Acknowledgements

Guide

Chapter 1│What is nature?

ㆍHuman condition
ㆍThe password that opens existence
ㆍSpecies and individuals
ㆍOrigin of difference

Chapter 2: The World of Genetics

ㆍExploration of nature and nurture
ㆍMeasure of the mind
ㆍThe problem of similarity and difference
- Intragroup variation
- Brain structural mutations
- Brain functional mutations
ㆍReading the genetic power directly
Beyond Genetics and Environment

Chapter 3 │ Each Person's Potential

ㆍThe code that regulates life
ㆍGenetic switch
ㆍMutation
- A fateful choice
- Genealogy of genetic heritage
There is no '○○ gene'
- The complexity of genetic influences
- Genetics of traits

Chapter 4│Nothing is the same

ㆍThird factor debate
From fertilized egg to human
- Principles of brain formation
- Spontaneous circuit formation
- The only brain(s)
ㆍNoise interference
- The randomness of neural development
- Outcomes between possibilities
- Epigenetic landscape
ㆍNoise suppressor
- Individual differences in mutations
- The end of the beginning

Chapter 5: The Brain of Selection and Focus

ㆍBrain flexibility
ㆍA time that determines your life
ㆍThe influence of parenting
ㆍRefining innate tendencies
- Strengthening bias
- Subjective experience
- Amplification of action
ㆍCultural influence
ㆍDecreasing degrees of freedom

Chapter 6 │ Panoramic View of the Mind

ㆍThe source of personality differences
- In search of genes and circuits
- Robots and humans
ㆍDiversity of neural control mechanisms
- Impulsivity and serotonin
- Behavioral regulation and genes
The illusion of gene-environment interaction
ㆍCenter of development

Chapter 7: Living in the Senses, Living in the Subject

ㆍA filter to view the world
- Umwelt
- Individual differences in senses
ㆍReal-time authentication
ㆍSynesthesia
- Emergence of new phenotypes
- What happens in the brain
ㆍYour and my feelings

Chapter 8│The Evolution of Thought

ㆍProduct of analogy
- Development of IQ testing tools
- Statistical distribution of IQ
ㆍIntellectual inheritance
- Flynn effect
- Quantitative genetics
Find the intelligence gene
- Genes that build the brain
- Brain indicators of intelligence
- Mutation and robustness
ㆍHistory of genius

Chapter 9│He and She

ㆍSelect last name
- Gender differentiation
- Male and female brains
ㆍSexual preference and sexual orientation
ㆍInnate differences between men and women
- Aggression and violence
- Personality and interests
- Cognitive characteristics
- Mental illness
ㆍTwo-pronged trajectory
- The role of culture
- Social impact

Chapter 10: Beings Beyond the Standard

ㆍHistory of misunderstanding
ㆍHeritability of neuropsychiatric disorders
- Type and structure
- Causes of mutations
- Point mutation
- In the context of the genetic spectrum
- Understand comprehensively
ㆍPotential risk factors
- gender
- Neurodevelopment genes
Validity of diagnostic categories
Early adopters and beta testers
Betrayal of Creativity
ㆍClue to diagnosis

Chapter 11: The World Beyond Genes

ㆍWhat are genes for?
Genetic shopping
ㆍApplication to race and group
Genetic determinism
ㆍWe are as we are now

References

How did everyone become who they are today?
Looking at an existence that wavers between genetics and environment
Revisiting our unique trajectory

In a world of development dominated by probability and uncertainty,
Found at the end of possibilities stretching towards infinity
One definite conclusion

Gordian Knot

The Gordian Knot is a complex knot in Greek mythology that tied King Gordius's chariot to a temple pillar. It is related to the story of Alexander the Great solving the problem by cutting the knot with his sword.
This means that a problem can be solved in one go by changing one's thinking, but it essentially symbolizes a problem that is difficult to solve.
The nature versus nurture debate can also be seen as a similar issue.
These themes go back to Plato's idealism and Aristotle's realism.
Later, in the modern era, John Locke's empiricism, which promoted the concept of the 'blank slate', and rationalism, led by Descartes and based on pre-experiential knowledge, began to confront each other.
In this way, the conflict between innate and acquired ideas in the realm of epistemology can be said to be a difficult problem that cannot be easily solved.
Even in modern times, many researchers continue to make claims, but it seems that a definitive answer has not yet been found.

Behaviorism, which emphasized the latter aspect between nature and nurture, has focused only on visible behavior.
Because of this, the processes occurring internally were overlooked, and various limitations were revealed.
Afterwards, with the cognitive revolution, the inner cognitive process began to receive attention, and with the development of genetics, the influence of nature came to be reexamined.
However, traces of the enthusiasm for nature remained as a stain on world history called eugenics.
Eugenics served as a means to justify white-centered racial discrimination, suppressing the human rights of discriminated races and not hesitating to commit mass murder under the pretext of 'racial cleansing.'
These two knots, which had reached such extremes, had become so entangled that they were impossible to untangle.

This book advances the discussion from an interactive perspective that goes beyond the nature-nurture dichotomy adopted by modern science.
Contrary to the common belief that genes determine everything about us, this means that the influence of the environment on the development and formation of the brain is not completely insignificant.
Just as a child with aggressive tendencies can suppress aggression through education, the importance of parenting in regulating gene expression cannot be ignored.
In "What We're Born With," it is argued that while genes can determine the direction of many of our potential traits, they alone cannot determine our destiny.
Accordingly, the author decides to take up his sword like Alexander the Great in order to put an end to the misunderstandings brought about by prejudice.

The gap between probability and certainty

In the 2010s, a research team in the United States published research results suggesting a link between certain genetic mutations and crime.
A few years later, in South Korea, a plan to research the link between juvenile delinquency and genes was met with strong opposition from civic groups.
Thus, we believe that there is a single gene that corresponds one-to-one to each trait.
However, even if a single visible trait is heritable, the gene responsible for it does not necessarily exist.
In this way, traits and genes are not limited to fixed concepts such as the so-called ‘crime gene’, ‘intelligence gene’, or ‘extroversion gene’.

The fact that a trait is inherited simply means that there is a genetic variation that influences that trait.
Genetic influences mostly operate in a very indirect manner, and natural selection judges only the final phenotype.
Therefore, a specific mutation is treated as a gene responsible for a specific trait.
On the other hand, psychological functions are performed by the nervous system, not genes, and genes only play a role in building the nervous system.
Many of the variations in brain function arise from the way the nervous system develops, and genetic variations and inherent noise in cellular processes also have a complex impact during development.
In this respect, there is no single gene that is 100% responsible for a trait.

On Earth, where there are approximately 8.2 billion people, it would be impossible to find someone exactly like you.
Even identical twins, who are called 'natural clones', look different, so the situation would not be different even if one person were cloned hundreds of times.
It's like one chef making food with the same recipe.
There are many variables in the kitchen, from the condition of ingredients and cooking utensils to the weather, water quality, and climate, so the results cannot be exactly the same.
In this way, we are reborn as different beings depending on the formation and wiring of neural networks during the brain's development process.
The process is extremely probabilistic and random.
In the world of quantum mechanics, the dice of God, which we 'believed' to be immovable, are constantly rolling here and there in the realm of genes.

The other side of infinity

Random mutations in genes produce diverse traits, and their combinations create unique individuals.
Genetic technology has also advanced to a level approaching the diversity of human traits, and its future possibilities are limitless.
But as vast as the possibilities unfold before us, we also don't know where the shadows cast behind them will lead.
From neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, to the unusual cognitive phenomenon of synesthesia, the "out-of-the-box" consequences of developmental randomness are countless.
This fact raises the question, 'What are genes for?'

Genetics, which began with Mendel's laws, expanded our understanding of the entire human genome through the Genome Project and genome-wide linkage analysis.
Since then, explosive developments have occurred as technologies that were once only imaginable have become reality, including cloning and gene editing.
However, this remarkable development raises ethical, social, and political issues that could shake the ontological status of human beings.
Yet, we make the mistake of judging a person's quality and worth based on certain traits, such as physical ability or intelligence.
Genetic determinism, which holds that genes control not only our traits but also our behavior, has crept into people's lives and has even led them to question free will.
In fact, what genes determine is not the behavior itself, but the 'tendency to behave', and the tendency is merely the background against which different processes operate depending on the situation.

Even though the blank slate within us is filled with countless possibilities, there's no law that says we can't add new writing to it.
In this way, we learn through experience, adapt to our environment, and are influenced to some extent by our personality.
Through this, we develop habitual behavior patterns based on our personality, but which can vary depending on the situation.
The authors argue that the program encoded in the genome only specifies developmental rules and cannot determine specific outcomes, and that the more genetic variations that influence the program, the greater the diversity of outcomes.
Ultimately, while any genotype has a variety of potential outcomes, the one that is actually realized is the one and only 'me' in the world.
This fact never changes.