Muscle/event memory...

[ricksfolly]

When a baby is born, it has no memories or intellect of any kind, only instinct, reaction to pain, budding muscle memory learned by natural curiosity and experimentation, fear of loud noises and loss of equilibrium.

It remembers pain, discomfort, hunger, and knows when mama and daddy do things to and for it, but with no sense of time, place, or associative experience, its memories are disjointed, unrelated events.

What to touch, what not to touch, and the limits of what they can or can't do, are children's first awareness of the dual association between their muscle/event memory.

In time, self-identity, peer pressure, and curiosity will make them question WHY they do things, not realizing, nor caring, that their NEED AND MUSCLE/EVENT MEMORY are the stimuli...

ricksfolly

 

[1069]

According to Carl Sagan, who has researched the subject extensively, humans are born with two instinctive fears- of falling, and of snakes/reptiles.

Newborn infants will show a startle reflex when they think they're falling, splaying their arms and legs out and stiffening.

But they also, according to Sagan- who conducted his research by showing his infant subjects slides of various conventionally "frightening" things- show a fear reaction to reptiles, specifically snakes. And nothing else. When they see/ hear snakes, they become agitated: their heart rate quickens and their brain activity increases.

Sagan hypothesizes that the timeless, universal noise that mothers everywhere make to soothe their babies ("Shhhhhh" or "Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh") is meant to imitate the sound of a reptile/snake hissing.
Infants often respond to this sound by falling silent and still- not because they're comforted by it, according to Sagan, but because they are in effect frightened into silence by it.

:shrug:

Of course, Sagan had a lot of crackpot theories.
But I kind of like this one.
It makes at least some sense.

 

[ricksfolly]

According to Carl Sagan, who has researched the subject extensively, humans are born with two instinctive fears- of falling, and of snakes/reptiles.

Newborn infants will show a startle reflex when they think they're falling, splaying their arms and legs out and stiffening.

But they also, according to Sagan- who conducted his research by showing his infant subjects slides of various conventionally "frightening" things- show a fear reaction to reptiles, specifically snakes. And nothing else. When they see/ hear snakes, they become agitated: their heart rate quickens and their brain activity increases.

Sagan hypothesizes that the timeless, universal noise that mothers everywhere make to soothe their babies ("Shhhhhh" or "Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh") is meant to imitate the sound of a reptile/snake hissing.
Infants often respond to this sound by falling silent and still- not because they're comforted by it, according to Sagan, but because they are in effect frightened into silence by it.

:shrug:

Of course, Sagan had a lot of crackpot theories.
But I kind of like this one.
It makes at least some sense.

I admired Sagan too, but he should have stuck to his cosmos theories. He attributes babies with meaningful memories to back up his hissing theory, but not my three babies. They only associated memories with familiar events experienced over and over again. Mama, daddy etc..

But all of these are side issues, not muscle memory, the topic of my post, obvious automatic physical motions we express one way or another every minute of the day, watch our cats and dogs do it every time they move, but won't or can't acknowledge it in ourselves.

Tell me, do you control of each blink of your eyes, each morsel you chew, each swallow you take, each scratch when you itch, each turn of your head? No, of course not. Those are reactions and muscle memory motions you learned by natural experiments when you were in your developing stages...

Ok, now you can yawn your indifference...

ricksfolly