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At the “Dreamers of Tomorrow” Café
Children’s curiosity and parents’ confusion
A conversation with my granddaughter about conscience
I was thinking about research that I would conduct on 500 Egyptian children, to learn about their most common questions to their families and teachers, and they and us evade answering them sometimes, because we do not know the answer, or to avoid talking about what we think is not compatible with their age, or out of shyness, ignorance, or embarrassment, or because we are still trying. Find an answer for ourselves.
Then I found dozens of research papers and books that asked my question, and collected children’s questions. I found others had thought and preceded me. An idea does not live unless it is documented or implemented, and it turned into a “meme,” as I explained in my new book, “Me and Memes,” which was published by Dar Al-Mahrousa weeks ago. .
As a means of information, “memes” are the unit that carries ideas that people transmit, settle in the conscience, and are transmitted from generation to generation. It is an expression similar to “genes,” which carry biological information and are transmitted from every organism to its children, reproduce, and cause mutations in them, and the best remains.
This is how ideas are. They are transmitted from generation to generation, multiply, and mutations occur in them, in which the best settles in the people’s conscience. The proverb that comes closest to mind is the human values that preceded even the existence of religions.. The answers to children’s questions may be memes, but we do not declare them.
My twelve-year-old granddaughter asked me a question worth discussing: What is a pronoun?
What does it mean if someone has a conscience, grandfather?
She followed it with a second, third, fourth, and tenth question
I answered her saying:
It is a feeling of a person’s evaluation of himself according to a set of moral values that have been implanted in his conscience through experience and life about what is right and what is wrong.
In this case, it is relative to every human being. Conscience reprimands the person to himself if this error becomes apparent as a result of his self-evaluation or sometimes as a result of others’ evaluation of him if he is extremely sensitive to others’ evaluation of him, regardless of his personal value. Conscience may sometimes exaggerate in harshness toward oneself by exaggerating in the evaluation of mistakes.
But in reality…after what I said, what I said, I think I complicated matters for her.
Between myself and myself, I said: It is possible that the essence of the philosophy of religions historically was with the aim of creating a collective conscience of absolute right and wrong, according to divine standards, so that it would not be relative from one person to another. It means building a moral base for societies. But we have transformed religion into sanctifying its means, not its heart and content.
I heard a wise man say: Conscience is the part of the mind that is responsible for a person’s moral path. It is the one that transmits instructions and warnings to us to evaluate and control the type of thoughts we think and the actions we take, so that it makes us suffer and feel guilty when we do things that are not consistent with our moral principles. Conscience urges us to prefer right, righteousness, and goodness over error, badness, and evil. Conscience directs us by giving its judgement, as to what we have thought and acted upon, and what we intend to think and act upon.
The French thinker, Victor Hugo, said, “Conscience is the voice of God in man.”
He also says in his brilliant book Les Misérables:
“Conscience is an arena in which desires and experiences compete, and a cave of thoughts that arouse in us the secrets of shame or ugliness.”
The Greek philosopher Socrates said: “Just as the law prevents a person from transgressing, so conscience prevents a person from committing evil deeds.”
There is relativity over time as concepts and cultures change, but there remain some human values that transcend time and move the healthy human conscience to accept self-satisfaction or blame.
My daughter said to me when I told her about her daughter’s question and my remorse for myself, that I did not simplify things for her and did not explain easily:
I also have a question,
I said: Bring what you have.
She said: Do all beings have a conscience? Or is it something specific to humans only?
I told her a question I couldn’t answer. So far, everything I have read about consciousness and conscience, philosophers basically disagree about it. Rather, there is a disagreement about whether animals have a conscious soul or soul or not? And if it is, which is what I believe, do they have an afterlife and a reckoning, or are they guided by their genetic makeup that makes them do what they do? They do it without realizing it.
My granddaughter’s question, my daughter’s question, my own questions, and my vision of those around me are what motivated me to write this article.
Psychology has distinguished conscience as being characterized by comprehensiveness. It is not limited to evaluating one aspect of the personality, but rather deals with the personality as a whole. It deals with the past, present, and future: it does not only blame its owner for what he did in the past, but rather holds him accountable for what he does in the present, for what he does in the present. He may do so in the future. He may be exaggerated in laxity, or he may be exaggerated in cruelty. The conscience may be sound, or it may be subject to deviation, either to dullness and lethargy, or to exaggeration in estimating mistakes.
Conscience may be individual or it may be collective. In his personal life and his relationships with others and himself, a person has an individual conscience, but conscience may expand to include a group of people that may be limited, or it may extend to include an entire people.
In the culture of society, there are proverbs that touch the conscience, such as, “Consult your heart,” “Righteousness is what the soul is at ease with and the heart is at ease with.”
Curiosity is one of the permanent characteristics of the human mind, and it is what we must develop in the minds of our children and youth. Children are affected by this motivation, which always directs them towards knowing more about the world around them. It not only provides them with knowledge, but also stimulates their brains, enhances their skills in building relationships with those around them, increases their ability to learn new things, and develops in them a love of reading and inquiry.
Specialists have compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions on children’s lips, including, for example:
– How does electricity work? Why is the sky blue? How do birds fly? Where does the wind come from? Why is the sea salty? Why can’t we drink sea water? What is the size of the world? What do parallel universes mean? What happens to us when we die? Where is God? Where do children come from? How do planes fly? Where does the rain come from? Why does God create people who are sick or have special needs? Where will we go after death? Why did God take my cat? How did I get out of my mother’s womb? And others and others…..
Children’s curiosity and parents’ confusion
A conversation with my granddaughter about conscience
I was thinking about research that I would conduct on 500 Egyptian children, to learn about their most common questions to their families and teachers, and they and us evade answering them sometimes, because we do not know the answer, or to avoid talking about what we think is not compatible with their age, or out of shyness, ignorance, or embarrassment, or because we are still trying. Find an answer for ourselves.
Then I found dozens of research papers and books that asked my question, and collected children’s questions. I found others had thought and preceded me. An idea does not live unless it is documented or implemented, and it turned into a “meme,” as I explained in my new book, “Me and Memes,” which was published by Dar Al-Mahrousa weeks ago. .
As a means of information, “memes” are the unit that carries ideas that people transmit, settle in the conscience, and are transmitted from generation to generation. It is an expression similar to “genes,” which carry biological information and are transmitted from every organism to its children, reproduce, and cause mutations in them, and the best remains.
This is how ideas are. They are transmitted from generation to generation, multiply, and mutations occur in them, in which the best settles in the people’s conscience. The proverb that comes closest to mind is the human values that preceded even the existence of religions.. The answers to children’s questions may be memes, but we do not declare them.
My twelve-year-old granddaughter asked me a question worth discussing: What is a pronoun?
What does it mean if someone has a conscience, grandfather?
She followed it with a second, third, fourth, and tenth question
I answered her saying:
It is a feeling of a person’s evaluation of himself according to a set of moral values that have been implanted in his conscience through experience and life about what is right and what is wrong.
In this case, it is relative to every human being. Conscience reprimands the person to himself if this error becomes apparent as a result of his self-evaluation or sometimes as a result of others’ evaluation of him if he is extremely sensitive to others’ evaluation of him, regardless of his personal value. Conscience may sometimes exaggerate in harshness toward oneself by exaggerating in the evaluation of mistakes.
But in reality…after what I said, what I said, I think I complicated matters for her.
Between myself and myself, I said: It is possible that the essence of the philosophy of religions historically was with the aim of creating a collective conscience of absolute right and wrong, according to divine standards, so that it would not be relative from one person to another. It means building a moral base for societies. But we have transformed religion into sanctifying its means, not its heart and content.
I heard a wise man say: Conscience is the part of the mind that is responsible for a person’s moral path. It is the one that transmits instructions and warnings to us to evaluate and control the type of thoughts we think and the actions we take, so that it makes us suffer and feel guilty when we do things that are not consistent with our moral principles. Conscience urges us to prefer right, righteousness, and goodness over error, badness, and evil. Conscience directs us by giving its judgement, as to what we have thought and acted upon, and what we intend to think and act upon.
The French thinker, Victor Hugo, said, “Conscience is the voice of God in man.”
He also says in his brilliant book Les Misérables:
“Conscience is an arena in which desires and experiences compete, and a cave of thoughts that arouse in us the secrets of shame or ugliness.”
The Greek philosopher Socrates said: “Just as the law prevents a person from transgressing, so conscience prevents a person from committing evil deeds.”
There is relativity over time as concepts and cultures change, but there remain some human values that transcend time and move the healthy human conscience to accept self-satisfaction or blame.
My daughter said to me when I told her about her daughter’s question and my remorse for myself, that I did not simplify things for her and did not explain easily:
I also have a question,
I said: Bring what you have.
She said: Do all beings have a conscience? Or is it something specific to humans only?
I told her a question I couldn’t answer. So far, everything I have read about consciousness and conscience, philosophers basically disagree about it. Rather, there is a disagreement about whether animals have a conscious soul or soul or not? And if it is, which is what I believe, do they have an afterlife and a reckoning, or are they guided by their genetic makeup that makes them do what they do? They do it without realizing it.
My granddaughter’s question, my daughter’s question, my own questions, and my vision of those around me are what motivated me to write this article.
Psychology has distinguished conscience as being characterized by comprehensiveness. It is not limited to evaluating one aspect of the personality, but rather deals with the personality as a whole. It deals with the past, present, and future: it does not only blame its owner for what he did in the past, but rather holds him accountable for what he does in the present, for what he does in the present. He may do so in the future. He may be exaggerated in laxity, or he may be exaggerated in cruelty. The conscience may be sound, or it may be subject to deviation, either to dullness and lethargy, or to exaggeration in estimating mistakes.
Conscience may be individual or it may be collective. In his personal life and his relationships with others and himself, a person has an individual conscience, but conscience may expand to include a group of people that may be limited, or it may extend to include an entire people.
In the culture of society, there are proverbs that touch the conscience, such as, “Consult your heart,” “Righteousness is what the soul is at ease with and the heart is at ease with.”
Curiosity is one of the permanent characteristics of the human mind, and it is what we must develop in the minds of our children and youth. Children are affected by this motivation, which always directs them towards knowing more about the world around them. It not only provides them with knowledge, but also stimulates their brains, enhances their skills in building relationships with those around them, increases their ability to learn new things, and develops in them a love of reading and inquiry.
Specialists have compiled a list of the most frequently asked questions on children’s lips, including, for example:
– How does electricity work? Why is the sky blue? How do birds fly? Where does the wind come from? Why is the sea salty? Why can’t we drink sea water? What is the size of the world? What do parallel universes mean? What happens to us when we die? Where is God? Where do children come from? How do planes fly? Where does the rain come from? Why does God create people who are sick or have special needs? Where will we go after death? Why did God take my cat? How did I get out of my mother’s womb? And others and others…..
The results of studies indicate that adults answer children’s questions through a set of levels from worst to best, which are:
Refusing to answer the question: where the father or mother says: “Don’t ask me any more questions,” or “When you grow up, you will know,” or ignores the question completely.
– Repeat or rephrase the question: For example, the child asks: “Why should I eat vegetables?” The father replies: “Because you should eat vegetables,” or “Why is it cold?” The mother replies: “Because we are in winter.”
– Admitting that you do not know the answer: For example, we say: “This is an intelligent question, but I do not know the answer.”
– Providing a realistic answer to the question, by providing correct information to the child about the thing he is asking about.
– Encouraging the child to obtain the response through the teacher or anyone who knows the answer, such as friends of the parents, or a relative, or to refer with the child to a source of knowledge, such as: “Let’s try to search for the answer on the Internet, or in the encyclopedia.”
– Encouraging the child to search for answers or present his vision of the correct answer, such as saying: “What do you think?” Why would this happen? Encouraging his attempts to find the answer and motivating him.
The established fact is that children will continue to search for other sources to obtain information, which may expose them to distorted information or various dangers, especially when the questions relate to religious or sexual topics. Ignoring, forbidding, or belittling children’s questions also leads to them developing closed relationships with parents or teachers, as children feel that communication is unwelcome, or that it will make them vulnerable to ridicule or rejection.
Curiosity and imagination are the root of creativity and innovation, and the seed of development and civilization. Let us encourage our children to ask questions and prepare ourselves to answer them with research and science. Every question has an answer, and let us not tamper with our children’s minds.
Refusing to answer the question: where the father or mother says: “Don’t ask me any more questions,” or “When you grow up, you will know,” or ignores the question completely.
– Repeat or rephrase the question: For example, the child asks: “Why should I eat vegetables?” The father replies: “Because you should eat vegetables,” or “Why is it cold?” The mother replies: “Because we are in winter.”
– Admitting that you do not know the answer: For example, we say: “This is an intelligent question, but I do not know the answer.”
– Providing a realistic answer to the question, by providing correct information to the child about the thing he is asking about.
– Encouraging the child to obtain the response through the teacher or anyone who knows the answer, such as friends of the parents, or a relative, or to refer with the child to a source of knowledge, such as: “Let’s try to search for the answer on the Internet, or in the encyclopedia.”
– Encouraging the child to search for answers or present his vision of the correct answer, such as saying: “What do you think?” Why would this happen? Encouraging his attempts to find the answer and motivating him.
The established fact is that children will continue to search for other sources to obtain information, which may expose them to distorted information or various dangers, especially when the questions relate to religious or sexual topics. Ignoring, forbidding, or belittling children’s questions also leads to them developing closed relationships with parents or teachers, as children feel that communication is unwelcome, or that it will make them vulnerable to ridicule or rejection.
Curiosity and imagination are the root of creativity and innovation, and the seed of development and civilization. Let us encourage our children to ask questions and prepare ourselves to answer them with research and science. Every question has an answer, and let us not tamper with our children’s minds.
