What it means to be human - Part II

In previous posts I've argued backwards, reverse engineered aspects of human mentation using computer structure and function as the basis for the argument. It is my belief and understanding that whatever humans produce, whatever technology we invent, reflects aspects of the human mind. Everything that we imagine and in some cases translate into saleable products preexists in the mind. In that sense there is little or nothing that is truly unique. We do not create out of thin air. The creative process or talent is often interpreted as doing just that, but that talent in whatever field actually reflects an enhanced ability to mine the mainframe for data or information that previously did not exist in the artist's mind. That ability is genetically endowed. Thus human behavior as a whole

Looking back, I am astonished at the extent to which thinking about human behavior has changed over the last three decades. When I was in college, it was thought, and trumpeted, that behavior patterns were almost entirely due to how we were raised, to nurture and not nature (our genetic endowment). Now, over the last 15 years or so, due in part to a number of identical twin studies, it has become clear that just the opposite is true - that the great majority of what we do, how we act (especially as perceived by others), and what we are is genetically derived. Certainly upbringing influences outcome, sometimes dramatically, but upbringing will not basically alter the fundemental ways we interact and function. Speech habits, educational pursuits, hobbies, cultural interests, who we date and marry - they are all heavily influenced by genetic endowment. To me, from what I have come to understand about human behavior, this has become established fact. About 80% nature, the rest nurture. The exciting thing about this conclusion, what I consider to be fact, is that it allows one to examine behavior with an eye to tracing behavioral ancestry. To examine why we are so different one from another, and yet so much the same.