How much of our traits come from old instincts?

[breathless]

For example..

In a more primal state is was biologically pressing for a male to mate with as many women as possible. Does this account for a significant part of male infidelity?

Females had a biological urge to mate with the strongest male they could find for protection, food, and stronger offspring. Does this somewhat account for the types of men women are attracted to and their infidelity when they become dissatisifed with the 'strength' of their mate?

Access to food was the primary day to day concern aswell as safe shelter. A primal version of ourselves would do anything in his power to get as much food for himself and mate and to obtain the best shelter. Does this relate to human greed? An inborn need to accumulate as much as possible out of some no longer rational fear for survival.

Thoughts and other examples? How much do you think this effects our underlying thought process? The cop out argument will be used, but I think is only relevant if we use these sort of examples as an excuse rather than a partial explanation.

[jackilyn]

no its called evolution

[breathless]

The development of a rational brain with memory and the ability to postulate future consequences is evolution. This allows us to choose to do other than our old instincts suggest, it doesn't mean they aren't there and don't influence our decisions and our first thought responses.

[jackilyn]

oh yea let me see your degree

[princenething]

what about those dudes that dont believe in evolution. (therefore, no old instincts)
whats up with them? my instinct tells me thats freaking goofy.


P_N

[Mav-O-Matic]

how about competition, the need to be dominant over others? or a mother's instinct to protect her children? there are a lot of things that seem somewhat instinctual, plenty of examples could be thought of.

[Chep]

looking at competition that way is a paradigm not a rule. same with mothering instinct, hense bad mothers.

[Linty McGinty]

i don't know if it's true, there are a few fishy things about evolution (like the explosion of every known animal phyla during the cambrian period, which took a tiny fraction of the time taken going from bacteria to protozoa) but i have read that our hindbrain is reptilian, midbrain was added with the mammals, cortex is primate and enlarged frontal lobes are hominid. it would seem then, that looking at early hominids or early humans for our instincts is only part of the picture, and the urge to be dominant, to produce offspring, to fear that which is lethal and to

[feed]

goes back many millions of years.

this idea is a bit simplistic and probably way off, but maybe our more refined, community type instincts such as hospitality, courageous selflessness and learning come from the more recent developments, and the "base" instincts dealing with pure survivalism and reproduction come from the hindbrain?

[Pushead]

If you ask Hawk, all of it. But they're all bad, so you're going to hell.

[Linty McGinty]

what old instincts... the ones from 4000 years ago or something, heheh.

[Leviathan]

breathlesss said:

For example..

In a more primal state is was biologically pressing for a male to mate with as many women as possible. Does this account for a significant part of male infidelity?

.

Has this actually been proven? Considering the difficulty of having children yet alone their dependancy on you whe they are benig raised, wouldn't you think that would lead to monogomy?

[Linty McGinty]

you make a fine point

the science of natural selection does pretty much back it up though, if you believe it. if somebody didn't have the instinctual urge to bone and bone like mad, then in the long run their genes are more likely to disappear.