When do babies get minds?

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We believe as Catholics that a baby becomes human, and receives a soul, at conception. But do they also receive minds at conception? Are we self-aware from conception? Do we have subjective experiences from conception? Do we have thoughts from conception? Do we have free will from conception?
 
Did you remember what life was like inside the womb? I don’t.
 
I always thought that babies receive their mind about the time that the parents are losing theirs???

Actually, a blank CD is still a CD, right? It just hasn’t been written on.
 
In the earliest stages of development the baby only has the potential for, not the actuality of, functions and states like consciousness, reasoning, and memory that we tend to collectively call the “mind”. He or she does have an immortal soul, of course.
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
We believe as Catholics that a baby becomes human, and receives a soul, at conception. But do they also receive minds at conception? Are we self-aware from conception? Do we have subjective experiences from conception? Do we have thoughts from conception? Do we have free will from conception?
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That’s a good question. I’m still wondering about how babies know to suck their thumb in the womb, as sonograms have shown them doing.
 
No-When babies suck their thumb in the womb, it is a reflex. This reflex is present in newborns, when you stroke their cheek. It is controlled by the automatic nervous system.

Memory does not happen until after birth and a few months of development.

You can google- object permanance in babies. Before this stage, when something is taken from a baby, the baby thinks it no longer exists, because they do not have the cognitive functioning to retreive memory.

Cognitive functioning is in stages as the brain develops and grows.
 
mommy_k said:
No-When babies suck their thumb in the womb, it is a reflex. This reflex is present in newborns, when you stroke their cheek. It is controlled by the automatic nervous system.

Memory does not happen until after birth and a few months of development.

You can google- object permanance in babies. Before this stage, when something is taken from a baby, the baby thinks it no longer exists, because they do not have the cognitive functioning to retreive memory.

Cognitive functioning is in stages as the brain develops and grows.
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Well, even if a baby in the womb doesn’t have free will, do they have inner subjective experience? Does the Church say anything about this?
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
We believe as Catholics that a baby becomes human, and receives a soul, at conception. But do they also receive minds at conception? Are we self-aware from conception? Do we have subjective experiences from conception? Do we have thoughts from conception? Do we have free will from conception?
Click to expand...
I subscribed to a form of panpsychism. So, I believe every actual entity (to employ a technical term) has both a mental and physical pole. (IOW, single-cell organisms have some form of mentality.) That being said, a human zygote (or developing embryo or fetus) does not have the capacity for rational thought, although it certainly has the potential. Whether or not it realizes its potentiality only time will tell.
 
I’ve read of the research of some scientists who are trying to determine at what age a baby begins to have a mind. So far it looks like age 6 months after birth. Their cause for caring,however, has to do with their belief that having a mind is what defines us as human and therefor determines an acceptable cut-off age for abortion no longer being acceptable.

Of course, they don’t believe in the soul that we all get at conception, and in my view, having an Immortal soul is what sets us apart as humans. My cat has a soul, of course, it’s just not immortal. If my soul were not immortal, there would be no significant difference between the cat and I. I do believe the cat has a mind, albeit a very simple one!
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
Well, even if a baby in the womb doesn’t have free will, do they have inner subjective experience? Does the Church say anything about this?
Click to expand...
I believe God purposesly ordered life to begin this way, as the trauma of birth would be too overwhelming if we could remember. But then, there is the times when a mom sings into a microphone to the baby in the womb, or certain fragrances that have an effect-this is causes a chemical reaction in the babies brain for the baby to settle and calm down. So a subjective thing such as a type of fragrance would effect the baby in the womb, and still have the same effect after birth.

God provides all of this in a perfect way.

Baptism is one way to view the chuches teaching on free-will Babies are born with original sin, not a sin of their own making.
 
CatholicSoxFan said:
We believe as Catholics that a baby becomes human, and receives a soul, at conception. But do they also receive minds at conception? Are we self-aware from conception? Do we have subjective experiences from conception? Do we have thoughts from conception? Do we have free will from conception?
Click to expand...
Don’t know but most lose them at about age 20 :D.

Linus2nd
 
I guess it depends on what one means by the word “mind.” If mind corresponds to the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of intellect, then I think it would be reasonable to assume that the mind is present at conception since it is a faculty of the rational soul. Since intellectual activity is held to be irreducible to brain states and imaginative phastasms in this tradition, the intellect does not correspond with any corporeal organ. It is true that intellectual activity makes use of data from the senses and the imagination (we are rational animals and not angels after all), which would ostensibly require a certain level of neurological and physical development, but it is more reasonable to assume that the powers of intellect, although present, are typically not exercisable before this development occurs.

If by “mind” you are talking about the powers of sensation and imagination, then you’d have to ask a neurologist about what is necessary in terms of brain development in order to sense and imagine things.
 
At conception. At that point vision, sound, touch, taste, thought itself are one.
All by which you relate to the world around you is in its undifferentiated splendour and holiness.
 
The soul has for its faculties, intellection, and volitition. the intellect and the will, they are both present. The soul is extrinsically dependent on the physical body , meaning that in this present mode of existence,union of body and soul, the soul depends on the physical for its knowledge through sensation.its senses When the body is developed enough through maturity then the soul is able to function in its ability to reason or know. The brain is like one poster described, a CD. St. Thomas call the brain (excuse the spelling) the Tableau rasa, a white tablet upon which is written all our sensations, and upon which our intellective soul can extract spiritual knowledge As I see it, it is possible that if the baby is developed enough physically it can become aware of things. I recall when the Blessed Mother visited her cousin Elizabeth that the baby in her womb jumped at the presence of Christ in the womb of Mary. I also recall some mothers can sense different reactions of awareness coming from their babies still in the womb.
and some times when we get wisdom with age, it seems we are too old to use it 😃
 
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