If a newborn was left alone on an island, what could it know?

  • Thread starter Thread starter WannabeSaint
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
W

WannabeSaint

Guest
If a newly born baby was placed on a deserted island all by itself (and miraculously survived up to adulthood), what could it know?
 
WannabeSaint said:
If a newly born baby was placed on a deserted island all by itself (and miraculously survived up to adulthood), what could it know?
Click to expand...
It would be starved of communal sensitivities. It would not have a healthy self awareness, because self is only developed in the context of others.
 
goout said:
It would be starved of communal sensitivities. It would not have a healthy self awareness, because self is only developed in the context of others.
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t it be able to differentiate itself from the other objects on the island?
 
WannabeSaint said:
40.png
goout:
It would be starved of communal sensitivities. It would not have a healthy self awareness, because self is only developed in the context of others.
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t it be able to differentiate itself from the other objects on the island?
Click to expand...
yes but a human being isn’t an object. Human beings are made for relationship. Without reference to others we have no meaning, identity, or purpose.
 
Last edited:
WannabeSaint said:
If a newly born baby was placed on a deserted island all by itself (and miraculously survived up to adulthood), what could it know?
Click to expand...
It truly would be a miracle, given the example. Since a newborn, can’t feed themselves nor ingest the needed fluids and nutrients, to survive past a few days going without…
 
In other words, the baby wouldn’t be able to understand it is a self-aware human if it didn’t interact with other self-aware humans?
 
There are s number of documented cases of children living in isolation. Perhaps not from infancy because an infant wouldn’t survive abandoned without anyone caring for there immediate needs.
 
Last edited:
WannabeSaint said:
In other words, the baby wouldn’t be able to understand it is a self-aware human if it didn’t interact with other self-aware humans?
Click to expand...
How could it? Language? Compassion? Empathy? Cooperation? Forgiveness? LOVE?
 
An infant needs protection and sustenance. Indeed, all living people have had this when in infancy. If not, they would have died.

There’re also too many variables. Would he know how to eat coconuts? Are there coconut trees on this island? How’d he come up with a way to purify water by himself? Has he been drinking dirty water all this time?

Now you say he miraculously survived. How? Did an angel come and nurture him? If so, he may know about Heavenly things, for instance, in addition to what he needs to survive physically.
 
Last edited:
@F_Marturana in fact Francois Truffault made a movie (called 'the Wild Child" I think) that was based on a real case study of a kid who lived by himself in the woods in France until he was 10 or 12. He used to put his whole hand in a pot of boiling water to pick out a potato when they were done.
 
WannabeSaint said:
If a newly born baby was placed on a deserted island all by itself (and miraculously survived up to adulthood), what could it know?
Click to expand...
That it has really messed up parents?

(The point of the thought experiment, of course, is the distinction between nature and nurture, and the extent to which each operate.)
 
Last edited:
aitapyh said:
Language compacity is hard wired into the brain. Its developmental direction would depend on the environment in which it finds itself. This language could develop as a rudimentary communication system between the other animals on the island and itself or even between itself and inanimate objects as a memory enhancing tool.
Click to expand...
Could this person be aware they are thinking, in this scenario?
 
Wesrock said:
@WannabeSaint, what do you think?
Click to expand...
This is on the assumption that a miracle occured first. (The scenario I imagined is God sustained the child’s body and allowed it to grow on its own.)

I imagine the child’s intelligence would be similar to that of a caveman. But then again, the cavemen had other cavemen to interact with…so perhaps even lesser than that?
 
This scenario is similar to what happened to St John the Baptist who grew up in the wilderness, probably by himself. Jesus said he was more than a prophet, so he did not lack anything in spiritual matters.
 
WannabeSaint said:
If a newly born baby was placed on a deserted island all by itself (and miraculously survived up to adulthood), what could it know?
Click to expand...
Hmmmm. Why do some things float and others do not, e.g., rocks sink, wood floats?
Hmmmm. Rocks heavier than water, ceteris paribus (cp). Wood lighter than water, cp.
Hmmmm. My body is somewhere in between the density of rocks and wood.

If I could just get enough wood underneath me then I could float and get off this #@!* island.
 
Last edited:
To adapt a passage from St. Robert Bellarmine, such a person could know from His creatures that God exists; then be stimulated by God, through His prevenient grace, to believe in God, that He exists and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him: and from such faith, he could be inspired, under the guidance and help of God, to pray and in this way obtain from God a still greater light of faith, which God would communicate to him, either by Himself or through angels or through men (say by having a ship arrive or even miraculously, like with St. Philip the Apostle and the Ethiopian eunuch or Mary of Jesus of Ágreda and the Jumanos).

So he could know enough to reach the end God created him for. Other than that, I don’t know.
 
Last edited:
As others have pointed out, obviously a new born couldn’t survive without that miracle you mention (who would feed it until it can crawl and run and hunt, etc)…

But assuming that survival, we actually know plenty about the limitations of children who grow up separate from society, because it’s happened. Usually one of the most notable things is that the ability to learn language sort of… stops, at a certain point. Like, if they grew up alone in the wild and never had human language spoken to them while their brain was at the necessary stages of formation, they can learn bits of language and perform the most rudimentary of tasks – but they never reach the linguistic level that a human raised normally does. I’d suggest googling for the case studies if you’re curious for specifics.

And I’d imagine that the language limitations would affect what they can internally ‘know’, too – since certain kinds of conceptual thinking may remain beyond them, since they don’t have the language to articulate complex thoughts, even to themselves.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top