stuh505 wrote:On the subject of infants and tempers, you point out that we have no way of knowing whether or not the infant's crying is indicating emotion, or merely an impulsive response and the baby is devoid of emotion.
Specifically, i referred to infants. The definition of infant with which i am most familiar is a child before the age at which they are able to walk--roughly, in the first year of life. In infants, crying is the only means of communication they have, and as often as not, when people state that they have smiled, in fact, they've only belched. Seriously, though, when an infant cries, supplying their want--feeding them, changing the diaper, consoling them if one assumes they were startled or frightened--serves to very quickly hush the crying. In fact, if one attempted remedy does not work, applying another will usually effect the desired result. Experienced parents know that if none of the common remedies serve to quieten the infant, there is a strong possiblity that they are experiencing the pain of illness or injury, and will seek medical attention.
However, infants do very quickly respond to the gratification of their wants--they don't "sulk." Given that my initial response was to a contention on the part of Monolith that people may be born with an ungovernable temper, i was simply pointing out that there is no good reason to assume temper in an infant, and no basis to make an unqualified assertion that it is evident. I actually have no reason to assume that there is active ego present in an infant. Although not strictly wedded to Freudian theory, i consider his attribution of reality-testing, memory and information synthesis as plausible indicators of the presence of ego--and don't therefore have good reason to believe that ego is present in infants. Since my point is that there is no good reason to assume that anyone
innately has an ungovernable temper, and as i am responding to an extraordinary claim, i have no burden to prove the case to which i object. But as you reasonably wish to discuss the topic, i reject such a claim because temper would necessarily be innate if Monolith's thesis is correct, and i believe that temper is an ego function, whereas i see good reason to consider ego lacking in infants. Therefore, i consider that temper, as a function of ego, is acquired after birth, and after the end of the state of infancy, and is therefore a malleable character trait, for which the child can be taught control and the delay or abandonment of gratification--in short, i see no good reason to assume that anyone is born with an ungovernable temper.
Quote:Your point is noted, but the emotional response has a lot more evidence in my opinion. For one thing, we find ourselves capable of all the same emotions throughout life as far back as we can remember. Even in memories from a couple years old, our thoughts are as mature as ever...it is just our experiences that change us as we grow older. As soon as babies are able to talk, it becomes obvious that they have emotions. But before they can talk, their actions are not really any different.
Once again, i referred to infants, and not merely babies--an important point as i think that one can see a point at which an infant ceases to be an infant. I have especially referred to the development of the ego. I frankly don't believe you have a basis for asserting that memories accumulate before the development of the self-awareness implicit in ego. Therefore, i would not consider an appeal to memory as conclusive, as that is an ego-function, and cannot reasonably be said to be present at birth. Remember that my objection was to the assertion that someone might have an ungovernable temper innately--from birth. Your contention that the actions of infants before they can talk are not different than those after the attain the ability of speech is unwarranted, in my opinion, and i don't see that you've offered a plausible argument to support the contention.
Quote:Your position seems to be that a baby is a mindless living object that merely has these impulsive responses that look like emotions, but what, they don't really have emotions until they are able to talk? That's silly. If we know their responses are caused by emotion at a slightly older age, and these same emotions can be used to describe their behavior at a slightly younger age, it is a much simpler explanation to think that it is the same cause. Basically Occam's razor.
Furthermore, the behavior of a young baby is not so simple as to make it easily explainable by some impulsive response. A baby can smile, be comforted, it is still a complex being and emotion describes all this much better than impulsive robotic behavior.
I haven't suggested that the behavior of "young babies" is impulsive, robotic behavior. However, i am more than willing to stipulate that in the state of infancy, prior to the development of the ego, infants are in fact nothing but impulsive animals. That might not flatter our individual or collective self-love, and it might even wound us in our self-love to think so, but i see no good reason to think any differently, and don't see that you have provided me any plausible basis for thinking otherwise.
