Do kids mimic?

October 31, 2025, 8:06 AM · I wasn't being flippant when I said that all Menuhin could do as a kid was mimic.

It raises interesting questions about kids' emotions.

If, as it seems, emotions are caused by chemicals in the brain, then kids probably do experience the whole gamut when still young, whether they are being bombed in Gaza or whether they are teething or have been given an ice-cream on a hot day or have been refused a second ice-cream on that hot day.

How does an atheist receive Bach's religious music? Simple - same emotions, different cultural interpretations (Tár).

For some few young people, Classical music excites emotions.

Playing an instrument (if they have the talent) re-excites them. This is how I explain child prodigies like Menuhin.

For more young people, Suzuki teaches them to go through the motions.

An even larger number of young people respond to dance (aka pop) music.

It is less demanding and more primitive, being based almost totally on rhythm.

I don't dance. Ever.

Replies (6)

Will Wilkin

Edited: October 31, 2025, 9:21 AM · Not to get too afield from the heart of your enquiry, but I am skeptical of the formulation "emotions are caused by chemicals in the brain." Those chemicals and that brain are situated in a living person with identity and experiences and relationships and free will, etc, which are the REAL and primary sources of emotion and aspiration. The materialist formulation would end up as music and every other human thing was determined by the arrangement of fields and energy at the moment of the big bang. That is the reasoning by which every sodium ion, like every billiard ball, is standardized and interchangeable, but nothing in our real emotional or interior life is actually like that. I think that in our soulful reality, that lived experience colors emotion and will be childlike during childhood.

Steve Jones

October 31, 2025, 10:00 AM · Surely emotions are due to free radicals in the brain that gradually get absorbed by dark matter.

Bud Scott

October 31, 2025, 12:42 PM · It's not till adolescence that children begin to appreciate emotions on an adult level.

Nickie McNichols

October 31, 2025, 4:41 PM · Those chemicals, such as endorphins, are released in the brain. Our emotions cause the release of just about any chemical substance. The emotions fear, anger, desire, despair, joy, love, each control different sets of chemistry. Those emotions are controlled by thoughts. It’s been said that our thoughts are the only things we can control. Those thoughts bring about the resultant emotions, which cause the chemical reactions..
Many people, aged well into middle age, even old age, do not know how to control their emotions. Some do. The ones who do are immensely happier.
IMHO

Paul Deck

Edited: October 31, 2025, 6:47 PM · Will wrote, "identity and experiences and relationships and free will, etc, ... are the REAL and primary sources of emotion and aspiration."

And how is that information stored, pray tell?

A working understanding of the chemistry and physics underpinning the processes of the central nervous system, especially of the brain, is a long way off. Science is on its way there, however glacially.

The ISER tokomak is a long way from initiating sustained fusion, too. The cost of the experiment is staggering. The goal, if realized, would entirely conquer global poverty.

Vote for investment in science.

Stephen Brivati

October 31, 2025, 9:29 PM · Paul,
I’m gonna ask god to jolly the scientists along a little bit…

Do kids mimic?

Replies (6)

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