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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: pre-existence 'before I formed you'?
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Late Quartet
Irredeemably speciesist?
# 1207
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Posted
My daughter, who is three, was fathoming, yesterday, where she was before she started growing inside my wife's tummy.
Her mum said, 'I don't really know.'
My daughter said, 'I know: I think N [younger brother who is one] and me were with two angels who were looking after us.'
I've been thinking about this. First I thought of bible passages:
Jeremiah 1.5 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you';
Psalm 139 'you knit me together in my mother's womb'.
Then I quickly found my way back to Origen and realize we are in his realms of thought. I jumped from him to the fifth of the ecumenical councils, the one called by Emperor Justinian I in 553, 'The Second Council of Constantinople', which--along with many other things--gave Origen a good heretical bashing (nearly 300 years later than meant they could physically smite him).
Then I read that many but not all churches recognize this fifth council's judgements ("Protestant opinions and recognition of it are varied").
I also found that an important Bible passage for Origen was Romans 9.11-14 (about Jacob and Esau before they were born).
This view reminds me of the some of the imaginings in John O'Donohue's book 'Anam Cara' that refer to our pre-existent knowledge of a soul-friend, which initially I liked but ended up finding didn't work for me and put me off the topic.
More importantly, I take my daughter's views very seriously and joyfully on nearly all topics (and I cannot afford not to)!
But I don't know what I finally think (guess I probably never will know that). Does anyone know what they think about the pre-existence of the soul and why?
(I note that in Oblivion there's already a discussion on The Pre-Existence of Christ.)
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Late Quartet is cycling closer to Route 6 than Route 66 these days.
Posts: 899 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Aug 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Your daughter has, of course, picked up from three years of hearing, seeing and learning language, the opinion she expressed.
This is not a criticism but you didn't mention this in your post. I assume you do not think her idea came direct from God and/or angels?
[ 24. November 2012, 06:16: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
For me, I believe God is both within and outside time and space. This is how I reconcile the cross being for all humanity. Pre Christ's life as well as post. Hence to God, all time is now. I do not believe in sentience or soul in humans before they exist in our universe. I don't believe we are poured into an empty shell of a body.
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Late Quartet
Irredeemably speciesist?
# 1207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Your daughter has, of course, picked up from three years of hearing, seeing and learning language, the opinion she expressed.
This is not a criticism but you didn't mention this in your post. I assume you do not think her idea came direct from God and/or angels?
I'm surprised that you can confidently assert how it all happened, I'm certain that I don't know, but I don't believe your analysis explains all of what's going on in my daughter's head. What I do know and said above is that I do take her views seriously and joyfully (including the one about five bananas in pyjamas living under her bed, along with a friendly fox plus occasional visitors).
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Late Quartet is cycling closer to Route 6 than Route 66 these days.
Posts: 899 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Aug 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
It's cute Late Quartet - lots of kids talk like this.
I love it when they start thinking of their own origins. I remember doing it myself, so innocent and wide ranging. In fact, my conclusions are no more certain 50 years later.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
But those kids who have never heard of angels won't speak of them, as SusanDoris says. Kids have great imaginations but will always base them on something heard or seen.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Yes and no, kids will use the language available to them to express the thoughts they have. That does not mean that their thoughts are limited by that language anymore than yours or mine are limited by our knowledge of language. So yes the use of angels is the use of the language around them. In other settings she might have used other language to express it. That does not seem to rule out the clear theological thinking the child is doing nor is it, I think, the core to the OP which wants to look at the idea of pre-existence.
Therefore it is perhaps more interesting that she picked up the idea of pre-existence (I do not think that is a common thought amongst even adults, say the way post-existence is) at all. How different is this understanding to the more orthodox expression that we are eternally present to the mind of God? It seems to me a natural correlary.
Equally interesting to me is that she also pictures the love she presently experiences as present within that pre-existence. Although mum and Dad are the embodiement of that love, they embody rather than create that love. This again bucks the trend in modern culture where love is seen as something an individual does not something they participate in.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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cosmic dance
Shipmate
# 14025
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Posted
Marcus Borg in one of his books - I may be wrong but I think it is "The God we never knew" tells the story of a small girl whose parents brought her new baby brother home from the hospital. The little girl asked to be allowed to speak to her new brother alone. The parents agreed, but were slightly worried as to what the girl might do, so they listened in on the baby's intercom. The little girl said to the baby "Quick, tell me about God, because I've nearly forgotten!"
I wonder if we are born with knowledge of God that we lose when we fall from our state of innocence; that is, when we become aware of being a separate being with our own will.
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"No method, no teacher, no guru..." Van Morrison.
Posts: 233 | From: godzone | Registered: Aug 2008
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Kitten
Shipmate
# 1179
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Posted
This reminds me of when my son was about four or five, whenever he talked about anything that had happened before he was born, he referred to it as happening when he was dead. No amount of reasoning would make him change this view and he argued that as he was not alive he must have been dead. Then after a few months he stopped saying it and never referred to it again.
He has small children of his own now to keeping on his toes with the things they say
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Maius intra qua extra
Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they are in a big blue box
Posts: 2330 | From: Carmarthenshire | Registered: Aug 2001
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
One of my little nephews asked the same kind of question (in a zennish way, actually: "where was I before Mummy and Daddy were born?").
The best answer I could give was that he has always been in God's mind, that he was an idea of God (and an excellent idea, I added). As he knew the gospel passage of the Word becoming flesh, he could relate to that.
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's strange that in Zen there is the famous koan, 'what was your face before your parents were born?', although really a better version is 'show me your original face before your parents were born'.
This is made even more puzzling by the addition of parents being born, and the typical Zen instruction of 'show me'.
The 'solution' is therefore not an intellectual one of course!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
There's a lot of research around to show that belief in God comes naturally to children. Here's a recent contribution. Even very young children quickly work out that some things act whilst others are acted upon, and are surprised when an object that they have concluded should be acted upon (like a box) is presented to them as acting (rebuilding a pile of pile of bricks). They understand that actors don't need to be visible or physical (like the wind) and naturally attribute order and purpose to the world.
Rather than the idea that belief in God is unnatural and has to be taught, it's the opposite that appears to be true.
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Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Yes, but I wouldn't push that one too hard if I were you because I find that children also quite naturally tend to believe in fairies, monsters and Father Christmas. It doesn't take the brightest atheist to notice this and point it out to you.
I am drawn to the conclusion that "soul" is an emergent property of a complex brain; this doesn't mean it doesn't exist, any more than love, justice, anger or loathing Andrew Lansley don't exist, but it does mean that before there's a complex brain, there is no soul, and that really is where "you" start to exist.
"Before I formed you I knew you" is simply a statement that from God's viewpoint the coming into existence of a specific human being is not a random chance that takes him by surprise.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
This is Mormon belief is it not, that souls are all in heaven waiting to be born?
I remember a dreadful 1940s American film in which there were loads of little curly-headed children in heaven, all waiting to be sent down as new-born babies.
I think it's rather creepy tbh.
The passage about being known beforehand is just that - God knows. It doesn't say, before you were conceived I had created you already.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Quartet:
First I thought of bible passages: Jeremiah 1.5 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you'; Psalm 139 'you knit me together in my mother's womb'. ... I also found that an important Bible passage for Origen was Romans 9.11-14 (about Jacob and Esau before they were born). ... But I don't know what I finally think (guess I probably never will know that). Does anyone know what they think about the pre-existence of the soul and why?
The quoted bits of the bible are compatible with RC understanding, namely that God infuses a new human soul at conception, and that from this point onwards a proper human person (however inchoate) has come into being. There is then no particular problem with explaining God's "judgements" of the unborn: they are persons, and God's eternal foreknowledge can guide their predestination.
I reject Origen's ideas due to my understanding of soul. Basically, that view is "Aristotelian". Thus the soul is understood as the "form" of the body. Where "form" is not intended to mean just static structure, but in living things also the form of processes and developments essential to that body. So "form" as a general formative principle, that makes a being be what it is. This is then not something separate from the body that somehow interacts with the body (Cartesian dualism), but rather it is written into the body. It is still something truly distinct from the body, since it is said to have additional immaterial operations (hylemorphic dualism), but one cannot meaningfully consider the body apart from the soul. (A human body without a soul is not a human, but a human corpse.)
One can imagine such an "Aristotelian" soul existing in separation from the body, because it does have immaterial operations (related to understanding) that it can carry on with. But that is clearly a "crippled" state, that soul can then not do what is its central function: shaping a material body. This is just what death does to a soul. And hence God resurrects us. The immaterial souls of the dead can be with God, but they would be crippled, lacking their proper purpose, if God did not restore them to a body.
In other words, a soul separated from a body is something bad (not an active evil, but a defect). God rectifies this defect caused by death at the end of time. But from this perspective it makes no sense that God would pre-create souls, to have them waiting for a tour of duty in a body. God would be creating a lack, a defect (rather than dealing with a defect ultimately caused by Adam's evil). And what God creates is good. That's why I reject Origen's views.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The quoted bits of the bible are compatible with RC understanding, namely that God infuses a new human soul at conception, and that from this point onwards a proper human person (however inchoate) has come into being. There is then no particular problem with explaining God's "judgements" of the unborn: they are persons, and God's eternal foreknowledge can guide their predestination
I'm sure we've thrashed this one out in Dead Horses -and I'm sure there are problems with it - twins for starters.
(I know I should use preview post for coding)
[ 24. November 2012, 10:59: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yes, but I wouldn't push that one too hard if I were you because I find that children also quite naturally tend to believe in fairies, monsters and Father Christmas. It doesn't take the brightest atheist to notice this and point it out to you.
'Hear, hear' to post beginning with this paragraph.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yes, but I wouldn't push that one too hard if I were you because I find that children also quite naturally tend to believe in fairies, monsters and Father Christmas. It doesn't take the brightest atheist to notice this and point it out to you..
So what? Adults continue to believe in God whilst rejecting the notion that fairies and Father Christmas exist. It doesn't alter the conclusions of the research that building a worldview which includes supernatural beings is a natural conclusion rather than one that needs to be indoctrinated into children.
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Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yes, but I wouldn't push that one too hard if I were you because I find that children also quite naturally tend to believe in fairies, monsters and Father Christmas. It doesn't take the brightest atheist to notice this and point it out to you.
'Hear, hear' to post beginning with this paragraph.
See this bit from the review mentioned above:
"Richard Dawkins, for instance, compares belief in God to belief in Santa Claus—something to be cast aside as one matures (164). Barrett finds such assertions to be intellectually lazy and perhaps disingenuous (164). For one thing, adults generally do believe in a god but not in Santa Claus. Some adults reach a solid belief in God later in life, but Barrett sees no such late-comers to Old Saint Nick. More importantly, belief in a god can also be classed alongside other beliefs adults carry from childhood, such as gravity, a sense of the continuity of time, and that their mothers love them. “Why does a ‘childish’ idea automatically mean a bad, dangerous, or wrong idea?” he asks (165)."
Need to think the augment through LB...
[ 24. November 2012, 13:09: Message edited by: Truman White ]
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
It's interesting to note that in the creation of man, ...the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
It doesn't say he breathed into his nostrils a living soul.
You cannot have a human being that is not the sum of body and soul together, or for that matter, body, soul and spirit together.
That's why we believe in resurrection and not mere immortality.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Truman White, I think quoting someone else, but it's not clear:
More importantly, belief in a god can also be classed alongside other beliefs adults carry from childhood, such as gravity, a sense of the continuity of time, and that their mothers love them.
Um - when did gravity become a "belief adults carry from childhood"? It is a provable scientific theory that has to be taught, not something children instinctively believe.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
quote:
Truman White, I think quoting someone else, but it's not clear:
More importantly, belief in a god can also be classed alongside other beliefs adults carry from childhood, such as gravity, a sense of the continuity of time, and that their mothers love them.
Um - when did gravity become a "belief adults carry from childhood"? It is a provable scientific theory that has to be taught, not something children instinctively believe.
You've got the (as it were general) theory* of Gravity, that indeed has to be taught. And has the surprising result that it doesn't always act 'down' and that we cause it.
I'm not sure about the (special theory) of gravity very close to a comparatively massive body.
Is it something that we independently discover, believe, or are we taught it?
Has anyone done any experiments, I'm not sure what could be done, perhaps babies reaction to a Helium balloon at different ages?
*theory of universal gravitation.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
Quick googling (I'm looking for a better link)
suggests that yes experiments have been done (of course).
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Half-decent poetry, crap theology:
quote:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
quote:
Truman White, I think quoting someone else, but it's not clear:
More importantly, belief in a god can also be classed alongside other beliefs adults carry from childhood, such as gravity, a sense of the continuity of time, and that their mothers love them.
Um - when did gravity become a "belief adults carry from childhood"? It is a provable scientific theory that has to be taught, not something children instinctively believe.
Kids don't expect heavy objects to float. If they drop their cup and want it back they don't shout at the cup to come back, they shout at an adult to pick it up for them. They understand the concept of gravity without anyone explaining it to them. Read the link Ramarius gave up thread. Interesting stuff.
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
Adults continue to believe in God whilst rejecting the notion that fairies and Father Christmas exist. It doesn't alter the conclusions of the research that building a worldview which includes supernatural beings is a natural conclusion rather than one that needs to be indoctrinated into children.
The only reason children learn about God/god/s and all other supernatural ideas is from adults (also other children who have learnt from adults, and any written words by adults). Whether this belief is indoctrinated, inculcated, or whatever, the associated faith/belief is required, since god/god/s have the same amount of physical substance as all other mythical creatures or spirits. The only difference is, I suppose, that it has a longer history.
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
More importantly, belief in a god can also be classed alongside other beliefs adults carry from childhood, such as gravity, a sense of the continuity of time, and that their mothers love them.
I do not agree that belief in a god can be classed alongside gravity. There is 24-hour evidence of gravity and, even if we don't know any mathematical equation for it, we need not have unevidenced faith in it! They learn that time is a measure humans have codified (I think that's the right word here), but with or without our measure of it, there is daily evidence of its passage. As for whether their mothers love them, that, sadly, is not always the case
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Um - when did gravity become a "belief adults carry from childhood"? It is a provable scientific theory that has to be taught, not something children instinctively believe.
Agree, of course.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
[qb] Adults continue to believe in God whilst rejecting the notion that fairies and Father Christmas exist. It doesn't alter the conclusions of the research that building a worldview which includes supernatural beings is a natural conclusion rather than one that needs to be indoctrinated into children.
The only reason children learn about God/god/s and all other supernatural ideas is from adults (also other children who have learnt from adults, and any written words by adults). Whether this belief is indoctrinated, inculcated, or whatever, the associated faith/belief is required, since god/god/s have the same amount of physical substance as all other mythical creatures or spirits. The only difference is, I suppose, that it has a longer history.
That's not what the research tells us. In fact, it comes to the opposite conclusion. The only reason children become atheists is because they are taught by adults that God doesn't exist. In fact, research tells us it is more difficult to persuade children that God doesn't exist, than having to convince them that he does. Read the review I posted unthread.
Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Ramarius
I have read the link. I see it differently of course! I have written several paragraphs, but I will think about them before posting.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye Late Quartet. We weren't. Because we weren't. And don't be beguiled by somewhat entity proliferating rhetoric that demands that there is no freedom. That we always were because we always will have been forever from everywhen. That kind of nonsense
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
That's not what the research tells us. In fact, it comes to the opposite conclusion. The only reason children become atheists is because they are taught by adults that God doesn't exist. In fact, research tells us it is more difficult to persuade children that God doesn't exist, than having to convince them that he does.
That's as maybe, but kids come pre-loaded with a variety of traits. I spent longer than I care to remember trying to convince my children of the virtue of sharing and that different is not the opposite of good. Should I not have bothered? Should I rather have encouraged their nascent greed and their natural propensity to join gangs and beat the shit out of kids from another street?
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Late Quartet
Irredeemably speciesist?
# 1207
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Posted
I've so appreciated many of these reflections. Boogie, I like some of what you say, but the label 'cute' for a child in early years exploring a theology and cosmology that explains their own existence (and even pre-existence) doesn't leave me thinking 'cute'.
I've also been intrigued by some of the other remarks about children and spirituality, some of what I read sounded affirming of spiritual development among the very young. I particularly liked what Jengie said.
I thought that Desert Daughter is the person who, for me, answers the question of pre-existence in way that's really comfortable and comforting for me.
I think Origen, although clearly influenced by all sorts of contemporary thought was attempting to relate the pre-existence of Jesus the Christ to his own complex (and not entirely clear) understanding of how we too existed when we didn't exist, but rather differently from Christ. Of course Origen used all sorts of arguments and reasons that don't work for us now (and Mormon arguments don't work for me either): that's why I like Desert Daughter's narrative.
I wondered what had been thrashed out already in Dead Horses (as curiosity says), I did go hunting for anything I could find before posting?
The new tangent into 'do children grow out of religion' is less about child spirituality or about pre-existing, it appears to me, than about shipmates anxious to relate a child's reasoning about spiritual matters to an argument about whether we grow out of spiritual things if we keep growing up (or maybe I'm missing something)?
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Late Quartet is cycling closer to Route 6 than Route 66 these days.
Posts: 899 | From: Sheffield | Registered: Aug 2001
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
That's not what the research tells us. In fact, it comes to the opposite conclusion. The only reason children become atheists is because they are taught by adults that God doesn't exist. In fact, research tells us it is more difficult to persuade children that God doesn't exist, than having to convince them that he does.
That's as maybe, but kids come pre-loaded with a variety of traits. I spent longer than I care to remember trying to convince my children of the virtue of sharing and that different is not the opposite of good. Should I not have bothered? Should I rather have encouraged their nascent greed and their natural propensity to join gangs and beat the shit out of kids from another street?
I think I'm talking about the kind of conceptual framework children come with. As discussed above, part of that naturally brings them to the conclusion that God (gods) exist. That in itself in neither good nor bad - it's a belief that could be directed in one of a number of directions. And as you say, they come with other ideas - ideas that, for theirs and the wider good - need shaping and channelling.
From a Chrisgian perspective I would say we are born with an awareness of God,,but an incomplete or even disrorted one. It's the result of what the Bible calls sin, and accounts for the natural inclinations in human beings to live in less than optimal,ways towards their fellow human beings.
I have two of my own.....
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Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
Kids don't expect heavy objects to float. If they drop their cup and want it back they don't shout at the cup to come back, they shout at an adult to pick it up for them. They understand the concept of gravity without anyone explaining it to them.
Yes - but this is from experience. They learn in babyhood that dropped stuff stays dropped. As they grow they begin to be able to use their imagination and ask questions.
I agree that 'cute' is the wrong word. maybe 'charming' is a better one. But if your child were terrified of monsters and ghouls you wouldn't be so keen to put flesh on their imaginations imo.
I never dismiss children's thoughts - but I encourage them in story writing/telling rather than letting them think that I believe angels/demons/supernatural beings are real.
I love Rowan William's letter to a six year old which brilliantly leaves all the questions open while affirming her thoughts.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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The Machine Elf
Irregular polytope
# 1622
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
Kids don't expect heavy objects to float. If they drop their cup and want it back they don't shout at the cup to come back, they shout at an adult to pick it up for them. They understand the concept of gravity without anyone explaining it to them. Read the link Ramarius gave up thread. Interesting stuff.
Then 'concept of gravity' means something different to you than to most modern people, who have some familiarity with Newton and Einstein rather than Aristotle.
The usage of 'gravity' in physics was coined by Newton to designate the mutually attractive force between massive bodies obeying an inverse square law. The concept you attribute to children is something significantly less than the concept of gravity, but rather that heavy things tend towards their own level.
Because we're so used to having been taught this explanation of such phenomena, we tend to call one by the other, but Newton's leap when formulating the concept of gravity was a very, very big step from the everyday phenomena, and required careful and accurate recording of planetary motions by Kepler, Brahe and others to achieve.
I would be very careful not to slip into thinking that children develop concepts which took adults of singular genius and years of work to fathom. The actual evidence is that they are familiar with the repeatability of some of the phenomena that the concepts model, and are very likely to have come up with completely different concepts to explain these, which may well be sufficient and useful for their purposes.
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Elves of any kind are strange folk.
Posts: 1298 | From: the edge of the deep green sea | Registered: Oct 2001
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Machine Elf:
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
Kids don't expect heavy objects to float. If they drop their cup and want it back they don't shout at the cup to come back, they shout at an adult to pick it up for them. They understand the concept of gravity without anyone explaining it to them. Read the link Ramarius gave up thread. Interesting stuff.
Then 'concept of gravity' means something different to you than to most modern people, who have some familiarity with Newton and Einstein rather than Aristotle.
The usage of 'gravity' in physics was coined by Newton to designate the mutually attractive force between massive bodies obeying an inverse square law. The concept you attribute to children is something significantly less than the concept of gravity, but rather that heavy things tend towards their own level.
Kind of.
The Principia was written in Latin, and as such the word had been used (in the same language) for it's Aristotalian (in Physics) meaning for ages.
The English adoption of the word is between 200 and 50 years earlier than Newton.
But it's probably no coincidence it was adapted around the time that was on the run up to Newton.
And with that it's no coincidence Newton used the word, any more than Einstein using it later.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by The Machine Elf:
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
Kids don't expect heavy objects to float. If they drop their cup and want it back they don't shout at the cup to come back, they shout at an adult to pick it up for them. They understand the concept of gravity without anyone explaining it to them. Read the link Ramarius gave up thread. Interesting stuff.
Then 'concept of gravity' means something different to you than to most modern people, who have some familiarity with Newton and Einstein rather than Aristotle.
The usage of 'gravity' in physics was coined by Newton to designate the mutually attractive force between massive bodies obeying an inverse square law. The concept you attribute to children is something significantly less than the concept of gravity, but rather that heavy things tend towards their own level.
Kind of.
The Principia was written in Latin, and as such the word had been used (in the same language) for it's Aristotalian (in Physics) meaning for ages.
The English adoption of the word is between 200 and 50 years earlier than Newton.
But it's probably no coincidence it was adapted around the time that was on the run up to Newton.
And with that it's no coincidence Newton used the word, any more than Einstein using it later.
Well that threw up some stuff I never knew about gravity. Having got a good handle on that particular tree, can we make sure we don't miss the forrest? The main point is that kids derive in childhood, perfectly sensible ideas about the world that they carry through to adulthood. Barrett gives some examples - gravity was one, the sense of the continuity of time another, that parents love them another. The fact that an idea derived in childhood doesn't make it questionable. It's reasonable to retain the ideas we acquire in childhood until something comes along to make us want to think differently about them. The other point is that we might have a naive view in childhood that becomes more sophisticated in adulthood, as we have a broader and deeper frame of reference from which to understand it. All sounds pretty sensible to me.
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I'm sure we've thrashed this one out in Dead Horses -and I'm sure there are problems with it - twins for starters.
I said that this position has no problem with the quoted verses from scripture, nothing more. Of course, this position also does not have the slightest problem with twins. Why should it be any more remarkable that God infuses an additional soul when a zygote splits, than when he infuses a first soul when a zygote forms?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
A what? Do they come in bags? Like tea?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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