You know where I should start?
No. Where? And am I reduced, in this creation, to asking dumb questions?
No. You are not.
Go on then. Tell me where you think you should start.
At the place where I found the antithesis of my idea.
What do you mean? And my voice isn't getting any more intelligent.
That's because you are me and you don't exist.
Ah, but... do I or don't I? You'll notice, if you read the sentence, 'Tell me where you think you should start' again... you might notice that I have shown a separate intelligence. I have introduced the idea that your idea may be right or wrong. In stating where you think you should start it, I have implied that you don't necessarily know where you should or shouldn't start it, that I might have a different opinion, and that I may indeed be a separate entity.
Right. Okay. If it'll make you shut up, I agree. You are a separate entity, but you are part of my subconscious mind.
Right.
Okay.
I think that makes me a better foil for your ideas then, doesn't it?
Yes. Indeed. You don't just ask dumb questions and agree with me. I like that about you. I couldn't tell you how upset I was that Plato's dialoguers agree with him rather a lot.
Indeed. Shall we get on then?
Of course. But don't agree with me all the time, even though you are me.
What's your one sentence title?
I don't know, um... How about... NO, wait - I already decided not to go with the one sentence title. You're confusing me.
See - I am real!!!
Well, you fooled me, so either I'm a big fool, or there's two of me. So here's where I'll start, and I'll follow my original train of thought when I made this discovery, or had this idea, if you prefer. I was reading a standard textbook on Childcare and Development, as part of my training to be a Nursery Nurse (which I never completed). It was only three or four sentences about infant reflexes that struck me as extraordinarily, and started this whole process for me of beginning to question the accepted wisdom on this.
What was the book?
I don't have the actual book anymore so I can't quote verbatim, but it was something like the following and a version of it can be found in many childcare textbooks (in the UK anyway).
PRIMITIVE REFLEXES
There are a number of automatic actions that newborn babies make, including the grasp reflex in which the baby will grasp an object that is put in his or her hand. These movements are called primitive reflexes, and they disappear or integrate into voluntary control at various stages from about 3 months to a year.
[Incidentally the books don't seem to mention that the baby's grasping is more active that that. They doesn't just close the hand around an object placed in it, they open and close their hands and actively reach for things to grasp. This is an active impulse of exploring the world.]
It is thought that these reflex actions are a "throwback" from earlier primitive times in our evolution when the baby held on to the mother's fur, or the branch of a tree.
Ah! Wait! Can I stop you there?
Yes.
Well, look I've just thought of something about your throwback theory.
YOU ARE READING
Grasping For Life
Non-FictionA philosophical, mildly comedic story that re-examines the phenomenon known as primitive reflexes - reflexes present in babies but not "neurologically intact" adults. This book could change the world for the better. Questioning todays paradigm t...
