“It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world.” My personal interpretation of this is that whenever we come across something new, we first find it unusual or interesting and wonder about it. This causes us to ask questions to find out what exactly it is or the secret behind the way it functions. Majority of the time, they are questions about daily/domestic things that can always be answered by us, people. When we are young, things that we can observe with our own eyes are what we get absorbed into and our minds do not come to think of all the ‘invisible’ philosophical questions. As we grow up, more questions are asked, more questions are answered which means eventually everything we see around us becomes normal or “a habit”. We don’t have to wonder anymore about things we once wondered about which is the “loss of ability to wonder about the world”.
I definitely agree with Albert Knox’s statement because it is very true that most of us don’t wonder about the deep questions of the world as we know they can’t be answered, like who we are or why we are living. When we experience something new, that would be the first and last time we would wonder about it. This is because the question will either be one that can be answered, or one that can’t be. When we instinctively ask a question, we would get a satisfying answer or it may not be answerable which means we would stop wondering about it since it would seem pointless to do so.
For example, the experiment in thought on p.17 of Sophie’s World of the flying Dad – although it is the first time that little Thomas and Mom sees this happening, they react very differently. As it says “Thomas will certainly be astonished, but then he very often is.”, Thomas wouldn’t know that people can’t fly until he is told, therefore he wouldn’t think that this incident is outrageous. He would simply wonder and question why his Dad is flying, like he would perhaps ask why Mom is cooking. On the other hand, Mom has been living for possibly more than 20 years and knows that it is impossible for people to fly. So when she sees Dad flying in the air, she wouldn’t even wonder why he is flying and instead she would be so shocked that this is even happening because clearly, she believes that it’s not possible and even if it was happening in front of her face, she would like to believe that she is dreaming. But anyway, this is just an imaginary example. As we grow up, someday we find out that people can’t fly and just go along with it because that is what everyone believes and nothing has happened that would prove this fact wrong.
An example from my own life experience would be the Religious Studies lessons I used to have few years ago. This is a direct link to a philosophical question, where did the world come from, where did we come from? During those lessons, we were taught many theories that related to or answered those question, such as the Big Bang, creation and evolution or the teleological argument. These were one of the rare times I discussed these questions with the class and actually wondered about the true answer to them. However, it became obvious that I would never know which one is true and that I would just have to believe in one of the theories whether it is correct or not. I felt that no matter how much we discussed and debated over it, it would never come to a conclusion. After I dropped the Religious Studies subject, my wonder of this topic had left me automatically. During my daily life, there wasn’t a time where I had to think about it and as time passed, I gave up on wondering about it.
In conclusion, I think that we lose our “faculty of wonder” due to education and belief as we grow up. It becomes normal, like a standard, that we wonder about things which can be answered or explained and not wonder about things that can’t be answered. Sometimes not knowing the one and exact answer to a question is unsatisfactory within us and it seems to be meaningless to keep wondering about things that probably can’t be answered for the rest of our lives. As we grow up, we like to go with our beliefs or the facts of the world rather than the wonders of it which is why we eventually lose our ability to wonder.
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3 comments:
I agree with almost everything you say in this blog, because we more or less have the same view on as to why we no longer question the wonders of the world with the passing of time.
However, I do not fully agree with your statement that education is a big factor that affects our decline of faculty of wonder. Just as education provides us with definite answers to some of the aspects of life we have never known before, education can equally provide us with opportunities to widen the space for questioning by providing ambiguous answers. As we advance in the field of education, we find ourselves making more and more independent decisions and facing a number of different ways to answer a question.
I understand what you are getting at with your views, but I am merely introducing a slightly different perspective of education you may also consider about :)
You have posted a thougtful response. Your comments on education being part of the problem are particularly interesting - in what ways would you change the system of education to stop this being part of the problem?
I really liked how you put your personal life experience in. I agree with your response, but, as Mark Schulz says, in what ways would you change the system of education to stop this being part of the problem?
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