[lbo-talk] Let's Build

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Even if we assume that "neurological structure" is shaped by open space 
environments (a highly speculative claim), Woj is confusing cause and 
effect here.  The "cognitive perference", according to his speculation, 
is the dependent variable, not the independent variable.  Leave out all 
the pop-neuroscience jargon, and Woj is just saying that people like the 
kind of environment they grew up in.  There's nothing "hardwired" about 
it, unless you believe in the Lamarckian genetic transmission of 
acquired traits.

Miles

[WS:] Miles, if you have nothing substantive to add to my speculation, could
you at least refrain from ad hominems?  I said exactly what I meant - that
experience is the IV and neurological structure is the DV.  I also know that
there is empirical support for that proposition in some areas of cognition,
and I can do bibliography research to find the refs (but so can you.)  The
speculative part is that I am not sure if that effect can be extended to the
general experience of the environment.  

I sense that you are apprehensive about the idea of cognitive and
psycho-motor differences among people being grounded in biology rather than
solely in culture (learning), but a priori dismissal of the idea of inborn
characteristics solely because some research in that area had questionable
political connections in the past does not look like a very rational
approach to science.  For example, Noam Chomsky also took the 'inborn'
position on language in his rebuttal of the learning only" behaviorism.

Wojtek

Wojtek