Talk:Tabula rasa

message: I don't know who added the bit on John Money, but it is not only not appropriate, the guy's work was largely thrown in the trash over the Reimer incident. Gender as a social construction is a theory, but in the article it is written as dogma. Should be stroked out.
Also a general comment, tabula rasa means no innate 'knowledge'. The last word is the most important and I'm not seeing the distinction made. No one argues that human beings are born as ghosts, without biological influences (there are no 0% nature, 100% nurture arguers). We are born with propensities, temperaments, preferences; tabula rasa argues we are not born with knowledge! Ie. not born with ideas or content, such as what my name is, where I live, what a shoe is, who my parents are, (but now more interestingly), that I'm human, that I have 2 arms, that I can crawl eventually, walk eventually, even ideas about gravity or expectations of object behavior (cause and effect). Now the latter 2 ideas are disputed because of developmental psych habituation studies seem to suggest very young children do have some expectations about how objects should behave. Whether this would do away with a tabula rasa idea depends on if we accept this expectation of object permanence, gravity, cause and effect is knowledge. Was it evolutionary beneficial to hard-wire these ideas in the human brain? On the flipside, could a coherent ordered universe/existence be any other way (ie. the nature of cause & effect, gravity ~ mass, could these relationships as we know them be any other way and at the same time permit human existence?)
99.249.132.81 (talk) 00:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Money Reference and Tabula Rasa is No Innate Knowledge! 

message: I might remove the second assertion, that "all their knowledge comes from sensory experience" because it doesn't seem to me to be the key, but a derivative of it.  Also it's redundant.  The OED defines knowledge as "Facts, information and skills acquired by a person through experience or education."  Knowledge is defined as that which is learned through experience, so saying it comes from experience is unnecessary.  What do you think of "Tabula rasa (Latin: blank slate) is the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without ideas."? (216.70.134.34 (talk) 10:02, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone with better English knowledge than me may make a reference to the fact that in Latin-speaking countries the term is synonym with "nothing", "dumb" etc. This was the initial meaning that Romans used for. We (Romanians) same as Italians and French people, use it novadays in expressions like "he is tabula rasa" meaning that "his knowledge in this domain are close to nothing", or "he is stupid/dumb", or "when I arrived there - tabula rasa", meaning that I did not find what I was expecting to find, or I found nothing. Latin "tabula" refers also to a small piece of furniture used for sitting or eating, the expression has a larger semantic, related also to scarcity of food, for example in English you have the word "table" which come from the latin "tabula", I can't find a good example right now. LaurV 05:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Initial Statement 

message: Are the links to playtr.com and bcpalternative.blogspot.com appropriate? JemeL 07:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the link to playtr.com that remained, as it already existed on the article specific to that topic: Tabula Rasa. jareha 16:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last two links 

message: cute, but not encyclopedic. ... aa:talk 21:38, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  er, incidental musings? 

message: The most simple of references on this and any suject should be your own instincts and intuition, the knowing, without knowing. Which happens to disprove the entire basis of the theory of tabula rasa. If humans were born without ANY content a baby would know to hold its breath under water, a baby deer would not automatically stand up and follow its mother, nor where to locate the spot of the entire body of the mother, where to find food. It would seem that in every single species that there is at least a rudimentary set of instructions coded into the very DNA of every species, varied by the species in extent, but measurable in all none the less. The scientific community would desire this theory of tabula rasa to prove true, if for no other reason than to suck the joy and wonder of life's mysteries out of the equation for everyone else. Their most likely motivation however is to continue the illusion that the scientific community understands the nature of reality, this is about far more than whether or not a species is born with knowledge. If that were the case the over whelming self evident predominance of fact on this matter would have disproven this theory a great long time ago. Even today after all, relativity is still just a theory, as is Darwinian evolution. While they are both excellent theories, they are just that, theories, educated guesses based upon observed phenomenon. nlike relativity however, tabula rasa should have not made it past the drawing board of the theorist. It is self evident that any creature that exhibits any knowledge of any thing after simply being born, has not had any time to acquire experience or to witness these things which it knows upon exiting the womb. Even the very act of standing up is something the baby deer does almost immediately, even before it has seen its mother perform that task it is aware fo how to do it. Much of the talk below doesn't seem to even address the topic, this does, so it should remain in tact, and not be edited. These foundations of natural law are something I have built a career upon.
--Robert D. Johnson, Author of Sui Juris The Law of Full Age  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.38.240 (talk) 02:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: There's also an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer called "Tabula Rasa". It's from the show's sixth season, and in it, a spell is cast that causes the characters to lose all memory of their identities (for instance, Buffy forgets she's the Slayer, and decides that she's named "Joan"). E.g. their mental slates are wiped nearly clean (I say "nearly" because they can still walk, etc., and are still able to speak in fluent English, and seeing as language is a learned thing...). The episode's relatively famous in the fandom and is definitely a reference to the psychological philosophy of Aquinas and Aristotle, so it might be well worth noting here. However, you wouldn't want to put it in "References", as that's where key sources typically go. :) Perhaps a brief pop culture references section? Runa27 19:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I added the Buffy and Lost episodes to this article as long ago as April 2005, and since then the entries have been removed added again (by other people) ... and then removed once more.  People who watch these series feel compelled to add them, and those who think that an encyclopedia can manage without them will remove them.  Personally, I wouldn't mind a popular culture section.  A discussion is needed here first so that a consensus can be reached – either to ensure that such a section is maintained and not removed, or to ensure that such a section is removed should anyone try to add such entries.  Thanks.   — Lee J Haywood 20:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  I am not going to fix it because it contributes to the stupidity of the idea, but saying that sexual identity is due to experience is utter nonsense.  See David Reimer for a horror story as well as John Money. Keith Henson 23:04, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add to references? 

message: What does that mean? 1Z 19:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A propensity to "manage" society, where the real power must be if people are born blank.

message: "Proponents of tabula rasa favor "nurture" in the nature versus nurture debate." Well, as far as I know, one can yet favor "nurture" on this debate and be far from a proponent of tabula rasa. Is not the actual tabula rasa a very radical position that nearly implies that humans have some sort of "immaterial" "soul" that is independent of everything material except learning during life? 
I've seen people saying things such as "mendelism is bourgeoisie science", arguing that language is not an instinct or innate ability of the species, and once, while discussing the subject, someone tried to be sarcastic with me saying that perhaps he was irritated because of too much testosterone in his organism, actually impling that hormones have nothing to do with mood - I was the one arguing for a "not-so-blank" slate. This sort of things form what I know to be "tabula rasa". However, I would say myself that the bulk of human behavioral differences between groups, sexes, individuals and during the lifetime of an individual (mostly on  adulthood, not so much in childhood and adolescence) are due to several levels of individual or collective experiences. And yet I do acknowledge that hormones, brains and genes have their roles, most evidently on anomalities, and that there's human nature, such as language instincts, built on our brains, made by our genes. 
So, am I a blank slater withouth knowing (despite of being accused to be a "biological determinist" by some people), or the term has a much  narrower meaning as I think it has? --Extremophile 01:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  potential straw-man / generalization 

message: I see Aristotle, and Aquinas, and Locke...but no Rousseau. Maybe I'm mixing up Locke and Rousseau (as usual) but didn't Rousseau also use the idea of a 'tabula rasa' (possibly inspired by Locke)?
A philosopher or historian who could clarify this would be great. ^^ Michelle (talk) 03:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: yes.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.24.135 (talk) 04:26, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rousseau? 

message: In De Anima, Aristotle writes variously that "Soul is in a way all things," "The understanding must be unmixed so that it may master all things... anything foreign would obstruct it." However, no one with any understanding of Aristotle could read in this an early instantiation of tabula rasa, or even its beginnings. In the Parva Naturalia and elsewhere, he offers speculations as to which physiognomy is better suited to memorization, and which is the cause of quickness of wit. In De Anima itself, he'll claim that the intellectual prowess of humans beings generally and men specifically, shows itself in the sensitivity of the skin. He writes in the ethics that judgments are perceived; in the physics, that all our thoughts, and even our desires, are determined by the periechon, by what "holds around" us, or our environment.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.57.130.30 (talk) 06:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Aristotle?

message: I've removed this from the architecture section - "Paradoxically, and because of misunderstandings, the tabula rasa may be associated in architectural circles with ideas about Cartesian space and the Cartesian subject rather than with the term's use by Locke.".
The first paragraph is fine relating to the 'blank slate' idea - this is in a widespread lexicon of architectural discourse, the above is not - and as it's unsourced, I've removed it. --Joopercoopers (talk) 22:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cartesian architecture

message: The section on computer science mumbles too much – computer science in general disregard Tabula Rasa as erroneous, no defences. One simply doesn't start a program without initial data, and one doesn't start a program without code. Said: Rursus ☻ 08:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And that said: the computer science need not by necessity be true in this. Being a philosopher, thinking: "now let us regard this state as a tabula rasa, what if ..." (etc.). The computer science is very intent on initial states and development therefrom, so computer science has its specific bias. Said: Rursus ☻ 08:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Revisited: Now, very well formulated, but still we need some citation if such can be found. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 21:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Computer science "rejects" Tabula Rasa

message: Locke and the empiricists used the idea of tabula rasa to counter rationalism of Descartes, should this be mentioned in the article? Wandering Courier (talk) 04:47, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: locke was a strong proponent of rational self-interest. i'm more interested in people using the tabula rasa against locke.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.24.135 (talk) 04:29, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descartes 

message: This section reads:
--
Generally speaking, one can never decide whether a theory is true or not simply by examining what political or philosophical implications it might have (see: Moralistic fallacy). Nevertheless, some have been attracted to, or repulsed by, the notion of the "blank slate" for such reasons. On the one hand, the theory of a "blank slate" is attractive to some since it supposes that drastic innate mental differences between normal human beings do not and cannot exist; therefore, making racism and sexism illogical. On the other hand, the theory means there are no inherent limits to how society can shape human psychology. The opposing view is that human nature is innate at birth and that differences arise from genetics.
--
Sorry, but that is mostly gibberish.  It needs massive cleanup.  I suggest deleting it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.219.151.38 (talk) 09:08, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Politics 

message: Does this really belong in the John Locke series, seeing as he only accounts for a very small part of the article?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.222.95.70 (talk) 19:53, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, especially because Locke never used the term "Tabula rasa"--Logicalgregory 03:56, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Locke 

message: I feel the literature section of this article is particularly weak. Having read Lord of the Flies, I don't think the section is well written or its content particularly relevant. Without citations it is in poor taste to speak for William Golding, whether or not the information is true about his intentions in writing the book. Also I don't think if there were to be one work in the literature section that it should be "Lord of the Flies", which is not primarily concerning the subject matter of the article, tabula rasa. It might be more appropriate to call the section "References in Literature" or something along those lines. 
Zyzda (talk) 04:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literature Section 

message: There might be a confusion of innate ideas and instincts, or structures. I don't think Aristotle was a believer in the "black slate" - I thought he believed in "essences" of things, which come into fruition with the development of the thing. 
Anyways, I think this is a very poor article and it needs some people to clarify this politically painted idea. (I don't believe in the "blank slate" myself, but this is no reason to contaminate articles with questionable assertions.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.223.66.117 (talk) 04:44, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Steven Pinker might not be the best guide for this 

message: The current entry states: “In Locke's philosophy, Tabula rasa was the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate"”
This is quite wrong, what Locke said was:
Children, though they may have Ideas in the Womb, have none innate. Therefore I doubt not but children, by the exercise of their senses
about objects that affect them in the womb receive some few ideas before
they are born, … (Essay Book II Chap 9 Sect 5).
From what Locke said some people might want to infer that Locke was implying that the mind is a blank slate at conception, but this is quite a different thing from being a blank slate at birth.
One can imagine how this might impact on the abortion debate that is currently raging in the USA. --Logicalgregory 07:23, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Locke admitted ideas before birth 

message: The last paragraph claims:
:'The tabula rasa concept became popular in social sciences in the 20th century. Early ideas of eugenics posited that human intelligence correlated strongly with social class, but these ideas were rejected, and the idea that genes (or simply "blood") determined a person's character became regarded as racist'.
::There are various problems here. Firstly, this is desperately 'pop', implying wrongly that all (or just about all) scientists (social - and natural?) followed this route in the 20th century. Secondly, the correlation between (measured) human intelligence and social class is uncontroversial. The controversy surrounds attempted explanations. Thirdly, the view that character is genetically determined is not necessarily seen as racist. All in all, a bit of a dog's dinner! Norvo (talk) 23:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sweeping claims in last paragraph 

message: i think something should be said about the tabula rasa being used against models of "human nature" and rational self-interest, such as that produced by locke. there's a lot of questioning on this page about the lockean use; i wouldn't consider locke a proponent of the tabula rasa in the way it's used in normal, modern discourse. rather, he produced a sort of an out there discussion of human souls that really has nothing to do with the way the term is used today. he rejected a tabula rasa for human behaviour, arguing we're inherently rational/self-interested. locke is actually one of the architects of what we call 'human nature'; the thrust of this article is really incoherent.
it was various socialists, anarchists and proto-anarchists that rejected a fixed human nature that constructed the modern idea of the tabula rasa as a way around liberal assumptions of self-interest, and the logical conclusion that a state is necessary to maintain order. the whole educational thrust of the left is really rooted in this idea.
also, the section on brain function is sort of confusing. the existence of a programmed cortex does not imply a fixed human nature if it builds memories and interpretations through (subconsciously) analyzing human experience; that implies that the nature of the responses is malleable, and not pre-determined. tabula rasa doesn't suggest we are born without brains; it modern terms, it suggests plasticity. as the section cites pinker, it's sort of unclear what it means to say.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.24.135 (talk) 04:56, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  godwin, kropotkin, anarchism 

message: I appreciate the author's attempt to cogently express what are relatively complex concepts in these two sentences:
Critically, multivariate studies show that the distinct faculties of the mind such as memory and reason fractionate along genetic boundaries. Cultural universals such as emotion and the relative resilience of psychological adaptation to accidental biological changes (for instance the David Reimer case of gender reassignment following an accident) also support basic biological mechanisms in the mind.
...but, I worry that most readers will not comprehend what the author intended. Part of the problem involves phrases with ambiguous meaning, e.g., "cultural universals" (perhaps take that out and start the sentence with "Emotion..."?) and "relative resilience of psychological adaptation" (perhaps something like, "the psyche's ability to adapt to sudden and fundamental changes to one's understanding of self, e.g., the David Reimer case of..." - undoubtedly there's a better way to phrase that than what I just wrote, but I want to at least suggest a direction). 
The David Reimer case needs a citation. And it would be groovy if the reference contained a brief description of the case, to further illustrate the point.
References 6 and 7, at least on the surface, seem to support the tabula rasa theory, but they are cited in support of the opposite. For example, Le Bé & Markram (2006) write in their abstract, "The local microcircuitry of the neocortex is structurally a tabula rasa...." And Kalisman, et al. (2004) state, "These data provide the first direct experimental evidence for a tabula rasa-like structural matrix between neocortical pyramidal neurons...."
By the way, I love this sentence in the Kalisman, et al. (2004) article: "... we found that axons of layer V neocortical pyramidal neurons do not preferentially project toward the dendrites of particular neighboring pyramidal neurons; instead, axons promiscuously touch all neighboring dendrites without any bias." Those naughty neurons. ;^]
Finally, in the last sentence, I don't believe the examples provide evidence for "basic biological mechanisms in the mind." Bring it back to the subject at hand. Maybe something like, "provide evidence that several mental processes are 'built-in' rather than learned." [although some caveat here about neuroplasticity is probably in order... complex topic!].
I did not make any of the above suggested changes because a) I do not have a strong background in philosophy or neuroscience, so I might be missing some crucial point or misunderstanding a fundamental concept and don't want to muck things up as a result; and b) I'm hoping that another editor can articulate these points with greater coherence and clarity than yours truly.  Mark D Worthen PsyD 22:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychology and neurobiology section 

message: This concept is something that was briefly covered in my college history class when the Enlightenment period during the 17th and 18th centuries was happening.  The concept by John Locke stating that nurture plays a more prevalent role in an individual's fate in life than nature does stood out to me, and it is what brought me to review this article.  People generally have heard of the phrase "Nature versus Nurture", but I never knew where the concept truly originated from.  After reading the article and the Talk Page, it seems as if there was much more to tabula rasa than I ever anticipated.  I found this topic to be very informative and done in great detail.  I never would have guessed the centuries that the concept goes back before Locke's book in 1690 discussed the relevance of it towards society.  Learning about the history of this concept helped me understand what exactly John Locke was talking about when the philosophes of the Enlightenment period were introducing these texts throughout Europe.
I am very new to Wikipedia, but reviewing the in depth Talk Page shows that many people have weighed in on this topic.  All of the editing has made this article and topic very well done in my opinion.  The neutrality of the article seems very strong throughout every topic discussed. As I become more proficient at reviewing articles I am sure my opinions could possibly change on this topic, but I enjoyed what I learned about this concept.  MikeMorland (talk) 05:46, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overall Review 

message: Hi, in this article it says " Stoic epistemology emphasizes that the mind starts blank, but acquires knowledge as the outside world is impressed upon it"
But in "The Discourses of Epictetus" it says: 
:"For we come into the world with no natural notion of a right-angled triangle, or of a diesis, or of a half tone; but we learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art; and for this reason those who do not know them, do not think that they know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, whoever came into the world without having an innate idea of them? "
(https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/e/epictetus/e65d/book2.html#B2.11)
This is a direct contradiction to the idea that the stoics have a 'blank state' idea, since he specifically says that for some things, people are born with "an innate idea of them".
Unless Epictetus' ideas differed from other Stoics.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8000:181B:8A00:C9D5:3D82:32B0:5433 (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stoics do not propound a 'blank state' idea 

message: The idea of the blank slate has been strongly criticized in Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate", for example, and has been debunked to my satisfaction. Arctic Gazelle (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: How about the myriad criticisms of Pinker's alleged "debunking," as also with twin studies? Even non-scientist scholars, such as Jesse Prinz, have provided ample evidence to the contrary of the claim that social pre-wiring is demonstrably true. See, for example, Beyond Human nature (2012). 128.198.99.192 (talk) 15:18, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  How about a "criticism" section?