Quora: Why are some people born less capable than other people? Are people actually born geniuses? What makes one turn evil?
It seems to me that genius and evil are part genetic and part developmental.
I imagine (hypothesize) that what initially constitutes personality (the formative self) is the relative positioning of neurons in the brain. Proximity enables the formation of connections, and the connections make the neural network. This is likely why children exhibit behaviors similar to their parents. They share subtle neuronal placement similarities.
Then, education becomes a factor. A good school would develop a capacity for self-learning. Poor schools simply teach. The latter sets a potential cognitive limit on learning. Here, this student is trained (programmed). Yet the former cracks open the door of free will for a free mind. Free will is a jib door. It is hidden until it’s opened (there is a neurological explanation for this). The task-oriented nature of modern education is not designed to help students find this jib door. In fact, it is antithetical to the development of free will.
If free will is developed (SELF-control), thereby enabling self-learning, the individual acquires full access to the frontal lobe. They now possess the capacity to develop understanding. In fact, the frontal lobe craves understanding. It is the origin of adult curiosity. And, as the frontal lobe develops, the individual’s genius emerges. This happens because they satisfy their curiosity rather than merely react to environmental input (task-focused behavior).
Now, as for evil.
Individuals trapped in their cortex (i.e., habit and no free will) are vulnerable to the pursuit of self-satisfaction. Our habit brain can learn, but it merely optimizes or enhances what the brain already knows. The process is called operant conditioning. If the brain has acquired, through others or environmental influences, diseased thoughts (neural networks), it will simply develop them further. Without the frontal lobe (and the pursuit of absolute truth), there is no check.
It’s narcissim, which is blind to objective truth. In the limit, it becomes evil. The following is a public demonstration of a failure of free will:
