IUBio

Neural impact from socialisation

K C Cheng kccheng at postoffice.idirect.com
Wed Apr 29 10:39:41 EST 1998


tael wrote:
> 
> I was wondering if anyone could evaluate my hypothesis that:
> 
> Our psychology is the outcome of interaction between the basic drives
> from the paleomammalian (limbic mid-brain) and reptillian (lower brain
> core) system, which are hardwired from birth, and the degree to which
> our cerebral cortex learns its stucture (becomes mylinated) from the
> stimulus of social processes.
> 
> btw, do you know of any books that argue along these lines?
> 
> TY,
> 
> jonny walker
> 
> student of B. Psychophysiology, Swinburne Uni, Melbourne, Australia.
Re the above:  I dare not say that I could  "evaluate"  your
hypothesis.   However, may I suggest that our psychology, though in many
ways dependent on interneuronal interactions,  is a function mainly of
one's memory input and conscious selection of what are desirable traits
to us.   Once we have acquired  certain basic elements and awareness of
a value system or lack of it,  our brain can wilfully select these
traits in the same way we select which fngers to use.  Myelination
itself is merely an anatomical event to make our neural network more
efficient, having nothing to do with  our memory content and therefore
what personality we have.  Of course, as said, the basic neuronal
properties do to a large extent determine some of our basic personality
traits which are physilogical, not psychological in nature, e.g. 
explosive personality, i.e. temperaments,  sex drives,  etc.   
	But outside of these basic physiological traits,  our personality
traits depend almost entirely on learning(memory input)  and "freedom of
choice"  to design our own personality traits.  And, as we all know,
lots of our "instincts"  can be wilfully modified, particularly since
young, to within socially acceptable limits.
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