00:00:00.000 Hello, just something quick about a Twitter exchange that happened today, and because I want
00:00:11.080 to test out the microphone people have been suggesting that the volume needs to be turned
00:00:18.040 I know I'm technically incompetent, but I have all sorts of equipment around me at the moment
00:00:23.240 that I haven't got on camera, but I'm doing my best to improve.
00:00:27.800 The exchange was between David Deutsch and Claire Leemon, I believe, her name is, and they
00:00:34.080 were talking about the extent to which people can have genetically determined traits, but
00:00:41.160 in fact our mental traits, so I'm just reading the exchange here where Claire Leemon,
00:00:57.360 She says, in short, the idea that people can't be born bad is just blank slate nonsense,
00:01:07.040 Now, it seems to be that there is a choice that we're expecting to make, and the
00:01:15.080 choice that we're expected to make is whether or not the blank slate is true, in other words,
00:01:22.760 people are born without any pre-dispositions towards any kind of behavior, or our behavior
00:01:32.480 is genetically determined, at least in part, and these are the two choices that you have.
00:01:39.640 Our behavior is determined by your genes, at least in part, or not at all.
00:01:45.120 There's a third way that doesn't involve ideas coming to us via our genes, or insofar
00:01:53.160 as they do, nonetheless there remain ideas that can be changed.
00:02:00.000 We do not have to choose between genetic determinism, whether it's some kind of under-determinism,
00:02:07.440 where not all of your behaviors are genetically determined, but at least some of them are,
00:02:13.720 or, on the other hand, the blank slate hypothesis.
00:02:17.920 And this is the idea where none of your behaviors are determined by your genes.
00:02:23.680 Well, the third way is that whilst you might have genetically determined behaviors that
00:02:32.960 you are born with, these behaviors are caused by ideas.
00:02:40.240 Sam Harris likes to say that belief is the lever that pushes behavior, something like
00:02:47.160 And I think it's quite right, that insofar as you have knowledge, I would say rather
00:02:51.920 than believe, that you have ideas, that these are the things that cause you to carry
00:03:01.960 Now, the question then is, to what extent are the genes that we have, our genetic information,
00:03:14.800 Let's take a specific example, struggle to come up with something that's not controversial,
00:03:21.880 but what about that human babies have an instinct for suckling, they have an instinct for
00:03:34.240 No one seems to teach them this, they do a sucking motion if you've ever known a baby.
00:03:40.120 They seem to be born with this, it's inborn, it's genetic, it's an instinct.
00:03:46.920 At some point, they cease to do this, we move beyond this behavior, insofar as it's
00:03:57.760 an instinct, somehow we don't do it anymore, now people might say, well, we grow out of
00:04:04.880 What I want to say to that is, if it's in the genes, the DNA does not change.
00:04:11.320 So that behavior, which I would suggest, is indeed an instinct, is indeed coded somehow
00:04:20.160 in the DNA, is nonetheless expressed in the mind, in the brain, which then causes
00:04:29.240 behavior, the sucking behavior that babies have.
00:04:33.880 And although the genes have put it into the mind in some way that we don't understand,
00:04:39.640 once there it is subject to precisely the same sorts of processes that any other idea
00:04:52.760 In particular, it's subject to improvement, it's subject to criticism and it's subject
00:04:58.200 to change, whatever the idea is that's in our mind can be changed.
00:05:04.600 It doesn't matter if the source is instinctual or genetic, it doesn't matter where the
00:05:10.240 idea came from, if it's been encoded in our genes, this does not mean it determines our
00:05:17.080 behavior, because we can change whatever the idea which was determined by genetics is.
00:05:26.920 So if the genes determine some kind of idea in our mind within determined behavior, I think
00:05:31.920 it's a three-step process, it's not genes' behavior, you must pass through the mind.
00:05:41.720 So all inborn traits of which I would suggest there are many are ideas, and they can
00:05:50.400 be changed, they might be hard to change, I admit they might be hard to change.
00:05:56.640 But we're not condemned in some way by virtue of having genes that Claire is suggesting
00:06:05.240 provide us with a propensity for certain kinds of behaviors, we are not condemned to carry
00:06:19.000 David says at some point, so since bad in this context, it's fearless plus something,
00:06:26.040 some are born fearless, does not imply some are born bad, unless the something is also
00:06:31.920 inborn, right, Claire agrees, she says, okay, so I should have said the idea that people
00:06:38.560 can't be born with a predisposition for being bad is blank slate nonsense.
00:06:45.480 So this idea of being born with a predisposition, yes, we can be born with a predisposition
00:06:59.120 We move beyond it, we change our ideas about that, and in fact we're taught that we
00:07:04.280 no longer need to do that, it would be a very strange society, we would be, and if we were
00:07:08.280 unable to move beyond that, in fact all of us move beyond it.
00:07:14.920 So that inborn behavior, inborn genetic information, which makes it way into our minds,
00:07:22.080 to cause us to control our bodies in such a way that we do sucklet the breast up until
00:07:28.240 we don't anymore, because we've changed our mind, is a predisposition.
00:07:36.600 So now let's take Claire seriously on this point.
00:07:41.640 If some people are born with a predisposition for being bad, this does not mean they're
00:07:45.640 going to be bad, this does not mean they're going to grow up being bad.
00:07:48.040 Now I reject a notion they can be born with a predisposition for being bad, okay, I think
00:07:52.360 bad is such a general term, such a broad catch-all term, this idea of psychopathy, this
00:08:01.920 idea that people behave in certain ways that we find objectionable.
00:08:07.320 If something like suckling milk is a behavior that we are all born with, we're all
00:08:15.760 predisposed to do, and we can all change, it is hard, some people would say it's hard
00:08:21.120 wired, that language is not strong, but somehow the hard wiring is undone, so I can't
00:08:25.960 be that hard, it appears to be a software thing.
00:08:29.880 If that can be changed, then if you can find genetic information that some sort of coding
00:08:39.240 This predisposition is not a condemnation, and if people were to go out actively searching
00:08:45.560 for the genes that code for psychopathy and found it, that would be no more informative
00:08:52.080 of a child or adolescent or adult behavior, then would finding the genes that code for
00:09:00.040 Because even though everyone seems to be determined genetically to suckling milk, we move
00:09:08.040 So this idea of genetic predisposition or this idea of blank slateness are both incorrect.
00:09:16.280 They're both incorrect because they fail to take seriously the notion that the brain
00:09:21.680 is a computer, upon which runs the software of the mind, and the software of the mind
00:09:27.760 can be overwritten, with new ideas, with new knowledge, through conjecture, guessing
00:09:34.400 new ideas, and refutation, criticizing those ideas.
00:09:39.360 This is how our mind works, this is how we learn, and regardless of whether or not
00:09:45.960 the ideas that we have or some set of the ideas that we have are genetically predisposed,
00:09:51.680 this does not change the fact that our ideas, this does not change the fact that they
00:09:59.800 It cannot be constructed in such a way that it is immune from criticism, unless we've
00:10:13.320 This is the solution to the debate that's going on between the world of blank slateness,
00:10:19.560 that we have no inborn ideas, and no, we do have some inborn ideas, and they're genetically
00:10:25.480 The way to resolve this is to recognize that it's not a blank slate, but the genetically
00:10:37.160 They remain ideas, and they too can be changed, like all ideas.
00:10:41.480 They don't have some sort of supernatural status, they're ideas, they're a form of knowledge,
00:10:48.520 and they are subject to the same rules of epistemology, namely those that govern criticism
00:10:54.480 and enable ideas to be changed as any other kind of knowledge.
00:10:59.160 Now, hopefully my audio work this time, thank you.
