Anonymous yet personal, this Blog chronicles
the daily events and musings of Jim.
It provides an easy way for his friends and family to check in on him,
and serves as a online repository for his random
thoughts, kaleidoscopic flashbacks, and writings on an array of diverse topics.
“Deconstructing Jim” is simply here to
entertain you, but not intended for college credit.

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Chapel Hill, NC, United States

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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Baby Genius?

The following video of a baby playing the piano recently appeared on YouTube and has already received thousands of hits...


Clearly the audio has been dubbed in, and we don't hear the music that the baby is actually playing.

The question that occurs to me is this: Are humans all born with genius ability and gradually become stupid as they grow older?

Who in their right mind would consider the banal brain-dead music substituted in this video to be better than what the infant originally performed?

It only goes to prove my theory that we get stupid as we get older. Education and training make us dumb. It wipes away all of our innate talent and genetic memory. John Locke's so-called Tabula Rasa (or "blank slate" theory) is a fallacy. If only adults would realize this, and listen to the music for what it is rather than try to improve upon it.

There is a corollary to the my theory that education is inversely proportional to knowledge. It's that technological advancement makes us less capable as humans. The more machines we have to do our thinking and work, the less productive and useful we become.

Ever since humans discovered simple tools and how to make fire, the planet has been going down-hill. I don't suspect that YouTube, XBox, Tom Tom's, iPhones, Twitter, or the Wii will save civilization from its ultimate demise.

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