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Monday, September 27, 2010

Tabula rasa

But really how blank is the "slate" at birth? I would think the slate itself determines what and what cannot be inscribed upon it. What at birth is a most pliable computer, depending heavily upon the more primitive parts of the brain that are not blank (but have written within all that evolutionary "memory" that we call instinct), slowly by the sensed interaction with the outer world goes from generalist to a less pliable specialist. And that specialization is determined by nurture and nature: parent/family/tribe/society and environment. So I would think that a "good-natured" fellow born in America would have been a "good-natured" fellow born in India. And isn't that what causes humans the most grief, when born with a "nature" that doesn't match up with the "nurture"?  

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