At 10:57 08-03-01 -0800, Joshua wrote:
>Ronn Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>Fixing this might involve time travel - I think the current widespread
>>>conception of a "soul", independent of knowledge and experience - is an
>>>element that lead to this,
>>
>>
>>I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. Could you clarify it?
>
>Sure:
>
>If we're basically a glorified neural network, then it follows that
>absolutely everything we are or do is a product of our past experience*,
>and all of our actions are a result of our current situation being
>interpreted by our wiring.
>
>But look at this phrase: "He can't be held responsible for comitting this
>crime, because he was abused as a child."** Whether you agree or disagree,
>odds are that the phrase doesn't seem incomprehensible. IMHO, it
>presupposes a distinction between the ideal person (or "soul") which has
>an additional layer (trained behavior as a result of past experience). To
>me, the notion of "person" and "person's past experience" being distinct
>items is nonsensical.
>
>Without singling out any religion or philosophical school as a source for
>this, I think that this notion is entirely incorrect, but also nearly
>universal in our culture at such a level that we don't think about it.
I've been feeling a little under the weather the past couple of days, so I
may very well be missing something in your explanation (it wouldn't be the
first time I've done so, and probably won't be the last ;-) ), but I'm
not aware of any religion or philosophy I'm familiar with that considers a
person's "essence" ("spirit", "soul", or whatever you call it that makes us
human and unique as individuals) distinct from his/her past
experience. (Caveat: I am most familiar with religions that can be
classified broadly as Judeo-Christian, so perhaps there are
religions/philosophies outside that area that make that distinction.) On
the contrary, the religions I am familiar teach that who a person "really
is" is shaped by his/her experiences and his/her responses to those
experiences, and that a person will be judged after this life on what s/he
has done with what s/he was given to work with.
>I think this, combined with attitudes from recent eras (Victorian
>stoicism, the liberal Post-WW2 era, etc), results in us viewing children
>as fully fledged people who merely haven't memorized an encyclopedia yet.
Again, I'm not sure who teaches this. I know you didn't want to single out
any particular religion or philosophical school as a source of this belief,
but since I cannot think of one that holds this belief, could you please
change your mind and specify one that does so I can understand your
argument better?
> I would describe children as creatures of vast potential that must be
> carefully crafted into functional adults.
Agreed.
>In past eras, children were often raised towards a goal - e.g. taking over
>their parent's role. Thus, the parents would guide the child with training
>throughout life with a fairly simple direction. On the path to becoming an
>adult blacksmith you do X and don't do Y; if you do X you're rewarded, if
>you do Y you're punished. Do this for 24/7 for 18 years and you have a
>fully functional adult, coincidentally with job training. This doesn't
>have to be conscious - a puppy learns the same thing from its packmates,
>and so presumably a Homo erectus child would follow its parents and learn
>the ropes the same way.
>
>Nowish, with a formal school system and two working parents, we aren't
>dictating what children can and cannot do enough to train them into
>behaving correctly - that is, it isn't enough to show them a list of
>rules; they have to be baked into the brain on the order of Asimov's Laws
>are into his robots. Susan espouses the view that children should have a
>stay at home parent until they're pre-teens***. That's extremely unpopular
>in our culture since we want to allow two adults to do whatever they want
>- but I think the result is that the kids don't learn how to behave, and
>can only pay lip service to the rules.
I think a lot of mainstream Judeo-Christian religions agree with that
idea. Some of them have even drawn criticism for suggesting that children
need a stay-at-home mother.
>This comes back to the "soul" thing. I think our liberal (and by that I
>mean a "let anybody do whatever they want") culture is extended to include
>children and makes us think of them as miniature adults. Give them 18
>years to memorize an encyclopedia, food and shelter, and they're magically
>an adult. If there's a "soul"**** that is independent of experience and
>defines who a person is then this should work just fine. If not, and the
>person is a result of their experiences, then this isn't going to work and
>you'll end up with a lot of screwed up kids and pseudo-adults.
Now perhaps I understand. Most of what I have been referring to as
"mainstream Judeo-Christian religions" (to be as general as possible and to
avoid singling any one out or leaving any one out), would be considered on
today's political spectrum to be "socially conservative." The
practicing/believing members of most of them would agree with you
assessment of today's culture as "liberal," and to them, that label is
equivalent to "secular humanist," "Godless," or "anti-Christian." Most
believing/practicing members of such religions believe that it does take a
lot of involvement on the part of parents, the schools, the churches, and
the community to raise good kids, and that kids whose non-tangible needs
are neglected are more likely to grow up bad. Some of them even feel that
it is necessary to home-school their children because the public schools
are doing such a poor job of teaching them social and moral values.
>* Including instincts, which are basically pre-wired neural configurations
>we get from our genes through the evolutionary experience of our species.
>
>** And, for the record, I am philosophically opposed to any sort of pure
>"revenge" punishment in response to crimes; rather, I favour reparations
>where possible and prevention of repetition.
I'm sure we could spend a good deal of time (and generate a goodly number
of flames ;-) ) exploring the question of what constitutes a suitable
punishment for various crimes that would fit your criteria (not revenge,
making reparations, prevent repetition). For example, what do you feel
would be a suitable penalty for murder? For rape? For child
molestation? For someone who repeatedly steals, i.e., who is caught,
convicted, and punished, then turns right around and does it again, and
again, and again?
>*** Susan is a nanny, thus filling in the role of a stay-at-home parent
>for a family. She just switched families, but has some interesting
>observations about the contrast between her child-centric behavior around
>the 2-year-old she was nannying and the adult-centric behavior the parents
>exhibited when they came home. Now that we have net access at home she can
>resubscribe to the list, and regale us with annecdotes. :)
This, of course, could open up for discussion the question of whether a
nanny (or day care) is really a suitable substitute for a stay-at-home parent.
>**** I'm not attempting to pin this definition of "soul" with any religion
>in particular, or even in general, just my observation of what our culture
>seems to assume exists.
As I said above, my observations suggest that what you are describing is
not the definition of a "soul" used by any religion with which I am
familiar, which is probably what led to my confusion. Admittedly, some
children do grow up to be exceptionally good people despite a very negative
upbringing, and some go astray no matter what their families do, so it is a
combination of "nature" and "nurture." However, again as I said above, I
think that most of the believing/practicing religious people I know of
would tell you that it takes a lot of work to raise a child, and just
giving them food, clothing, shelter, and a secular education is not enough
to meet all their needs, and a child deprived of these other needs is
likely to have problems.
My .02 credit units . . .
-- Ronn! :)
