Thursday, May 9, 2013
Nature vs Nurture
Yes, the age old argument, are we ourselves because we have are naturally who we are, and simply come into existence with a predisposition to be a certain way?, or do we develop our identity and self through our culture, religion, life experiences, and day to day social interactions? Aristotle believed that everyone comes into the world with a "blank slate" and that our personality is developed through living, aswell as many sociologists. Their argument is that everything is socially constructed, we self ourselves. For example, it is a proven fact that your language alone shapes your cognitive pathways and thinking style, a Chinese person who's native language is Cantonese or mandarin speaks and thinks in tones, unlike a native English speaker.For example there was not really a word for romantic love in Chinese until the 1920s. Also your life experiences shape how you think of a word, your idea of happiness or evil is unique to you, everyone has there own interpretation of every word. This will effect your perception of the world greatly, what you think sounds nice, what you think sounds horrible, it lays the ground work for almost everything you think.
Not only that, but language also effects the culture, which combined with language shapes your sense of humor which than effects how you are or are not funny, which is a basic personality trait. Your idea of love, right or wrong, what kind of music you like, what is beautiful, are you beautiful, what is normal, and what is weird, all things we use to distinguish one person from another, and use to describe our own personalities, is formed from culture, religion, exposure, and language. But then one could argue, well if this all stems from language and social interaction, what if you didn't have language, would you not be able to think? and if you can't think, how can you have a personality, wouldn't you be operating off of instinct, or..nature? But than you could say, well life experiences are also a form of nurture and contribute to the self, and as far as we know, we don't start off with language, it is learned, and wouldn't you have to be able to think to learn language, also, linguistic intelligence is only one form of intelligence, but musical or spacial intelligence are just two examples of the many different forms of intelligence and thus thought, that do not need language to exist, so you can think, even without language.
But that does not mean that nature does not exist, when children are first born, they do not all respond the same or make the same movements, ofcourse one could say, well no one has the exact same stimuli, its different for everyone, but at the same time,the biological and genetic aspects of a person does effect their reaction to virtually anything. What about biological twins right?, they have 100 percent of the exact same genetics and biology, and yet somehow they have different personalities, different interests, and perceptions of reality. But ofcourse again, the Stimuli and life experiences is different for each individual twin, even in the womb, whether you are on the right or left side can effect your personality theoretically. At this point the only way to really know if nature or nurture takes the prize would be to do some unethical experiment on lab grown identical twins with the exact same intelligence in each and every area of the brain, who receive the exact same stimuli and are born at the exact same time, and both placed in two separate white rooms with a bathroom the same size, and receive the same food at the same time without any social interaction, etc. to see whether or not they react the same, if they do, than in theory, nurture would 'win', and if they react differently to the same stimuli than nature 'wins'.
I believe that nature and nurture are inseparable and both contribute to the self in different ways. My Theory is that because from the moment you exist you have a nature, but at the same time, from the moment you exist, you are also receiving nurture, however subtle, your nature effects how you interpret and are affected by the nurture you receive, and the nurture you receive effects your nature as you progress through life, though some aspects of yourself are so complex that there isn't any external stimuli in the physical world that are able to effect those complex aspects of your nature, such as a soul. This is what I call your "True Nature", So in conclusion, I believe that human beings are hylomorphic, and while the True Nature in theory stays the same, the nature/nurture continuous spinning wheel, is ever changing.
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