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Author Topic: Why are people so different?
Zatamon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1394

posted 14 July 2002 06:24 PM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Why are human beings so different from each other?

Considering the common genetic and biological inheritance which makes us one species, you would expect human beings to fall into a behavior pattern better defined than seems to be the case.

If you take any other species on the Planet and put members of that species into an identical situation, you expect them to react similarly to each other, with some minor variations.

Yet, human beings react to the same stimuli often in a diagonally opposite way: love and hate, pleasure and disgust, enthusiasm and fear, joyful acceptance and vehement rejection.

I know a lot of it is cultural, but it manifests itself even among people with similar cultural background.

Babble is full of examples.

I know, individual upbringing, personal experiences, ‘temperament’ both physical and mental strengths and weaknesses have a lot to do with it.

Yet, I am always surprised when I witness different people’s often violently opposite reaction to the exact same thought or idea.

Are we just too complex to be predictable? Has nature overcomplicated our 'design'? Is it some kind of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle operating in the macro-world?

Just curious. Suggestions?


From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1064

posted 14 July 2002 07:04 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Considering the common genetic and biological inheritance which makes us one species, you would expect human beings to fall into a behavior pattern better defined than seems to be the case.

You should maybe define "difference"; but to me, it suggests mostly that our "common genetic and biological inheritance" doesn't really count for all that much.

quote:
Are we just too complex to be predictable? Has nature overcomplicated our 'design'? Is it some kind of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle operating in the macro-world?

Yes; I doubt it; probably; and I have no suggestions. Other than the possibility that human difference is an evolutionary device designed to instill a little humility in us. But I don't believe that for a second. Humility is useful in societies, which we developed more or less consciously without much reference to evolutionary forces: meaningless otherwise.


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 14 July 2002 08:17 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Yes; I doubt it; probably; and I have no suggestions.

Well, looks like we've answered that set of questions. That was short!

Thanks, 'lance!

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Zatamon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1394

posted 14 July 2002 08:38 PM      Profile for Zatamon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One possible answer (I am sure there are many): When it appears we react to the same idea, we are actually reacting to our own ‘filtered’ version of it. Very few of us read every word in a sentence and analyze the full meaning of it – we tend to ‘fish out’ words that have some emotional meaning for us and we react to what that word means to us, rather than what it actually means in that sentence. So in this sense we do not react to the same idea at all. Does that imply that we are not that different at all, only sloppy speakers/writers/thinkers/listeners/readers?
From: where hope for 'hope' is contemplated | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged

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