Lightbulb Moments

Wow. I know exactly what you mean.

S'funny I could always read (in my mind) - but dumb things like tying shoe laces, and ties (which we had to wear at high school) and driving - I just had to work and work at - there never was a time when I suddenly got it, I just kept inching till I could.

Hingehead, Some things are like that. They take time. No great voila moment. You just get there. Like learning to ride a bicycle. I kept tipping over and tipping over and tipping over. Then I stopped tipping over.

Like you, for me it's usually the physical things that take me a while.

I think most people have had the reading moment. It's the first major life-changing understanding that we can remember (putting together language would, I suppose, be the first, but we don't remember it).

I recall about 6 years ago when I had to learn databases. I knew spreadsheets, I had ideas about logic, I was reading the book, and not getting it, not getting it. Very frustrating and scary. Why didn't I know it? Why was it so damned hard?

Then, one day, it just happened, and I realized: it's just a bunch of tables of information, strung together in various ways, almost like your brain is a bunch of thoughts and experiences with the synapses and electrical impulses in between. And the job of a data analyst (what I do for a living) is to find the connection, or make one, or make one work in a new way. It was a satisfying "aha!" moment.

My grandfather had given me Wells' The Outline of History to read when i was seven. He obviously understood that i would not understand even the half of what i was reading, but he still (apparently) thought it was a good idea. The beginning of the book, for several hundred pages, deals with the rise of humanity and of civilization--speculations and archaeological theories about pre-history. In general, a fascination with history took hold of me. Specifically, i was fascinated with archaeology and paeleo-anthropology, and was avid to find anything i could on the topic. My father and my aunt used to mail newspaper clippings from the NYT and from magazines to me.



I've always suspected the "curious monkey" character of our ancestors. In the wake of a forest fire, somebody's curiosity must have overcome their fear--and they could have "captured" fire and first tasted cooked meat in the same event. I suspect it happened again and again throughout pre-history. I also suspect that "capturing" fire, and "nurturing" the fire to keep it from going out may have pre-dated fire making by a good long while--although, of course, i could be completely wrong about that. No one will ever know.



I suspect that many of these things developed from cooperative activities. The early homo sapiens sapiens of tens of thousands of years ago live in peri-glacial regions in which their survival from one year to the next required hunting, gathering and storage on a large scale. Researchers who have taught "language" to chimpanzees have claimed (and, of course, others dispute this) that chimpanzees already understand syntax. It is possible that early homo came already equipped to understand and create and use language. Certainly if a family, clan or tribal group needs to cooperate to hunt, gather and store food for the winter, language would be crucial to making it work effectively.

Fascinatin' questions, for which, sadly, we will never have the answers.

Jes, Love dem aha moments. And I respect those who keep at it until they get the aha. I often wonder if we're programmed in some way to struggle with some things and get others quickly. Two people with the same level of intelligence can be good at and bad at different things. I suspect that it's partly genetics, partly personal interest, and partly expectation.

Set, So you read Wells's The Outline of History at the age of seven. It interests me greatly that your grandfather gave you the book. It also fascinates me that you got enough out of it for something to take hold and light a spark in you.

I agree with you. There's a big difference and I suspect many many years between capturing fire and creating fire. Your mention of the "curious monkey" made me smile and conjured images of people running away and then, once the fear subsides, going back for a cautious look. We're still curious monkeys.

As for our being preprogrammed for language, I agree that it's quite possible. Recent findings concerning communication among a variety of intelligent animals reveal more sophistication than we ever expected. Greater vocabularies than we could have imagined. But I believe that syntax is reserved for primates.

You said, "Fascinatin' questions, for which, sadly, we will never have the answers." On the one hand, I wish we could have the answers. On the other, I kinda like that we never will.

I never get Boidy's 'flash of light' but there a sense of large lumps of rock coming together and fitting flush, a sense of rightness.

I think I got it with dynamic equilibrium (but I can't remember if it was an economic or ecological context first).

Anyone remember the opposite effect? When what you believed was completely wrong? I remember in high school chemistry being introduced to quantum chemistry and p-shells and all that and wondering why the hell did you teach me that fallacious pre-Bohr model for four years - how long have you known this stuff? Why have you been wasting my time?

I imagined something like the universe thing, when I was about 8, as well. I also remember, at about that age, I thought that possibly, their were alternate realitys to our own. All on their own frequency, so that we could not sense them with any of our senses. So I was planning on inventing real-fast-spin machine, to visit these other universes.

It never got past the stage of me poking about 80 pencils into an orange, and calling it my "experiment".

Hingehead, I don't think I've experienced what you describe as "sense of large lumps of rock coming together and fitting flush, a sense of rightness." But I love the powerful mental image it conveys. I can see it happening.

As to the "opposite effect," oh my, yes. I have no idea what you're talking about with respect to one kind of chemistry and another, but I know what you mean. The first loud, crashing, "Hey, wait a minute!" came to me about bible stories. Another electrical kind of jolt. And an overall sense of major discomfort. What else have I been told that doesn't make any sense? What can I believe? What can I trust? (It all started with Noah.) I became a gigantic pain if the ass after that, asking my parents all kinds of questions they didn't have answers to. I did a lot of reading and thinking. Questioning. I think it was the point at which I became a cynic. I'm not from Missouri, but I've became a show-me kind of person.

Bawb, Thinking about the vastness of the universe was enough for me. Your taking a leap to alternate realities fascinates me. Makes me wonder how the mind of a little kid got there. What were your plans for the experiment? Do you remember?

I was planning on doing something with dissonance in music, and making it very loud. I was thinking, that because the music would be so dissonant, and not "flowing" well, it would screw up things.. So, where the sound was, I would have a "portal" I could walk through, into the next universe. I don't remember anything about how I was planning on moving very fast, though.

Don't know how I came out with an orange and pencils.

Bawb, Your were 8 when you came up with this idea. Loud music would screw up the universe. Amazing. I know it's capable of that. When my neighbors play loud music, my universe is disturbed. Why not take it to the next level.