How Smart Are Infants?

[hazelm]

Here is something to cogitate if it interests you.  If not --- switch channels.  We have all been reading reports from neuroscientists and researchers in "baby labs" that infants are much smarter than we have given them credit for.  Their brains hold a lot of knowledge even at birth.  One report says even the fetus has prior knowledge that we would not suspect.

 

But, how many of you knew that Plato was far ahead of the game with this knowledge?  Plato starts with how we "learn" by saying that we cannot learn.  Why?  Because we already knew what we are trying to learn.  How many of us, listening to our teachers explain a new subject, felt like "I already knew that" but we could not say how or why we "already knew that"?  Plato agreed.  We already knew that, whatever it was.

 

In "Philosophy Made Simple" by Richard H. Popkin, Ph.D. and Avram Stroll, Ph. D., page 191, "The Source of Knowledge",  we read this:

 

"Where does our knowledge of  universals, or forms, or Platonic Ideas come from? It cannot come from  experience or from education since it is already within us.  But when and how did it come within us? According to Plato, since we have never acquired the forms in our lifetime, they must have already been with us when we were born.  To account for the fact that infants do not seem to know very much we are told that the soul must have existed prior to one's birth. The infant forgets the knowledge of forms at birth and must somehow regain consciousness of the knowledge that is already there."

 

I am sure some of you "already knew that".  I just wanted to share it in case, like me, you did not.  Maybe my soul is still sleeping.  Anyway, I wonder what neuroscientists would have said to Plato had they been around when he made such bold statements.  Now they are all on the same page - right or wrong.

Edited August 10, 2018 by hazelm

[wiseshopper]

Not sure what the neuroscientists would have quipped, but maybe that explains why folks are born talented at something they've never done before.

[hazelm]

Not sure what the neuroscientists would have quipped, but maybe that explains why folks are born talented at something they've never done before.

Hmmmm!   There is a thought.  Mozart?   Of course, he and his sister had a lot of family pressure in the field of music.  So, maybe that isn't a good example.  Still, he was able to produce at quite a young age.

 

What I keep wishing is to understand  how Plato could deduce these (facts?) without the scientific research systems that we have today.  Without intending any sarcasm - which it does sound like - perhaps through his own innate knowledge and a talent to awaken to the skills?

 

For an interesting story - and picture! - see this:  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/08/newborn-babies-more-developed-cognitive-development

 

From there you might enjoy reading various other articles about London's Baby Lab.  Just Google "What do infants know  London Baby Lab" or some such version.  Meanwhile I am into the empiricists' criticisms of Plato's idea.  John Locke is not nearly as understandable.  :-)

Edited August 11, 2018 by hazelm