Some clarifications on the concept of variability. Chapter 5.

We have said that every human being is unique and unrepeatable, and that it is even possible to detect differences in the reactions and behavior of identical twins, as small as these may be, because they can be easier to detect than physical differences.

The above is a consequence of the embryological development of every human being, for reasons that we still do not clearly understand, but that are related to the mechanisms of  interpretation and organic development  based on genetic information. There are variations that produce not only differences in physical traits, but also the conformation, and therefore the expressions in behavior, induced by the primary and secondary brain.

In the primary brain, differences in its preprogramming that will characterize it in all its tendencies and innnate reactions, and in the secondary brain, the final capacity that it will have to acquire knowledge, analytical capability and cognitive skills, and to be able to control to more or less extent the influence of the primary brain, or be controlled by it.

Indeed, as we have already said (Chapter 4) with respect to the primary brain, it is pre-programmed with a series of innate tendencies. Here, we must point out that this does not occur in a simple scheme of existence or non-existence of certain tendencies such as to violence, submission, deceit, etc., but that all of them will be always present, but can have varying degrees of intensity, from very weak, to very strong, on each individual.

That is, it is a quantitative,  not qualitative, problem.

We all have some degree, greater or lesser, of all tendencies. For example, we all have the tendency to help another person when he or she needs it, but this tendency can be of great intensity, or of medium or minimal intensity, in any of all possible degrees of that spectrum. Thus, each primary brain will express, each in a different degree, all possible tendencies, but some may be so intense that they will be extremely visible, strongly characterizing that person, while others may be so weak that might seem non existant.

It is also possible that a person has no strong tendency at all, neither negative nor positive. If that primary brain comes in tandem  with a not very brilliant secondary brain, we will have a more or less anodyne person, who will never be outstanding or prominent.

So, we can have an infinite number of possible profiles characterizing the primary brain of each person, depending on the relative strength of each trend. In this way, on the specific profile of tendencies that each person has, all different from person to person, we have the origin of the enormous variability we can see.

This must be associated to the other component, the secondary brain, which will also participate by modifying the general profile of each person , thus adding an important multiplier factor of variability.

This secondary brain also exhibits an enormous variability in its own development and capacity of influence on the primary brain, depending on its maximum attainable intelligence, (which seems genetically determined) and the experience and enrichment experimented in its contact with the environment.

Thus, a high quality education and the inculcation of positive values, will be very important elements, capable of generating a solid moral conscience, which can reinforce the ability of the person to counteract with varying degrees of success the harmful and negative tendencies, when they come preprogrammed with intensity, in their primary brain.

A moral conscience of great strength is produced by the association of a powerful secondary brain in intelligence, experience and education, with a primary brain in which the preprogramming of personal protection and that of the clan or tribe prevails over the preprogramming of the most damaging and destructive tendencies.

In short, the ability to counteract the most negative and damaging tendencies will depend on the relative intensity of the positive and negative tendencies of the primary brain, and the secondary brain's strength.

We can then understand the enormous range of possible conformations that can exist in any primary-secondary cerebral binomial, there are infinite profiles, each with greater or lesser differences.

At the same time, in all those cases where a set of the same tendencies appears to be more clearly determined, and in which they have a relative similar strength, we begin to find certain characteristic human types, that shoud be soon subject of study in this work.

Without pretending to overtake the due order in the elaboration of this fascinating theory, we can, on the basis of all ideas mentioned above, see the transcendent importance for every society to have high quality educational systems, and priorization of positive values and protection over negative and destructive tendencies.

It is about the development and strengthening of the secondary brain where we have better possibilities to intervene, since it is clear that on the primary brain we are less  likely to have influence, not only because we are technologically limited for that, but also because, if it was possible, we might invade a very dangerous field of intervention on the very essence of human nature, with unpredictable consequences.

May 2008

Jorge Lizama León.