Oh, I think they are plenty cuddly and cute. They are also little savages, no question. jks
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I was referring to something I can't quite name, called it creaturehood, all that primordial stuff, say the timbre of the body, its characteristic willfull and expressive nature.
I've been thinking about this component of human beings because my climbing partner was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago and ended up with a severe head injury. I went to see him in Kaiser (deathcare) Oakland. All this physical stuff that makes up a person is still there in his gestures, the way he positions himself, his basal personality. But the conscious, motive, active, person is still not present, the person who would answer to his name is missing. It remains to be seen whether that will come back or not. I've known people who came back and others who didn't. Very strange stuff.
He was in a coma for a couple of days in Utah and Kaiser naturally wanted him transferred immediately. The ER doc in Utah wouldn't release him until he could breathe on his own. Anyway all that is too grim and too typical.
But it reminded me of the formation of a person out of all that animal stuff. I am sure there are technical `cognative science' words for these components. Whatever you call them, they are positioned in a curious and I think very mysterious boundary between what is considered genetic or instinctual and what is considered learned. It's that contested region that fascinated me while I was watching my son learn to move his body, focus his eyes, focus his attention on sounds, recognize his hunger, the need to piss and shit, etc as a baby.
What I meant was that what impressed me most about babies was not the cuddliness, but this other thing---this self-organizing struggle they go through. Whenever cognitive science or thought and perception come up in discussion, what is usually argued seems entirely too abstract to me and in a sense meaningless, when postioned against this early infant behavior.
Chuck Grimes