A mind experiment exploring the nature of innocence and the difference between good and evil.

PROPOSAL

All children are born innocent.
Concepts of good and evil are inflicted upon the child by other human beings encountered during life.
At the moment of influence, innocence begins to be lost.
The initial loss is irreversible.
Influence can be accidental or intentional, often both.
Innocence is degraded over time by variable degrees.

CONTROL GROUP

Theoretical construct provides all life support needs without presence of human or human-like influence for the subject's entire lifespan.

Example: A human zygote grown in a life deck of a long duration space journey, tended to by maintenance robots.
Closed growing environment maintained for optimal human health.
Subject is isolated and left to its own motivations.
No instruction, no lessons, no influence on the subject other than the stable environment.

Thought Experiment Baseline 1

Subject is exposed only to mechanical lessons concerning survival and self upkeep. Personal hygiene, physical body maintenance, dexterity, balance and posture. Lessons are provided by mechanical repetition only.

Thought Experiment Baseline 2

In addition to Baseline 1, an AI adds language skills and cause/effect lessons thru verbal instruction without inflection.

Thought Experiment Baseline 2.1

In addition to previous baselines the AI includes instruction on ship operations and maintenance. Subject spends its existence maintaining the ship on its long duration journey and dies without encountering another human being.

Thought Experiment Baseline 3

In addition to Baselines 1 & 2, subject is taught basic social skills by the AI and is eventually introduced to a similar subject society. No reference between right or wrong, good or evil is taught by the AI. All subjects of this society are taught the same ship operations and maintenance at the same time.

Thought Experiment Baseline 4

Baseline 1 with the introduction of a human nurturer who represents mother/father to the subject. Subject is exposed to concepts of good/evil, right/wrong, pride/guilt, morals/tradition/instinct by a single human influence. Language skills are taught.

Thought Experiment Baseline 5

Baseline 1 with the introduction of a human nurturers representing mother and father. Subject is exposed to concepts of good/evil, right/wrong, pride/guilt, morals/tradition/instinct by two individual and different influences. Language skills are taught.

Thought Experiment Baseline 6

Baseline 1 with the introduction of a human nurturers representing multiple relationships including mother, father, sibling, relatives, friends and strangers. Subject is exposed to concepts of good/evil, right/wrong, pride/guilt, morals/tradition/instinct by multiple individuals with different motives. Language skills and personal presence is taught.

CHALLENGE

Using the established experimental baselines as noted above;
- Determine the scenario which would occur for each subject.
- Predict the behaviors which would manifest in the order of occurrence.
- Identify the positive/negative influences as they would apply to real-world situations.
- Predict the personality traits the subject would possess. Good/bad/evil/divine/neutral/social/isolated.

ASSESSMENT

Make an assessment of how other humans influence children's behavior which corrupts their inherent innocence. Determine and state the initial influence and subsequent influential behaviors from others which determine a child's predilection to moral/immoral personality traits.

In other words, what makes someone good or bad?
Is it learned behavior or is it natural human behavior?
I believe it is the nature of social species to develop anti-social behaviors.
I also believe an individual in a social species, if isolated will not develop anti-social behaviors until they are exposed to the rest of the society. The would remain innocent until exposed to influences which remove that innocence.

I was watching an old TV show last night and the subject was presented concerning "When does a child actually lose their innocence?". The onscreen debate was mainly concerning religious teachings and the advent of understanding the difference between right and wrong.
My mind took it a step further and I ask "Who teaches the innocent child right and wrong even exists"? When does that occur? Is it a taught lesson or is it taught by nurture?
I tried to remember when I first said "No' to each of my children. Those were purpose driven instructions but I realize I made subtle changes in my behavioral responses to them long before I verbalized instruction. I wonder, at what point in my children's lives did I corrupt their innocence without realizing it?

Don't get me wrong, my children are not evil but they're no longer innocent either. In all the people I've known, only those with social handicap seem innocent to me. They are people who walk life without an ulterior agenda, malice or pride.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.
I'm curious what others think on the subject.
Yes, I know I'm weird.

if you could whittle it down to a paragraph i might jump in...not many M.I.T. types here i don't think.

LOL, there isn't a test. Reply as you want.
I worded it the way I did because to figure out something significant I need to consider it this way. For me to think it thru I need limits and standards.
I used space because it could be non life or death where a jungle or desert island would be.

I'm not referring to a feral child. Feral children are savage because that's what it takes to keep from dying. They can't be a neutral subject to determine if other human beings are the trigger to innocence loss.

Why do kids like magic?

it's not from surprise but break in expectation

"How did you do it?"

trickery really they are taught

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist,
Children already know that dragons exist,
Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.
~ G K Chesterton

concepts of good and evil (both subjective terms) and morality are embedded linguistically in our language and phraseology.

As soon as you teach a preformed language you also expose the subject to some of the ideals or notions and or associations of value or meaning that were prevalent when the language was going through it's evolution.

If you stuck to technical language, I would hazard a guess that you would end up with an emotional child. A clever one.

But that's more or less a guess.

Its all a guess which is why this is presented as a mind experiment.

In the hypothetical control group, using your conclusion, a child devoid of language would not exhibit good or bad behavior. Likewise, baseline 1 would offer non-language behavior skills which in turn would not cause a behavior pattern of good or bad.

However, as early as baseline 2, the subject's behavior would exhibit good and bad tendencies because verbal language skills are taught. No matter the language being used. That verbal instruction without inflection would cause the subject to develop a sense of good and bad.

I find your conclusion interesting because it differs from my own.
I believe the subject would not develop a concept of good and bad until a human influence is added. I believe it is impossible for a human to interact with another human without implying or inserting moral concepts upon the other.

My conclusion is no matter how hard someone might try, as soon as they interact with another human being they impart their morals upon the other. Additionally, I believe no matter how hard they try to keep the influence 'good', 'bad' is also shared unknowingly.

It occurs before the child reaches the ability to make a conscious decision or choice. I believe it is instilled before the child is able to fully understand language. It may be as early as the first time they see a smile or scowl.

This thought opens a series of changes in baseline 1 which could be introduced to determine visual development of moral concepts.
Like a computer smile or frown face or a photo of a human smiling or frowning during the mechanical lessons being taught.
Introduction of a mirror might also change the baseline parameters a significant amount.
For instance, a mirror under a picture of a human smiling face or a mirror under a picture of a human scowling face which accompanies the mechanical lesson.

Many people believe the loss of innocence is directly related to decisive behavior. I propose it occurs way before decisive behavior. Perhaps as early as a few days old. Since the pristine environment of the baseline is impossible in the real world it is impossible to know. Thus, the reason for the mind experiment.

Perhaps MIT geeks dont come here?

I seems to me that the concepts of good or bad on a formative level equate with whether something is beneficial or detrimental to your needs, desires or drives.

For example. A sibling may clamber over another to gain the best feeding. This is a drive and not intrinsically good or bad, as far as he is concerned it is good, as far as the other unfortunate sibling is concerned it's bad..( subjective)

We are born selfish, it is a survival imperative that is shared by most complex life forms.
concepts of morality are a way of moderating this impulse, as a way of managing conflicts of interest, for the sake of sustaining a larger and a more diverse clan/tribe/civilization.
I guess you loose ( so called) innocence when you become aware of reasons why you should moderate your impulses for the sake of others, but choose, willfully not to, for you own benefit.

Immanuel Kant will disagree with you using apriori and aposteriori.

Exactly right.

There is no such thing as "good" vs "bad", only beneficial vs non-beneficial.

Perhaps Immanuel Kant would like to come discuss it. Oh wait, he can't...he's dead.

I've adopted my philosophies based on observations and deductions of things during my own life. Its been my observation that people react to the stimuli which surrounds them.
I've surmised the predilection for 'good' or 'evil' initiates from a single set of stimuli and 'snowballs' from there.
I've also surmised the concept of 'good' or 'evil' is observer based.
This 'mind experiment' can not be done in our current reality so it involves the ability to imagine the conditions and formulate reasonable results.

I postulate a child who has never been exposed to 'right or wrong', 'good or evil' will not adopt those qualities in their behavior patterns. Stimuli, in and of itself, is neither good, nor evil. This leads to the conclusion that reality, in and of itself, is also neither good nor evil.

Good and evil are introduced by an observer. They are concepts of moral judgement which enhance or detract from reality. A child who has never been exposed to morality will possess no morality. Neither good nor bad.
Reality does not influence morality but morality does influence the conclusions of reality.

That being said, at what point is a child's morality established?
This is the root function of this mind experiment.
At what point are different observer realities imposed on the child and at what point does the child start to formulate their own version of morality?

Do the moral influences of others determine the morality of the child or does the child adopt their own?

We are influenced by others all our lives. Each influence is a separate morality, a separate stimuli.
Is there an initial influence which determines the nature of the child's morality towards good or evil?
At what point...what age, does the child start to adopt a predilection for a moral imperative?
I believe it could be before birth. Perhaps as early as the beginning of the third trimester. When the senses trigger a synapse.

I've seen babies which appear to have been born pist off. I've also seen babies who appear to be born contented. The amount of love shown has little influence at the beginning. I've witnessed the personalities which grew from those seeds. They tend to hold true to their natural life stance.

Its also my belief maturity allows us to override our natural tendencies and moral obligations. I believe it happens multiple times during a lifetime. Sometimes with positive results and sometimes with negative results.
All which are influenced by various stimuli.


'Needs' are very different from 'desires' and 'drives' are rooted in personality tendencies.


The way I see it 'innocence' is neither good nor evil.
Each of us exist in our own worlds.
My life is life according to me.
Your life is life according to you.
Morality is dictated by social order.
Guilt is dictated by morality.

Someone outside the social order, who has adopted their own morality, lives in innocence.
Its why some people can kill others without guilt.
Our social morality is thrust upon us at an early age and dictates our own concepts of morality. But, since social morality is an outside influence, our minds can override it.

We are individual lives being guided by social moral obligations and mandates. When social morals align with personal morals we have no issue with society. When they do not align, society has issue with us. Following personal moral mandates is innocent in our eyes but not according to society.

A crazy person who doesn't know they are crazy needs to be convinced by others they are crazy. Till they are convinced, to them, they are sane.

A child who is exposed to behaviors and conditions adopts those behaviors as normal and innocent until they are convinced they are not, by someone else.
A child who grows up in a home with verbal abuse, will adopt verbally abusive attitudes until someone else convinces them it is not normal.
Keyword is 'convinces'.

This is fun...

Far too complex of thinking of this. The brain is wired in a certain way before birth, siblings raised under the same roof, by the same people can turn out way different from one another. One may be very successful while the other is a dirt bag freeloader, or serial killer. Yes the "morals" are all things made up by society, but nature still has a large input of what goes on in one's life. The more they learn about DNA and genetics the more they could determine if someone is destined to be "evil" or "good". They can do brain surgery to reprogram or erase certain things in the mind but for the most part they are not all that advanced at it at this time.

This topic does have a 'predestination' element.

Watson suggests that the roots of evil are biological – a gene will do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means killing “one of its own”. ... Nature abounds with examples of fratricide, infanticide and suicide. Watson feels that this genetic basis divorces evil from morality. ~ NewScientist.com

According to Leibniz, there are three forms of evil in the world: moral, physical, and metaphysical. ~ Britannica

Also on topic is the question as to if a person is never convinced a behavior is evil, do they think it is evil?
Is ignorance of morality innocence?

The survival imperative Watson includes, in and of itself, is neither good nor evil. Its an innocent behavior because no outside influence has convinced them their behavior is immoral.

The concepts of good and evil are subjective and governed by society. Different societies have different morality.
Moral imperatives change over time even within a single society.
Even murder is not isolated from subjective society morality.

The Terri Schiavo case (1998-2005) is merely one example of subjective society morality. (I know there's more to the case but that doesn't minimize the moral issues)
Physical brain damage can change the the parts of the brain which govern morality. This is not the same as a person acting in innocence.
Insanity can be either immoral or innocent. It all depends on whether the insane person knows which behaviors are immoral.

If you are told a rumor, most people will accept that rumor as fact.
If told a convincing lie, most people will accept that as fact.
So much so, intimate relationships are built on lies.
We all know how relationships based on a lie eventually fall apart.
A person who believes the lie are innocent until they understand it is a lie.

Many moral imperatives are based on propagated delusion.
People who are deluded, usually don't realize they are deluded until reality convinces them otherwise.
People tend to perpetuate delusions in innocence.
Some people will actually fight to keep their delusions.
Its very difficult to re-delude yourself.

Its also common for people to exist with both good and bad, good and evil behavior.
Nobody is pure good or pure evil.
Individuals make up our societies.
Societies make up our nations.
Each individual has their own morality.
Society morals are dictated by the individuals which make up that society.
The 'alignment' of individual morals strengthen society morality.
This 'alignment' determines which behaviors are morally accepted in that society.


If people were predestined to good or evil they would exhibit that relative behavior as their personal norm. Predetermined behavior patterns are a sticky wicket. Mainly because influence changes baseline predispositions.

The 'meat' of this subject is the influences from outside which change innocence.
Its tough to put a specific influence on complex human behavior.
This is because, even before birth, our senses are working, our brains are working.
Influence is not limited to verbal.
Cause and effect also influences behavior patterns.

When we learn morality, we lose innocence.
Problem is, not all innocence is lost from a single influence.

That about covers it Tom

I will add that the original meaning of the word 'innocence' is harmless/inoffensive. literally, in (not) nocens (hurt)

so literally we loose innocence when we hurt others.

I've always thought of 'innocence' as the pristine human condition.
As in, before influences and morality.
In that sense, certain types of 'ignorance' could be thought of as innocence.

It's one of those words that is defined partly by context as in the judicatory sense, whereby if the person under question was ignorant of the fact that his actions would harm others, then that person would be innocent of deliberately causing harm.

mid-14 century., "doing no evil; free from sin, guilt, or moral wrong,"

from Old French inocent "harmless; not guilty; pure"

12 century . from Latin innocentem (nominative innocens) "not guilty, blameless; harmless; disinterested," from in- "not" (see in- (1)) + nocentem (nominative nocens), present participle of nocere "to harm," ... lol

another instance of morality being embedded linguistically. In this case in the mid 14th century by theologians.

both definitions are still valid. A tough cookie to digest.

Latin is worth a dabble in m8. someone like you could get the gist of it in a few weeks.

sorry off topic I know

No worries.
The coomon thing is all these definitions is the fact it involves an outside influence or assessment/judgement.

The type of innocence I'm refering to is the innocence 'within', not someone else's definition, assessment or conditions.

Guilt and regret are within too. Others may try to make you feel guilty or tell you that you should regret your actions but its like innocence, no outsider can truly know.

How many times in your life have you done or said something only to be told by someone it was wrong...you should feel guilty...you will regret that. Till they said something, it was a non-issue. Done in innocence.
The outside influence removed your innocence.

Now, with that in mind, think about parenting. How many times does a parent consider innocence while rearing their young. Toddler pulls the tablecloth and everything on the table comes crashing onto the floor. The child is admonished for behavior done in innocence. The parent has no idea they are affecting innocence, to them, they are teaching behavior. What happens when that innocence is destroyed by accident. Conflicting nurture can confuse young minds.
Babies can get angry just as easily as they get happy. A baby can get confused by changes in how they are treated, even small changes. Everything is new to them.
I'm trying to figure out when innocence is first lost. Do we retain innocence in some form or another till the day we die? Is it possible for someone trying to live 'evil' to still have some innocence?

One some levels all of us retain some innocence. Because we have an incomplete understanding of the culture in which we were brought up and consequently the nurture we received and thought processes and behavior that this nurture engendered.
In life we have to do some things that affect/harm others as part of a drive to survive. I think Innocence ( in it's broadest sense ) is lost incrementally and on different levels. Relative to the situation we find ourselves in and the level of understanding we have of the consequences arising from our actions or decisions.

So I would say yes on some levels we retain it.

In my OP I outlined two scenarios where innocence could be retained.


These environments are devoid of human influence.

If the child grew to old age in such an environment, they would not develop morality. Would you agree?

If you take the Jungle Book / Tarzan scenario and apply that to a lifetime, some morals would be learned, even if it were the morals of the apes. As the child learns the social order of the troop, they lose innocence. Not the same as human families but the same idea of approved and disapproved behavior as deemed by an outside force. There's also the influence of the mother/infant bond.

In the above control group, no survival skills are taught. There is no mother/infant bond. The environment is stable but there are no lessons which would teach the child about action/consequences.

In baseline 1, the child learns basic survival skills taught by a program without emotional reinforcement. Rudimentary action/consequences are taught without emotional inflection.

In either condition, would/could the child develop emotion driven motives?
It would be more than pleasing stimuli. Not all pleasing things are good for you, some, in excess will down right kill ya or give you pain.
With no outside influence telling the child what is 'good' and what is 'bad' would the child develop that ... "sense", on their own?

I believe while ignorance does have a hand in retaining a certain degree of innocence, knowledge also has a hand in removing said innocence.
Humans have the ability to reason. Is that ability innate to the human mind or is it a learned discipline? Before you say we are born with the ability to reason remember how children act.

Without reasoning being taught, I suspect while the potential for it is there, it never develops. Kinda like any skill.
In science fiction there are many stories which toy with the idea of genetic manipulation to create geniuses. You bring together the reproductive elements of two smart people and you get a smart baby.
The problem with this is the fact while the potential exists in the child to be smart, to achieve it requires outside influence.

In the control group or baseline 1, would a savant develop the ability to distinguish between right and wrong if they never had an influence from which they could draw such conclusions? Could a smart baby learn morals if they are never exposed to moral influence?

In a way, the human condition is a series of influences of emotional assessments give to us as we live. Conflict in these assessments cause us stress and confusion. Human social order actually causes stress. Mainly because we don't align with many of our fellow human beings.

This could be part of the driving force behind love we feel for others who align closely with us. It could also explain why we hurt so bad when that love fails. We lose alignment. Stress builds and we will say or do anything we can think of to make it go away. The longer the stress lasts, the more we fall into depressive or angry states.
I believe is all roots from the same fundamental flaw in the human condition, outside influence.

I should stop for a bit, my mind is going all sorts of weird places right now...I guess I need a nap 'er something?