Getting Our Mind

We are born in a state of helplessness. We completely depend upon others for all of our needs of survival during infancy. Our consciousness works at a very rudimentary level. We have all our organs of perception, but do they work? Are they connected with our minds? Can we perceive? If so, what and how much? Can we respond to our perception? If so, not very much. Can we think? Certainly not. Can we feel? Perhaps, but not much. Our mind is said to be unconscious, it works in an automatic manner without any awareness on our part. Infants are said to be innocent, but we are ignorant of everything going around us. We have all parts of the brain, but they work only to make us survive running our physiological functions in an autonomic manner. Nature makes us cry when we our bodies need feeding or when they feel any pain of discomfort such as that of a wet diaper. 

Both the mind and the body then are in the form of a potential to develop with nurture in accordance with our genes and their expression. Each sperm of the father and each egg of the mother is genetically different, howsoever slight the difference may be. That explains the diversity in siblings, even in identical twins. In addition to differences in the genetic code, there is a difference in gene expression. The same genes express differently by turning themselves on and off to different extent in response to differences in ecological and environmental stimuli. Insignificantly slight genetic differences manifest as significant differences in resulting traits of the ensuing life.