We're all just products of our environment (page 2)

gumby

Craig....doncha just hate it like hell when ya ask a good question and you don't get one solid answer except this one which was incorrct.....

I agree totally. That's why our opinions don't amount to a 'hill of beans'

Yes they do. Think about that one a little harder. Some opinions are wrong, and those wrong opinions kill people.The same is true with many other things like this.If many could see and have a fair shot at opinions unheard of before.....it could change that persons life and life itself. Opinions matter if they are in the absolute 'best' intrest of man.

If a mad scientist took newborn babies, and placed groups of 10, totally isolated from each other, and taught, and treated those groups totally different thingsas he raised them, and he controlled the entire eviroment with no outside influence..........the outcome would answer the question.

You "know" ...only what has been put into your brain. You make opinions on only what you know. Some people make different opinions from one another when each have the same information and have the same enviroment. Two fleshly brothers let's say. One is a loyal dub, and the other is a heathen apostate bastard like we are Each brother takes an opposite path when each brother was a product of the same enviroment. In 'this' sense.....we are what we choose to be .....though in the same enviroment as others. If each brother mentioned were isolated from each other at birth and one was raised a muslim.......deep in the canyons where the taliban hide , and the other brother was raised as a New York dub, and sent to bethel while still wet behind the ears and lives there for 40 years............................Do you think that each person by how they each now lived........is a product of their enviroment?

Gumbyfreud

Lady Lee

Hmmm I saw this earlier and got side-tracked for a bit but I'm back

Yes I think environment plays a very big part in who we are. But so does genetics.

Take my family - please (oops sorry that just slipped out)

In my family compriing mother,father,and 1 girl and 3 boys

The first two children (girl and boy) are close in age and are exposed to many of the same environmental influences. There are some obvious gender differences in how they are raised and this certainly has its impact. The girl (moi) tries to lead a stable (whatever that is) life, marries and has two children - pretty normal and boring. Son goes into a life of crime that at times has him in trouble with the law. Never marries and no children (well not that he knows about he says. Certainly much of the way they have turned out is environmental and genetic even though the environmental influences are fairly similar

The second two children (2 boys) are also raised similar to each other but with some big differences compared to the first two children. Though they are not twins many people mistake them for twins. In fact people often mistake them for the same child when they are not together. They were separated from their father when they were under the age of 4 and did not see him again until they were in their early teens. Despite their genetic similarities and the evironmental similarities the older of the 2 take on many characteristics of the father. He stands like him. He moves like him. While it is possible the behaviors were mimicked while he was very young there are some things he does that he would never have been exposed to regarding his father's behavior (lying, cheating, stealing).

All 4 children are exposed to similar abuses through out their lives.They choose different ways to deal with it. Some continue the abuse into their adult lives. One resorts to drugs, another to alcohol. And one to mental illness. And yes one decides to end the cycle and goes for help (never a modeled behavior from within the family)

What surprises me is how similar the 2nd son was to the father he didn't remember or know. It was uncany to anyone who knew the father. Genetics? Environment? It is hard to believe the similarities are environmental considering how early he lost his father.

Also if we determine that people are environmental influenced (mostly) then how do we explain people who decide to make changes that were never modeled? Greater social environmental influences? Perhaps but many here have made those choices and gone against the environmental influences they were raised with.

codeblue

We are who we are because of genetics?...but genetics pushed aside...we make choices...

and genetics can be pushed back as far as we want.

It is a life-skills question. Who of us has had a terrible childhood but somehow came out on top, despite the odds??? Where did we get the strengh to cope??? When maybe our brother or sister didn't?

That has been a question facing me for my whole life...

OR: does it just appear that we have faced the odds...and no one but ourselves really know how we have handled life facing challenges?

Surely, something to ponder....maybe Lady Lee can address this?

Codeblue

Lady Lee

CB I think it really is a mixture

Again back to my family example.

I suspect birth order has some impact as well as the role I was giving of care-taker who was responsible for everyone else. (Very often the oldest becomes the family care-taker but I have met many younger children and even the youngest who have taken on that role)

So accident made me oldest but environment taught me to be the care-taker. Genetics added the female part.

Environment also added the abuse componet and since we gravitate to wards the familiar even when it is unpleasant I should have stayed on that road.

But I didn't.

Choice. In spite of all the environmetnal influences from family, society, religion I chose to do something different.

So while the genes and the environment play their part my free will to choose something differnet than what I had always been exposed to. And I had no idea what I was going towards so it wasn't like I had some idea in my head of what I wanted. I just knew what I didn't want.

gumby

We are different from one another, because of our " individual perception" of our enviroment is different....whether it's the same or different from each other. Each person "sees" different things, and percieves ,differently than the other..... in the same enviroment. This question is related to why much of mankind believes they have a spirit or soul........ because man hasn't figured out yet what exactly makes us different from each other.

Gumby

Corvin

well, let's see. Two brothers, only a year apart. Both have the same parents, the same rules to live by, the same enviroment.

one brother is successful in nearly every aspect of his life while the other brother, with no visible signs of mental illness, is just the opposite.

What accounts for that?

dustyb

i agree. i'm like i am because of the way i was raised and how i was raised. once i learned about a few lies about my own personal life (not the WTS), then i started examining everything. now if i don't agree with it i research it until i prove myself wrong, or else prove them on beyond a reasonable doubt. i hate it come to think of it. i'm too stubborn.

Euphemism

Corvin... I think there are genetics there, for sure. But also, our environment is a heck of a lot more than just who are parents are and where we grow up. Our environment is every single thing that touches us: our teachers, our friends, what we read, what we see. No two people have the exact same environment, unless they are literally joined at the hip.

onacruse

As an example, Hayakawa says (Language in Thought and Action, p. 30):

Most of us have, in some area or other of our thinking, inproper habits of evaluation. For this, society itself is often to blame: most societies systematically encourage, concerning certain topics, the habitual confusion of symbols with the things symbolized. For example, if a Japanese schoolhouse caught on fire, it used to be obligatory in the days of emperor-worship to try to rescue the emperor's picture...even at the risk of one's life.
...In all civilized societies (and probably in many primitive ones as well), the symbols of piety, of civic virtue, or of patriotism are often prized above actual piety, civic virtue, or patriotism.
...The habitual confusion of symbols with things symbolized, whether on the part of individuals or societies, is serious enough at all levels of culture to provide a perennial human problem.

shotgun

I think your correct Craig....OMG...did I actually agree with you on an open forum.

For you its quite obvious though being raised as a girl by your parents, the dresses would ok if you would only shave your legs.

We're all just products of our environment

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