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Blondguy,
I've been reading some of your posts . . . good stuff. And you write in a way that's simple and easy to understand. It's impressive.
Anyhow . . . let's get to this topic. What you consider "innately programmed" actually only applies to certain cultures. The Eskimos regularly shared their wives with strangers who passed their tribes because to them, in that environment, allowing strangers to fuck their wives was considered an aspect of survival. Even the kids just hung out by the igloos and fooled around while strangers PLUGGED their mommies and shot their SPERM DEEP INTO HER VAGINA. Hurray!
What you describe applies to our culture or at least one that follows our ECONOMIC/SOCIAL system. However, we're born, we walk around, shit, eat, and die. That's about the only natural things we experience.
Most will die never understanding that his/her emotions were nothing but decisions. A simple fucking decision and that's it. Think about this . .. everybody in your town, city, state, country will just DIE never realizing that his/her sulking over spilled milk was nothing but a learned habit.
All it takes is . . . ________.
But in order to get there, at the very least begin with the little exercise I suggested. Empty your mind . .. open your mind. . . walk out . .. and then walk left or right. This is YOUR DECISION.
This was written in hopes that perhaps 1 of you will get it. Most won't . . .and this is the source of suffering to the self and the World.
First off, thanks very much. I've also noticed your posts as being very unique in their perspective, which I think is invaluable on this forum.
To your point about cultural vs. innate bias, I'll say this. In general, the evolutionary psychologist must weigh a number of competing factors in order to decide whether or not a trait (or in our case, behaviour) is innate or socially constructed (whether it is genetic or memetic).
Some cases are fairly straightforward. Behaviours that vary wildly across cultures (such as a culture's specific words for objects, dress, food preparation) are obviously based almost entirely on culturally specific factors. However, even in these cases there are certain innate behaviours (such as the learning of language in general, the use of clothing, the need for food) that are certainly innately programmed. Basically, the fact that I say "ham" and someone else says "jambon" is completely down to culture. But, the fact that we both have learned words for the object and can say them, is completely genetic. It's coded into us how to infer language rules from experience.
A lot of PU material is devoted to looking at cases where a social rule (meme) actually overrides our genetic programming, so that we act against the way we "naturally would." For example, a girl putting up an ASD even though she does actually want to have sex. In this case, we can see an innate behaviour can be usurped by a socially conditioned behaviour, and the person will act AS IF it's a totally natural, knee-jerk reaction.
In the case of the Eskimo (or "Inuit" as we now call them), I would say that their cultural norms may have overridden the men's natural reaction of jealousy, or possibly just that they were EXPECTED to do it, so they had to simply confront their jealousy and learn to live with it, in much the same way as a jealous husband has to confront his anger and fight his natural instinct to kill his wife's lover, because the rules of our society say murder is not allowed. Furthermore, this is a special case of a rare behaviour that does not occur in many other cultures, as it is clearly maladaptive for the reasons stated in my previous post.
I will generally argue, like you, that much of human behaviour is socially conditioned, but also that much of it is genetically conditioned too. I think we both fundamentally agree that the way to be happy is to understand whence this conditioning comes, and then transcend its limitations by making truly free choices ourselves.
CHAT
. However, I think I didn't quite make it the way I was supposed to... In the end I felt like I had done something wrong, like my decisions weren't totally made up on the spot. It was a strange feeling.