Quote:Karnal wrote
True, but instinct is driven by habit, which initially, is conscious thought. We chose to do things a few times, they become habit, then instinct, then over a few generations, genetics.
Painters and musicians, gamblers and alcoholics sometimes pass these traits on.
The sins of the father are visited upon the son.
Quote:Helian wrote
No one chooses to get into the habit of the sex drive.
Guess you haven't heard that a standing cock has no conscience.
Both good points. I think Karnal is right in that instinct is deeply ingrained habit, and that after, say, hundreds of years it becomes "genetic". Our most frequent habits are the oldest instincts. Like the desire for group association and protection is probably as old as human beings themselves. But, I think Helian has a point that the sex drive must be primordial. Otherwise, we get stuck in a regress argument whereby human beings were taught by some "thing" external to themselves on how and why to reproduce. In short, if the sex drive is not innate, it must come from without. This doesn't make sense as it makes human beings out to be empty vessels waiting to be filled with information, and only then can it act at all. (If it is true we are empty vessels then the regress argument falls into further problems, like, how does the human learn? Is learning how to learn taught as well? If so, then we must learn how to learn on learning, and so on
ad infinitum. Contrary to this, human beings must be primordially equipped with something like "grasping mechanisms").
The idea of the sex drive being the motor of existence isn't old. I am sure Plato stated
eros was the basis of all life.
Freud thought eros was learned - through unconscious systems like the Oedepal Complex. Sometimes though, things go awry and you get fetishes.
Drug addicts have a similar instinct towards drugs. Some have them towards money. I know sex seems more compulsive than other drives, but try going without food for a while. This is why people in religious and spiritual traditions fast. You can learn about your instincts, and you can learn how to overcome them - but they are not "you".
Our instincts are not as powerful as evolutionary biology gives them credit for. Nor are they are not the basis for our identity, as sexual politics would have you believe.
Instincts CAN be changed - or at the very least, known.
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