[Paleopsych] Fwd: Tortured Souls & Eunuchs at Orgies...

[HowlBloom at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/6/2005 1:17:56 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Howl Bloom  
writes:

 
 
In a message dated 3/3/2005 8:08:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
joe at quirk.net writes:


"Once you win, you've got a reputation to live up to, even if  you weren't so 
inclined, you get surrounded by an entourage that's also  heavily invested in 
your reputation," said Redelmeier. "So you end up  sleeping properly every 
night, eating well, exercising regularly every  day."




Your points are good ones, Joe.  It's like the problem of  resilient kids.  
Roughly one out of ten kids who grow up with single,  abusive, drug or 
drink-addled mothers end up as very successful adults.   What do these kids have in 
common?  The find mentors, substitute parents  to whom they bond.
 
This leaves us with a puzzle.  Do these kids become more successful  because 
they have an attachment to a significat other, an emotionally  meaningful, 
nurturing other, something most tormented kids like this  lack?  Or do these 
resilient kids have an attachment to a mentor because  the are born with better 
social instincts, the instincts of self-confidence  and extroversion that make 
them bold enough to find others they can attach  themselves to?
 
Which came first, the confidence or the social connection?  Is the  success 
these kids have later in life due to their outgoing nature or due to  the 
mentors that outgoing nature brings?  Or are the two--confidence and  social 
connection--inseparable?
 
Is there a gene-tweak or a womb-experience that makes for more confident  
kids and others who are born with shyness and overwhelming  insecurities?  In 
twin studies by an Italian researcher, regular  sonographic scans of the two kids 
in the womb showed that there was a battle  taking place in utero.  One twin 
managed to take over the living room of  the womb--the central chamber,  The 
other kid was shoved aside and had to  gestate in a corner, in a sort-of closet 
of the womb.
 
When the two finally made it from the uterus into the outside word, the  
winner of the womb war was outgoing and self-confident.  When a stranger  showed 
up, the winner ran over clearly expecting to win the stranger  over.  It saw 
this new social contact as an opportunity.
 
The loser in the womb wars saw the same stranger and hugged its mother's  
legs in panic, then ran off to something eerily like its old uterine  closet--it 
hid in a side room.  ThIs kid saw a stranger as a danger, not  as a new 
opening.
 
Did the winner of the womb wars win by chance and then gain the benefits  of 
his land grab for intra-uterine space?  Or was there some  gene-tweak that 
predestined him to win?
 
Does womb-real estate change the nature of the kid--does it change  the way 
that genes express themselves?  Or does some small  gene-fluke exist even in 
what we think of as genetically identical  kids?   Howard
 
----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The  Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Visiting  Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core 
Faculty  Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of  Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big  Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American  
Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society,  
Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,  
International Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member:  Youthactivism.org; 
executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
For  information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:  
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from 
The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, 
see  www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The Evolution  of Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net






----------
Howard Bloom
Author of The Lucifer Principle: A  Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of 
History and Global Brain: The Evolution  of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 
21st Century
Visiting Scholar-Graduate  Psychology Department, New York University; Core 
Faculty Member, The Graduate  Institute
www.howardbloom.net
www.bigbangtango.net
Founder:  International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic 
of Evolution  Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The 
Big Bang Tango  Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American 
Association for the  Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, 
Academy of Political  Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International 
Society for Human  Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; 
executive editor -- New  Paradigm book series.
For information on The International Paleopsychology  Project, see: 
www.paleopsych.org
for two chapters from 
The Lucifer  Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, 
see  www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of  Mass Mind from the Big 
Bang to the 21st Century, see  www.howardbloom.net

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