Posing a question!

I was having a thought earlier that I thought I'd like to share to the pit and gather answers to the question I bring. I thought of what life would be like if you took three year olds and put them in a single space with three rooms that didn't have doors in it. They lived here forever. There would be a group of maybe ten of them in the space. Food came from machines that are placed in bowls like a dog would eat from. The same goes with water.

There will be absolutely no human contact. If there is a problem with health, invisible gas will fill room and knock the beings unconscious. Then any surgery would occur. The humans would continue to live out through their whole life until death took them. The only door out is hidden into the wall and only opened when they are knocked out.

What would happen in a situation like this?

It's been crazy thinking about this. Those rooms would be the only thing that they ever knew. It would be there world. They would have names for every room as they learned to communicate with each other. Languages could be made!

Or would they kill each other?


What do you think would occur?

Children with no outside contact will never progress. Even if they have contact from 20 other no-contact children, there will be no mental growth. Probably a lack of physical growth, as well.

They would have no coneption of life other than what was presented to them. Like a blind man from birth cannot percieve sight, these kids could not percieve ordinary life. They probably wouldn't develop language. Words were something that evolved out of necessity. If food was given, words wouldn't be needed. Besides, what would there be words for? There is nothing to relate them to, no philosophies established and few pertinent objects. A couple of sounds MAY be affiliated with certain concepts, but I would highly doubt even 100 of these would ever be used frequently to come about. A few dozen associated sounds would not be language.

Who knows if they would develop games and such. Probably. They would develop relationships, I'm sure, but ones far different than ours. Without a society or the need to work together to live, customs would be almost unrelatable. The use of sleeping gas that often could cause brain damage. It really is interesting. I have already thought about the exact same concept before. Would they believe in God? Would they discover sex and the birthing of children?

Still, this is far to unethical for any upstanding scientist to ever test out. If ever we could develop realistic social simulations via advanced computers, however, this would be a great one.

Now all you have to do is write a decent proposal and the fundraising can begin ;)

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Originally Posted by no-Name

Children with no outside contact will never progress. Even if they have contact from 20 other no-contact children, there will be no mental growth. Probably a lack of physical growth, as well.

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There's nurture and nature, and we both play a role for humanity. I wouldn't say NO mental growth............just a lack of it.

Language is a built in drive in our brains, its why all babies generally sound the same. So long as a human has a need for language, such as being in contact with another human, language will develop. Even if their language would only be grunts and shouts, those grunts and shouts would be universally understood! Even we would understand if their plee is happy, sad, or upset.

Without nurture to create a culture, human nature would take over. While you can physically confine them, can you confine their dreams? On one hand some people think you can only dream of what you've been exposed to. In this case, they would only dream of their room and each other - would they ever be able to tell the difference?

However, some people believe that in dreams we not only access our subconscious mind, but the subconsciousness of humanity - creating universal archetypes in dreams. Some believe that DNA is even able to hold memories of our ancestors, especially those that influence our human evolution.

It could be possible, with no veil of culture, for these humans to connect to our most primal mind, and dream of the plains of Africa.

Actually this makes me think of an old anime - Dominion Tank Police. I wish I could find a screenshot, but I remember a scene where there are humans who live their entire lives in a cave like cage. Isolated with no understanding of the world around them. The anime portrayed these naive humans as pure and innocent.

They would regress. It does happen occasionally, they are called feral children. No mental experiments needed, there have been case studies.

i think if one showed any leadership at all then a natural process of competition would take over, especially in a group of 10. eventually a language most likely constructed of facial expressions and low grunts would be worked out and the instinctual urge to explore each other's ding dongs and boobs would create a hostel environment ripe with social status

There is a story about people living in a cave some great philosopher wrote that is very appropriate for this thread. Now if I could only remember the philosopher and the title of the story...

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Originally Posted by ninja9578

They would regress. It does happen occasionally, they are called feral children. No mental experiments needed, there have been case studies.

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In this case, however, there are multiple children in the same room. So, would it be appropriate to call them "feral children?" Also, if this was an experiment, this would be a significant study for many sociologist, and could give more data in regard to the support of micro-sociological theories such as Symbolic Interaction.

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Originally Posted by no-Name

Children with no outside contact will never progress. Even if they have contact from 20 other no-contact children, there will be no mental growth. Probably a lack of physical growth, as well.

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First, what do you mean by mental growth? Second, there have been multiple cases of children that didn't have any outside contact that have grown into the average height of a male/woman. Where did you even come up with these things....

I think 3 years old would be much too old.
My earliest memory is from the age of 4 but my hubby recalls memories being around 8 months old.

Somewhere in their minds, they would recall the love of their parents and some of the words they spoke.
3 of my 4 kids were speaking quite well by the age of 3.

I feel strongly they would develop some means of communication and because people are normally pack animals, there would be an alpha personality among them. There would be nurturers.
While they might not be able to grasp "God", I think they would develop some form of mystical beliefs... especially if they're sick or wounded then wake up fine or recovering (due to the unseen scientific intervention).

They would definitely create games.

But, initially, I think some of them would die. They would become despondent from being taken suddenly from their natural environment.
Those that lived, I'm sure, would never have more than a young child's mentality (like a person with a mental disability). If there was other stimulus though, like musical, mathematical, or writing instruments- who knows how they would develop.

It would be interesting... but too cruel in real life to experiment with.


... though hubby claims there are some conspiracy theories about the military doing worse- subjecting very young children/toddlers to torture so they develop split personalities. Such children- it is claimed- develop psychic abilities and other extreme abilities. Those who survive that is.