Clicking on the picture will probably make the text legible, but in case you can't parse the penmanship of a ten-year-old, the report reads:
The laser is a new, high-tech object. 'Laser' is an acronym, meaning, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Lasers are light beams that are usually red, unless dyed with gases.
Lasers can reach the moon with very little spread. Though no laser-weapons have been invented, lasers can be used for aiming weapons.
They are used in operating rooms for surgery, commonly of the eyes. Lasers can be small and thin, so burning away a disease of the eye, and then fusing the eye skin back together will be easy and take 5 minutes or less.
They make good knifes[sic], because they can cut metal without leaving jagged edges.
Lasers work by a ruby in a glass tube, sending off light. Putting ordinary light through a prism will create rainbows; laser light will not make rainbows.
Lasers are new inventions, and getting better every day. Pretty soon, science-fiction will come true.
by, Anne Corwin
It's just funny to look back and read that kind of thing now, because there are aspects of my writing style and overall tone that really don't seem to have changed much. And of course, there's the "Pretty soon, science-fiction will come true" bit -- Future Transhumanists of America, anyone?
:P
EDIT: I found a whole slew of "inventions" and diagrams from when I was between the ages of about 8 and 10; see them here. For entertainment purposes only, of course.
10 comments:
I'm not normally one to "awwww". Well, OK, I actually am. So, awwwww! I think I'm going to have to dig around in my old papers next time I'm back....whatever state/province droppoint they're at now, to see if I can find any hints of my present interests in them.
Actually, now that I think of it, I know in 5th grade I was obsessed with robots. And now I work on AI related things. Kinda funny, but thought provoking as well.
:-)
At that age, I was obsessed with politics and civil rights struggles.
It is indeed fascinating how childhood obsessions can persist for so many years. I can certainly see how people end up feeling that they were "chosen" for a particular task in life.
jemerson: I love seeing how people's interests may have originated in childhood. In my case I was very big on "inventions" (though most of the stuff I actually tried to "invent" was either already invented or completely ridiculous). I don't know where my primary interests came from but they (or precursors to them) were definitely established pretty early on.
My main over-arching interest seems to have always been a fascination with details and parts of things, which made machines, biological systems, and mechanisms especially compelling. My parents wrote that I used to ask questions like (and these are actual examples): "What's inside of a rock?", "What is my hair made out of?", "What are the holes in the telephone receiver for?", and "Is there a heater in the hot tap?"
a. friend: I have no idea who you are, but :), I guess.
abfh: That doesn't surprise me at all (your early obsession with politics and civil rights struggles) :) In my case I don't feel that I was "chosen" by any kind of conscious entity, but I do feel strongly that there are certain things I resonate with and that I can be very effective in working on.
I must say that your report is very eloquent for a ten-year old. I was still learning to write at that age, and I still haven't mastered spelling...
It must be nice to know that the things you were interested in at that age clearly show the precursors of what you blog about now. When I was 10, I was obsessed with acting out tank battles with little plastic tanks. Anyway:
awwwwwwwwwwwww!
Cool.
And...
...I didn't have particular interests that are my primary interests or activities now. I didn't plan to be in this position, I never thought of myself as ending up in this position, I had little interest in being in this position, and, here I am in this position.
Not that it's a bad position. Just wholly unexpected and unforeshadowed.
Amanda: Well, I don't think it's a hard and fast rule that people maintain their childhood interests; I'm sure it depends a lot on what environments and circumstances people encounter while growing up. And I didn't retain all my interests; I mean, I am no longer obsessed with "She-Ra, Princess of Power" like I was in first grade. :) Though I have been interested in assistive technology since I was around three and that one seems to have stayed with me (though it was almost completely "dormant" during the major years of my Star Wars perseveration).
And I didn't imagine myself in the position I'm in (in life), either -- I didn't really have any idea what my future would (or could) be like when I was growing up. I went from being fairly confident as a little kid that I'd grow up to have one kind of life (probably whatever I saw as a "normal" life then), to being terrified that I'd never be able to do anything (because I wasn't able to meet certain supposed "milestone" expectations), to realizing that I could have a very good life but not one that I'd ever have been able to imagine prior to actually attempting to live it. None of that has much to do with my interests, though.
Some children seem to be drawn inexplicably to interests carried over from previous lives, what with their unusual sophistication in the manner in which they're expressed or in the intensity of their expression.
Anne, for example, could have been a scientist, an engineer, or an inventor in a previous life, and her childhood interest in lasers might have been a reflection of that. In a similar vein, just as interests fade from childhood with time, children's recall of details from previous lives also fade with time. Precocity in children makes so much sense when seen in this non-rational light.
Anne, my smile (above) was (is) a smile of pure delight in response to the innocence expressed in the post. A nice, light, sweet detour from your usual fare.
a. friend:
You said:
Some children seem to be drawn inexplicably to interests carried over from previous lives, what with their unusual sophistication in the manner in which they're expressed or in the intensity of their expression.
Um...why can't a person just be interested in something? There is no need to postulate extraordinary notions such as reincarnation when attempting to explain why children have particular interests. The human brain evolved to be curious about its environment, so being interested in things makes plenty of sense from a completely naturalistic standpoint.
The "intensity and sophistication" of a child's interests is probably just dependent on a combination of genetics and environment; I mean, there's any number of things a person COULD be interested in, but I imagine people (especially those with a predilection toward very intense interests) probably just end up "locking on" to a particular thing because (a) it happens to be accessible to them, and (b) it is "friendly" to their neurological wiring. E.g., kids who tend to notice details and have good fine-motor skills easily might enjoy making realistic drawings.
Anne, for example, could have been a scientist, an engineer, or an inventor in a previous life, and her childhood interest in lasers might have been a reflection of that.
Or, much more likely, I come from a long line of science-minded folks and had a lot of exposure to technology and science fiction as a youngster. I don't see how in the world you'd need to invoke "past lives" in order to explain a person's interests -- would you also say, then, that the "past life"'s own past life was also that of a scientist or engineer?
In a similar vein, just as interests fade from childhood with time, children's recall of details from previous lives also fade with time. Precocity in children makes so much sense when seen in this non-rational light.
The whole notion of "precocity" is flawed because it assumes there is such thing as a "standard child" in the first place. Sure, there might be statistical norms that suggest that larger numbers of people have interests and abilities falling within a certain range, but variation itself is also normal. There is nothing irrational or in need of supernatural explanation about different personality types or interests or skills in children; that kind of variation is exactly what you'd expect in a heterogeneous population.
Anne, in reading your wonderfully articulate response, I find that I have precious little with which to disagree. Certainly, a person can have an interest without calling on reincarnation as an explanation for why that person has that interest in the first place, and I agree, too, that our brains evolved to be curious about our environments so as to generate a variety of interests. I also appreciate that children have interests that depend on some combination of genetic endowment and the learning environments in which they find themselves. Indeed, as a child's interests grow, the intensity and sophistication with which the child engages these interests also grows. All of which can be described and explained from a naturalistic perspective. But, as I'm sure you know, interests in children don't just blossom out of no where. Or do they? If a child, with little or no experience or practice, suddenly engages an object of interest with an intensity and sophistication that seems out of proportion to the amount of time spent with it, one must wonder: where did that interest come from? I concur that neurological compatibility and environmental accessibility are important factors for initially drawing a child to a particular interest, but I hardly think that they can give a full account of the sudden intensity or sophistication with which an object of interest might be engaged. In his excellent scientific study of children with memories of past lives (Life Before Life), author and psychiatrist Jim Tucker relates numerous examples of children with interests that seemingly came from nowhere. Although he carefully avoids coming to any firm conclusions about whether reincarnation actually exists, he does make a very compelling case in favor of reincarnation as an explanation.
I also appreciate the role with which the people who surround you as you grow up can influence the adoption and cultivation of your interests. If they're science-minded and technophilic, then chances are you will be, too. But even then, I'm sure you've heard of children whose interests are at complete variance with the interests of those who care for them, so much so that one is left wondering, searching vainly for generative influences, where on earth did those interests come from? Now, I'm not saying that all interests can and must be accounted for by calling on past lives. I'm only saying that some interests could be accounted for with reference to past lives. Would I also say that a "past life's" own past lives generate that past life? In my reading of the reincarnation literature, I would say that there are common threads that run through series of past lives, influencing both current and future lives. For example, when a child can play the piano like a master at the age of five, one might wonder: did this little person have unfinished business in a previous life? Was a musical career suddenly and tragically cut short in a previous life? I agree with you a "standard child" is purely a statistical creature and that variation is normal. What I'm talking about here is extreme variation of the "positive deviant" type, children whose IQs or EQs or abilities in some area are off the scale. Could such children have had previous lives that prepared them to be so? I submit that unusual skills or interests or personalities in children might have reincarnation as an explanation, and I would further submit that reincarnation as an explanation might have a naturalistic foundation, in which case, reincarnation would neither be irrational nor supernatural, and therefore worthy of serious consideration and discussion. Just think of the implications of reincarnation for the transhumanist enterprise.
A. Friend
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