Quote:
|
Originally Posted by braindamage351
But we ARE simply a product of our environment. It's still simple cause and effect. It's just harder to follow in humans.
|
Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I was thinking about this and trying to study people that I am aquainted with, as well as myself, before responding.
My first response was to refute your claim, based on people I know, including myself, that don't follow their upbringing. If I simply alowed my past and environment to determine who I am, I would likely be thief or rapist, among other things. Because I saw and was surrounded by these things since I was a child. I have also known people who came from similar or worse situations who have not become what their environment dictated.
Then I thought that perhaps who I am is a result of my past simply because my past cemented my determination to be a "good" person.
But that statement brings me back to my original point, I wanted to be a "good" person anyway. My environment didn't create that in me, at most it strenthened it. I think that there is a level of motivation that exists in people that isn't seen in the animal kingdom. Call it values, morals or something else, I think that is what makes us able to determine our own personality despite environment.