speaking of the integrative action of the nervous system and
consciousness, called 'projiscience'.
Finally we will see how an infant, with its already
complex and yet rapidly developing brain, moves to find
companions, and to engage with and learn about the
resources and risks of the physical but mentally transformed
world that may be shared -- how he or she gains an
individuality in the family and an active understanding of
society, learning a culturally extended consciousness of the
narrative of being in the history of a community, its
acquired beliefs, knowledge, skills and language. We know a
great deal now about how an infant becomes interested in the
meanings by which other persons live their life, in the
culture that patterns the collective consciousness of the
society into which the baby has been born. Through the first
year an infant first seeks care and comfort, and also engages
in rhythmic 'protoconversational' transactions with familiar
and trusted others. In early weeks they play together,
learning routines of joking and teasing, consolidating trust
with affection.
It is this stage that exhibits the most wonderful
'musicality' of human moving -- the intricate rhythms and
phrasing, the subtle variations of expression in tone and
melody, and the development of narrative forms that guide
excitement and promise repetition of climactic moments and
calming resolution. From birth, infants are sensitive to the
moods and time patterns of music. Why? Because the
human body is inherently polyrhythmic and melaodic in its
expression. The human body is built for the kind of grace
and power one finds in cultivated music and in dance or
sport. No other mammal, though all have intentional grace,
has such versatility of motor expression. This is the secret of
our story-making consciousness and our capacity to invent
powerful the ever changing tangible and intangible works of
culture.
The infant senses effects of moving in his or her body,
and engages with objects that passively receive actions of
exploration and manipulative investigation. And then, just
before the end of the first year, actively searches the sights
and sounds of a partner's actions to share their purposes. The
one-year-old is intentionally cooperative, willing and eager
to take up the interests and actions of others as meaningful.
This is the unique motivation of the human that inevitably
leads to mastery of the symbols of language and every other
kind of cultural invention. The infant's personal identity
becomes a reflection of what others seek in him or her for
company, and for aharing meaning.
I will illustrate steps in the argument with evidence that
I am not inventing an abstract theory of mind and human
conscious thinking, but attempting to describe the natural,
but miraculous, vitality of human minds from their
beginnings.
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