QUESTION SIX
6. What is Steven Pinker's chief critique of the "blank slate"? Give six examples which illustrate Pinker's notion of epigenetic predispositions.
to be honest, i'd have to say that i don't quite understand this book, since biology is never really something i'm good at. most of the time i'm stuck trying to understand the biological terms that pinker uses. so i'll apologize in advance if i made any incorrect biological remarks or biological terms used out of place. but, if i did understand this correctly, then here's steven pinker's chief critique of the blank slate:
the idea of the blank slate is that human mind starts out as a blank slate, with nothing on it. so in a way, it is saying that human beings started out being equal. there is no initial differences that make one person's mind is any different from the other. male and female are equal
, race A and race B are equal, everything, basically is equal. then as one grows up, one experiences things from one's environment, and these experiences shapes an individual in a different way other environment shapes different individuals. in the end, we have unique individuals in this world, NOT because they started out differently, but because environment SHAPES them differently.
pinker argues that this idea is wrong. the slate is NOT blank. human beings DO possess human nature. pinker says that the mind when it first come to existence, DOES have biological differences caused by genetics. however, the reasons that the idea on human nature is really hard for the society to accept, is the four chapters of part III: fear of inequality, imperfectibility, determinism, and nihilism.
now, i'm not quite sure what "epigenetic predispositions" means, but i looked up the term "epigenesis" and got "the theory that an individual is developed by successive differentiation of an unstructured egg rather than by a simple enlarging of a preformed entity." (dictionary.com) so if i don't understand this wrong, epigenesis is basically theories like the blank slate theory, where individual starts out with a blank slate and fill it up with information as that individual experiences things. pinker is against such notion; there are some examples from his book, the blank slate, that help shows why he believes in human nature.
the first one that he brings up is a summary from his other book, how the mind works, in which he discussed "some simple logical relationships that underlie our understanding of a complete thought but are difficult to represent in generic networks." (pinker 80) pinker claims that human beings have such talents, that are almost impossible to possess if the slate is really blank. first is ability to distinguish between "a kind and an individual," such as a particular duck and ducks in general. second is talent called "compositionality," the ability to "entertain a new, complex thought that is just not the sum of simple thoughts composing it, but depends on their relationship," such as understanding "cats chasing mice" and not "mice chasing cats instead. third is the talent called "quantification," or the ability to differentiate between "fooling some of the people all of the time and fooling all of the people some of the time." fourth is talent called "recursion," or one's ability to "embed one thought inside the other," such as thinking that elvis lives, that people are thinking that elvis lives, that magazines report that elvis lives, and so forth. the fifth and last is the ability to "engage in a cateegorical reasoning," such as knowing that shrewds are not mice, although they might look alike.
another example that he discusses is with regard to violence. pinker argues that violence is just human nature, and not a "learned behavior" (pinker 310) like some people claim. the fact that aggressive parents have aggressive children cannot be used to conclude that environment causes the children to become aggressive as well. pinker argues that such claim is disregarding the possibility that "violent tendencies could be inherited as well," and continues on by saying that "unless one looks at adopted children and shows that they act more like their adoptive parents than like their biological parents," then one cannot make such claim about environment is causing the children to behave aggresively.
pinker also discusses the issue on gender, in which he claims that the minds of men and women ARE not identical. this is in no way saying that one is superior than the other, but simply saying that, as pinker put it, "it's better to have the male adaptation to deal with male problems and the female adaptations to deal with female problems." (pinker 344) an interesting example that pinker gives is about an 8-month-old boy who lost his penis and his parents decided to get him an artificial vagina and raised him as a girl. but apparently the girl, even at young age, "felt that she was a boy trapped in a girl's body and gender role." (pinker 349) pinker said that that "she ripped off frilly dresses, rejected dolls in favor of guns, preferred to play with boys, and even insisted on urinating standing up." in the end, she underwent another operations and now live as a man. this is an example that shows how environment could not shape what was originally male into a female, no matter how early in the development.
another idea that leads pinker into believing there is such thing as human nature, is the experiment done by psychologist laura petitto and her chimpanzee named nim chimsky. nim can imitate what petitto is doing, but cannot do it to perfection, or at the very least, reaching the intended goal. when petitto scrubs dishes, the main purpose is obviously to clean it. now, nim can also scrubs dishes like petitto, but the thing that nim does not have in mind is that the purpose of scrubbing is to clean the dishes. pinker also provides an example from rodney brooks about a robot imitating a person opening a jar and then wiping his brow. of course, the intended action (primary) is opening the jar, while wiping brow is not an important action (secondary), but how can the robot know which one is important and which one is not? pinker claims that the answer is that the robot "has to be equipped with an ability to see into the mind of the person being imitated, so that it can infer the person's goal and pick out the aspects of behavior that the person intended to achieve the goal." (pinker 61) this ability is an ability that even the most sophisticated robot cannot have, and this is what leads pinker into thinking that the slate must have this ability INNATELY and therefore cannot be blank, for this is not an ability that one can learn.
to be honest, i'd have to say that i don't quite understand this book, since biology is never really something i'm good at. most of the time i'm stuck trying to understand the biological terms that pinker uses. so i'll apologize in advance if i made any incorrect biological remarks or biological terms used out of place. but, if i did understand this correctly, then here's steven pinker's chief critique of the blank slate:
the idea of the blank slate is that human mind starts out as a blank slate, with nothing on it. so in a way, it is saying that human beings started out being equal. there is no initial differences that make one person's mind is any different from the other. male and female are equal
, race A and race B are equal, everything, basically is equal. then as one grows up, one experiences things from one's environment, and these experiences shapes an individual in a different way other environment shapes different individuals. in the end, we have unique individuals in this world, NOT because they started out differently, but because environment SHAPES them differently.
pinker argues that this idea is wrong. the slate is NOT blank. human beings DO possess human nature. pinker says that the mind when it first come to existence, DOES have biological differences caused by genetics. however, the reasons that the idea on human nature is really hard for the society to accept, is the four chapters of part III: fear of inequality, imperfectibility, determinism, and nihilism.
now, i'm not quite sure what "epigenetic predispositions" means, but i looked up the term "epigenesis" and got "the theory that an individual is developed by successive differentiation of an unstructured egg rather than by a simple enlarging of a preformed entity." (dictionary.com) so if i don't understand this wrong, epigenesis is basically theories like the blank slate theory, where individual starts out with a blank slate and fill it up with information as that individual experiences things. pinker is against such notion; there are some examples from his book, the blank slate, that help shows why he believes in human nature.
the first one that he brings up is a summary from his other book, how the mind works, in which he discussed "some simple logical relationships that underlie our understanding of a complete thought but are difficult to represent in generic networks." (pinker 80) pinker claims that human beings have such talents, that are almost impossible to possess if the slate is really blank. first is ability to distinguish between "a kind and an individual," such as a particular duck and ducks in general. second is talent called "compositionality," the ability to "entertain a new, complex thought that is just not the sum of simple thoughts composing it, but depends on their relationship," such as understanding "cats chasing mice" and not "mice chasing cats instead. third is the talent called "quantification," or the ability to differentiate between "fooling some of the people all of the time and fooling all of the people some of the time." fourth is talent called "recursion," or one's ability to "embed one thought inside the other," such as thinking that elvis lives, that people are thinking that elvis lives, that magazines report that elvis lives, and so forth. the fifth and last is the ability to "engage in a cateegorical reasoning," such as knowing that shrewds are not mice, although they might look alike.
another example that he discusses is with regard to violence. pinker argues that violence is just human nature, and not a "learned behavior" (pinker 310) like some people claim. the fact that aggressive parents have aggressive children cannot be used to conclude that environment causes the children to become aggressive as well. pinker argues that such claim is disregarding the possibility that "violent tendencies could be inherited as well," and continues on by saying that "unless one looks at adopted children and shows that they act more like their adoptive parents than like their biological parents," then one cannot make such claim about environment is causing the children to behave aggresively.
pinker also discusses the issue on gender, in which he claims that the minds of men and women ARE not identical. this is in no way saying that one is superior than the other, but simply saying that, as pinker put it, "it's better to have the male adaptation to deal with male problems and the female adaptations to deal with female problems." (pinker 344) an interesting example that pinker gives is about an 8-month-old boy who lost his penis and his parents decided to get him an artificial vagina and raised him as a girl. but apparently the girl, even at young age, "felt that she was a boy trapped in a girl's body and gender role." (pinker 349) pinker said that that "she ripped off frilly dresses, rejected dolls in favor of guns, preferred to play with boys, and even insisted on urinating standing up." in the end, she underwent another operations and now live as a man. this is an example that shows how environment could not shape what was originally male into a female, no matter how early in the development.
another idea that leads pinker into believing there is such thing as human nature, is the experiment done by psychologist laura petitto and her chimpanzee named nim chimsky. nim can imitate what petitto is doing, but cannot do it to perfection, or at the very least, reaching the intended goal. when petitto scrubs dishes, the main purpose is obviously to clean it. now, nim can also scrubs dishes like petitto, but the thing that nim does not have in mind is that the purpose of scrubbing is to clean the dishes. pinker also provides an example from rodney brooks about a robot imitating a person opening a jar and then wiping his brow. of course, the intended action (primary) is opening the jar, while wiping brow is not an important action (secondary), but how can the robot know which one is important and which one is not? pinker claims that the answer is that the robot "has to be equipped with an ability to see into the mind of the person being imitated, so that it can infer the person's goal and pick out the aspects of behavior that the person intended to achieve the goal." (pinker 61) this ability is an ability that even the most sophisticated robot cannot have, and this is what leads pinker into thinking that the slate must have this ability INNATELY and therefore cannot be blank, for this is not an ability that one can learn.
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