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Cracka_X
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nature vs nurture
#7830500 - 01/04/08 12:54 AM (16 years, 29 days ago) |
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I know this is a common topic but it'd be nice to stray away from the "God" shit.
So I'm curious as to what people think matters more in the development of a human being. The genetic and biological aspect of the individual or the environment and culture the individual was brought up in.
What do you think and why.
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7831315 - 01/04/08 09:41 AM (16 years, 28 days ago) |
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53/47
Just a guess.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (01/04/08 09:42 AM)
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SneezingPenis
ACHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!111!

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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Icelander]
#7831325 - 01/04/08 09:44 AM (16 years, 28 days ago) |
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I think you could take identical twins and seperate them to opposite ends of the earth and they would become two completely different people.
I dont think that genetics play a role at all in our personality.... they only do slightly because of physical appearances that make people treat you in a certain way.
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EternalCowabunga
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There have been studies done where they separated identical twins from birth and their lives were shockingly incredibly similar, down to the type of partner they married, what kind of house they bought, and what career they pursued. I don't know how often this happens though. It would be interesting to take a look at the research done on this. This is one philosophical problem that I think it might actually be more useful to use a mystical concept like karma then to try and scientifically bargain out or what have you how much of a person's personality is internal and how much is external. Or maybe that would be worse than either side because karma is not recognized as a tangible construct.
The thing about culture is that it can be abandoned or disidentified with at any time so while one may live one's entire life in the context of a specific culture, their brother/sister may take mushrooms or do some serious introspection and drop a lot of that culture's influence on them.
I have a twin brother, not identical, and we are two very different people with very different beliefs. We did used to share some cool telepathy at the dinner table though
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Anarleaf
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Icelander]
#7831384 - 01/04/08 10:02 AM (16 years, 28 days ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: 53/47
Just a guess.
Haha, that's what I basically believe. It's basically a split between the middle, there might be a dominant force but they're both very important.
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SneezingPenis
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you can compare any two peoples lives and find some sort of similarities. I have heard of those identical twin "studies" as well and they are pretty vague... like "they both married a woman named cheryl and had labradors". whoa! logical fallacy.
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WhiskeyClone
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Quote:
YawningAnus said: I think you could take identical twins and seperate them to opposite ends of the earth and they would become two completely different people.
I think so too. I do think genetics plays a role in personality, though, albeit a small one. I'm sure those twins, if reunited, would notice a lot of similarities in their lives. There are well-known cases of this phenomenon.
Conditioning is incredibly powerful though so I'll guess... 90/10 in favor of nurture.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Cracka_X
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7833011 - 01/04/08 06:33 PM (16 years, 28 days ago) |
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alrighty, cool. Yeah I'm writing a response on nature vs nurture and just wanted to see what ya'll had to say.
Basically I'm feeling the same way towards nurture.
I was reading a study done on identical twins showing that genetics doesn't matter as much as the environment the twins are in when in comes to probability of having some form of cancer.
http://www.respiratoryreviews.com/nov00/rr_nov00_naturenurture.html
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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daytripper23
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7834598 - 01/05/08 06:32 AM (16 years, 27 days ago) |
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On practical level, I think it is pretty obvious that nature and nurture are both prevalent aspects of reality. To me this seems to be not as much a philosophical question than it is a political question, with philosophical implications. Or a philosophical question with imposed political vocabulary and implications. I think the more precise, philosophical question would be whether we have or do not have free will.
Im not ragging your thread Cracka,(God knows we have enough free will threads) Im just calling the nature vs nurture argument it like I see it, a bastard.
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Cracka_X
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by all means, i'm open to opinions. If I didn't want an opinion, I'd be posting like 5pointer.
But you're a different mind brought up a different way and probably have been exposed to various literature that has either detered or directed/shaped you. And now, based on your "experience", you're preconcieved notion (I'm purely speculating) is on my rhetoric.
If you're to ask about whether we have free will or not is a great topic for a thread and since you said it, I'll leave it to you to start that...
In the beginning I was trying to reason what side to be on(for my discussion paper) as I was torn with genetics being the beginning, but the nurture, provided that we include environment(people, chemical interactions in the womb, varying experiences...) in nurture's description, then it really appears, to me at least, that we are at the whim of the ever changing environment and while we can control many physical attributes of the environment, we can't control those that we can't see(chemical reactions, experiences a child has at school away from parents...)
But if I were to answer your question, Free Will is a very flexible term. If free will were based on me doing whatever I can imagine then I'd credit my genetics for allowing me the thought to do so, BUT while my environment will let me jump off a cliff, it won't let me survive it. So by this, I'd say our genetics allows us free will, but our environment is the determining factor for this free will. Therefore, I'm at the same conclusion I was before. My environment, whether I'm imprisoned, isolated on an island, living in China or America will be what decides where I'm able to wander into.
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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envision227
Sri

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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7836697 - 01/05/08 06:04 PM (16 years, 27 days ago) |
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science is the art of making distinctions. genetics, biology, culture, environment, life, etc., those are all distinctions.
all we can really do as human beings is experience, whether that is physically, mentally, or spiritually. but by looking at the building up of complexity throughout history, where atoms relate with each other into molecules, which group together into larger structures, which, by emergence, coalesce into cells, we begin to see how interconnected everything is, how the distinctions disappear; boundary dissolution. because of the physical structures, their relationships, and the environment, each new aspect of the great chain of being emerges. but it's all already here.
so each part plays together in a complex and almost imperceptible and melodic rhythm. a drummer is no more important than a guitarist or a singer in structuring the power of music.
ultimately, though, genetics is the lowest common denomenator for manipulation within the human being, and everything else that is more complex rests upon that. so drugs, like psilocybin for example, by acting upon whatever receptors they may, cause a chain reaction that eventually regulates gene expression. And then those genetic transcripts influence axon guidance, cell survival, and circuit formation among tons of other things yet unexplored. because there's hardly any research on this, no one really knows the real effects of hallucinogens, though i suspect they play a powerful role in restructuring our brain to more accurately and more powerfully represent our place in this symphony.
George Lakoff has this pretty powerful theory about metaphors and how they are represented in the brain. check it out in his book "philosophy in the flesh". I asked him what he thought was more powerful in structuring the human being, and he always said metaphors, the embodied experience which we use to structure our thoughts and our actions. Culture's complexity emerged out of genetics, but culture is a powerful force that communicates specifically to our worldview, like a positive feedback loop: the lower speaks to the higher and the higher to the lower. drugs communicate generally, and therefore get at our core. so each is powerful, and both are part of the symphony that structures our lives.
Only if we could get more research on this stuff though, that would be amazing. If you guys have any great ideas about how to study the effects of drugs, or if any of you guys are studying neuroscience, ethnobotany, archaeology, genetics, cell biology, anthropology, communication, or religion, or even computer science, art, or graphic design, let me know. with the field of psychological disorders growing, there's no doubt the scientists will finally coming around to looking carefully at these substances. Thanks Griffiths!
-------------------- "i choose to live and to grow take and give and to move learn and love and to cry kill and die and to be paranoid and to lie hate and fear and to do what it takes to move through" - Tool: forty-six and 2
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laten
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I think the biological aspects interact with the external aspects to make us, us.
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Cracka_X
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: laten]
#7837937 - 01/06/08 12:38 AM (16 years, 27 days ago) |
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I agree, but this is how I'm looking at it. Which came first? the human genome wasn't just floating in outer space, was it? The environment shaped it into being.
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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envision227
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7837980 - 01/06/08 01:10 AM (16 years, 26 days ago) |
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everything is working together.
...a conversation about the ultimate.
-------------------- "i choose to live and to grow take and give and to move learn and love and to cry kill and die and to be paranoid and to lie hate and fear and to do what it takes to move through" - Tool: forty-six and 2
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Cracka_X
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If you had to pick one or the other, which would you pick that has a greater influence? That's the original question.
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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JuliaDream
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7838555 - 01/06/08 09:34 AM (16 years, 26 days ago) |
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I think the biggest influence, in terms of nature vs. nurture is our external environment. However, I do think that our genetics and how they interact with our environment is also an issue. But, I feel that by far the greatest influence is 'nurture'.
-------------------- “We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.” Jack Handy
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some1whoisntme
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Cracka_X]
#7840781 - 01/06/08 06:36 PM (16 years, 26 days ago) |
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Quote:
Cracka_X said: If you had to pick one or the other, which would you pick that has a greater influence? That's the original question.
They have equal yet qualitatively different influences. Behavior patterns are dictated by genetics, specific behaviors by environment.
-------------------- "Ignore the distortion you're forced to percieve and believe that what supercedes is love, but who agrees?"
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Cracka_X
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Quote:
some1whoisntme said:
Quote:
Cracka_X said: If you had to pick one or the other, which would you pick that has a greater influence? That's the original question.
They have equal yet qualitatively different influences. Behavior patterns are dictated by genetics, specific behaviors by environment.
I totally agree, BUT let me ask you a question...
PKU is a genetic disease that can be treated by prescribing a diet which avoids phenylalanine and allows normal development. If this diet isn't impemented then the child will become mentally retarded.
Is genetics what determines behavior(behavior of a retarded child or a normal/without retardation child) or is the environment?
Depending on how you look at it this could go both ways but which is the independent variable?
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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Faaip_De_Oiad
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Re: nature vs nurture [Re: Icelander]
#7841498 - 01/06/08 09:32 PM (16 years, 26 days ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: 53/47
Just a guess.
that's about what i'd say too. But then I found out all this stuff about my father, who i've never really spoken to after the age of 5 or so. I found out that he read the same writers that I read, talks like I talk, and even has some of the same gestures when talking. And there's just no way I could have learned all these things from him since most of them were decided before I really knew anything about the guy.
so I think it's only slightly more of a nature thing.
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spitstix
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Good question. It's a highly debated and talked about question, because it's a good one I don't think I could pick one or the other. I would say neither is independent and would tend to agree with envision227 as far as everything working together. With genetics determining our predispositions and our environment deciding which will surface and which will not,as one example, I don't see either as being the all in all factor to making us, us. Because of this, I believe our decisions mold who we become with our genetics creating opportunities for us to become it.
Edited by spitstix (01/06/08 09:49 PM)
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