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''Tabula rasa'' ( thesis that individual human beings are born with no innate or built-in mental content, in a word, "blank", and that their entire resource of knowledge is built up gradually from their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world. Proponents of tabula rasa favor "nurture" in the Nature Versus Nurture debate. Modern Genetic Research finds that genes have a certain effect on personal characteristics. Some traits are more strongly influenced by experience, such as one's language, religion or some elements of gender identity,Bailey, J.M., Dunne, M.P., Martin, N.G. (2000). Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(3). They rate heritability of male homosexuality at only about 30%, lower than the popular 50% figure from a 1991 study. and other traits are supposedly more strongly influenced by genes, such as IQ , Alcoholism , or certain other elements of sexual traits. Pinker, Steven . The Blank Slate . New York: Penguin. 2002. page 346–350. For example, some intersex "males" surgically reassigned as females in infancy and raised as girls, spontaneously self-identify as having masculine gender. HISTORY In Eastern philosophy, the notion of ''tabula rasa'' is not explicitly mentioned, though there are many reasons to consider that it is a much relied upon idea. In Western Philosophy , traces of the idea that came to be called the ''tabula rasa'' appear as early as the writings of Aristotle :
Aristotle writes of the ''unscribed tablet'' in what is probably the first textbook of Psychology in the Western Canon , his treatise Περι Ψυχης (''De Anima'' or ''On the Soul''). However, besides some arguments by the Stoics and Peripatetics , the Aristotelian notion of the mind as a blank slate went much unnoticed for nearly 1800 years.
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas brought the Aristotelian notion back to the forefront of modern thought. This notion sharply contrasted with the previously held Platonic notions of the human mind as an entity that pre-existed somewhere in the heavens, before being sent down to join a body here on Earth (see Plato's '' Phaedo '' and ''Apology'', as well as others). St. Bonaventure (also 13th century) was one of Aquinas' fiercest intellectual opponents, offering some of the strongest arguments towards the Platonic idea of the mind. Aquinas's writings on the ''tabula rasa'' theory stood untested and unprogressed for several centuries. In fact, our modern idea of the theory is mostly attributed to John Locke 's expression of the idea in the 17th century. In Locke's philosophy, ''tabula rasa'' was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one's Sensory experiences. The notion is central to Lockean Empiricism . As understood by Locke, ''tabula rasa'' meant that the mind of the individual was born "blank", and it also emphasized the individual's freedom to author his or her own Soul . Each individual was free to define the content of his or her character - but his or her basic identity as a member of the human species cannot be so altered. It is from this presumption of a free, self-authored Mind combined with an immutable human nature that the Lockean doctrine of "natural" rights derives. ''Tabula Rasa'' is also featured in Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis . Freud depicted personality traits as being formed by family dynamics (see Oedipus Complex , etc.). Freud's theories show that one can downplay genetic and congenital influences on human personality without advocating free will. In psychosanalysis, one is largely determined by one's upbringing. The ''tabula rasa'' concept became popular in social sciences in the 20th century. Eugenics (mainstream in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) came to be seen not as a sound policy but as a crime. The idea that genes (or simply "blood") determined character took on racist overtones. By the 70s, scientists had come to see gender identity as socially constructed rather than rooted in genetics (see John Money ), a concept still current (see Anne Fausto-Sterling ). This swing of the pendulum accompanied suspicion of innate differences in general (see Racism ) and a propensity to "manage" society, where the real power must be if people are born blank. In the last few decades, Twin Studies , studies of Adopted Children , and the David Reimer case have demonstrated genetic influence on (if not strict determination of) personal characteristics, such as IQ , Alcoholism , gender identity, and other traits. Pinker, Steven . The Blank Slate . New York: Penguin. 2002. SCIENCE Computer science In Computer Science , ''tabula rasa'' refers to the development of autonomous agents which are provided with a mechanism to reason and plan toward their goal, but no "built-in" knowledge-base of their environment. They are thus truly a "blank slate". In reality autonomous agents are provided with an initial data-set or knowledge-base, but this should not be immutable or it will hamper autonomy and heuristic ability. Even if the data-set is empty, it can usually be argued that there is an in-built Bias in the reasoning and planning mechanisms. Either intentionally or unintentionally placed there by the human designer, it thus negates the true spirit of ''tabula rasa''. Psychology and neurobiology |
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