Actually..... Not in the sense that their spirit is manipulating your thoughts, but the influence they've had on the world ultimately shapes your perspective. There's truth to that statement.

As well as their genetic contribution

But that doesn't necissarily influence your thoughts or personality

What it might be asking, however, is whether or not we can actually think outside the box of our shared cultural/world experience.

If psychoses and certain neuroses are tracked through genetics, it would infer that much of the way people experience and think is affected by genetics

"What it might be asking, however, is whether or not we can actually think outside the box of our shared cultural/world experience." - Can you explain? I'm not sure I quite know what ya mean...

The other comment sounds like its out of that game Assassin's Creed.... I dunno about that one. It sounds kinda science fictiony to me.

Dead people have passed on their experience and imagination, is there anything novel really to think of? These things have become the cultural matrix in which we were raised. the question is, can we think outside of it?

As for the other, there heritage links to many psychological problems, just as there are heritage links to high cholesterol and diabetes. Why would genetics not influence the way we think?

Well i don't think genetic heritage would influence our thoughts because those thoughts are based on 1 our time and 2 our own personal experience. Our ancestors lived in a different time and had different experiences. I dont think those could possibly be encoded in DNA and passed on via genes.

Who am I to say you have to think something? It may be that your great grandpa had the same opinion.

But that opinion is based off a thought and personality type... as well as the social conditioning of your time....

I was just teasing you. I know a lot of people who have a tabula rasa belief system and who's to say they aren't right. There is little we can do other than imply based on intergenerational medical study that the nature dominates nurture, or vice versa.

"Dead people have passed on their experience and imagination"

Firstly, I would say that is fair considering the idea that no knowledge is 'original'; all ideas and concepts are based on previous ideas and concepts.
Secondly, consider the way our environment and we condition each other, effecting our choices and fundamental freedoms.
And finally, everyone will die eventually, and unless your a true existentialist individual, every one you meet will control you in some way and in turn eventually be dead. Even if the way they control you is simply by making you side step in the street to avoid them. My understanding of chaos theory is that this will eventually lead to some implications that could change your state of thought.

philosopherqueen,

Yes, of co**** it is true, as suggested genetics plays a role but more in the vitality of the individual, for the rest it is context which defines. Your first context after your mother is your parents who have the powers of gods, and you would learn to respond to the world from them without a word spoken. I think this is called modeling or perhaps imprinting and it is so deeply ingained that there is little to no hope of changeing your response or reaction to the world which your parents as models ingained in you. Perhaps, even probably, it will not be fully intentional on their part. Is not example the greatest teacher, and who would know better than the gods.This to would be where your historical context enlists the subconscious to influence your future reactions to the world.

I agree with you De Budding; however, those things influence your thoughts while they are alive. I think when I hear "Dead people control our brains" it makes me think of large scale events in history that have such an impact it affects the way we perceive things, and in turn conditions us to think a certain way. For example, the American Revolution has instilled patriotism in all Americans and in turn gives them their own definition of Freedom (obviously this is a broad and generalizing statement). A HUGE example would be Jesus of Nathereth. From a totally historic point of view, this man has influnced countless minds after his death and continues to do so. Though he is given divine actions (which in my opinion is a matter of faith in the whole matter, but thats another thread), what he taught has, for 2008 years influence the world, which ultimately means the minds on those in it.

I suppose the problem I see in your statement de budding is that the people who influence you while living, even though they will eventually die, do not do so after death. It is also possible that they might out live you.

Going back to what Goshisdead was saying about ancestoral memory. Again I don't think it gets passed on biologically, but there is a passing down from one generation to the next. Based on this it is up to the individual involved in the family's tradition to accept the teachings or not. Speaking personally on this matter, my family has always been Jewish. I identify myself as a Jew culturally because of this, but have absolutely no belief in the religious aspect of it. I have a hard time participating in the religious holidays as my idea of what constitutes religion and cultural tradition. Though it was my Dad who taught me my family heritage, it was our ancestors who ultimately influence him and myself. So there definately is a passing of ideas down through family, but i do not beleive it is genetic.... It is a totally conscious action.

Ancestral memory was not where I was going. A genetic predisposition to certain behavior is where i was going

Ya I know I took it in a different direction heheheh

Thanks Rasputini. When you mentioned "large scale events" I thought about a general fear of death employed in us specifically by the loss of others; if people didn't die- let's say they simply disappeared or walked into the sea and turned into fish, then would people fear disappearing or the ocean in place of death?

I know it is presumptuous to say all people fear death, but I'm sure you get the sentiment. J

I think its hard to say. I mean to some degree a fear of death has only come out of the humanism (im gonna guess) starting around the Renaissance. I mean that could be a marker for a divergance from religious views to more philosophical ones since the rise of christianity. If you truely believe you go to heaven to be with your savior or diety I don't think you're as affraid of death as others might be. Fear of death is really a fear of the unknown. However, that beind said, my own opinions suggest a fear of death is a fear of losing life. We are so attached to our existance, the thought of losing it scares us, and that in turn leads to a whole thing on emotional attachment to life... But that's another thread all together. If we knew what happened after death (whether it be an afterlife or nothing at all) I seriously doubt we'd be affraid of it (generally speaking).

Control, Probably not.

Influence, Yes.

What do those who posted think control means? Do I control a ball rolling down a hill simply because I pushed it? I influenced its rolling, but I don't think I control it.