First one? Really? (Politics)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 16:08 (5640 days ago) @ xeno6696

At any rate, I am familiar with the state of modern psychology insisting we have no instincts. I wholeheartedly disagree. It is interesting you bring up the blank slate concept. So, you think a baby somehow learns to cry for food and poop? It doesn't simply respond to stimuli? And those D-Day veterans who crapped themselves? They LEARNED how to do that? Really? Or when I see a scary movie or think I've seen a ghost, my hair stands on end? I learned how to do that too? - I think the reactions you are describing above are really automatic from the autonomic system, and come from evolutionary reactions. I've had the hair reaction, the diarrhea after a very important test in med school. I've felt hunger pangs, and how uncomfortable wet jeans are. If I couldn't think I'd cry for help. In a very broad sense they are instinctual, but they are really autonomic. Nothing with any purpose or thought. The new-born foal (and I've seen lots) automatically breaths and is driven to get up and suck. Those last acts are purposeful on the foal's part, but driven by instinct. Having a stool is not. The rectum is full and impulses tell the brain to poop. The autonomic system. So I do not accept all automatic body responses as instinct. I view true instinct as driving purposeful actions. - 
> Our fear responses have been studied quite well, we all do them the same way and they are all unconscious behaviors. That pretty clearly means instinct in all the definitions I've seen. Hell, laughter is used by chimps and even rats to communicate play. - As you can see I am dividing activity into parts: automatic from the nervous system; purposeful, but driven by instinct; and purposeful from thought. The human baby knows how to suck, but doesn't struggle to the breast. The human baby has a very few automatic responses, breathe, suckle, cry and poop/ pee.