The thermodynamic miracle

The question in regards to human development has been ongoing and annoying for far too long. Is it nature? Is it nurture? As in most either/or debates, the most logical answer is somewhere in between.

How much of the human condition, in the form of personality and behavior, is genetic? The primary reason used to dismiss genetics as a driver of personality development is an open attack on fate. If everything is genetic, then everything is predetermined, everything is a much in place as the color of the eyes or skin.

How much of the human condition is from nurturing and conditioning? This would suggest a differing means of determination, human beings are no more than the combination of their influences.

Birth order, genetic make-up, Skinnerism.... this-ism, that-ism, ism-ism-ism...

Consider a few things, if you will...

We know, from the sad story of Thalidomide, that chemicals ingested during pregnancy can affect the physical make-up. Alcohol, tobacco, pretty much any form of chemical ingestion: the body can be changed while being made up.

We also know, from medical research, that the body changes, not only as it ages, but from external circumstance. Again, chemicals (or foods) ingested, but also circumstances; stress kills.

Two odd things, now...

One: there was an article in Psychology Today, back in the early '80's, that told of a child being born with an undetermined ailment. After much examination, it was determined that the child was born with a peptic ulcer, the type normally associated with long term stress. This was a tad difficult to explain in a newborn. Doctors began to assess the mother's life and lifestyle during the pregnancy, and discovered that the mother and father had separated shortly after she'd become pregnant. The father (or rather, donor) went a little, well... batshit insane, calling at all hours of the night, harassing the woman, throwing rocks through the windows, etc. (NOT a good role model...)

Two: on an episode of the television program CSI: the notion of the behavior of twins separated at birth was raised, and the (then) main character, "Gruesome" Grissom stated that it is no surprise about the twins. After all, he said, they see the world, literally, through the same eyes, hear with the same ears. Why is it so surprising that they would see the world the same, be attracted to the same type of person, be drawn to the same type of career?

Consider: the human body has a form of cellular memory, imprints made into the brain and body, electrochemical reactions invisible to the eye but deeply ingrained.

The human female, at birth, comes equipped with the entirety of her reproductive egg content. These eggs are present at birth, only so many to a customer, as it were. They remain a constant until menopause. These eggs, then, represent something suggested in Frank Herbert's Dune: the human female, being female, carries inside her a lasting echo of everything her life has brought her. Each new experience is added, cellular memories building, and thus, in a chemical form, attached to the egg, the pending generation.

The human male does not have sperm at birth. This is something that develops, and while the changes would be similar, the male creates billions of sperm, only to have them sent away. These seed cells are created every day, huge production but of only limited duration. It would appear that these cells are created as a form of cellular moments, created in a "now" that is ever-changing and at best temporary.

Perhaps, more than anything else, this is the primary difference between the XX (cellular memories) and the XY (cellular moments).

When in the graphic novel Watchmen, written by Alan Moore, one character speaks of the thermodynamic miracle of human life, he mentions the staggering odds of THIS woman meeting THIS man at THAT moment and somehow beating the odds and creating another human being.

Ask anyone that has had difficulty in conceiving and they will be glad to explain just how nigh impossible it is for a human female to get pregnant. Those odds are indeed staggering; the fact that there is human life at all is astonishing, but to see so many billions...

The only question you should be asking at this point is: So what?

Consider the family unit. Any family unit will do: yours, someone else's, whatever... A large family is best for these purposes. Ever wonder why one sibling is so different than the others? Not just the odd little physical quirks but those occasions when it appears that one (or more) is totally unlike the others that even the family themselves have to wonder: what the hell happened there? Everyone raised in the same house, same values, diet....

Well, how about: XX brought the past, everything up until that one moment of conception, and XY brought that moment of conception. That which was and has been and that which is combine, and at conception, each of us becomes in that instant that which shall be.

And then the process begins again...

This make more sense to me than most other theories.