Learning is the point of life

I've always thought of the nature versus nurture debate as the extent to which parents can feel bad for the way they raised their kids. For example, I watched a video in my psychology class where parents of schizophrenics were told that schizophrenia very rarely linked to genetics and I could see their faces fall as they wondered if they did this to their children (I believe currently we believe that parental style has little bearing on whether or not a person will be schizophrenic, which just makes this cruel). Even though we're almost through this week now, I thought I'd clarify what I mean by nature and by nurture.

In my opinion, nature-based traits are ones that you are born with, things that are determined by your genetics before you have any outside influences. When you're a newborn, you're acting solely out of nature's influence. Nurture, on the other hand, is all the ways your environment influences you. Any behavioral reinforcement you've gotten, any learned behaviors are all nurture-based.

Now, when you think about it, life is all about being influenced by your environment. Most days you're on this Earth, you learn more things, have your behavior and your thinking shaped. You learn how to talk to people around you based on what works (and is responded to in a positive way, therefore reinforced) and what doesn't (and is responded to negatively, therefore punished), and you become a better conversationalist. From the day you were born, things that seem innate now, like walking and talking, were huge things you had to learn. I don't subscribe to the tabula rasa theory, which purports that all babies are blank slates, just waiting to learn, but I believe that most things are nurture-based. You may be more inclined to be shy, but if you're constantly thrust into the spotlight and have a positive experience of it, I believe you're more likely to develop outgoing characteristics.

If we're talking about which most influences personality, then we have to define personality. If you act differently toward your parents than toward your friends, does that make you two different people? Most people feel they have one unified personality and just show different sides of it to different groups, but if two traits conflict then what is our "real" personality? And what of flaws? If a person has anger-management issues that they learn to control, are they still short-tempered because that is their nature and something they have to actively control? Or have their conquered that flaw because now the personality they exhibit is calm and collected?

Personally, I think the idea that just because someone has to work at their flaws means they are always there is depressing. I believe that, in almost all ways, nurture overcomes nature. You may be more skilled or more happy or more comfortable when the two are in harmony, but if there is a conflict, I believe you will act in a way more attributable to the behaviors and thought processes you've learned throughout your life far more than what genetic disposition you may have been born with. Most people are out there today doing things we couldn't dream of doing as a baby and all of it feels so effortless. Things we learn have been so ingrained into our knowledge pool and our personality that it begins to feel innate. And personally, with all of the beautiful things in this world that can only exist because of learning, I think it's best that way.