

Kelly Jones wrote:I don't believe that affection and nurturing are actually that important in child-rearing. They're incentive-like tools to attract a child to obey a maturity demand, used in concert with control and rational communication.

There has been a lot of sensory-deprivation research done on animals. The results suggest that brain cell development early in life requires stimulation in the form of touch and movement.

According to many scientsts doing research in the field, touch and affection are important for developing healthy neurons and dendrite connections. Rats reared in a sensory-enriched environment, where they were brushed daily and allowed to interact with other rats had significantly more dendrites per neuron in the neocortex, and larger, healthier neurons on average, than those reared in pairs or by themselves.

There might be some truth in this article, but I'm inclined to think that they are taking it a bit far. The authors and researchers seem to think that, in order to have a perpetually peaceful society, bodily pleasure should be indulged in throughout adulthood.

There's also enough research out there indicating that 'baby talk' functions as well as an easier introduction to language. The infant's processing of words and grammar is too different to be stimulated by using pure 'adult' language. So a car becomes a 'too-too' and a cat a 'miau miau' and somehow it stimulates the link between picturing and naming via sounds. The 'real' names can come later after this framework has been established. Not all young brains work the same, however and some kids don't care for words like 'too-too' at all. Nevertheless, they all will love it when a sheep is named 'beh-beh'.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: There's also enough research out there indicating that 'baby talk' functions as well as an easier introduction to language. The infant's processing of words and grammar is too different to be stimulated by using pure 'adult' language. So a car becomes a 'too-too' and a cat a 'miau miau' and somehow it stimulates the link between picturing and naming via sounds. The 'real' names can come later after this framework has been established. Not all young brains work the same, however and some kids don't care for words like 'too-too' at all. Nevertheless, they all will love it when a sheep is named 'beh-beh'.

Yes, I read another study where they discovered that all cultures tend to have the parents speak to babies and young children in a distinct way - with a more high-pitched, feminine, silly sort of voice. I suppose this is to ensure that the baby's introduction to reality is very soft and gentle, creating the relaxing conditions for the baby's biology to unfold naturally, resulting in a ideally balanced child.

There are also studies however that suggest that excessive affection to babies can cause long term problems. For instance, when a baby is crying in his crib at night, they say that the best thing to do is to check the diaper, make sure the baby isn't too cold - and too avoid excessive cuddling. Taking the baby out of the crib to rock, sooth and coo, will lead to bad habits. Often this develops into the habit of the children sleeping with the parents up until the age of 7, wrecking marriages and creating poor character in the child. The baby will learn to deal with its emotional discomfort of being alone at night if you just leave it, and let it naturally deal with its stress. The baby should stop crying soon enough.

Cory Duchesne wrote:The baby will learn to deal with its emotional discomfort of being alone at night if you just leave it, and let it naturally deal with its stress. The baby should stop crying soon enough.

There is actually considerable debate on that issue, as well. Mostly based on the neuron research mentioned earlier as well as trying to build safety for the child. I doubt we'll ever really know though, as experiments of this type with humans would be extremely unethical. Does anyone know how other great apes treat their children? I suspect that would be our best way to know...

Does anyone know how other great apes treat their children? I suspect that would be our best way to know...

I don't know, but I heard of an experiment they did with baby monkeys. The babies were given the choice of going into a place where they would get lots of food and no affection or touch at all, and a place where they would get affection but no food at all. The babies chose the affection.

That was a cruel experiment, btw, even if humans were not used.

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Um, aren't we striving to be above the animal realm?

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Um, aren't we striving to be above the animal realm?

Well yes, but I don't think human beings are in their optimal conditon to strive for animal overcoming unless their most basic animal needs are met earlier on. If we deprive a baby or child's biology of what it needs, then it might turn out like a plant that never got sufficent water and/or sunlight. The plant ends up having an unhealthy color, is more succeptible to disease, and more easily perishes.

Cory Duchesne wrote: If we deprive a baby or child's biology of what it needs, then it might turn out like a plant that never got water and/or sunlight.

Or like a dog badly treated the first year: it gets false to the bone for a life time. And in the human case it will be usually glossed over with pretense. That's what makes humans the dishonest species, since they do own this mirror backstage somewhere used to apply the make-up.

This great fear of not wanting to see their own derangement in the mirror; and who wants to see a deformed face staring back anyway? Only eyes longing for truth welcome the gross burn marks.

Um, aren't we striving to be above the animal realm?

This is a very religious point of view -- refusing to accept that we are animals.

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Babies younger than the age at which self-awareness appears need physical attention. They need for their sensory system to be stimulated to function properly (because they have no physical capacity, like that of a crawling or walking baby, to get it for themselves). This includes be attended to when crying, even at night. Most mothers not brain and instinct dead through the plethora of modern theories about how to raise children will know what sort of crying they're hearing and respond accordingly.

However, once a child reaches the age of self awareness a new strategy needs to kick in or future problems will find their genesis here. The degree to which crying is responded to has to change because doing it too much teaches this newly self-aware babe that crying gets them attention. Young children need to weaned off much more than just breast milk.

Re: language, it's my suspicion that so-called "baby-talk" actually helps babies begin to formulate basic sound structures and is therefore useful. However, again, as soon as a child can begin to construct actual words using all vowel sounds, there's no need for this anymore and it should be stopped. The main trouble is we do, in fact, operate on instinct with regard to most of this, rather than an understanding of why we're doing it and its benefits. The problem there is instincts aren't rational processes and don't necessarily know when to shut themselves down. Parents need to pay more objective attention to the development of their offspring.

They say humans have the slowest developmental period of any mammal. This is true but wildly understated. For most people this development ends only at death.

Shahrazad wrote:

Um, aren't we striving to be above the animal realm?

This is a very religious point of view -- refusing to accept that we are animals.

Do you want your children to me more rational, self-aware and intelligent than a gibbon? I think this essentially E's point. She's not saying we aren't animals. It's a consciousness argument.

Earlier, some good posts were made arguing both sides, and these were based on studies. My comment was in reference to the assertation that we should look to the other great apes to see how we should raise human children. Humans have a brain and can think things through - and shouldn't just mimic the monkeys just because - um - well, why do you think we should mimic the monkeys, anyway?
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Dan,

Do you want your children to me more rational, self-aware and intelligent than a gibbon? I think this essentially E's point. She's not saying we aren't animals. It's a consciousness argument.

Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure that she's not buying into that "we are special" bullshit.

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Dan said:

There's no such thing as nihilism; it's impossible.

I could equally say there is no such thing as enlightenment. In the end there is no such thing as 100% anything. All we ever deal with is degrees.

Because it's not possible to not value things. Every choice we make comes from such valuations. Though, you may be using a sense of "nihilism" that is different to what I'm inferring.

True. I’m just using nihilism as the lack of goals, a lack of direction, the lack of striving to achieve anything, a lack of emotions that would create purpose, a lack of will to power.

Now I do not completely lack all goals - for instance I’d like to get fit so I could live longer - but I lack them to a sufficient degree to induce me to do anything.

I don’t buy into the argument that this lack of meaning/purpose is a belief system and therefore nihilism is not possible.

Jamesh wrote:
I feel as if I know all that I need to know about reality and as such this forum does not offer me anything any more.

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Why bother when there is nothing left to learn that is of any excitement. I'm only here because of a general disinterest in achievement (whats the point!), and historically this place has relieved my boredom.

If the first statement were true, there'd be no need of the second. Because the second is true, the first is a load of codswallap.

I know enough about reality to make my own conclusions about everything I encounter.

In terms of the forum, there is talk and there is action – I can discuss more here, but apart from matters of detail I don’t feel there is more to learn about reality.

What I need to learn is to actually take actions that benefit me, which is not something one learns on a forum. There is something decidedly crazy about my inability to exercise self-discipline – it is so irrational. I have a feeling my attachment to modern forms of entertainment and dope has completely fucked up my head. Perhaps, the sooner I enrol in a meditation course the better, I need to begin to treasure minimal external stimulation.

You guys assume negative attachments will fall away because that is what apparently happened to you lot. My set of causes are markedly different to yours, and it does not necessarily follow that peoples attachments will fall away. It may just be a “Fallacy of Insufficient Sample”. Perhaps David and you even needed the type of peer pressure that comes from being directly involved in group tasks face-to-face, otherwise you could be nihilistic as well???

One would follow apes (not monkeys...) because they are our closest relatives. Children the age we're talking about aren't really "human" yet - by which I mean they cannot think or understand or do anything by themselve. Thus, although we are speaking of humans, the processes that make us different from animals are not true yet in their case. Seeing how our closest living relatives treat their young is really quite rational since we are strongly related to them, and their kids keep growing up without weird attachment issues and crap...

You need a solid begining to allow for proper growth and while it certainly doesn't ensure that people will become thinking individuals, it helps provide the basis if you're not suffering from PTSD or some such. :)

Jimbo,

Your last post is replying to quotes from another thread. Why did you place it here?

It's not the first time you do that, either.

Edit to add: Never mind. The posts you are answering to are in page 3 of this thread. My bad.

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My post about children not needing as much affection as many humans think necessary, did not mean that the baby or toddler's sensory needs shouldn't be met.

What I was referring to was the belief that there are three basic patterns of parenting: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative, with authoritative being the conventional psychological ideal (lots of control, lots of maturity demands, lots of nurturing, lots of rational communication).

The reality is, that there are parenting patterns that are equally or more successful than that ideal. Namely, "harmonious" parenting, and "nonconformist" parenting: parents who are fairly permissive, allowing children to develop, and yet also having quite a lot of control, yet without seeming to enforce it. These parents have conscious and consistent parenting principles, and their children are apparently as competent, confident, friendly, cooperative, etc. as those resulting from the conventional "ideal" pattern.

This is of course more about how a parent raises a child, rather than meeting its basic food and shelter needs.

Which is what the thread topic is about, I think.


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