[madisgram]

can't get web page. oops/sorry

[lynn P.]

I don't know what you were going to post, but I have a saying "a person can be smart but not wise". I think we gain that as we experience life and through our struggles. It also helps if you're mature(not necessarily age) and have learned to lasso the ego lol.

[pachyderm]

If we are, what happened between birth and now?

[Perna]

Here's the page I think you wanted, Madisgram?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...e-born-be-wise

I think, from how the article starts out, that we're born to be "balanced"!

[lynn P.]

Thanks Perna and I found this portion very enlightening:

{"Fifth, we have an innate, elevating need for purity and sacredness. This foundation, rooted in our central moral emotion - disgust -- turns us from animality toward the divine, and explains our perennial taste for religion (of which some forty thousand have been created to date). Like the other four moral receptors, this hunger for purity can be abused when an individual, nation, or faith plays on our disgust reflex by portraying enemies as morally impure, as in the case of anti-Semites and homophobes."}

[madisgram]

Evolution is "thrifty and tinkering," after all, as biologist E. O. Wilson has written, and could be pushing our complex species toward a more benevolent future, in spite of what we read in the paper. This primordial sense of right and wrong -- hard wired into our brains when mastodons still pounded the earth -- may well be our ace in the hole.

first of all, perna, thanks for doin' what my wee brain could not do this A.M. and getting the link up.

the above quote at least offers offers me hope for mankind. i was glad E.O.Wilson had that concept to add.

The article is interesting. I wish I could find some evidence this ethical organ is more than just another theory.

[elliemay]

I contend that there is a difference between wisdom, ethics and morality - even though the article appears to conflate the three.

For instance, ethics and morality can be completely at odds with each other, but perhaps wisdom is the thing that bridges the two.

The question at hand though, are humans born to be wise? Maybe. If wisdom is synonymous with survival perhaps.

The article seems to highlight only those things that promote survival of groups (and individuals in those groups).

Is that really wisdom?

Don't know.

[madisgram]

idk either, ellie. i'm somewhat a skeptic on the behaviors of mankind. perhaps cynic best describes me. would like to think the descriptions are true but....
at any rate thought this topic was good for discussion.

Upon some reflection, I believe we are born to be the subjects of the whims of a higher power who allows us to think we may know something on occasion ... until the proxy for the higher power puts us in our predetermined designated slot for remedial reality reorientation.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by TheByzantine

I believe we are born to be the subjects of the whims of a higher power...

You and the ancients!

[(JD)]

Madisgram.... Yes. We are born to be wise, but it's a choice to some extent. Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge for ultimate decision making (discernment.)

While I do believe that there are those who have a larger capacity for knowledge, that doesn't necessarily make them wise. And there are some people who are wise with limited knowledge, but their wisdom in one or two areas (of knowledge) is astounding!

I think it's more than knowing/learning right from wrong, (and I agree that that ability is inborn) it's deciding to do what is "right" when confronted with the facts. Without knowledge, how can one have enough facts?

We are all born with a brain that can do more than we ask. Maybe wise people have learned to ask for more?

[Earl Sweatshirt]

Subjective question... It's whatever you think.