The distaste for strength in martial arts

[isshinryuronin]

It's worth knowing that a few decades ago, the dominant position in psychology was that behavior was almost entirely learned. Research over the last 30 years has largely debunked those theories.

I believe there is another influencer in behavior/personality development - Individual free will. One can retrain oneself as to how we perceive and react to various stimuli and situations. This might even be a major factor in one's martial art development through dedicated practice, self-perception and the will to become something different. In part, this is one of the goals of MA, is it not?

Regardless of one's hereditary and instinctual inclinations or past learned behavior, we have the ability to mould ourselves into something different. So even twins raised in the same environment, sharing many experiences, can become different from each other. We have some ability to change our behavior patterns because we set our minds to it. We can, to some extent, transform ourselves and become the person we want to be.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I believe there is a third influencer in behavior/personality development - Individual free will. One can retrain oneself as to how we perceive and react to various stimuli and situations. This might even be a major factor in one's martial art development through dedicated practice, self perception and the will to become something different. In part, this is one of the goals of MA, is it not?

Regardless of one's hereditary and instinctual inclinations or past learned behavior, we have the ability to mould ourselves into something different. So even twins raised in the same environment can become different from each other. We have some ability to change our behavior patterns because we set our minds to it. We can, to some extent, transform ourselves and become the person we want to be.

If you're rejecting B.F. Skinner, I agree.

Forget programming, humans aren't programmed. Humans are alive! Self aware and hungry, like the wolf.

 

[isshinryuronin]

If you're rejecting B.F. Skinner, I agree.

Forget programming, humans aren't programmed. Humans are alive! Self aware and hungry, like the wolf.

Only partially rejecting him. Our desire for reward and aversion to punishment has a lot in common to Skinner's animals in a box. It helps us survive. Conditioning/programming is good most of the time. It allows us to execute responses that usually benefit us without having to analyze and go thru a decision process.

But, we are not just lab rats. We ARE self aware as you said and can override much of our conditioning/programming. We do often accept pain to accomplish our mission. And we can (with varying degrees of success) turn down pleasures for the same mission. Though one can argue that accomplishing our mission is Skinner's positive reinforcement. But often it is a thankless job and any positive reinforcement we enjoy from it is of OUR making. We can self program when and where we decide, IF we have the inspiration and will to do so.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Only partially rejecting him. Our desire for reward and aversion to punishment has a lot in common to Skinner's animals in a box. It helps us survive. Conditioning/programming is good most of the time. It allows us to execute responses that usually benefit us without having to analyze and go thru a decision process.

But, we are not just lab rats. We ARE self aware as you said and can override much of our conditioning/programming. We do often accept pain to accomplish our mission. And we can (with varying degrees of success) turn down pleasures for the same mission. Though one can argue that accomplishing our mission is Skinner's positive reinforcement. But often it is a thankless job and any positive reinforcement we enjoy from it is of OUR making. We can self program when and where we decide, IF we have the inspiration and will to do so.

That's the funny thing about strength. The daily grind. Rats will never conquer the earth. They don't have the stomach for it.

This will, though. This you can trust.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

That's the funny thing about strength. The daily grind. Rats will never conquer the earth. They don't have the stomach for it.

This will, though. This you can trust.

Ah the riddle of steel! Steel is strong, but flesh is stronger. What is steel compared to the hand that wields it?

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I believe there is another influencer in behavior/personality development - Individual free will. One can retrain oneself as to how we perceive and react to various stimuli and situations. This might even be a major factor in one's martial art development through dedicated practice, self-perception and the will to become something different. In part, this is one of the goals of MA, is it not?

Regardless of one's hereditary and instinctual inclinations or past learned behavior, we have the ability to mould ourselves into something different. So even twins raised in the same environment, sharing many experiences, can become different from each other. We have some ability to change our behavior patterns because we set our minds to it. We can, to some extent, transform ourselves and become the person we want to be.

You're talking about reactions, which can be changed to some extent. And the work done there would fall under environmental factors. There's signficant evidence that we can only change so far from our personal baseline, and that may include early development influences (which may be encoded in brain development, if they precede the "pruning" events in brain development). And learned behavior can be changed.

It's also worth noting that how we experience an event is subjective, so two people can be in the same event and experience it differently. This makes a single event have different influences on those two people.

EDIT: To be clear, there is no evidence that we can, for instance, change from being fairly introverted to fairly extroverted. We can learn to mimic the behavior of an extrovert, but it won't change the personality trait.

 

[OLD DOG NEW TRICKS]

Are you the strongest person on earth?

Only if I'm the last person on earth. Lol

 

[Dirty Dog]

Are you the strongest person on earth?

As far as you know...