LogFAQs > #932573116

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Childhood personality development tends to occur in a specific way because it involves starting with a blank slate, and learning to see the world in different ways, with the "lens" you see the world through changing over time. The world you see and understand as a child who has only reached the concrete reasoning stage is different from the world of a teen who is mastering abstract thinking.

But in our current scenario we're not dealing with tabula rasa children, but children who are essentially born with all the knowledge of their adult selves. They would by definition be something completely other than a normal child, even if their viewpoint was being contracted by their new biology.

Which might be a stronger argument if not for the fact that, again, the brain's ability to comprehend things alters perception. Children aren't simply blank copies of adults but their own thing onto themselves. And there's a general recognition that children aren't necessarily wired to properly comprehend certain things at younger ages, a fact that likely wouldn't be negated by having memories because children still act in certain ways even after having an understanding that should make them inclined to act differently.

In some ways, it wouldn't really be different from something like inebriation.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

True, but with adult knowledge you'd theoretically possess the awareness of that fact, which complicates the issue.

Does knowing when you're high or drunk negate your altered state?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

You'd understand your own nature more than any child has ever been able to - THEY have trouble processing ideas because they can't conceive of or process the knowledge that leads to specific conclusions, but a mind full of adult memories is coming with a personality that has already processed those conclusions. At best, you're basically an adult in a child body. At worst, you wind up hopelessly insane (and thus the hypothetical scenario is kind of pointless, which seems to run counter to what the question implies).

Again, it's not solely the fact that you don't have prior experience to draw upon -- which is more than issue for teens (although even then the biology is in play) -- but that you're dealing with a greatly impaired system. The hopeless insane argument is silly because children ARE quite often aware of and resent their limitations, a fact that doesn't necessarily change simply because your memories would make you more precisely aware of said limitations.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But at the point of rebirth, when she's still an infant with almost no experiential deviation from my baseline, if she retains ALL of my current memories, she essentially starts with my current personality.

Except that's not the case when your brain is incapable of higher functions. You're dealing with an undeveloped and underdeveloped brain at times. You physically wouldn't be able to process many of the memories. More importantly, your personality *would* change in those early years.

Your sense of awareness wouldn't be maintained. Because of how the body works, you'd gradually regain your awareness while simultaneously being changed your "new" experiences. If this topic was about keeping your sense of awareness rather than just keeping your memories, your conjectures would hold water. However, he only specified knowledge (which, if we wanted to be very technical, could be viewed as being at least partly separate from memories despite memory being the storage system for knowledge). As such, it feels more a matter that you'd gradually grow into a hybrid version of your past self fused with your new experiences where gender would likely change your overall experience.

All that aside, obviously the experience would be more enjoyable if at least the first few years were skipped... is what I'd be saying if I knew for sure that was the case. However, I only have my fully-formed adult brain now and can't really register how my much-younger brain would view things because surely I had fun at that age and was amused by things that wouldn't necessarily amuse me now, a fact that I don't ascribe solely to having more life experience vis-a-vis memories.

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