[thtthings]

Please enlighten me. I want to be educated. According to me our mind is very fluid. We can teach it to behave a certain way. I do not believe that someone is awkward socially or cannot get caught in mania etc just because they are the way they are. All of this is learned behavior according to me. Why is it that most of these people are in the US? It seems to me because the environment makes people act this way. I do not think that this is because of genetics. If we mediate then we can look at the mind as an observer and change most if not all of our behavior. When someone gets a diagnosis for say ADHD. Then they exhibit those symptoms even more because they reinforce that behavior.

put these people in a situation that the only way to survive is to socialize, i am pretty sure they will be very charming because we are capable of doing a lot if our survival is at stake.

Here i am not talking about people with mental illness. Those i understand. Please help me understand this

[proverbialbunny]

An overly simplistic 101 of autism is: It is one who struggles with or does not pay attention to another's body language. Most notably, autistic people rarely pay attention to another's eyes and facial expressions.

This one aspect then ripples out into most autistic symptoms, but not all autistic symptoms. For example, one might be wired in an unusual way where they're overloaded all the time and can't pay attention to small body language cues because of it, showing even if they go out of their way to pay attention to body language their autism is still there. Some are unfortunately even worse than that.

When kids avoid eye contact and social interaction their brain develops in a certain way. Different parts of the brain are more liquid than others. Most high functioning autistic people can be taught, even later in life, how and when to pay attention to another's face. This, with some exercise and learning some social skills, will make them seem normal to everyone else. However, some parts do not get rewired. They will still be different in certain ways, like noticing patterns often in detailed ways beyond the average person. However, these semi-permanent side effects can vary from person to person.

All in all, you're not wrong, but are a bit overly simplistic. The brain does physically change to our environment, but not everyone is willing to learn and grow in certain ways, and even then some aspects of the brain change very slowly over years, or so slow it might as well be static.

And as someone who has mastered many different kinds of meditation and qualifies as arhat (You did say, "Please enlighten me." :P) if you're looking to gain full self programming of the brain, including ending dukkha, it's very much worth pursuing mastering the subject, if not for fun, because it benefits yourself and the rest of the world. ^_^

[freehunter]

What you're claiming is that every mind, absent of mental illness, can behave exactly the same way given the same set of conditions. To start with, I'd like to see any proof that you have saying this is true. As far as I know, we don't know the brain well enough to say that is true, but also as far as I know we know enough about the brain to say that is likely not true. If you know otherwise, feel free to link some sources.

The second thing I see wrong here is that you say "I'm not talking about mental illness" but you're talking about ADHD which is a mental illness [1] as is austism [2].

Brains are fluid, yes. Up to a certain point. At a certain age, brain plasticity slows down and changing behaviors becomes harder. This is why kids can learn so fast, but adults have a harder time. Other behaviors are subject to environment yes, but are still difficult to change. If I talked to a stranger and was then mugged by that stranger, I am going to be less likely to talk to strangers in the future. There is a whole field of science dedicated to overcoming these kinds of learned behaviors, and it is very difficult and time consuming. It is very difficult to unlearn behaviors we have already learned.

But ultimately, "if our survival is at stake" isn't the situation most people find themselves in. If I am socially awkward, I'm not likely to die because of it. I might be uncomfortable, but survival is not at stake. 100 years ago we would tie the dominant hand of left-handed people behind their back and force them to write with their right hand. Did it work? Sure. Was it necessary for survival? Not a bit. Did it cause more problems than it solved? You bet it did.

[1] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/ADH...

[2] https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/aut...

[thtthings]

I am just proposing a different point of view and i am not claiming what i am saying is right. I am here to learn and what you say makes sense. Your point about adults learn slow is it because that't what the popular opinion is and that is the reason they tell themselves, "oh, i am a grown up so i am going to learn slowly"?

https://medium.com/@chacon/mit-scientists-prove-adults-learn...

[munificent]

> According to me our mind is very fluid.

According to science and medicine, our mind is a combination of plastic learned behavior and innate physiologically determined capabilities, strengths, and preferences.

[thtthings]

how has science determined that? consciousness is subjective so they are depending on what people have said to them. The mind of scientist and the person they are observing are at play here.

[jaggederest]

There's a lot that can be done purely mechanistically, if you're super concerned about consciousness interfering with accuracy.

For example, in the extreme, fMRIs show different activation patterns for people with different developmental disabilities. It's extremely clear and not at all subjective.