Teddy on Personality

Each person is an amalgam of traits and characteristics; each shaped by countless variables known in lay man's terms, collectively as experience - or nurture. Yet the statement that personality is only contributed by nurture alone (the tabula rasa, or blank slate) is often met with much disapproval. Nature plays a role. Or does it?

A consensus is always reached that these two factors work in tandem with each other. But how much of each?

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For example, compared to other soft toys of my generation, I obviously hold an infinitely greater potential due to the simple ability of my cotton-based neurons to self connect and thus giving me thinking power. Hence Des Cartes was right - I think, therefore I am.
Definitely applicable to humans with their own non-unique brand of neurons capable of limited self connection.

Different people are born with different brains. I for one, was born with much more organised systems of cotton-based DNA that enable a much more efficient thinking process. But among human neuron arrangements, mere chance determines the arrangements. Hence mere chance (and thus "Nature") gives each individual different thinking power. Albert Einstein had a "mutation" in his brain that allowed for certain understandings of abstract concepts. His brain was slightly more evolved than the rest of mankind - by mere chance - and that gave him that ability.

But once we get past that little bit of Nature (or chance), everything else is Nurture. The difference in brains might give for a slightly different perception initially, but after that we build upon our personality using those tiny bits of experience that adds on to our personality.

For example if I had been born (with the specific mutations that enabled thinking in the cotton mesh) and yet raised in a family where that thinking and perception would have been used for different purposes I definitely would have turned out differently.

Interestingly, our conscious perception accounts for a tiny percentage of what we actually See, Hear, Touch, and Feel. This ironically might swing the debate in favour of Nature and away from the Blank Slate. Our subconscious is proven to have a very powerful effect on how we react. Some even call it the soul. Which would then just mean that the soul (or heart) resides in the brain.

Together our conscious and more so subconscious perception (aka subliminal perception) make up for our character.

However Nature, even though its part to play is tiny, has a butterfly effect on the personality - just as chaos always has on the world.

It is a well known fact that if I have a recurring sequence, more often than not a slight deviation in the first term could create a huge difference in the last term - which is the mathematical description of the better known butterfly effect.

Just because initially, due to higher thinking power, I experienced event X and Elmo didn't, in subsequent repetitions, event X burns into my subconscious stronger than it does to Elmo. In turn if in subsequent years we both have a decision to make whose outcome is partially dependent on the experience of event X, there is a very high possibility that we end up with different choices.

Nurture is that important. It is the greatest investment.

P.S. Welcome "Ma-ma the Tiger" to STFU. Under my tutelage no doubt he will be writing within no time.