Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Dancing with Determinism
DETERMINISM
The scientists say that their best guess is that a person's personality is determined 50% by genes, 50% by "environment." It is also common to let somebody off the hook for something bad that they have done by noting that he, "is a product of his environment."
This is an odd thing to say.
What's the alternative? If you're not a product of your environment, you're a product of your genes. You're born with you're genes, and until the South Koreans fake a few more experiments, it seems unlikely that you can change your genes once you are born. Personally, I'd rather be a product of my environment, which presumably is something that I have a little control over, than my genes, for which I have only others to thank/blame.
I take it from my boy John Paul Satre and others that a good way to think of personality is as a vessel into which the ego is poured. The commonsense understanding of ego controlling personality just doesn't quite jibe with the modern word -- when one can alter one's own personalty by taking drugs, what role does that leave the will in the formation/ control of the personality?
Far out.
[P.S. I am drunk.]
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The scientists say that their best guess is that a person's personality is determined 50% by genes, 50% by "environment." It is also common to let somebody off the hook for something bad that they have done by noting that he, "is a product of his environment."
This is an odd thing to say.
What's the alternative? If you're not a product of your environment, you're a product of your genes. You're born with you're genes, and until the South Koreans fake a few more experiments, it seems unlikely that you can change your genes once you are born. Personally, I'd rather be a product of my environment, which presumably is something that I have a little control over, than my genes, for which I have only others to thank/blame.
I take it from my boy John Paul Satre and others that a good way to think of personality is as a vessel into which the ego is poured. The commonsense understanding of ego controlling personality just doesn't quite jibe with the modern word -- when one can alter one's own personalty by taking drugs, what role does that leave the will in the formation/ control of the personality?
Far out.
[P.S. I am drunk.]
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