Daniel Chen - Week 10: Gaslighting a Child
Sometimes I wonder if my brain is too powerful. That is to say it's too powerful at computing the wrong ideas.
Now, imagine a newborn baby, his name is Billy Bobby Brown or BBB for short. Now, perchance I decided to trap this baby and cut off all outside contact and influence and essentially isolated them from everyone else in the world. From the beginning of their lives to the moment that they're 18, they will be confined in the space that will be their home day in and day out, where you will force feed them false knowledge about everything.
In their world, 2+2=5, a and b are the last 2 letters of the alphabet, good means bad, basically anything that you can screw up, you screw it up (you will teach them how to survive and cook and stuff so they can be part of the next step). They will learn this false material until they're 18 and "graduate" from your house, and then, you will immediately throw them out of the house with enough money and basic necessities for him to go out on his own.
At this point, you will observe every single interaction they have with everyone. You watch as your son, BBB, tries to gaslight everyone into thinking the same things that you taught him. Imagine the confusion that he would cause and imagine the sorts of issues that he would run into, and the best part would be how sure BBB is of everything, since you ingrained that information into his head at birth.
At the first job BBB gets (if he can even get one), will be a series of BBB making a mistake, and then being confused on why it's wrong. The power of learning stuff young, I guess?
I don't know, anyways I think thought experiments like these have too powerful of a grasp on my brain, but I think this train of thought yielded something sort of useful, and that is that learning early is something that we should keep in mind. Whether it be while we are learning a new skill or learning a new subject, it requires us to keep and early mind and make sure that we do things right early on, before the small errors we accrue become a worst-case scenario.
You know, as BBB would say, learn from the mistakes that everyone else is making, and don't be stupid like them. 2+2 does not equal 4 . . . it's always been 5.
Hi Daniel! Every time I respond to your blog I get the urge to just talk as if we're texting and call you all the usual nicknames. Anyway, this blog was actually so interesting because I think about this all the time. The concept of teaching isolated children things in an atypical way from the way in which they actually work in the real world, like as you said, 2+2 being 5, or "good" things being "bad" things, raises an interesting point. Everything we know, whether it's the name of colors, fruits, all the labels we have for things aren't necessarily inherent, they're just what we're taught and have internalized, and what humans have been taught centuries. If, in your hypothetical situation, Billy Bob Brown was taught that what we know to be red is actually called "brown," it wouldn't necessarily be wrong, it would just be a difference in what we're taught. There's an anime I really love called Violet Evergarden which follows a girl learning what love is. She grows up in the military where being stoic and unfeeling is what's expected. When her guardian dies, he tells her, "I love you." Having never been told that, or said it herself, she doesn't know what that means or what it feels like to love. The show made me think about how even the emotions we feel are merely labels we've been taught. Also, you're right, 2+2 has always been 5 and I don't know why more people aren't discussing this.
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel! I have to say that I honestly really look forward to reading your blog every week. Your ideas always help me understand a new perspective or idea, whether that's finding out about a new cheese or learning how to really mess with a child. If I remember correctly, I once came across an article exploring the same concept you described. I am also 150% sure that it was bashed by its audience for being unethical. I completely understand that it would be unethical and certainly don't deny it, but I also can't help but think what would happen if someone were to actually do that to a child (poor kid). Your hypothetical situation about good old BBB reminded me of this other hypothetical experiment I read about last week. The person who had written about this obscure experiment was exploring what would happen if we left a group of children together, from as soon as they were born, and didn't teach them any language. Would they come up with their own language or just never speak? I honestly love thinking about situations like this. Of course I wouldn't want a child to go through that because it definitely compromises what they can achieve later on in life, but I wouldn't mind seeing a weirdly accurate AI simulation about it play out, you know? I wish I could say that 2+2=5, but I'm not entirely sold on that idea yet. Thanks for the engaging read!
ReplyDeleteHi Daniel! Your blogs are probably some of the most intriguing that I have read and I'm always excited to see what you come up with every time! Honestly I feel like this is a thought that people have but don't generally express but I love that you wrote about this for all the people curious about the same thing. If you ever do end up knowing a psychologist in the future this would be a great experiment that would help in terms of its interesting aspects and in order to build our knowledge of educational psychology and how the brain develops overall, though it is technically sad for the little kid who has to deal with that :((
ReplyDeleteTo focus on the writing aspect of this blog, I love the way you lead the readers into the story by beginning with a hook that honestly immediately intrigues the readers to continue.
If this experiment does get conducted in the name of scientific development in the sacrifice of the poor kids living situation it would also be interesting to see how BBB is accepted by society. How would people respond to someone who confidently states a claim that opposes what we have been taught for ages? Like technically who actually determined that 2+2=4 and why can't it be 5. What is 2 exactly and why is it 2 fingers that equals to 2? Thank you for ending me in a weird spiral with this amazing blog and I hope to read more from you later on!