17th April 2005, 9:25 PM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Need I point out that to a baby, not a single thing they see is understood at at. Eventually though, they figure out how it works, partly from their own investigations and partly from others explaining things to them as well as the evidence that shows it. I'm fairly certain that the concepts we understand aren't "way beyond" their comprehension. We do both live in the same physical universe, with the same laws, so our experiences, while different in many respects, are going to share a lot of similarities based simply on that fact. As a result, there is going to be some common ground on which to explain it all. They'll understand so long as they are willing to learn, because they are human.
A child, or a baby, can learn anything. A baby is little more than an empty vessel, equipped with only necessary physical functions, basic emotion, reaction, and communication. Anything a child experiences is learned, and they can learn anything, because a child is born with no preconceptions or expectations. An adult does not have this luxury. An adult of the middle ages has a firm set of what he believes. He knows that the world is flat and is the center of the universe. He knows that insects spontaneously appear from rot, he may know that the body is made of humours, and that everything from the Plague to the preen of a swan is an act of God, without having the slightest idea that there are many, many more involved processes going on. Even if he could force himself to accept the fact that such a device as a DVD player could exist, there is no possible parallel you could make him find to anything he could possibly know. An explanation that could satisfy my six year old nephew would be totally alien to the most learned scholars of Charlemagne's empire. Every process involved in the operation of a DVD player, from how it harnesses electricity to how the motor operates, to how a concentrated beam of light is formed and focused, to how it is able to read microscopic pits in a disc made of materials no 10th century man could even fathom... they would undoubtedly consider it magic, no matter how you explained it to them.
Then, they'd burn you at the stake for possessing such an item of witchcraft. :D
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR