Post by mikey117 on Nov 2, 2017 1:21:59 GMT
Now I am going to take a little bit of a controversial stance here so bear with me.
As I have hinted at the title, I think he PRIMARILY is a reductionist HOWEVER I also believe if you read between the lines you can see some social construction in there, or at least cultural influence.
Let me use a similar example from the book to explain....
I climb a tree and then fall down getting QUITE the concussion, the emotional state I would experience would understandably be quite painful, so much so that its perfectly reasonable to believe that I would have learned by experience to be afraid of heights, or at least climbing trees.
The biology we can quickly address just for clarity's sake, the emotional state suffering from this injury would create quite the impression in my mind, so much so that approaching similar stimuli may trigger the memory(if anything subconsciously) about my previous experience with said tree. The neurons are stimulated by the stimuli and this information is carried over to the brain which then creates the cautionary response of fear, to prevent me from getting myself hurt again as evolutionary speaking it would be wise for me to avoid climbing trees cause I'm a kultz and thus be extremely likely to harm myself, so being afraid would discourage me from attempting this activity again.
Now that simple biology is in the way, let me link it to the example in the book, in which a baby monkey isn't necessarily afraid of a snake upon initial exposure...UNLESS the baby notices it's mother reacting fearfully toward it.
No this isn't to say I have a baby monkey
BUT if I have a child, I would want to raise my child to have the skills necessary to survive, thus when my child starts to climb on a tree, I would most likely act fearfully as psychologically speaking I see tree climbing as more dangerous than other activities, thus my reaction, like the baby monkey, could influence the child to NOT climb the tree simply because of MY FEAR of climbing trees(this is not to say that the child couldn't climb it anyway).
Me teaching my child to be fearful of trees is social construction, even though my psychological reason for fearing trees was biological, my child doesn't have that same reason too, assuming the child DOES in fact grow a similar fear toward trees as I did, it wouldn't have been because of experience, but rather because of a social event which my child engaged with, thus the fear is socially constructed in the context of my family where my fear may instill fear in my child, or in other words, my child's cultural context was what influenced the fear.
Virtually whenever the environment is discussed, that is culture, as the adaptations to combat the environment become entrenched to their children and every environment out of necessity brings out different solutions to different problems, thus have my previously mentioned example happen on a larger scale and we have a culture of many people either fearing, or thriving from climbing trees, those who fear will teach their children to fear, those who thrive(say get an apple from a tree) will teach their children to climb trees to obtain apples(or insert fruit of preference here). All these individuals who may or may not have had 1st hand experience conversing with one another, how they teach their skills and what skills to teach are all an arbitrary matter as teaching takes many forms and can be done differently but later generations will most likely teach how they were taught.
This tenancies and many others, are in the realm of culture and social construction thus there is room to discuss other matters such as cultural context, the interactions they have had, not only looking to the Amegdila of the brain for readings on intelligence.
As I have hinted at the title, I think he PRIMARILY is a reductionist HOWEVER I also believe if you read between the lines you can see some social construction in there, or at least cultural influence.
Let me use a similar example from the book to explain....
I climb a tree and then fall down getting QUITE the concussion, the emotional state I would experience would understandably be quite painful, so much so that its perfectly reasonable to believe that I would have learned by experience to be afraid of heights, or at least climbing trees.
The biology we can quickly address just for clarity's sake, the emotional state suffering from this injury would create quite the impression in my mind, so much so that approaching similar stimuli may trigger the memory(if anything subconsciously) about my previous experience with said tree. The neurons are stimulated by the stimuli and this information is carried over to the brain which then creates the cautionary response of fear, to prevent me from getting myself hurt again as evolutionary speaking it would be wise for me to avoid climbing trees cause I'm a kultz and thus be extremely likely to harm myself, so being afraid would discourage me from attempting this activity again.
Now that simple biology is in the way, let me link it to the example in the book, in which a baby monkey isn't necessarily afraid of a snake upon initial exposure...UNLESS the baby notices it's mother reacting fearfully toward it.
No this isn't to say I have a baby monkey
BUT if I have a child, I would want to raise my child to have the skills necessary to survive, thus when my child starts to climb on a tree, I would most likely act fearfully as psychologically speaking I see tree climbing as more dangerous than other activities, thus my reaction, like the baby monkey, could influence the child to NOT climb the tree simply because of MY FEAR of climbing trees(this is not to say that the child couldn't climb it anyway).
Me teaching my child to be fearful of trees is social construction, even though my psychological reason for fearing trees was biological, my child doesn't have that same reason too, assuming the child DOES in fact grow a similar fear toward trees as I did, it wouldn't have been because of experience, but rather because of a social event which my child engaged with, thus the fear is socially constructed in the context of my family where my fear may instill fear in my child, or in other words, my child's cultural context was what influenced the fear.
Virtually whenever the environment is discussed, that is culture, as the adaptations to combat the environment become entrenched to their children and every environment out of necessity brings out different solutions to different problems, thus have my previously mentioned example happen on a larger scale and we have a culture of many people either fearing, or thriving from climbing trees, those who fear will teach their children to fear, those who thrive(say get an apple from a tree) will teach their children to climb trees to obtain apples(or insert fruit of preference here). All these individuals who may or may not have had 1st hand experience conversing with one another, how they teach their skills and what skills to teach are all an arbitrary matter as teaching takes many forms and can be done differently but later generations will most likely teach how they were taught.
This tenancies and many others, are in the realm of culture and social construction thus there is room to discuss other matters such as cultural context, the interactions they have had, not only looking to the Amegdila of the brain for readings on intelligence.
