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Are we controlled by our genes entirely

  • 13-04-2020 11:47pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,242 ✭✭✭


    I'm thinking specifically about our emotions.

    Lets say you look at something, say a sunset, and see beauty in it.

    Why do I think this is beautiful. Is it completely within my facilitates to decide whether it is beautiful or not. But everyone would say it is beautiful, I've never heard anyone say it wasn't. This makes me feel like my thoughts aren't completely independent, rather I'm just a clone, where I think the same things as everyone else. Meaning my thoughts aren't fully controlled by myself, independently.

    Another example: Say I fall in love with someone. But why would I fall in love at all. Maybe I'd be better off if I didn't fall in love, or had no desire to fall in love. Love often causes pain, like when you loose the person you love, so love isn't perfect.

    I could give other example but I think you might get my point.

    I don't know if anyone enjoy's watching wildlife documentaries, I was just watching one the other day, focusing on the wildlife on the island of Borneo. It stuck me that every species goes about their daily business, sometimes quite intelligent activities to find a 'mate'. For e.g. a tiny frog who didn't have much reach in it's vocal matting call abilities found a way to transmit it's matting call by finding a hole in a tree to amplify it's matting call.

    The point of recounting this is just to ask are slaves to our genes just live every other species is. We just live out our lives doing what our genes compel us to do.

    Now maybe strictly speaking all this is not philosophy, but maybe a mishmash of physiology, psychology and philosophy. I'm not a student of philosophy btw so apologies if this is low brow point.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 21,489 ✭✭✭✭Tell me how


    Don't think so.

    Think our upbringing and experiences influence how we respond to stimuli. You may react differently to a picture of a baby crying after you have had a child of your own than you did when you were a child yourself.
    If your child was unwell, or had died, your reaction would be further different than if they were still alive. I think.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    AllForIt wrote: »

    The point of recounting this is just to ask are slaves to our genes just live every other species is. We just live out our lives doing what our genes compel us to do.
    This is the nature vs nurture argument.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,149 ✭✭✭Joe1919


    AllForIt wrote: »
    .....The point of recounting this is just to ask are slaves to our genes just live every other species is. We just live out our lives doing what our genes compel us to do.....

    Hi. There is a tradition in philosophical thought (from Plato to Freud) to see the human 'self' as not a unified whole but containing separate and often contradictory parts. You are (imo) partly right in that we are often motivated by our basic instincts, which we inherit via our DNA.
    But this does not fully explain our actions.We also inherit and learn from parents and society and from our experiences things which can be contradictory and even more stronger than our basic instincts. This can cause us a lot of pain as we are 'torn' or divided. We sometimes (as humans) try to suppress/repress our basic extincts. For example, many people instinctively enjoy their food and would eat more, except they feel under pressure not too, and to conform to our own and societies expectations.
    There is very little evidence (as far as I know) that other mammals have this problem. Indeed, what some see as distinctive about the human is not our consciousness (as animals have this) but our high level of 'self consciousness', which is the source of much psychological pain.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,242 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    Ok. But want about the sunset? I don't need to like the sunset to survive. It's irrelevant whether I do or don't. What difference does it make.

    Does my genetic makeup decide for me what is beautiful. Are genes that powerful.
    Maybe a sunset isn't beautiful, it's just subjective I would have thought, but it's not really subjective if everyone thinks a sunset is beautiful.

    So maybe this is more psychology, but still, is my psychology i.e. most of my thoughts/feelings controlled mostly by my genes, for which I don't personally have much control over even if I think I do.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,014 ✭✭✭tylercheribini


    AllForIt wrote: »
    I'm thinking specifically about our emotions.

    Lets say you look at something, say a sunset, and see beauty in it.

    Why do I think this is beautiful. Is it completely within my facilitates to decide whether it is beautiful or not. But everyone would say it is beautiful, I've never heard anyone say it wasn't. This makes me feel like my thoughts aren't completely independent, rather I'm just a clone, where I think the same things as everyone else. Meaning my thoughts aren't fully controlled by myself, independently.

    Another example: Say I fall in love with someone. But why would I fall in love at all. Maybe I'd be better off if I didn't fall in love, or had no desire to fall in love. Love often causes pain, like when you loose the person you love, so love isn't perfect.

    I could give other example but I think you might get my point.

    I don't know if anyone enjoy's watching wildlife documentaries, I was just watching one the other day, focusing on the wildlife on the island of Borneo. It stuck me that every species goes about their daily business, sometimes quite intelligent activities to find a 'mate'. For e.g. a tiny frog who didn't have much reach in it's vocal matting call abilities found a way to transmit it's matting call by finding a hole in a tree to amplify it's matting call.

    The point of recounting this is just to ask are slaves to our genes just live every other species is. We just live out our lives doing what our genes compel us to do.

    Now maybe strictly speaking all this is not philosophy, but maybe a mishmash of physiology, psychology and philosophy. I'm not a student of philosophy btw so apologies if this is low brow point.

    I highly recommend the book "
    Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are" is by behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin. I accept his argument that personality ia dictated about 50% genetics and 50% environment.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 439 ✭✭paddythere


    AllForIt wrote: »
    I'm thinking specifically about our emotions.

    Lets say you look at something, say a sunset, and see beauty in it.

    Why do I think this is beautiful. Is it completely within my facilitates to decide whether it is beautiful or not. But everyone would say it is beautiful, I've never heard anyone say it wasn't. This makes me feel like my thoughts aren't completely independent, rather I'm just a clone, where I think the same things as everyone else. Meaning my thoughts aren't fully controlled by myself, independently.

    Another example: Say I fall in love with someone. But why would I fall in love at all. Maybe I'd be better off if I didn't fall in love, or had no desire to fall in love. Love often causes pain, like when you loose the person you love, so love isn't perfect.

    I could give other example but I think you might get my point.

    I don't know if anyone enjoy's watching wildlife documentaries, I was just watching one the other day, focusing on the wildlife on the island of Borneo. It stuck me that every species goes about their daily business, sometimes quite intelligent activities to find a 'mate'. For e.g. a tiny frog who didn't have much reach in it's vocal matting call abilities found a way to transmit it's matting call by finding a hole in a tree to amplify it's matting call.

    The point of recounting this is just to ask are slaves to our genes just live every other species is. We just live out our lives doing what our genes compel us to do.

    Now maybe strictly speaking all this is not philosophy, but maybe a mishmash of physiology, psychology and philosophy. I'm not a student of philosophy btw so apologies if this is low brow point.
    This is basically an argument over free will. The short answer is that we just don't know whether free will exists or not and maybe we never will (although in my opinion, there is no such thing as free will). If your interested in reading more about this I'd recommend 'Free Will' by Sam Harris for a brief but interesting start on the topic. Maybe then you could move onto Daniel Dennett who has written a lot about it


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,242 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    Thank you both for the book recommendations. I was looking for something to read in these lockdown times and not much into fiction as I used to be.


    I highly recommend the book "
    Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are" is by behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin. I accept his argument that personality ia dictated about 50% genetics and 50% environment.
    paddythere wrote: »
    This is basically an argument over free will. The short answer is that we just don't know whether free will exists or not and maybe we never will (although in my opinion, there is no such thing as free will). If your interested in reading more about this I'd recommend 'Free Will' by Sam Harris for a brief but interesting start on the topic. Maybe then you could move onto Daniel Dennett who has written a lot about it


    Well I've never read into the subject but my opinion is we have some free will but very little in comparison to the the things to we don't have free will about. So instead of having 100% free will I'd say it's more like 0.1%.


    Just to back this up say someone says they want to get married. You hear sometime ppl pine for this. But why do they want to get married? Well maybe for the companionship? But why do they want companionship? It seems to be a desire one doesn't have control over. Also most crimes people commit are done to satisfy some desire, desires that one doesn't create themselves, rather the desire is just there that is either constantly resisted or...not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 AllOneMind


    We are not controlled by our genes or by our emotions. Yes, our bodies are controlled by our genetic makeup, but we are not bodies. I have found it extremely difficult to accept the idea that there is only software, that we don't need a platform. Our early conditioning convinces us that the platform is the body, and particularly that our brain does all the thinking.

    Experiences of thinking beyond the body's range of perception are quite common. We are thinking about someone we have not met in a long time and the phone rings - it's the person we've just been thinking about and they want to catch up. We are sitting having a drink and a friend that needs our help shows up out of the blue.

    Our emotions are controlled by what we think. In all situations we have a choice. Choice implies that we can make a decision, and decisions are definitely of the mind. In any situation we can decide to remain in peace and be happy.

    We may feel that we are not in charge due to our genetic and memetic makeup. We are not predetermined. We can always control our attitude to any situation. Despite what we have learned we can always decide to be happy. On the other hand we have free will about our decisions and we'd be awfully crazy not to be happy.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    AllOneMind wrote: »
    We are what we think
    This follows what W.I. Thomas suggested: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    We are not controlled by our genes or by our emotions.
    You might want to take a look at what William James suggested with his bear in the woods analogy; which in turn related to what has been known as the James-Lange theory of emotion.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    Yes, our bodies are controlled by our genetic makeup, but we are not bodies. I have found it extremely difficult to accept the idea that there is only software, that we don't need a platform. Our early conditioning convinces us that the platform is the body, and particularly that our brain does all the thinking.
    Yet another field of thought which may elaborate, or perhaps challenge your notion was suggested by B.F. Skinner in his Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    Experiences of thinking beyond the body's range of perception are quite common. We are thinking about someone we have not met in a long time and the phone rings - it's the person we've just been thinking about and they want to catch up. We are sitting having a drink and a friend that needs our help shows up out of the blue.
    This reference you make here was very anecdotal, and certainly lacks scientific support for its basis. If you do have scientific support, then this would be a grand time to cite it with links to scientific studies; or as an alternative, support from philosophical sources.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    Our emotions are controlled by what we think. In all situations we have a choice. Choice implies that we can make a decision, and decisions are definitely of the mind. In any situation we can decide to remain in peace and be happy.
    Once again, see B.F. Skinner above. Or to expand upon this, look a Skinner's Cumulative Record. Of course, such works suggest that behaviourism has merit, which has been debated for decades.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    We may feel that we are not in charge due to our genetic and memetic makeup. We are not predetermined. We can always control our attitude to any situation. Despite what we have learned we can always decide to be happy. On the other hand we have free will about our decisions and we'd be awfully crazy not to be happy.
    What you suggest here may follow what psychiatrist Viktor Frankl claimed in his logotherapy, that even when suffering confinement in a German or Japanese or American WWII concentration camp, so long as the inmates could find meaning in life, they may prevail (provided that they were not executed or starve in the German or Japanese examples). But caution should be exercised when reviewing Frankl's works, as they are case study based, and consequently prescientific.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 AllOneMind


    Looking into the referenced works in Black Swan's response, they all seem to start with the assumption that we are bodies. My premise is that we are mind. (Reference - A Course In Miracles). Science can measure our responses to our thoughts but our thoughts are immeasurable.

    When conducting research, scientists use the scientific method to collect measurable, empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis (often in the form of an if/then statement), the results aiming to support or contradict a theory.

    Our minds are made up of thoughts. Science cannot measure them. Therefore, our thoughts do not exist!!


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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 47,212 CMod ✭✭✭✭Black Swan


    AllOneMind wrote: »
    Science can measure our responses to our thoughts but our thoughts are immeasurable.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    Our minds are made up of thoughts. Science cannot measure them. Therefore, our thoughts do not exist!!

    Charles Jennings, director of neurotechnology at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, has been conducting studies to measure thoughts; although it is still very early in this type of research to draw valid and reliable conclusions, there may be breakthroughs that surprise us all in the near future.
    AllOneMind wrote: »
    When conducting research, scientists use the scientific method to collect measurable, empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis (often in the form of an if/then statement), the results aiming to support or contradict a theory.
    You are referring to the deductive method in isolation. There is also the inductive method, where primary and secondary collected data are examined for patterns, and such patterns may be used to establish empirical generalisations, which in turn may be used to form new theories, revise existing theories, or challenge existing ones. Big data analysis has been expanding in recent years, especially as the result of social media data collections from millions of users, and vast global search and collection sources (e.g., google). But like the deductive method, the inductive method is not best used when in isolation; rather, the cycling through the two, as well as the continuous interaction between, may provide for the most valid and reliable measures of phenomena. See Wallace's Wheel of Science for an extensive discussion on how this cycling and interaction may occur in scientific method informed research.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 AllOneMind


    Mind and not-mind.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,522 ✭✭✭zv2


    The gene-of-the-gaps theory is widespread. What is not explained is assumed to be genetic. I think we are non physical minds and the gene myth is way overblown. Genes do stuff (ie make proteins) but not everything.

    “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire



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