A Womb with Three Views

It did not happen. But it could have happened. It is a matter of historical record that Plato was born in Ancient Greece, Aquinas in the Middle Ages, and Jean-Paul Sartre in the Twentieth Century. Yet it would not have been impossible, in the lottery of life, for all three of these talented thinkers to have been conceived by the same woman and, to stretch the imagination to its outer edge, to have been united in the womb as fraternal triplets.

What thoughts might these three extraordinary individuals have shared in their close quarters if they were as precocious in the womb as they were prolific in the world! As philosophers in the world, each of them dominated the intellectual climate of his day; each was a milestone in the history of Western thought. Together they summarize three radically different views of God and life: Plato represented pagan acceptance; Aquinas, Christian reception; Sartre, atheistic rejection.

If the notion of three embryonic philosophers dialoguing in the womb seems a bit fanciful, it may be worth noting that the small world of the womb has often been regarded as a prototype of the larger world outside. An ancient Jewish proverb states that in the womb man knows his cosmic connection, and after he is born, must rediscover it. Psychotherapist Rollo May claims the womb provides “a state of we-nests” which makes language and communication possible. Media guru Marshall McLuhan remarked that all our senses may very well be “specialized variants” of “womb-wise” touch. Thomas Merton compared the child in the womb with the cloistered religious when he referred to him as “Planted in the night of contemplation/Sealed in the dark waiting to be born.”

E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!" E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!" E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!" Oh hear the word of the Lord. ............................................. The foot bone con-nected to the (pause) leg-.bone, The leg bone connected to the (') knee bone, The knee bone connected to the (') thigh bone, The thigh bone connected to the (') back bone, The back bone connected to the (') neck bone The neck bone connected to the (') head bone Oh hear the word of the Lord! .......................................... Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun' Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun' Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun' Oh hear the word of the Lord. ............................... The head-bone connected to the neck-bone, the neck-bone connected to the back-bone the backbone connected to the thigh-bone the thighbone connected to the kee-bone the kneebone connected to the leg bone the leg bone connected to the foot bone Oh hear the word of the Lord. ..........................................

And the mothers nervous sytem, and all that it experiences, runs through the brain and includes, in both directions, the nervous system's connection to the uterous, and the uterous is connected to the placenta and the placenta is connected to the fetus.

Is it impossible for the fetus to be "aware" of its surroundings, including its external surroundings? Not entirely I would guess.

Science is already discovering what it refers to as "epigenetic" affects; having recognized that not all genes will express their potential without a nearby/surrounding influence that triggers them to do so. Even so, science may be as yet insufficient in recognizing the variety, depth and breadth of the epigenetic in affecting the course of the genetic. It is certainly possible that even what was referred to as "nurture" type of affects begin in the womb.

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