0:06

Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

0:08

is Robert Lamb.

0:09

And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

0:11

We are going into the old Vault to

0:13

get an episode from April sixth,

0:16

twenty twenty three. This is

0:18

part two of our series called Before You Could

0:20

Remember.

0:24

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

0:26

of iHeartRadio.

0:34

Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

0:36

is Robert.

0:36

Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

0:39

we're back with part two of our

0:41

series on childhood amnesia,

0:44

which is the name for the fact

0:46

that most adults and even

0:48

most older children don't really

0:51

seem to have any memories from before

0:53

about the age of three or four,

0:56

and that number is slightly

0:58

different depending on the culture you

1:00

grow up in and some other factors that we

1:02

may continue to explore in

1:04

this series, but generally, on average,

1:06

around three or four is when the memories

1:08

start kicking in, and even then

1:11

people don't seem to have as many memories

1:13

as they will for later years in life. That the

1:15

number of memories people seem to be able

1:18

to recall sort of goes up each

1:20

year after that. More from year five more

1:22

from six. More from seven. Now, if

1:24

you haven't heard part one yet, you should probably go back

1:26

and check that one out first. It

1:28

is where it is where we learned that

1:31

the rob here was indeed

1:33

once a very naughty boy and smashed

1:35

a jar of cherries on the floor or something.

1:37

What is it you did? Well, I mean,

1:39

I guess the naughty part was going into the refrigerator

1:41

to get them anyway, because I don't think I was supposed to have them.

1:44

Yeah, where you explicitly

1:46

forbidden cherries or I guess it's just a general

1:48

understanding if you're a child you should not climb into

1:50

the fridge to serve yourself anything.

1:53

Well, you know, I don't know. I guess looking back

1:55

on it it As a child,

1:57

you're often sort of testing the boundaries of your world,

2:00

and part

2:02

of the a memory like that is when you realize

2:04

you're not supposed to Apparently I was not

2:06

supposed to go back and get cherries for a number of reasons,

2:08

some practical, uh, some may be you

2:11

know, arguable from from my standpoint,

2:14

but yeah, that's that's kind of

2:16

a There's a lot of stuff going on in those early years,

2:18

which I think is something we we tried to get across

2:21

in all of this is that the

2:23

brain of a of an infant or a small child

2:26

is not inert. It is it is

2:28

extremely busy, but the

2:30

brain remembers what it needs to remember.

2:33

And and so we're going to continue with

2:35

that in mind in this episode.

2:37

That is a scary and kind of thrilling headspace

2:39

to get back into the moment

2:42

when you're like a child and you're doing something

2:45

where you you really don't know if you

2:47

were allowed to do this or not, and you suspect

2:49

that you might not be, but you it's

2:52

never been said outright, you know.

2:54

Or you just suspect that you are.

2:55

You know.

2:56

I mean, there's there's

2:58

so much that that comes up and raise a

3:00

child on this end where you're like, oh, yeah, I can't

3:02

really be mad at him for thinking

3:04

this or acting in this way because we've

3:07

never said don't approach whatever

3:09

the topic is this ways. This

3:12

is the learning experience.

3:13

Yeah, So to start us

3:15

off today, I just wanted to share

3:18

something that I got to thinking about after

3:20

the last episode. So this particular

3:22

tangent is not something I have like direct

3:24

scientific evidence for. It's just something I started wondering

3:26

about after the last part in the series.

3:29

So I was thinking about

3:32

childhood amnesia in the context

3:35

of another subject we covered,

3:37

I guess sometime last year. It

3:40

was the Hot Cold Empathy Gap. Do you remember

3:42

this episode, Rob, I do, Yes.

3:44

This is an observed

3:47

psychological phenomenon where we

3:50

not only sometimes fail

3:52

to understand, accurately

3:54

model and predict the thoughts

3:57

and behaviors of other people. We

3:59

not only have interpersonal

4:01

failures of empathy, we also

4:04

sometimes fail to accurately model

4:06

ourselves in different affective

4:09

states, so we have intra personal

4:12

failures of empathy. So

4:14

a simple way to put this is that people who are

4:16

not currently in an affective state,

4:18

so not currently angry or

4:21

not currently hungry or

4:23

not currently sad, are

4:25

actually somewhat bad at

4:28

predicting how they themselves

4:30

would react in a situation if

4:32

they were actually in one of those

4:34

states, and vice versa. If you are

4:37

currently hungry, you're not very

4:39

good at predicting how you would behave

4:41

and react if you were not hungry.

4:44

Yeah, like the fear area,

4:46

for example, I mean, it's easy to sort

4:48

of rehearse what you're going to do in a certain situation,

4:51

but then when the frightening thing occurs you're

4:54

in a different frame of mind, and you may behave

4:56

entirely differently. I'm reminded

4:59

of there's a great thing in Congo with Ernie

5:01

Hudson. Do you remember this scene where he's he's

5:03

a very cool cucumber his character the whole movie,

5:06

there's a part where he's he's

5:08

putting up a brave front. But then when the scary thing

5:10

happens involving a gorilla like you,

5:12

you turn back to him and he's he's

5:15

he's moved away and or he's run away just

5:17

a little bit, and ask him what happened. He's like, I ran

5:19

away. Yeah.

5:20

He had just given us a speech about how

5:22

you can't run away because that will show. Yeah,

5:24

then the gorilla will chase you, so you got

5:27

to stand your ground. But then I run away.

5:29

Yes, So when.

5:32

We're not in these affective states, we actually

5:34

can't relate very well to the person we

5:36

are when we're in them, and vice versa. When

5:38

we're in them, we can't really relate very well

5:40

to the person we are when we're not in them,

5:43

And so the hot cold empathy gap can

5:45

be demonstrated over a span of only

5:48

a few minutes, but it got

5:50

me thinking about a similar self

5:53

reflective empathy gap that

5:55

applies not across different affective

5:58

states, but different stage of

6:00

life. So what I'm talking about here is

6:03

when I think back

6:05

on a memory of doing something,

6:08

or saying something, or dressing

6:10

a certain way or liking a certain

6:13

thing when I was young, and

6:15

especially if I pick something embarrassing,

6:17

but not just with embarrassing things, with all kinds

6:20

of things, I can often

6:22

find myself totally unable

6:25

to relate to that person. I

6:28

say that thing that you've probably heard people

6:30

say of similar reactions

6:32

to their own past. What was I

6:34

thinking? And at least when

6:37

I say this, I truly often

6:39

do not know. It's like I cannot

6:41

internally simulate the

6:43

mindset that led me to wear that

6:46

T shirt, even though it was me. I can't

6:48

relate to that person, and I

6:50

can't even really remember or imagine

6:53

what it was like to be them, even though again

6:55

it was me. From

6:57

what I gathered, this is a common experience. It's

7:00

I'm not alone here, right.

7:02

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, it's like basically comes down

7:04

to the reality that we are not consistently

7:07

the same across small

7:10

lengths of time, much less across the course

7:12

of a lifetime. And yeah, I

7:14

mean it's a you know, a turn of phrase,

7:17

what was I thinking? Sometimes we can

7:20

piece together some of what our thought processes were.

7:22

You know, you'd be like, well, I was a teenager

7:24

and I thought this band was cool, so of course I

7:26

wore that T shirt, even if I would

7:28

not be into that band. And now as

7:31

a as a grown person or what have you, or with you

7:33

know, you know, it's a certain amount

7:35

of clarity based on where

7:38

you are now in life. But other times, yeah, you may

7:40

genuinely look back and you're like, I just don't know what

7:42

was going through my mind. I'm not sure what the thought

7:44

process was. I seem

7:46

to have a different thought process going on now.

7:49

Yeah, And so obviously it's not this way

7:51

with all memories from different

7:53

stages of life. Like I have a

7:55

feeling that I can re experience

7:58

or relate to lots of memory from

8:00

childhood but not other ones. And

8:03

so I don't always know what makes the difference.

8:05

But I wonder if the proportion

8:08

of memories for behaviors

8:10

and experiences we can no

8:13

longer empathize with tends

8:15

to increase the farther back

8:18

you go into childhood. I don't know this is

8:20

the case. I'm wondering if it does or

8:22

if, say, it actually doesn't go up in a linear

8:25

fashion. You could imagine it also like peaking

8:27

in teenage years or something like that.

8:30

But so that's one question I was wondering about.

8:32

And then I was also wondering if there's any

8:34

kind of relationship between our

8:37

current ability to empathize

8:39

with our feelings and behavior in

8:41

a past event and our

8:44

tendency to actually remember

8:46

that event in the first place. So,

8:48

in other words, are we more likely to remember

8:51

doing or feeling or saying something when

8:53

we can empathize with it, like when we can

8:56

get back in that mind space, and less

8:58

likely to remember it when we can hand no

9:00

longer empathize with it. And

9:02

I asked this specifically because I,

9:05

uh, Robi, I wonder if you have the same experience.

9:07

I feel like a lot of these what

9:10

was I thinking memories are

9:12

prompted by external intrusions,

9:15

like seeing a photo of yourself

9:18

that you didn't expect to see, or

9:20

having somebody say, hey, do you remember

9:22

when we did this or when you said that.

9:25

Yeah, yeah, And it does make me I was thinking

9:27

about this in terms of like childhood versus

9:29

say, like junior high, teen years sort

9:31

of reflections or even like early or really

9:34

all of one twenties. I guess, depending

9:36

on where you are in life how far removed you are

9:38

from particular time period. But like

9:41

for very young children, it seems like so

9:43

much of what you end up doing and wearing,

9:46

et cetera is almost entirely

9:48

shaped by your parents. Anyway. Yeah, yeah,

9:50

so like what was I thinking is not really

9:52

a question because it's like you weren't thinking, you

9:54

were just doing or

9:56

you were just you wore this because

9:59

it was provided to you, and everyone

10:01

else in your family liked it, so it seemed like you liked it that

10:03

sort of thing. Not all the time, but like I

10:05

feel like maybe like eighty percent of the time that

10:08

may be the case. But then it's when you're getting

10:10

into that area where you are willfully

10:13

setting out on your own, choosing

10:15

things for yourself, that

10:17

might be the area where I mean, you're legitimately

10:20

asking what was I thinking? What was

10:22

my intention in all of that?

10:24

That is a good point, like what role agency

10:27

or self control has in the event that you're

10:29

remembering? So,

10:31

yeah, I don't know if our empathy

10:34

gap with our past self actually does

10:36

just increase the farther back you go.

10:38

I wonder if that could be measured. But

10:41

if it does, I wonder how does that also

10:43

relate to the relative paucity of memories

10:46

from early childhood and the for most

10:48

people, complete lack of memories

10:50

from before ages three or four.

10:53

Yeah, now, I this is interesting

10:55

to think about, and one possible

10:58

answer to this might be, well, the

11:00

reason that you have trouble knowing

11:03

or understand what you were thinking about in

11:05

a particular time might be because you

11:08

have completely blocked it out because

11:10

their thought process was so traumatic

11:13

that you just had to erase it

11:16

from easy access of the conscious

11:18

mind.

11:19

Ah, speaking of what were we thinking?

11:22

I guess, as with many topics

11:24

in psychology, unfortunately, if you want to

11:26

trace the history of how we

11:28

understood this over the past one hundred years, really

11:30

you have to go back to freud not because

11:33

the Freudian explanations carry

11:36

any scientific currency today they almost

11:38

never do. Instead, it's just because you've

11:40

got to understand how influential

11:42

Freudian theories were in the

11:45

history of how people thought about this exactly.

11:47

Yeah, yeah, And of course you we're talking about Sigmund

11:49

Freud here Austrian neurologist

11:52

and founder of psychoanalysis,

11:54

and he too explored the topic of quote

11:57

unquote infantile amnesia, postulating

12:00

that these lost memories constitute

12:02

repressed memories repressed

12:04

due to their psychosexual nature. Here's

12:08

a quote from Freud, obviously in translation

12:10

quote. I believe that the infantile amnesia,

12:13

which causes the individual to look upon

12:15

his childhood as if it were a

12:17

prehistoric time and conceals

12:20

from him the beginning of his own

12:22

sexual life. That this amnesia

12:24

is responsible for the fact that one

12:26

does not usually attribute any value

12:29

to the infantile period in the development

12:31

of the sexual life.

12:33

Right, So, I think the common understanding

12:36

of the Freudian view is that early

12:39

childhood is a time of strange

12:42

sexual fixations and realizations

12:44

that we can't bear to think

12:47

back about as adults,

12:49

so we repress those memories as

12:51

a type of trauma. I don't

12:53

think there's any good empirical evidence

12:55

for the Freudian psychosexual view

12:57

of development today.

13:00

It frankly doesn't gel with any of the science we've

13:02

we've looked at in our research for

13:04

these episodes, and it's mainly worth mentioning

13:06

because of its place in the history of the topic and

13:09

so forth. But it's also it's

13:12

interesting to think about, like what's going on with

13:14

this approach to infantile

13:17

amnesia, to the seeming lack

13:19

of real, congrete memories from

13:21

early life, because you can think of

13:23

them as sort of like blank spots upon

13:26

which you can focus ideas

13:28

like this. There's there's no possible

13:31

memory there to contradict the backward

13:33

looking explanation. You know.

13:34

Well, Yet not only because it's a blank spot

13:37

you can fill in with your explanations, but because

13:39

of the particular characteristics of memory

13:42

as a function of human brains, it's

13:45

also actually

13:47

not only possible, but quite trivial

13:50

to place memories.

13:52

There are things that feel like memories that do

13:54

not reflect events that actually happened.

13:56

Yeah, it brings to mind that the use of you

13:59

so called repressed memories not only in psychotherapy,

14:01

but in the pursuit of paranormal experiences

14:04

as well, such as alien abductions

14:06

and ritual satanic abuse.

14:09

Right, And this is a really dangerous area

14:11

because, for one thing, I think

14:13

it's important to acknowledge that it's

14:16

impossible to rule out the

14:18

idea that repressed

14:20

memories exist, right, it is

14:23

possible that the brain somehow

14:25

does retain memories that

14:28

are not easily retrieved

14:30

with you know, just regular

14:32

conscious effort, but that could be retrieved

14:34

by some other method. But while

14:37

it's possible, one thing that

14:39

research makes very clear is

14:41

that it is incredibly easy to

14:43

mistake false recovered memories

14:46

for real ones. And the false

14:48

memories feel completely convincing,

14:51

just as real as actual memories. In fact,

14:53

they are often even stronger and more

14:55

vivid than real memories. And you can show this with

14:58

experiments where you know, people

15:00

will say, like, we we consulted with your

15:02

family and they they

15:04

told us a story about a time, you know, that

15:07

you got lost at the playground, but then you

15:09

met this person and whatever, and

15:11

this will be completely made up for the purpose

15:13

of the experiment, but many people will

15:16

start to believe that is a real memory

15:18

they have in their head. Just vividly

15:21

imagining a scenario proposed

15:23

by someone else is often enough

15:25

to make someone totally convinced of

15:27

it as a memory.

15:29

Yeah, these alien abductions

15:31

and ritual satanic abuses are both the topics we've

15:33

discussed on the show before. But like very

15:36

briefly, like just the the the idea

15:38

is so heartbreaking that you could be

15:41

manipulated into creating

15:44

a memory of trauma and

15:46

the memory would be traumatic like

15:48

like once it has been sort of created

15:51

and or augmented in your memory,

15:53

like it's you know, it's it's a thing that

15:56

is that is real to you. So

15:58

yeah, but heartbreaking, is

16:00

it is? It also just drives home something

16:02

that is possible in all of our

16:05

memories and really is going on on a less

16:07

traumatic level with so many everyday

16:10

memories in our lives.

16:11

Yes, and while I would also point out that it seems

16:13

especially easy to do this with the idea of early

16:16

childhood memories, this also works for

16:18

adults, like you can get

16:20

adults to remember events that did not

16:22

take place by causing

16:25

them to vividly imagine the event

16:27

or something like that.

16:38

All right, well, well, getting away from from

16:40

even the idea of alien

16:42

abductions, let's get back into

16:45

what the actual research seems to illuminate

16:47

about this topic.

16:49

Well, one thing I think we should say at the beginning is that

16:51

it's still somewhat an open question why

16:54

childhood amnesia occurs, and there are

16:56

competing theories that might that

16:58

are to some degree compete, but they might also be

17:00

complementary. There might be multiple factors

17:03

contributing to this overall pattern where

17:06

most adults can not

17:08

really remember much of anything from before age

17:11

about three or four, and then have this gradual

17:13

accumulation of more memories to

17:16

about seven or eight. We'll

17:18

probably explore some hypotheses in this

17:20

part and then more in the next part

17:22

in this series, but there was one I wanted to

17:24

talk about because it seems

17:27

like a pretty straightforward explanation

17:30

based on neural development,

17:32

the development of regions of the

17:34

brain, especially a region known as

17:36

the hippocampus, And so this was

17:39

in a paper I was reading by Christina

17:41

m. Alberini and Alessio Travaglia

17:44

published in the Journal of Neuroscience in

17:46

twenty seventeen called infantile

17:49

amnesia a critical period of learning

17:51

to learn and remember. And this

17:53

paper highlights a seeming paradox.

17:56

So on one hand, there's this phenomenon we've

17:58

talked about at length now early speriences

18:01

seem to be forgotten very rapidly,

18:04

and yet simultaneously, early

18:06

experiences seem to be incredibly

18:09

influential on adult behavior

18:11

and adult brain development,

18:14

to the extent that early childhood experience

18:16

is a very well documented risk factor

18:19

for various adult psychopathologies

18:21

and disorders. Just to cite

18:23

one example, there is extensive evidence

18:26

that neglect during early

18:28

childhood development can lead to

18:30

disorders including depression and anxiety,

18:33

as well as learning and cognitive disabilities

18:36

in later life, and there are similar

18:38

findings about childhood poverty

18:40

leading to cognitive and learning deficits

18:42

that persist into later life. A lot of these

18:44

effects are thought to be at least

18:46

in part related to chronic stress

18:49

in early childhood, though the authors of

18:51

this paper propose that it might

18:53

not just be the effects of stress leading to

18:55

these outcomes, but also the

18:57

absence of what they call enrichment

19:01

in episodic or declarative

19:03

experiences in early development.

19:06

So we know that early childhood

19:09

experiences have this profound impact

19:11

on how your brain works

19:14

later in life, and yet

19:16

much of what we learn in this period

19:18

cannot be recalled later in narrative

19:21

or episodic form. So the

19:23

authors say, quote, how then can

19:25

memories that are rapidly forgotten and

19:28

of which there is virtually no recollection

19:30

in adulthood exert a lifelong

19:32

effect on the brain and cognitive

19:34

function. And the answer

19:36

that the authors of this paper propose lies

19:40

in the hippocampus. So the hippocampus

19:43

is crucial for the

19:45

formation and maintenance of episodic

19:48

memories. It's thought to be necessary for certain

19:50

kinds of learning, for the encoding of

19:53

long term memory, and related brain

19:55

functions like spatial memory and navigation

19:57

of spaces. And an int intersting

20:00

fact is that this is not true just of humans,

20:02

but it's true of humans and non human

20:04

mammals. The hippocampus is part of

20:06

the limbic system, so

20:09

it is part of the brain that we share with other mammals,

20:12

and the authors

20:14

write that in both humans and non human

20:16

mammals what they call wwww

20:19

memories, which I guess is more

20:21

of a shorthand when you type it than you say it out

20:24

loud, but that stands for

20:26

who, what, when, and where memories,

20:28

So these are explicit memories that require

20:30

conscious recollections. This would

20:33

have some overlap with the idea of like episodic

20:35

memories, memories of events that happened

20:37

that you can recall in detail. The

20:39

authors say that these memories are processed

20:42

by the hippocampus dependent learning

20:44

and memory system, also known as

20:46

the medial temporal lobe. Dependent

20:48

learning and memory system. So based

20:51

on comparing what we know about

20:53

hippocampal development in humans with

20:55

the results of studies based

20:58

on learning and

21:00

early development in rats, the

21:02

authors actually argue that quote,

21:05

the hippocampal memory system, like

21:07

sensory functions and language,

21:09

matures through experience

21:12

and undergoes what they call a developmental

21:15

critical period. Now,

21:17

they deal with a couple of pre existing hypotheses

21:19

about what's going on here. One they

21:21

identify as the developmental

21:24

hypothesis, which

21:26

basically says that these wwww

21:28

memories they are not stored in

21:30

the long term quote because the hippocampus

21:33

is immature and therefore unable

21:35

to process, consolidate, and store contextual

21:38

and episodic representation. So it's

21:40

just functionally not competent

21:42

to do this yet. And then on the

21:44

other hand, there's this hypothesis known

21:47

as the retrieval hypothesis, which

21:49

quote posits that infantile memories

21:51

are not gone, but are instead stored

21:53

in some form that cannot be expressed

21:56

due to retrieval failure. And

21:59

they essentially thread the

22:01

needle. They argue that both of these kind

22:03

of get something right, but neither

22:05

one is exactly right, and instead

22:08

they end up arguing that the hippocampus

22:10

and the hippocampal learning system are

22:13

very active in early childhood, and

22:16

they are very much processing experiences

22:19

during this early developmental period, but

22:22

instead of storing memories

22:25

exactly the same way it will once

22:27

it is a mature organ it is

22:29

learning how to learn.

22:33

I also have to mention here though, that it is interesting

22:35

that the developmental hypothesis and the retrieval

22:37

hypothesis, both of these

22:40

in their own way reflect different

22:43

former ideas about the minds

22:46

of young children. Developmental being, well,

22:48

that's not a full blown human yet, of course, it's

22:50

not gonna think the way we think or remember

22:53

the way we think. And in the retrieval hypothesis,

22:55

it's kind of in some you know, it's

22:57

not exactly like Freud, but you know, it gets into that similar

23:00

like, oh, those memories are there, they're just not in

23:02

a way in there in a place that we can easily

23:04

get to them, right.

23:06

And I think these authors think that there is

23:08

an element of truth to both of

23:10

these views, but that neither one is exactly

23:12

correct. That instead, it's that

23:15

the hippocampus is working

23:17

really hard to process experiences

23:19

during this time, but the main thing it's

23:22

doing with those experiences is learning

23:24

how to learn. So the hippo campus

23:26

does store memories which can be maintained

23:30

they say, through frequent recalls,

23:32

but they say without some form of ongoing

23:34

recall or subsequent activation

23:37

or modulation, those memories can

23:39

tend to decay rather quickly. And

23:42

so they say, quote the types of experience

23:44

to which an individual is exposed

23:46

during development shape learning

23:48

abilities an important implication that highlights

23:51

the fundamental roles of developmental

23:53

environments. So this period is very

23:55

important, and it does change the brain in

23:58

a way that will affect the the person

24:00

throughout the rest of their life. But

24:03

a lot of that, they argue, is through

24:05

affecting how the hippocampus develops

24:08

and thus how the brain learns to learn.

24:11

And I'm not going to go into great granular

24:13

detail on what the mechanisms

24:16

are within this, but basically they

24:19

propose a process by

24:21

which there's sort of a sequence of different

24:23

stages of development within critical

24:25

periods for development in the brain.

24:28

And this is true of not just learning

24:31

and memory. It's true of sensory functions,

24:33

like certain sensory things come online and

24:35

the development of one seems to affect

24:38

the development of the subsequent one, and

24:40

then the next one and so forth, and

24:42

they argue that the same thing may well be happening

24:45

with the maturation of

24:48

hippocampus dependent learning. So

24:50

they say, quote, our hypothesis is supported

24:52

by the observation that complex hippocampal

24:55

learning takes place only after simple

24:57

learning has matured. For example,

24:59

the abilit to learn about a single queue

25:01

or object seems to mature earlier

25:04

than episodic learning and memory,

25:06

which require the more complex function of

25:08

binding together several objects, sequences

25:11

and time. Again, this is the four

25:14

W learning. And then finally they

25:16

say, thus we speculate the

25:18

different types of hippocampal learning mature

25:20

sequentially in order of

25:23

increasing complexity. So they

25:25

have like a diagram where they speculate

25:28

that it might go sort of learning about objects,

25:31

and then learning about places, and then learning

25:33

about space more generally, and

25:35

then finally the four W learning.

25:39

But once again kind of goetting back to what we were talking about in

25:41

the first episode, it's like childhood

25:43

and chadhood development as a series

25:46

of gates that you pass through, as

25:48

a series of phases that you progress

25:50

through towards full

25:53

integration into society as an adult.

25:55

Yeah, and under this model at least how

25:58

and when you pass through the pre gate

26:00

affects how and when you pass through the next

26:02

gate and the next gate and the next gate. But

26:05

also too, as I said earlier, that

26:08

this is one take within this

26:10

sort of broader genre of explanations

26:13

of childhood amnesia. This

26:15

is sort of the structural

26:18

brain development type argument. Now,

26:30

there are some other types of explanations, maybe some

26:32

involving language, interestingly

26:34

and other things, but maybe we will

26:36

save that for the next episode.

26:38

Because I know Rob you today

26:40

in your heart there's

26:42

a burning icon on the surface

26:45

of your heart and it is in the shape

26:47

of a super baby.

26:50

Yeah, we mentioned the possibility of discussing mythic

26:52

babies, babies of religious

26:54

significance, and actually we actually

26:56

heard for at least from a couple of people that were like, yes,

26:59

bring on the babies. So yeah,

27:01

to whatever extent it helps us understand this topic,

27:04

we will give you mythic babies that

27:07

to some degree each exhibits superior

27:09

abilities and or cognition or or

27:11

something else that's worth touching on.

27:14

So in general, though I think in

27:16

most, if not all, of these examples, we're going to be touching

27:18

on a very widespread religious archetype,

27:21

that of the divine boy. And

27:24

you know, once you see it, you can

27:27

recognize it in all its various forms

27:30

and incarnations. And I suppose,

27:32

especially in modern media, you also have to consider

27:34

its opposite in the form of various

27:37

like damiens and various

27:39

health children.

27:40

Right, yeah, the cursed

27:42

boy.

27:43

Yeah.

27:44

Well, I mean I almost think that in the

27:46

modern era we I'm about

27:48

to say something I don't really know its true. Okay, well,

27:50

go with it anyway. What I was going to say is it seems like

27:53

today we're more likely to interpret

27:56

a child with

27:58

like superabilities or super intellect

28:00

as creepy rather than as

28:02

something really cool, you

28:05

know, like yeah, or we're

28:07

more predisposed to the Damien direction than

28:10

the than the child uh, you know,

28:12

the child sage direction.

28:14

Yeah, And I think it's very well illustrated

28:16

in a couple of fictional examples I'll bring up

28:18

here in a bit too. Yeah, that it's even if

28:20

you're going for the divine, you

28:22

end up touching on the uncanny,

28:25

because it is there is an uncanny aspect

28:27

to it, for sure. If you're imagining like a baby that

28:29

has or a small child that has uh,

28:32

like the rational demeanor

28:34

of a full blown adult. All right,

28:36

well, let's let's start with baby Jesus, who

28:39

we've talked about on the show before. I think we did a

28:41

whole episode one Christmas about images

28:44

of the Christ Child from Renaissance

28:46

art that look like tiny ugly men and

28:49

why they look like tiny ugly men. Go back

28:51

and listen to that if you need more weird

28:53

baby action. But yeah,

28:55

depictions of the Christ Child in

28:58

the history of Western

29:00

art, it varies greatly from believable

29:03

human infant to tiny mandlings that

29:05

sometimes exude a philosophic air

29:08

other times look like vaguely grumpy

29:11

getting into that, you know what we've talked

29:13

about in the last episode about babies

29:16

or like are like old people, and

29:18

we can't quite get that out of our heads.

29:21

And we have accounts of the

29:23

adventures that range from basically nothing,

29:26

from just like Christ's early

29:28

life being just a just unrecorded,

29:31

to other traditions such as the like

29:34

Christ's roll lowering the chur not just

29:36

Christ but the Christ infant lowering

29:38

Christmas gifts from Heaven on a golden string. You

29:41

know, that is a that is a tradition in parts

29:44

of Europe. To other even

29:46

wilder adventures.

29:47

Oh well, Rob, I think you're trying to set me up to talk

29:49

about the the infancy Gospel of

29:51

Thomas. Is that right, Yes, Okay,

29:54

this is an ancient text that we have discussed

29:57

off Mike here.

29:58

So.

29:58

Uh.

29:59

You know, if if you read the four gospels

30:01

that are canonical

30:03

to most Christians, the ones that are in the New Testament,

30:06

there's very little about the baby Jesus. We

30:08

don't get really many stories

30:11

of what Jesus did before

30:13

he was a full grown man. Two of

30:15

the gospels have a story of his birth,

30:17

Matthew and Luke do, but he doesn't do anything.

30:20

He just gets born. There's really

30:22

only one story in the canonical

30:24

gospels of the baby

30:27

Jesus or the boy Jesus, and

30:29

that is the so called finding at

30:31

the Temple story in the Gospel of

30:33

Luke, which is essentially kind of

30:35

a boy wonder story. It is that Mary

30:38

and Joseph take

30:40

Jesus to the temple and then they leave and

30:42

then realize that he's not with them anymore,

30:44

so they go back to the temple and he is

30:47

there teaching the wise men

30:50

about the law and about the scripture.

30:53

So he's showing off just his great

30:55

learning and intellect even as a child.

30:57

Yes, yes, I definitely this

31:00

one from Sunday School days of old.

31:02

But if you go outside of

31:05

the New Testament canon,

31:07

there are gospels from the ancient world

31:10

that do talk about that tell other stories

31:12

of Jesus as a child, including

31:15

the frankly hilarious

31:18

Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This is a text

31:20

from I think it's generally believed

31:22

to be from the second century that you

31:24

can find and read online

31:26

in an English translation. The translation I found

31:29

was by M. R. James from Clarendon

31:32

Press, Oxford, nineteen twenty four, published

31:35

in a collection called the Apocryphal New Testament.

31:37

I think the Infancy Gospel of

31:39

Thomas is sometimes considered a

31:41

Gnostic text, but I know there

31:44

are some texts that were previously considered

31:47

gnostic that now scholars don't so much

31:49

think of as gnostic, So I'm not sure where this lands

31:52

on the gnosticism scale of today. But the

31:55

stories in it are wild and consist

31:58

of child jes running

32:01

around, actually Jesus basically

32:03

in this is Damien from the Omen.

32:05

He's just running around cursing and killing

32:08

other children. So there's

32:10

like a scene where he is playing

32:13

by a brook, and he at

32:15

one point he takes these he takes clay

32:18

and fashions that into twelve little

32:20

birds made out of clay. And

32:22

then baby Jesus is accused of

32:24

having violated the Sabbath because he

32:27

did this on the Sabbath day. And

32:29

then he gets mad and

32:31

rebukes that, and he turns the clay

32:34

sparrows into living sparrows

32:37

and they fly away.

32:38

I have to say too, this version of it that

32:40

you shared with me, it's really hard not to read

32:42

it in your head in the voice of like

32:44

an ecclesiastical eric Idol

32:47

from Monty Python and in the Holy Grail, you

32:49

know, reading about the Holy hand grenade.

32:51

Okay, I'm not going to do eric Idle voice,

32:53

but you can imagine eric Idol as I read from

32:55

the following.

32:56

This is the m R.

32:56

James translation. It says, but the son

32:59

of Annas, the scribe, was standing there

33:01

with Joseph, and he took a branch of a willow

33:03

and dispersed the waters which Jesus

33:05

had gathered together. Oh yeah, Jesus he

33:08

gathered together waters from the from

33:10

the brook.

33:11

I guess.

33:12

So he does this. And when Jesus saw

33:14

what was done. He was wroth and said

33:16

unto him, Oh, evil, ungodly

33:19

and foolish one, what hurt

33:21

did the pools and the waters? Do thee

33:23

behold?

33:24

Now?

33:25

Also, thou shalt be withered like

33:27

a tree, and shalt not bear

33:29

leaves, neither root nor fruit.

33:31

And straightway that lad withered up

33:34

Holy, But Jesus departed and

33:36

went unto Joseph's house. But the parents

33:38

of him that was withered took him up, bewailing

33:40

his youth, and brought him to Joseph and

33:43

accused him for that, Thou hast

33:45

such a child, which doeth such deeds.

33:48

And then I'm not going to keep reading, but it

33:50

goes. Jesus gets like mad at the

33:52

people who were accusing them, and further curses

33:55

and kills people. It's intense.

33:57

So Babe, the kid Jesus straight

33:59

space vampire. This kid essentially

34:02

yes, withered him right there on the spot.

34:04

It's like, yeah, it's like the movie Life

34:06

Force. So

34:08

it's interesting. I don't know. One thing

34:10

I don't fully understand is how

34:13

this type of story would

34:15

have been received by its intended

34:17

audience. So, if you are one

34:19

of the people reading this story in the

34:21

second century, and you think this is an authentic

34:24

story about the child Jesus, Like

34:26

what are you supposed to think about it? Like,

34:29

wow, he did you know? He really

34:31

did show that kid or I'm

34:33

not sure.

34:34

Yeah, yeah, Like they're different. Way. You can sort of read

34:36

this and instantly go in the Damien direction

34:39

like that's dangerous for a child to have those

34:41

kind of powers, or I can easily imagine

34:43

someone going in a more sort of theological

34:47

direction, like what does this say about like

34:49

the power and authority

34:51

of Christ and so forth? But

34:54

yeah, it's it's certainly a head scratcher

34:56

for us.

34:57

Anyway, I think later in the text he does

35:00

sort of take back or magically undo

35:02

at least some maybe all of his curses

35:04

and killings.

35:05

So okay, well that would

35:07

that would sound appropriate? Yeah,

35:10

all right, well let's move through some other examples from major

35:12

world religions. First stop,

35:15

the infant Muhammad, so according

35:17

to the Prophet Muhammad and Ritual

35:20

by Marion Holmes Cats published in

35:22

twenty tens, the Cambridge Companion to Muhammad.

35:25

There are also miraculous accounts of

35:27

Muhammad as a child quote

35:29

as depicted in the most widely circulated

35:31

moulded texts the infant prophet

35:34

was a luminous figure whose radiance ignited

35:36

his mother's room and whose holiness

35:38

blessed all who approached him. So

35:41

there are accounts of him as an infant

35:43

causing the breast of his foster mother, who was

35:45

also caring for another child, to overflow

35:48

with sustaining milk. This was in

35:50

a time of drought and famine,

35:52

if I remember correctly. And also it said

35:54

that her emaciated donkey was invigorated

35:57

simply by being in the presence of the child.

36:00

Okay, so one could see this as a legend

36:02

of the prophets sort of prefiguring

36:05

the future blessings he would help facilitate

36:07

bringing even in his childhood

36:10

or even as a baby.

36:11

Yeah, his whole presence is just kind of brilliant

36:13

and empowering, all right. Up next, baby

36:16

Krishna or Bala Krishna, which I think just

36:18

means like the child Krishna or kid Krishna

36:20

or something to that effect. Is of

36:23

course, Krishna is the blue skinned avatar

36:25

of Vishnu who plays a major role in Hinduism.

36:28

But he was also once a baby, a little

36:31

blue skinned baby, and there are a lot

36:33

of tales of him and his exploits, and generally

36:35

speaking, these tales tend to exhibit a very

36:37

young child with abilities beyond his years, which

36:39

is very much a part of the whole divine boy

36:42

archetype. But there's still also

36:44

a trickster element to him as well, with the

36:46

main thing that he does being the stealing

36:48

of butter, like it's such a big deal. You'll

36:50

find numerous images and

36:52

illustrations of this blue

36:54

skinned Krishna stealing a

36:56

little butter, And so

36:59

you have infant Krishna also doing

37:01

things that are not necessarily or certainly

37:04

not attributes of the adult Krishna. Like adult Krishna

37:06

is not going around stealing butter.

37:07

Wait a minute, so you attached a picture

37:10

of Bala Krishna here and does

37:12

he have his hand in a butter jar?

37:15

I believe so, I believe that is what this

37:17

image represents. And

37:19

there are numerous images that have this basic this

37:22

this basic theme going on.

37:24

This is his trying to get the

37:26

Marischino cherries experience

37:30

exactly.

37:30

There's also another tale that I ran across,

37:33

and this is one of another child

37:35

accusing child Krishna of eating mud,

37:38

So basically saying, mom, Krishna

37:40

is eating mud make him stock right, and

37:43

so his foster mother says, okay,

37:45

Krishna, open your mouth, let's see. And

37:48

then he opens his mouth, but within his

37:50

mouth she sees herself and

37:52

then has a cosmic vision of all universal

37:55

matter within. So

37:59

that love because it starts out like seeming

38:01

like a very childhood story, and then

38:03

takes a sharp turn into more the sort

38:06

of an ally and become death, the destroyer

38:08

of worlds, you know, that sort of aspect

38:10

of the grown Krishna.

38:13

Because all of my references

38:15

are low brow trash, what I'm imagining

38:18

with this inspiring myth is Tim

38:20

Curry is penny Wise opening his mouth

38:23

to show the dead lights.

38:24

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean kind of a similar vibe,

38:26

except on the sacred

38:29

end of the spectrum, as opposed to

38:30

the horrific. All right,

38:33

next up, baby Buddha. Yes, And

38:35

I have to admit I hadn't really thought about this as much

38:37

of a possibility, because first of all,

38:39

I wasn't familiar with any stories of the historical

38:42

Buddha as an infant am I sort

38:44

of go to understanding of

38:46

Sidhartagatoma, the

38:48

man who had become the Buddha, is that of

38:50

a prince who undergoes an existential

38:53

crisis and turns his back on riches to instead

38:55

pursue equanimity, right, I mean, that's

38:57

that's kind of the standard. But they're all, of

39:00

course, a lot of different interpretations

39:02

of and writings about the Buddha, and

39:04

some of them do discuss the

39:06

idea of the Buddha

39:09

as a baby, and in fact,

39:11

there are traditions depicting

39:13

the newborn Buddha or Buddha as a divine

39:15

child in both Chinese and Japanese traditions.

39:18

Oh my god, this image of Hercules. Sorry,

39:21

yes, please do.

39:21

The Oh yeah, let's move things

39:24

back in the mythic direction, because of course we have

39:26

to mention Hercules. Baby Hercules,

39:28

famous for strangling the snake that

39:31

was placed by an assassin in his cradle,

39:33

and if memory serves, the Luferigno

39:35

Hercules movie that we watched on Weird House Cinema also

39:38

has a scene with baby Hercules strangling

39:40

snakes.

39:41

Bam and hold,

39:44

I'm sorry you attached an image. It's like,

39:46

I don't know, a mosaic of baby

39:49

Heracles that does look like it's from the ancient

39:51

world in which the artist has

39:53

tried to simultaneously

39:55

capture like muscles

39:58

because it's Heracles, so he's muscily,

40:01

but also give him the little like chubstick

40:03

legs of a baby.

40:05

Yeah, it's a strange image. It's some sort of

40:07

like mosaic image. I don't know the exact origins

40:10

of it. But yeah, he has a serpent

40:12

in each hand, like crushing their

40:14

necks, strangling them. A very

40:17

fierce looking baby here.

40:18

So he's just got a little like balloon legs

40:21

like a baby has. But then also some ripples

40:24

indicating he's ripped underneath

40:26

that.

40:28

Yeah, I mean it's it's uncanny. Now,

40:30

briefly skipping into more

40:33

modern ideas of the divine child,

40:35

I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that in our modern

40:37

myth making, Anakin Skywalker is

40:39

a child with abilities to surpass that of other

40:41

children and even humans human

40:44

adults. In his midst, at a very young age,

40:46

he's already a phenomenal pilot, and

40:48

his ability as a pilot factor into his

40:50

earliest adventures.

40:51

Is he not also a product of parthenogenesis?

40:55

Yes, yes, yes, yes, so yeah,

40:57

Anakin, that's a choice, good

41:00

George Lucas. It was

41:02

born out of the force there

41:05

are various theological treatments of this as well.

41:09

Then, of course, there are three main examples

41:12

of exceptional children in Frank Herbert's

41:14

Dune saga. You have a Leah

41:16

a Treades who pops

41:18

up in the second half of the

41:21

book Dune. So she hasn't appeared in the new movies

41:23

yet, and due to the exposure

41:25

to her exposure to the water of life while

41:27

still in the womb, she's born with the full powers

41:30

of an adult Benny jesterid reverend Mother.

41:32

I think people who've seen the David Lynch

41:34

adaptation are well familiar with this figure,

41:37

and it certainly comes off. I would say

41:39

that the Dune saga in general embraces

41:43

the creepiness of the divine child

41:45

as well as the you know, the sacred

41:48

aspects.

41:49

I was about to say, can we admit

41:51

that this character is creepy and maybe

41:53

is supposed to be creepy?

41:55

Certainly Lynch plays. It'll be interesting

41:57

to see what the new film adaptation how it

41:59

approaches it. But yeah, I mean, how can she not

42:01

be because she's a small child talking

42:03

about like ruthless murder and

42:06

so forth, and revenge, and it

42:09

is very unchildlike in the way

42:11

that she talks to people.

42:13

You don't want a child telling you who is

42:15

and is not the quisat's head.

42:16

Rack. Yeah.

42:19

Now, by the third book, in Children

42:21

of Doune, we have two more super Dune

42:24

babies. We have Leto the second and

42:26

Ganima Treades, who both

42:28

possess adult consciousness before

42:31

birth due to their mother's spice

42:33

consumption, and so a lot

42:35

of a lot of space in

42:38

Children of Dune and Children of Dune is a long

42:40

book, or at

42:42

least in my experience, it was a long

42:44

read. There are a lot

42:46

of scenes of these two like talking

42:49

to and out talking adults and like

42:51

burning adults with various

42:53

insults and reminders that they are in

42:55

fact of brilliant minds,

42:58

just sort of encased in the boi of small children.

43:01

Oh yeah, yeah, plenty of creepy

43:03

content going on in this book as well well.

43:06

Rob, I think we need to wrap up today's

43:08

episode there, but I'm loving your

43:10

super baby sidebars, and I think we will

43:12

have to continue this in the next part of the series

43:14

as well, So we'll be back next time

43:16

to talk more about childhood

43:19

amnesia, this gap in the memory

43:21

of children, what might cause it, and other

43:23

interesting facts about it, and yeah,

43:26

we are certainly not done with super

43:28

babies and babies with super brains all

43:31

right.

43:31

In the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes

43:33

of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find our core episodes

43:36

on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast

43:38

feed, which you can get wherever you get your podcasts, and

43:41

will remind you that Mondays that's our listener

43:43

mail episode. Wednesdays we do a short

43:45

form artifact or monster fact episode,

43:47

and on Fridays we set aside most series concerns

43:50

to just talk about a weird film on Weird House

43:52

Cinema.

43:53

Huge thanks to our audio producer

43:55

JJ Posway. If you would like to get in

43:57

touch with us with feedback on this episode or

43:59

any other, to suggest a topic for the

44:01

future, or just to say hello, you can email

44:04

us at contact at stuff to Blow

44:06

your Mind dot com.

44:15

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44:17

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44:19

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