[MD] Hoy stoves and those who sit on them

[John Carl]

The hot stove method of truth transferal is probably the oldest and most
common experience in human history.  It goes like this,  the infant wanders
near the hot stove and its mother warns it "Don't go near the stove, Johnny,
you'll get burned".

Almost inevitably though, Johhny, out of accident or curiousity touches the
hot stove and mother goes "see? I told you so."

Even though mothers are being protective in this situation, you can hear a
little satisfaction in their tones of comfort.  Sometimes laughter hidden in
their words - their warnings and admonitions have been empirically proven,
Their truth, transferred.  I've seen the drama enacted enough times to
understand the pattern, and if mommy was really concerned with preventing
the hot stove reaction, there'd be some kind of fence around the stove.

In some homes, there are such fences,

Those kids grow up rebellious usually.

Other homes, nothing is said at all about the danger of the stove and the
child is left to its own stumbling explorations to figure out
 which parts of reality is hot, which is not.

Those kids grow up cautious.

Other houses, kids are whipped for touching hot stoves.

Those kids grow up self-hating, self-destructive and prone to
self-mutilation.

And in every single case, any hot stove experience in the future is going to
be interpreted in the light of past experience, and the personality
development that's occurred so far.  Every hot stove experience is unique,
because every person experiencing the stove is unique, with a predisposed,
preprogrammed reaction and interpretation of the experience.  The bare
empirical facts of metal and flesh can be identical, but the experience is
not of empirical facts.  The experience is of empirical facts being
interpreted by a unique individual, every time generating a unique
experience.   There is nothing pure or immediate to any of this.  It's all a
vastly complicated interpretive dance, dependent upon so many factors that
are impossible to isolate but one thing is certain beyond argument - without
an experiencer, there is no experience,

And without a social process of experiencer  creation, there is no
experiencer.