The Victorian baby paradox

www.wickerwoman.com... n-wicker.jpg

Sorry that you have to click a link but I am not allowed to post images because I am a rebel...
Anyway. It should show a bonny Victorian baby. Just about old enough to sit up but only just. Dressed in frilly white cotton and their whole life ahead of it...

...oh wait, no. It already had a whole life [I hope anyway, lets just assume], married, had kids, worked, had stress, grew old, maybe fell ill and is now definitively dead.

You see, everytime I look at Victorian babies, this paradox drives me mad. At first it's easy:
Hey it's a baby on that picture. People grow old and the picture still exists.

Seems straight forward but my brain can't compute. I am looking at a baby, full of life and hope and everything, or am I looking at a dead person who had a whole life and lost it too? Both are true at the same time.

I'm posting this firmly tongue in cheek but it definitely belongs under philosophy because I have thought about this a lot and it is good enough to think about and open up some other thoughts.

Am I looking at a dead, elderly person or a person who has all their life ahead of them?

It may be clear to you, but to me it has always been a paradox of sorts. It is quite fun to think about it.

I do the same thing, but with actors.. I'l see an old actor in an old movie, perhaps their last, and I'll google them, and be confronted with a young, almost innocent, person, seemingly carefree and with their lives yet to bloom. Then I'll consider that every single moment, the smallest minutia that they experienced, every bored moment they wished away, every morning, every goodnight, every tear and every smile, all of it, has slipped from them into oblivion, and they only now remain in the fading memories of others or as archived notes on IMDB.

Makes me quite melancholy.. to think that this same inevitable lonely fate befalls us all.

a reply to: Hecate666

Interesting thought exercise. Thanks.

If all there is is now: Then both exist simultaneously.
The photograph, and the lifestory of the person.

a reply to: Hecate666
What you're describing is the paradox of foreknowledge. At least it would be if you knew the ultimate fate of the child, as in the case of a family photograph.
From your standpoint in that child's future, you may know what the child is going to do.
And yet knowing what the child is going to do does not involve controlling what the child is going to do.
And so, by analogy...

a reply to: Hecate666

I'm glad you like to exercise your mind.

Thanks for giving me something pleasant and fun to read. I don't like political anymore. Maybe once a month but I have to invent my own unique position on the spot. I don't wanna copy anyone.

I like how you create your own ideas too.

a reply to: Hecate666

I was watching some of those old rare Victorian film pieces the other day. I always find it fascinating to think that all of those people are dead now.
Regards the baby picture, it just depends on perspective. You are looking at the image of a baby but that's all it is, an image. You know the person is dead and you are looking at a picture of them as a baby. Same could be said for any picture in that circumstance, even if much closer to our own time.
Perhaps your confusion is not just about the baby picture but the realisation that everyone from that bygone era is dead.

There are many antique photos showing precious babies and posed with their families, yet they are dead in those photos. Seems it was a common practice at one time. So, we can never be sure if that baby ever had the chance to grow up at all. Something to ponder. I have seen some in a video and you can't even tell the child is deceased.

I love antique photos and always wonder about the person or families and what their lives where like, what their personalities may have been like.

a reply to: Hecate666

LoL

Kind of up the street or of the same genre as this video.

Perspective is the key, think of time as a dimension.

a reply to: andy06shake

One of my favourite clips, thanks. It's not that I don't know what is going on [like Dougal], but it is a very interesting exercise if you actually try and think about it. I mean really think about it.
I could come up with an answer to perceived infinity but it is still a mindfeck

Victorian families liked to take a picture of child or family member after they had died . That's the only way they could remember them. Families were much larger in those days. Due to a lack of birth control and the lack of medical knowledge meant life and death were always frequent visitors to a home.

I've seen photographs of the village we live in from the 1930's. All the buildings are still there but with minor structural changes; windows have been moved, trees are taller, etc..., but the people are all different. There's one picture of the village children lined up for a photograph standing along the main road, all in bare feet and old clothes. These days, you would never be able to stand on that road due to all the traffic. It's strange to think that they have come and gone by generations.

I've had the same feelings about reading old mathematics textbooks. Modern science textbooks still have the authors alive, but some mathematics books have the author live between 1820 and 1890. One time, the only explanation to a problem I had was from one such textbook. It's as if two people were holding a conversation through time.

a reply to: Hecate666

I think there is something very, very special about being able to connect to other people through time. Whether that's through a picture, their words, or their art.

In a sense, they lived in a completely different world. A world that, in many ways, is completely foreign to us and only accessible through these means. Their pictures, words, etc. are a bit like doorways into the stories of different universes.

I also like to think of others, in the future, doing the same with us. Frequently when I make a post, I think about how someone might be reading it long after I'm gone. I like to believe I can almost feel that connection.

a reply to: DISRAELI

what UTTER BOLLOX - that IS the polite answer - to your attempts to inject religious idiocy into this thread

From your standpoint in that child's future, you may know what the child is going to do.

REALITY CHECK # 1

From your standpoint in that child's future, you may know what the child DID

And yet knowing what the child is going to do does not involve controlling what the child is going to do.

REALITY CHECK # 2

And yet knowing what the child DID does not involve controlling what the child DID

And so, by analogy...

REALITY CHECK # 3

and so , by utterly spurious hand waving ................. "

there fixed it for you

edit on 25-6-2018 by ignorant_ape because: (no reason given)

a reply to: ignorant_ape
I introduced one of the philosophical angles of a philosophical topic.
Please don't explode too hard.

a reply to: DISRAELI

please dont lie - its undignified

you did not " introduce me to one of the philosophical angels "

you attemmpted to ram religious idiocy into the thread - by deliberatly conflating foreknowledge with historical recollection

that was as dammed dishonest as it gets

a reply to: ignorant_ape
Angles.
I'm not aware of any angels with a philosophical interest.
Watch that blood pressure.

a reply to: Hecate666

Neither. You’re looking at a photograph.

a reply to: Night Star

I've always thought those Victorian photos of deceased children were extremely creepy then I realize that those pics probably brought comfort to their families much like wearng a locket of their deceased loved one's hair.

Pictures simply capture that moment in time. That's all. To read more into it is, at least to me, ludicrous. Time passes; people change or disappear. Trying to guesstimate futures is futile. Enjoy the moment.

a reply to: Hecate666

What you seeing in that photo is a snap shot of a continuum.

What I mean by that is life goes on, if we think of ourselves as life itself rather than the individuals we identify ourselves as, then we will see the bigger picture.

a reply to: Justso

I've always thought those Victorian photos of deceased children were extremely creepy then I realize that those pics probably brought comfort to their families much like wearng a locket of their deceased loved one's hair.

At first I did as well, but back then, people didn't have the funds to have pics taken regularly like we do today. It was their way of preserving a memory of a loved one, the last time they would ever see them. They tried to put them in as natural a setting and position as they could.

a reply to: Night Star

I do realize that but the creep factor is still there for me-as is the sadness of the loss of a child. I am sure in two hundrred years many of our accepted idiosyncracies will appear as quite pagan and disgusting: hopefully it's all these wars and genocides and politics.