Out of Normalsy

That people – even famous geniuses – make mistakes should not have been a big surprise to you. It should also not surprise you that people are limited. There are many questions, ones we need to have answers to in order to build our theories, that have no answer. Some are just beyond us presently; some may never have an answer.  But  we   answer   them  anyway,   because  we   need   to   get   on  with   life.  We   can   call   these   our philosophical assumptions.

1.  Free will  vs.  determinism. Are we and the world completely determined? Is  the sense  that  we make choices  just  an  illusion? Or   is  it   the other way around,   that   the spirit  has  the potential   to  rise above all restraints, that it is determinism which is an illusion?

Most theorists make more moderate assumptions. A moderate determinist position might say that, although we are ultimately determined,  we are capable of  participating  in  that  determinism.  A moderate  free-will position might say that freedom is intrinsic to our nature, but we must live out that nature in an otherwise determined world.

2. Uniqueness vs. universality. Is each person unique, or will we eventually discover universal laws which will explain all of human behavior? Again, more moderate positions are available: Perhaps there are broad rules of human nature with room for individual variation within them; Or perhaps or individuality outweighs our commonalities.

I am sure you can see how this assumption relates to the previous one: Determinism suggests the possibility of universal laws, while free will is one possible source of uniqueness. But the relationship is not perfect, and in the moderate versions quite complex.

3. Physiological vs. purposive motivation. Are we more “pushed” by basic physiological needs, such as the need for food, water, and sexual activity? Or are we more “pulled” by our purposes, goals, values, principles, and so on? More moderate possibilities include the idea that purposive behavior is powerful but grows out of physiological needs, or simply that both types of motivation are important, perhaps at different times and places.

A more philosophical version of this contrasts causality and teleology. The first says that your state of mind now is determined by prior events; The second says that it is determined by its orientation to the future. The causality position is by far the more common in psychology generally, but the teleological position is very strong in personality psychology.

4.  Conscious  vs.  unconscious  motivation.  Is  much,  most,  or  even all  of  our  behavior  and experience determined by unconscious forces, i.e. forces of which we are not aware? Or is some, little, or even none determined by unconscious forces. Or, to put it another way, how much of what determines our behavior are we conscious of?

This  might  be  an answerable  question,  but   consciousness  and unconsciousness   are   slippery  things.  For example, if we were aware of something a moment ago, and it has changed us in some way, but we are now unable to bring it to awareness, are we consciously motivated or unconsciously? Or if we deny some truth, keeping it from awareness, must we not have seen it coming in order to take that action to begin with?

5. Nature vs. nurture. This is another question that may someday be answerable: To what degree is what we are due to our genetic inheritance (“nature”) or to our upbringing and other experiences (“nurture”)? The question is such a difficult one because nature and nurture do not exist independently of each other. Both a body and experience are probably essential to being a person, and it is very difficult to separate their effects.

As you will see, the issue comes up in many forms, including the possible existence of instincts in human beings and the nature of temperament, genetically based personality characteristics. It is also very debatable whether “nature” (as in human nature) even refers to genetics.

6.  Stage   vs.  non-stage   theories   of  development.  One   aspect   of   the   nature-nurture   issue   that   is   very important   to   personality   psychology   is  whether   or   not  we   all   pass   through   predetermined   stages   of development. We do, after all, go through certain stages of physiological development – fetal, childhood, puberty,   adulthood,   senescence  – powerfully  controlled by genetics.  Shouldn’t  we   expect   the   same   for psychological development?

We will see a full range of positions on this issue, from true stage theories such as Freud’s, who saw stages as universal  an  fairly clearly marked,   to behaviorist  and humanist   theories  that  consider  what  appear   to be stages to be artifacts created by certain patterns of upbringing and culture.

7.  Cultural determinism vs. cultural transcendence. To what extent do our cultures mold us? Totally, or are we capable of “rising above” (transcending)   those  influences? And  if  so,  how easy or difficult   is  it? Notice that this is not quite the same as the determinism-free will issue: If we are not determined by culture,  our   “transcendence”  may   be   nothing  more   than   some   other   determinism,   by   physiological   needs,   for example, or genetics.

Another way to look at the issue is to ask yourself, “How difficult is it to really get to know someone from a different culture?” If it is difficult to step out of our cultures and communicate as human beings, then perhaps culture is terribly determining of who we are. If it is relatively easy, perhaps it is not so powerful.

8. Early or late personality formation. Are our personality characteristics established in early childhood, to remain relatively fixed through the rest of our lives? Or are we every bit as flexible in adulthood? Or is that,  although change is always a possibility, it just gets increasingly difficult as time goes on?

This question is intimately tied up with the issues of genetics, stages, and cultural determination, as you can imagine. The biggest hurdle we face before we find a resolution, however, is in specifying what we mean by personality characteristics. If we mean things that never change from the moment of birth – i.e. temperament – then of course personality is formed early. If we mean our beliefs, opinions, habits, and so on, these can change rather dramatically up to the moment of death. Since most theorists mean something “in between” these extremes, the answer is likewise to be found “in between.”

9. Continuous vs. discontinuous understanding of mental illness. Is mental illness just a matter of degree? Are they just ordinary people that have taken something to an extreme? Are they perhaps eccentrics that disturb themselves or us? Or is there a qualitative difference in the way they experience reality? As with cultures, is it easy to understand the mentally ill, or do we live in separate worlds?

This issue may be resolvable, but it is complicated by the fact that mental illness is hardly a single entity. There are many different kinds. Some would say there are as many as their are people who are mentally ill. What is a mental illness and what is not is even up for debate. It may be that mental health is also not a single thing.

10. Optimism vs. pessimism. Last, we return to an issue that is, I believe, not at all resolvable: Are human beings basically good or basically bad; Should we be hopeful about our prospects, or discouraged; Do we need a lot of help, or would we be better off if left alone?

This is, obviously, a more philosophical, religious, or personal issue. Yet it is perhaps the most influential of all. The attitude determines what you see when you look at humanity; What you see in turn influences the attitude. And it is bound up with other issues: If, for example, mental illness is not so far from health, if personality can be changed later in life, if culture and genetics aren’t too powerful, and if our motivations can at least be made conscious, we have more grounds for optimism.

-credits go to Mr. Boere

Fear is what I have now and others keep on telling me that I should discard fear, for it will do me no good. I almost forget to realize that without fear, there will be no courage. Well, at least I have the first key to get courage… thanks to this fear.

(To be fair, I have decided to share this from Dr. Commings. I weighed and considered his points thoroughly and I ended up with “I need more from both sides [religion and science]”)

The idea that man needs God to tell us how to behave morally, to be kind and thoughtful toward our fellow man, to aid others without any promise of benefit to ourselves, is a central tenet of most of the major religions. To emphasize the point, we are told that if we do not obey God’s Moral Law we will spend an eternity in hell while if we do obey the Moral Law we will spend an eternity of bliss in heaven.

Dr. Francis Collins, of the National Institutes of Health, is the head of the Human Genome Project responsible for sequencing the three billion base pairs of the human genome. In  2007 this eminent scientist wrote a book entitled, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.  He recounts that in his early years as a scientist he was an atheist but one day he had an epiphany and came to believe that man could not be a moral animal without the aid of a God given Moral Law. As a result of this realization, he became of person of faith and a devout Christian. I greatly respect Dr. Collins, but this epiphany blew me away because although he was a geneticist, he found the extensive genetic evidence that altruism was an inborn genetic trait – unconvincing. He also believed that while the development of all other living organisms on earth was the result of Darwinian evolution, the evolution of man was special and was guided by the hand of God.

Surveys have shown that most scientists, especially scientists in the field of the biological and genetic sciences, are non-theists, due partly because they so strongly believe that Darwinian evolution was responsible for the origin of the species, including man. As a fellow geneticist I was surprised that this eminent scientist was both disavowing the decades of research into the genetics of altruism and proposing that humans were so unique that God was required to guide their evolution. This was uncomfortably close to the tenets of the Intelligent Design creationists. 

Here I wish to just address the issue of altruism as an inborn genetic trait. Altruism is defined as aiding another individual while incurring personal costs to oneself.  For example, if I jump into a raging river to save my son from drowning, I place myself at risk of drowning.  This behavior of being kind and helpful to others at risk to oneself, is a central tenet of Christian thought.  Known as the Golden Rule it consists of treating others, as you would like to be treated. One of the best examples of altruism in the animal kingdom is the behavior of sterile worker honeybees who sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the queen bee. Darwin was quite concerned about altruism, fearing that it seemed to directly contradict his theory of survival of the fittest, thus allowing better genes to be passed on to the next generation. Worker bees are sterile and thus derive no direct benefit for their altruistic acts and cannot pass on their genes. Darwin’s solution to this apparent contradiction of this theory was to suggest that the survival benefit did not always have to apply to the individual – it could also apply to the relatives of the individual. Thus, a sterile worker bee helping the queen to survive would help guarantee the preservation of the genes of the whole family. As if his general theory of the evolution of the species were not enough of a problem for religions to swallow, Darwin was now suggesting that self-sacrificial behavior, generally considered entirely within the purview of religion, was also biologically controlled and could occur in animals as well as humans.

The controversial issues of the genetics and evolution of altruism were addressed by some of the most brilliant and famous mathematical geneticists of the 20^th century, including J.B.S. Haldane, Ronald Fisher and Sewell Wright ¹. Wright provided the field of population genetics with the term r, referring to the degree of genetic relatedness between relatives. For example, fathers and sons and brothers and sisters share half of their genes in common producing an r = 1/2. Grandfathers and grandchildren share 1/4 of their genes in common producing an r = 1/4.  However, it was a naturalist and student of economics, William Hamilton, who in 1963 published the equation that provided a framework for understanding the genetics and evolution of altruism. Hamilton was both a naturalist and a student of economics. The latter provided him with an appreciation of cost-benefit analysis. Hamilton’s famous equation was r x b > c, where b is the benefit accrued by the relatives for an altruistic act and c is the cost of the altruistic act. Thus, if a father saved his son from drowning, the odds that his son would be saved (benefit) must be twice the odds that the father would drown (cost) for the altruistic act to genetically benefit the family. The rearranged equation would be b > 2c (the benefit must be greater than twice the cost).

Inherent in the equation is the fact that the closer the relationship between the individuals involved in the altruistic act, the higher the r, and thus the greater the benefit to the family and the greater the selective value. This process that Hamilton defined mathematically was termed  “kin selection” for its implications for evolution and natural selection. Examples of altruistic behavior adhering to Hamilton’s equation have been described in a wide range of animals including mammals ¹.

Subsequent work involving the concepts of reputation and punishment in societies has expanded the role of altruism in humans to include unrelated individuals in both small and large groups. These studies suggest a selective advantage for altruism involving not only small kinships, but also larger societal groups. Brain imaging studies indicate that cooperative behaviors that benefit the group can activate pleasurable reward pathways, thus indicating that altruism is a pleasurable act.

These studies suggest that man is a moral and mutually cooperating animal not because God dictated the laws of moral behavior, but because the genes for such behavior were selected for and evolved over time. These behaviors were advantageous to early societal groups and individuals and groups displaying such behaviors were more likely to survive than those who did not. Moral law is inborn, not God given.

¹ Dugatkin, L.A.: The Altruism Equation. Princeton Univ. Press. 2006. 

(Binuo noong Aug 13, 2010… naisipan kong gumawa ng mga pangakong paninidigan hanggang sa ipakilala na siya sa akin ng Diyos. Kung nauunawaan mo ng lubos, mga pangako ko ito sa magiging asawa ko, kung sakaling magkaroon man. Kaya minsan huwag ka nang magtaka, abnormal kasi ako.)

Pangako #1: Magiging matiyaga ako sa pag-hihintay para sa tamang panahon.
Pangako #2: Hindi ko hahayaang masayang ang mga panahong ibinigay sa akin ng Diyos upang palaguin ang sarili ko.
Pangako #3: Nangangako akong hindi ako magiging balakid para sa iyong pag-lago.
Pangako #4: Mananatili akong sumusubaybay sa iyong pag-lago nang hindi ka ginugulo sa pamamagitan ng pagpapakita ng anumang emosyon o kaasalang maaring gumambala sa iyo.
Pangako #5: Nangangako rin naman akong ipipikit ang aking mga mata sa anumang tukso, at isasara ang aking mga tenga sa anumang bulong ng pang-aakit.
Pangako #6: Mananatili akong tapat sa aking sarili, sa iyo at sa Diyos.
Pangako #7: Ang aking mga panalangin ay lalaanan ko ng oras upang idalangin ang iyong kabutihan at kaligtasan.
Pangako #8: Sa araw na natapos ko na ang lahat para sa aking sarili at gayun ka rin naman, ay doon ko lamang bubuksan ang pinto upang lalong pagyabungin ang damdamin at emosyong matagal ko nang itinatabi para laman sa iyo.

Tila ba ang aking tumblr account ay hindi ko na pag-aari. Nakakatawang isipin… sa dinamidami ng maari kong matutunan dito, katamaran pang mag-isip ang napulot ko. Siguro oras na upang ihagis ito pabalik sa madilim na lugar na pinagkunan ko. Oh kasipagan nasaan ka?