Sg3 on 2/2/2011 at 19:11
If we can ignore (for the sake of the question) the certainty/probability/possibility that biological factors influence things, could you agree with the following statement? "If I'd experienced exactly what you experienced throughout your life, I would feel/believe the same way that you do."
Briareos H on 2/2/2011 at 19:28
If biological (genetic) factors are factored out, what exactly are the factors which remain?
Sulphur on 2/2/2011 at 19:37
Which biological factors? The way you feel/believe is dependent exactly on the fundamental makeup of your brain/nervous system and the rest of your body and the symbiotic relationship between them. The countless different possible configurations of everything from the infinite physical variations in brains to levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine in your head to hormonal levels to the amount of cholesterol in your blood are responsible for much your feelings and emotions from moment to moment.
Kolya on 2/2/2011 at 19:40
fffffffffff-fffffffffffff-ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuck
Actually it's not possible to have exactly the same experiences like someone else (let alone throughout life). You'd be influencing each other.
Queue on 2/2/2011 at 19:52
If if one did experience the exact same moments in life as someone else, you would not feel the same as that person due to your perception of the events and your own personality.
It'd be like if we both shared a taco at the same time; you may love it while I may hate it due to each other's individual tastes.
SubJeff on 2/2/2011 at 20:07
Quote Posted by Kolya
Actually it's not possible to have exactly the same experiences like someone else (let alone throughout life). You'd be influencing each other.
fffffuuu
You clearly didn't get the question. What
if you had? It's a thought experiment.
No one is influencing anyone here, the question is what if
you had had exactly the same experiences as me? Judging by your recent posts you'd be smarter that's for sure.
In answer to the original question - yes, of course. But that's because you are excluding some factors and the lack of variability (since you're taking it that far) renders the participants in this theoretical equation simply meat robots, automatons if you like. Input and experience are identical so the only reasonable answer is yes.
Queue on 2/2/2011 at 20:14
SE: Even though, no matter what, each person will process the experiences differently?
Minion21g on 2/2/2011 at 20:18
If we want to delve into the realm of quantum mechanics, I'd argue for no as supported by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Even if we ignore biological influences, there's always the probability of something else unintended happening. Really, I suppose I should be arguing "I'm not sure".
Vivian on 2/2/2011 at 20:19
Subj: chaos. What if the mind is chaotic to some degree? I'm fucked if I'm looking it up, but I remember an article title investigating something like that.
Queue - if biology makes no difference, and if the mind is a predictable system, then someone with exactly the same experiences is exactly the same person.
demagogue on 2/2/2011 at 20:21
If there's been at least one near consensus in the philosophy of mind & cog sci, it's that the pure empiricists were wrong. Humans don't experience "pure" perceptions unfiltered straight from reality, much less react on them the same. It's to a great extent constituted by the mind. (Remember "real reality" is largely made of subatomic particles moving at the speed of light, vastly different from "human reality" of chairs and dogs, which things, even in their most basic elements -- surfaces, motion -- are inextricably connected to the individual's motivation to sit or have animal companionship.)
That first of all means it doesn't make sense to talk about people having the "same" experience from the world. They can read the same value off a scientific instrument, cf. the foundations of general relativity, but once it's in experience, it's "constituted" there, not "reported".
Then, even putting that aside, your attitudes or behavior are a whole other issue. The big paradigm there is neuroeconomics. Your beliefs and attitudes and behavior is not simply triggered by experience. On this point, Sherrington & Pavlov, which argued that brains were simple Stim-Response machines, were way off track! cf. Glimcher's book Neuroeconomics. There are so many internal settings & values and on-line computation that contribute ... risk aversion, deceptiveness, goals, culture, "narratives" of self and world, etc. Things you can see developing very early in infants and are not simply connected to raw experience. I'd use the word "hard-coded" by genes, but the reality is more complex I think, since there is some plasticity as well to adapt to the environment & other internal states (and even those "hard-coded" rules of adaptation are probably themselves plastic as well based on a combination of "hard-coded", env adaptive, and on-line computation rules. And all of these systems are dynamic and internally networked).
And in terms of the nature/nurture debate, from what I've read many are coming to the position that knowledge & "personality" is a combination of both, in a similar way that traits are a combination of the genetic-code genes & environmental process of protein creation and work, or the way that the immune system adapts itself to the environment.
As far as empirical studies go, you'd probably want to read articles on development studies on twins, as a good starting point to seeing what cognitive systems are involved in developing behavior and personality differently to 2 children with similar early experience.
Edit: tl;dr: no.
