Fascinates me how much hardwiring there is in any animal, humans included, yet we maintain that we are beings with entirely free choice.<br /><br />Take a dog pup from its litter at birth and isolate it from other dogs for a couple of years. Give it a big beef bone. The dog will chew it for a while and then bury it. Then the dog will dig it up a week later. So where does that knowledge come from apart from hardwiring?<br /><br />Watch your kid being born and shortly after placed in his or her mother's arms. Poor little bugger is blinded by lights and maybe in pain from being stretched out after being curled up inside, and suddenly dry all over with rough cold towels and stuff where there was soft warm fluid a short time ago. Despite all that the hands and lips go for the teat and know exactly what to do to live. So where does that knowledge come from apart from hardwiring?<br /><br />Millions of other examples in all life forms.<br /><br />The question is how much else that we can't see so obviously is hardwired? <br /><br />Some time in the future we might know, but I suspect that a lot of things that some people say are matters of choice, like sexuality or honesty or bullying, are hardwired in the genes for a lot of people. <br /><br />Some things you can change, like teaching your dog not to poke its nose into the kitchen tidy, but other things you can't, like teaching it not to bury its bones in gravel if that's all it can find. <br /><br />Might turn out to be unfair if we're expecting dogs not to bury bones, or thieves not to be thieves, when they can't help it.
