Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, January 29, 2018, 15:18 (2490 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We agree that genetics, nurture and experience modify each other as life progresses from birth, but genes are already present even before birth. That is the reason why the article I quoted expressly dismisses the “blank slate” hypothesis on the grounds that “most people are now thought to have significant ‘preprogramming’ from genes that have some influence on almost every want, trait, feeling, thought, and action.” Since you reckon that genes constitute 40% of a personality, you can hardly disagree. Yes, modification begins at birth. No, the personality is not a blank slate at birth. If it was, there would be nothing to modify.

DAVID: My view: We can end this discussion on this point: a person expresses his personality from a zero developmental point at birth. There is a background of source material that is preprogrammed, that with nurture, and experience in living shapes the final personality structure that carries him through life. That structure can be modified by onesself (rare) or by counselling (more common).

dhw: Very happy with most of this. The blank slate personality has finally disappeared (“background of source material that is preprogrammed”), I would leave out “final” (if a structure can be modified, it is not final), and I would add that the structure can be modified by accident, disease and experience (especially traumatic). Pax?

From my experience, the final structure generally can only have very small modifications.Pax.