# Tabula Rasa or Blank State.
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416
**Category:** Philosophy
**Created:** [May 19, 2007, 7:41am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416 "2007-05-19T07:41:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 7:41am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/1 "2007-05-19T07:41:39Z")
What do people think of John Locke’s interpretation of tabula rasa or blank state of mind on the understanding of human birth?
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### Author:  [@RicDemian](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/RicDemian)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 8:00am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/2 "2007-05-19T08:00:58Z")
> [@Joker](#):
>
> What do people think of John Locke’s interpretation of tabula rasa or blank state of mind on the understanding of human birth?
I’ll give you a review of Pinker’s tour de force when I finish it. Maybe the best book I’ve read on human nature. Gives the lie to the position that there’s no innate human nature and everything is learned.
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### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 8:31am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/3 "2007-05-19T08:31:01Z")
> [@RicDemian](#):
>
> > [@Joker](#):
> >
> > What do people think of John Locke’s interpretation of tabula rasa or blank state of mind on the understanding of human birth?
>
> I’ll give you a review of Pinker’s tour de force when I finish it. Maybe the best book I’ve read on human nature. Gives the lie to the position that there’s no innate human nature and everything is learned.
Are you saying the book supports the theory or is opposed to it?
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### Author:  [@Tab](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Tab)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 8:57am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/4 "2007-05-19T08:57:00Z")
Locke should have read some neurobiology. 😕
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### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 9:20am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/5 "2007-05-19T09:20:55Z")
> [@Tabula Rasa](#):
>
> Locke should have read some neurobiology. 😕
I will go into my own take on Locke’s philosophical premise with my limited knowledge of biology.
A man is born with the potential of knowledge and intelligence genetically in that abstract thinking is possible through the empty blank bodily facilities but at the same time in birth it does not exist entirely due to the fact that knowledge or intelligence is learned being acquired.
( Intelligence or knowledge is not a given even in it’s genetical extension for if a man grows up beyond the bounds of society or civilized conventions he shall grow up like a young child in a man’s body.)
How can you explain that two people that are twins of the same genetical stock to be so completely different if one is to reside in the bounds of civilization while the other is amongst the wilderness?
The obvious difference will be that the one twin will be in a enviroment of acquiring man made concepts where the other twin will live in a state of basic survival where he has no need of such concepts and at the same time is the farest from them.
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### Author:  [@Tab](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Tab)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 11:45am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/6 "2007-05-19T11:45:43Z")
Rather than the slate being blank at birth, it is more like it is full - scribbled upon, covered in almost random squiggles. Hyper-connected. As the baby grows, according to the level and sensory nature of the stimulation it recieves, this full slate of connectivity gets portions of itself erased, weakened, and others areas strengthened, blocked in with extra colour and detail as skills are refined.
Like an Jack-of-all-trade’s tool-kit with a wrench for every occaision - those that are unused down the years quickly rust away.
However the essential genetic template of how a brain processes incoming sensory information into behavioural response - its ‘fist’ if you like - that I think is set in stone - supported by the observations of twins, though being brought up in very different circumstances, making a very great number of almost identical choices.
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### Author:  [@Ierrellus](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Ierrellus)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/7 "2007-05-19T13:58:29Z")
Hey, Tab! 😃
Yep, genetics has more to do with the so-called “sins of the fathers” than it has to do with blank slates. One could reasonable assert that the human brain, developing in an infant is open to all sorts of input. But survival necessity does not equip the infant with an unprepared brain. It already has, even in the womb, inbuilt processes that are later interpreted as ideas.
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### Author:  [@RicDemian](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/RicDemian)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 7:52pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/8 "2007-05-19T19:52:18Z")
> [@Joker](#):
>
> > [@RicDemian](#):
> >
> > > [@Joker](#):
> > >
> > > What do people think of John Locke’s interpretation of tabula rasa or blank state of mind on the understanding of human birth?
> >
> > I’ll give you a review of Pinker’s tour de force when I finish it. Maybe the best book I’ve read on human nature. Gives the lie to the position that there’s no innate human nature and everything is learned.
>
> Are you saying the book supports the theory or is opposed to it?
“It gives the lie to” ie. it shows “blank slate” metaphor is wrong. We have an evolutionary inheritance that is hardwired into what we bring into the world. I fervently recommend Pinker’s book. Opens many doors to our contemporary understanding of human nature.
The Blank State (Steven Pinker)
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### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 7:55pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/9 "2007-05-19T19:55:40Z")
Let me try another example:
A computer has all the parts and facilities in it’s creation to process any data but if it is to succeed processing sensory data it requires a cd rom for the input of data so that the computer itself may acquire the data.
( Think about a primitive computer as the subject we are comparing the computer to is the primitive human mind.)
A human being has all the parts and facilities in it’s creation to process any data but if it is to succeed processing sensory data it requires acquisition and learning from another human being or society specifically to learn.
In both examples both creations has all the parts and facilities to comprehend or construct the usage of information but at the same time both creations need a outside source for usage of the potentiality.
Without the outside source no acquisition takes place.
( Without a outside source genetics are just there with the acquisition of nothing. Without a outside source a computer just sits on a shelf with dust everywhere.)
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### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 7:59pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/10 "2007-05-19T19:59:33Z")
> [@RicDemian](#):
>
> > [@Joker](#):
> >
> > > [@RicDemian](#):
> > >
> > > > [@Joker](#):
> > > >
> > > > What do people think of John Locke’s interpretation of tabula rasa or blank state of mind on the understanding of human birth?
> > >
> > > I’ll give you a review of Pinker’s tour de force when I finish it. Maybe the best book I’ve read on human nature. Gives the lie to the position that there’s no innate human nature and everything is learned.
> >
> > Are you saying the book supports the theory or is opposed to it?
>
> “It gives the lie to” ie. it shows “blank slate” metaphor is wrong. We have an evolutionary inheritance that is hardwired into what we bring into the world. I fervently recommend Pinker’s book. Opens many doors to our contemporary understanding of human nature.
> The Blank State (Steven Pinker)
Look above to my last analogy.
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### Author:  [@Nothingness](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Nothingness)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/11 "2007-05-19T20:36:20Z")
I think there there is a middle way between those who claim innate ideas and those who claim blank slate. There is an underlying malleable architecture that can be altered unconsiously or self-altered depending on what kind of data is recieved from out and what kind of data is created within the mind.
I know when I read Hume and he spoke of impressions, I was like, what do these impressions impress upon? How can a ball of perceptions make inferences from habit? Now Hume didn’t mean it in that way, but that’s what came to my mind. Only later did I find Kant and think that he was explaining this architecture and aspects of it and how it generates the outside world out of the data, etc.
Today, I might say that Kant was exploring aspects and limitations of the brain.
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### Author:  [@Joker](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Joker)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tabula-rasa-or-blank-state/16416/12 "2007-05-19T20:50:44Z")
> [@Nothingness](#):
>
> I think there there is a middle way between those who claim innate ideas and those who claim blank slate. There is an underlying malleable architecture that can be altered unconsiously or self-altered depending on what kind of data is recieved from out and what kind of data is created within the mind.
>
> I know when I read Hume and he spoke of impressions, I was like, what do these impressions impress upon? How can a ball of perceptions make inferences from habit? Now Hume didn’t mean it in that way, but that’s what came to my mind. Only later did I find Kant and think that he was explaining this architecture and aspects of it and how it generates the outside world out of the data, etc.
>
> Today, I might say that Kant was exploring aspects and limitations of the brain.
My problem with what one calls impressions is that it only comes after the blank state and not before.