Nature vs Nurture, Learning vs Instinct

Learning vs Instinct (sometimes characterised as Innateness vs Learning, or Genes vs Environment, etc). People, again, things are NOT THIS SIMPLE. The above is a false dichotomy. There are extremely inflexible learnt behaviours, for instance. And then there's epigenetics, the inheritence of genetic changes due to environmental cues... Probe a little deeper and stop vascillating between two extremes, both of which are wrong. Matt Ridley's NATURE VIA NURTURE might be a good place to start

The instinct to learn

It is often assumed, in casual conversation, that everything which children know they were taught or learnt in some way (often by trial and error). However there is definitely not only an ‘instinct’ to learn...babies are smart enough to generalise and know complex things, without any instruction whatsoever.
-For example, a baby is pointed to a cup, taught that it is called a cup. They immediately recognise all distinct cup-shaped objects as cups, despite never having been taught this. Crucially, this behaviour continues in adulthood.
-Humans develop a knowledge of "physics" early on. Young infants are surprised by the tricks of magicians, because, watching them, they instinctively feel that some law has been violated. Due to their curiosity-imbibed fumblings, they've learnt to walk, talk, and to interact with objects, and they know what is not possible. As a physicist does, they've already built models of reality which they've adapted in line with their 'experiments'
-Body language!

I think a lot more of what humans do is instinct than is generally recognised. Walking, talking, thinking. Even without being taught mathematical operations, people would continually re-invent addition, multiplication, etc, as ways of solving real-life problems, such as how to share food amongst many people. {Mathematicians were once ethicists / "from the priest clan"!!!}.

Have a good, long think about what other learning mechanisms are hardwired in to you, and how they influence your behaviour, and your opinions. If you're not a lazy arsewipe and do this, you'll be absolutely intrigued by your findings.

**** "Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"