Not to put too fine a point on it
Asguard, I believe you have presented an excellent example wherein we might consider the magnitudes of diverse influences. To begin with the basic proposition, and from there work through the points subsequently developed:
Asguard said:
Take something slightly different, who we chose to marry. Where did your preference for the kind of person you like come from?
There are, after all, genetic influences in who we choose to marry. We might start with the proposition of the homosexual: Is this behavior genetically preordained? The answer is a qualified "no". Is this behavior pure choice? The answer, again, is a qualified no.
To the first, we might argue—and with certain wisdom—that genetics will inevitably affect one's sexual expressions. True, there is no "gay gene", but as with different disorders of the mind, there is, at some obscure level, a genetic influence.
But there is also
circumstance, and in this case, I do not refer to the circumstances of social conditioning. We might consider the phenomenon of the XY female; that is, genetically, it would seem a person is male, but for reasons persuasively but not entirely comprehended by science, develops as a female.
One of the suspect points in the transformation of an XY human occurs
in utero. The default—if you will—condition of a growing embryo and fetus is as female. On certain occasions during gestation, the organism is visited by hormonal combinations which initiate, facilitate, and complete the transformation from the default into the male creature. The strongest theories of XY females hold that some deviation or lack about the hormonal inundations stunts the divergence; the person is born and develops as a female, despite the basic XY genetic combination.
While we have not any final conclusion before us, the preponderance of evidence suggests—ever more clearly as time passes and new research draws new conclusions—that combinations of genetics and circumstance create notable effects on sexuality. Indeed, we might counterpoint by invoking a relatively mild form of eugenics: homosexuality, insofar as one sees the need for a "cure", might well be addressed by reducing motherhood to artificial regulation. If we might artificially guarantee the occurrence of certain circumstances, such as hormonal conditions
in utero, and the timing and magnitude thereof, it seems theoretically possible to breed naught but heterosexuals. We should not be surprised to witness the advent of such technology and the accompaniment bioethical debates within our lifetimes.
Thus, we might consider an inborn disposition toward sexual expression, but that alone is insufficient for our purposes. Indeed, unshaped influences remain mere hints, whispered suggestions, to be regarded as one sees fit. But how does one determine the fitness of outcomes? Certainly, we might look to social conditioning. Many have chosen the heterosexual inclinations of their social conditioning only to find it unbearable, and thus turn their backs on marriages, introducing all manner of confusion among people, in order to find greater comfort and, we might hope, better efficiency in life and society.
But how does this pertain to the selection of mates? In this question, we approach the more vital considerations your example invokes.
... if the whole world was ONLY populated by people like your first husband then the chances are you would prefer someone like your first husband. Its all about social interactions.
You have struck precisely at the heart of the matter. Perhaps genetics might in some obscure fashion incline someone toward a mate of similar proportion and appearance. While, for instance, neither you nor I might find anything objectionable about the mixing of skin pigments in mate selection, and while we might find fault with those who stubbornly object to those who would partake of such mixing, is there really any fault to be found in the simple fact of two pale-skinned mates, or two dark-skinned mates? Certainly not; objections come later, when such resolutions are justified by spurious excuses for logic.
Likewise, it is entirely possible that one prefers a mate who is more or less physically fit. In some cases, people are known to prefer various degrees of plumpness or rotundity. This might entirely be related to aesthetics and social conditioning, but we have no proper means to exclude entirely the possibility of genetic disposition. Nor can we claim definitively that there is not something about circumstances
in utero that seemingly influence one's desire regarding the gender of one's mate that also affects the preferred aesthetics.
Nonetheless, there are among the billions of human beings, many examples of diverse aesthetics. If, for instance, a woman prefers the roundish teddy-bear over the muscular warrior or elfish lean, how does she go about selecting among the bears? Circumstance bears much influence: What selection is available to consider in the local environment? Indeed, it was in my day statistically rare that young lovers should extend their search beyond their school, and while my own school drew from a large area, I cannot recall anyone who attended in Tacoma, Washington, seeking out in those days a mate from Boise, Idaho.
Still, though, within a city even of Tacoma's size, there might be plenty of available teddy-bears to choose from. Why this, and not the next? Perhaps it has to do with prior experience; maybe it has to do with expectation. But both prior experiences and expectations of the future are deeply influenced by social conditioning.
In the end,
choice itself is derived from these sorts of factors, and to some this may seem no choice at all, but rather an inevitable end determined by yet another valence of circumstance. Nonetheless, I dislike predestination in theology, so why should I presume it in science until such time as diverse disciplines agree to present the argument? Indeed, it is possible that, from the Big Bang, everything that occurs is mathematically predetermined. Yet, so broadly applied, that determinism does not intrude on our function; we must still make choices, although if, in fact, we choose to not decide at all, and thus sit around waiting for the next sign from God or Universe until such time as we are all dead and the species extinct, that, too, would be right for having been determined in advance. As we can read these signs and suggestions with comparatively better clarity than observing the stars for omens—lest, of course, that omen be the sudden detonation of our nearest star, for instance—it seems to me that until such time as we might identify and calculate
all the factors that pertain to our universally predetermined reality, we ought to continue to behave in such a manner as presumes a generally free will.
Or, to be simpler, we might say that to point to the influence of genetics, circumstance, and social conditioning in order to establish the notion of choice as a fallacy is useless until such time as we understand enough to make it useful.
If some still require an even simpler summary, it is this: If you decide to not go to work tomorrow, or to not attend classes, that may well be predetermined from the moment of the Big Bang, or even before. But this fact would be insufficient to demand sympathy from bosses or professors, and that lack of sympathy, too, would be predetermined. Thus, one should not be surprised, nor protest the injustice of, being fired from one's job or failing the midterm exam. Certainly, one might lament, and that, too, would be predetermined, but in the end it all adds up the same.
Thus, what compels the choice of our fictitious example? How should she choose among her preferred mates? Aesthetics might incline her toward a hairy chest and back, or a bald man with a mustache. Indeed, the circumstances of social conditioning might well incline her toward a man who asserts his machismo as opposed to a more reserved character more harmoniously associated with what we commonly refer to as "his feminine side".
And
still, there are choices aplenty in a place like Tacoma. Should we pretend that the choice is, in fact, out of her hands, that the outcome was writ before the question conceived?
Certainly, we might, but it is no way to live. As it seems we agree, there comes a nexus of circumstance at which one makes what we call a
choice. By the time we have accounted for the influence of circumstance—including social conditioning—what degree of influence should we assert on behalf of genetics? I would propose that this influence is relatively small.
Which leads to your consideration of health psychology:
My health psycology lecture actually wants the psych removed from biopsychoscocial because she doesnt belive anything comes from our minds, everything either comes from our biology or our social enviroment. Im not sure i compleatly agree but its really hard to argue against thats for sure
I would suggest that the solution lies somewhere in between two absolutes, albeit closer to the argument against the removal of psych from the biopsychosocial. Even if, as I have long theorized, the brain is not a generative organ but, rather, a filter, what comes from our minds is the result of this filtration. Genetics might analogously be compared to a blank circuitboard, which provides diverse paths for the flow and regulation of information. Circumstance provides the software that determines how these paths and gates are used, how the information flows and is regulated. Still, though, as the user—e.g., the self—controls to some degree the input of data, it is this data that determines the produce of the mind. In other words, the user, by putting in data, compels the program—e.g. the mind—to put out certain results. Among these results are recognitions and realizations, abstract ideas, and, if we might overlook some others for the sake of brevity, also our
choices.
Thus, if we look at a problem from a biosocial perspective, we will, eventually, encounter the psychological. And in this, I would propose a possible answer for the question of removing the psychological aspect from biopsychosocial considerations.
Also, and perhaps more directly, in considering the matter of how choices are determined, we might turn back to our neighbor's proposal regarding the automation of belief and respond that, at such a point that the automation might occur, the proposition is so broad as to have no relevant functional value. That is, only by immersing the concept of
choice in an obfuscating solution of generality such that the word no longer has any useful meaning can we agree that people do not choose their beliefs.
We might consider the testimony of our friend
Phlogistician—
Phlogistician said:
I have dated a variety of girls, before settling down. I experimented. Some people settle with the first person they hook up with, 'love at first sight' though eh?
It's all about choices, and compatability.
—which, by the variety of potential mates experimented with, suggests the breadth of any possible genetic inclination. Certainly, there are some kinds and forms of people who did not make the list, but it is perhaps more significant to note that various attributes—which we may infer in some cases to be disparate or even opposing—did, in fact, receive sincere consideration.
Likewise, in turning back to choosing beliefs in general, we might consider that, while some may be, by genetics—e.g. brain structure, such as the nature and function of the alleged "God module"—in such a manner that some are more inclined to accept, analyze, and even believe in myth as reality, there is a staggering diversity of religious models and assertions to consider.
I would thus propose that, while some have greater need of religious belief than others, and while this need may be subject to certain degrees of genetic influence, the outcome pertaining to which religious myth one believes, and the nature of its specifics, is subject to various considerations that—as the
prima facie argument suggests—despite social conditioning is subject to the immediate influence of an individual's will.
Not to put too fine a point on it, of course.
My thanks, of course, to both of you for providing such an excellent circumstance to consider.
