Fri 23 May 2008
8 answers so far!
Okay, let's hear it.
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Game?
If you’re not familiar with the concept.
I’m pretty sure the concept is flawed. We human beings seem to be obsessed with certain things beyond societal influences. Pascal’s universal internal “infinite abyss” springs to mind as a prime example.
A second and more secular example – Maslow’s hierarchy. If the ranking and importance of this transcendent pyramid is truly global, can we argue that there isn’t some ingrained impetus in each of us striving to reach the next level? Once one passes the raw physical needs, doesn’t this structure imply some implicit shape to our psyches, some innate personal path that’s indelibly human and isn’t molded by individual life experience?
Or do you believe that, like this post, we’re all initially Untitled?
The idea of a tabula rasa strikes me as a particularly Western one (as opposed to Eastern ways of thinking that tend to de-emphasize the self as distinct from the rest of existence).
Ah, I see. Didn’t even realize it was a philosophy and only knew it as a game title.
Wait, so if not tabula rasa, what’s the other choice? Babies are born with memories in their brain that they did not create? I’m not sure I understand.
Saffron, we’re not ONLY memories. There are other things, besides memory, that form our characters and prompt our actions.
Why do cats chase mice? Instinct. They don’t have to be taught to do it, they’re born knowing how to do it. Humans are animals, too, and as such we have instincts. We have brain “models” honed via eons of evolution, that inform parts of our personalities. Memories are important, too — very important — but they’re not the sum total.
The blank slate theory doesn’t make any sense, because who is writing on the slate? Parents don’t reach into their kids’ brains and wire up neurons. Parents give their children certain experiences, but within each child, there’s some sort of innate learning mechanism. Even if you don’t believe anything else is innate (which would be a pretty absurd belief, in light of what we know about the brain), you’d have to at least accept the the mind is not blank the way a piece of paper is blank. Paper can do nothing unless you write on it.