Lately, we have discovered an amusing new way of interacting with the baby. We learned from our sources that if you poke at the baby with your fingers while she's kicking, the baby will often kick back. I've found this a fine method for whiling away dull moments (if I could pass on one characteristic of myself to her, it would be my capacity for being easily amused), and naturally, it got me to thinking about Rene Descartes and the subject-object dichotomy.
Rene is famous for having said (or written, or whatever) "I think, therefore I am." He was trying to figure out what, if anything, we could know for sure. He determined that we could at least know that we, ourselves, exist, because if we are thinking about something, there must be something doing the thinking. Everything else we experience might not be real, since the thinking thing that is us can be fooled (the "brain in a vat" or "Matrix"scenario, or we might just be imagining the whole thing. But at least we know that we ourselves exist.
This sets up the subject-object dichotomy--the idea that the subject (the thinker) is entirely separate from and independent from the thing(s) being thought about (the object). But Heidegger and other philosophers have pointed out that one cannot think about anything unless there is something to be thought about. Thought must be directed towards something, proving the existence of an outside world (however deceptive it might be). Further, what we experience affects what we think and how we think about it, so that the subject is not independent of the object.
I think that some of these philosophical concepts can be illustrated by the example of the baby. What does the baby know? Presumably, she doesn't really "know" anything yet, her brain isn't developed enough. If the anti-subject-object dichotomy philosophers are right, and that in order to have a "consciousness" you must have something of which to be conscious; the baby comes pretty close to an entity with the neural equipment which could potentially allow for consciousness, with precious little material for it to work with.
So what is the baby aware of? First of all, she's aware of herself. She's found out that she can move different parts of her body in different directions (according to the testimony of the ultrasound), and presumably she's figuring out how to do this on purpose, and it's not just random electric impulses making her do those crazy dances. Of course, the purpose of all these movements can't be very apparent to her, since she doesn't really need to do anything at all right now (treasure these few months, baby). But she does do them in response to things, so secondly, she is aware of some things outside of herself.
The things outside of herself which first triggered her shimmy-shake responses must seem quite random, and her responses themselves probably didn't, from her perspective, achieve any apparent result. When I'm moving around a lot, she's quiet, when I'm still for long periods of time, she kicks more and more. I guess she's just bored, or it's the desire for comforting movements which is also evidenced in kids that have already been born. But her kicking doesn't make me move around any more--I do still have a dissertation to write, baby, and I have to sleep some time. (Yes, I know, I should get all the sleep I can now; I've been told).
Just within the past couple of weeks, her moving has become a real interaction with the world around her. She kicks, I poke, she kicks again, I poke again. She can't have any concept of what this might mean. She doesn't have the neural connections yet to put two and two together, she hasn't even yet been presented with "two" as a concept.
Before the baby even becomes a "thinker," in the Cartesian sense, she's an organic part of the "objective" world around her. The "object" is shaping the "thinker" before the "thinker" even comes fully into existence. I wonder if it would have had any effect on Descartes' philosophy, or the entire history of Western philosophy since then, if he'd ever been pregnant?
Posted by michele at July 5, 2007 10:10 PMThat's a really interesting point. It'll probably be a little startling for her when she realizes that she's an entirely separate person. Although Andy occasionally calls me a "hideous amalgamation of two people," so some other people might be a little confused about the issue too :)
Posted by: michele on July 19, 2007 1:56 PMInteresting thoughts. I was always fascinated by how much babies can learn about their surroundings (but not really their own selves) in the womb. When you're moving around a lot, the rocking motion of your walk lulls the baby to sleep - she "knows" the rhythm of that kind of movement. At some point when her little ears are developed enough (and of course I can't remember when that happens), she'll know your voice and the cadence of your speech, and probably Andy's voice and other noises too. At some other point, she'll know a little about what food tastes like, since what you eat will affect the flavor of the amniotic fluid. Her entire experience of the world is mediated through you, and it will be a long time before she is aware that she is a self separate from you.
Posted by: kim on July 9, 2007 12:58 PM