We have to move past this tendency to think that we, humans, are as we have always been, that we have a fixed and consistent nature. We also have to get over thinking that we are authors of our destiny and our character. Worse still is to try to just split the difference, as though if both of those ideas are wrong that the truth must just be the average of them. In most cases, the midpoint between two broken ideas is a crappier idea.
In this chapter, we’re going to look at some of the influences and hard constraints that shape human character. We’re going to talk about the interplay between the game theoretics of our physical reality, some inescapable mathematical abstractions, and our sense of identity. And, to make it interesting I’m throwing in boobs and tarantulas — and the odd way in which they are sometimes the same.
Thank me later. Or don’t. I get it.