Please help!

If the individual who made this assignment actually wrote: "What makes us for who we are?"--then i suggest that you answer that question with a question. To wit: "How the hell did you ever get a university degree?"

LOL..I ment to type what makes us who we are?

O.K., that's better . . . just a harmless little cheap shot there, Boss . . .


This is yer proverbial can of worms. There are those who promote "nature," which is to say, that we are the product of our ancestry, our "genetic code." There are those who promote "nurture," which is to say, we are the product of the environment(s) in which we have grown to adulthood. There are those who propose a combination of nature and nurture--the environment(s) of our youth acting upon the sum of the parts assembled at birth.

Then the philospher types will show up, and throw one of their typical wrenches in the works by questioning the extent to which our perception of the world we inhabit, and of ourselves and of others, is conditioned by language. This is more or less a contention (in oversimplified terms) that our ability to describe our surroundings and our fellows, and the the means by which we express that description, conditions the way we form those perceptions.

Personally, i am always interested in, and impressed by the importance of, that which we fail (at least initially) to notice. That which is not there. There is a famous passage from the Arthur Conan Doyle story, Silver Blaze, in which a young police inspector from the English countryside approaches the great detective Sherlock Holmes as he is about to leave the scene of the crime . . .

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime."

"The dog did nothing in the nighttime."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

In the context of the story, Holmes correctly infers that all of the persons present at the time of the crime were known to the dog--because the dog did not bark, or otherwise react as one would expect a farm dog to do if a stranger were present.

In a larger context, this shows a respect for knowledge and perception often lacking in the analyses of those with pat answers about nature, nurture, or the quality and importance of language in thought and expression. There is always more about the world that we don't know, or don't notice, than there is which is known to us, than is noticed by us. I would suggest to you that there is much about ourselves which we do not perceive until we are able to both achieve an objectivity which allows us to see ourselves as others see us, and to see what we and others ordinarily do not see about ourselves, and themselves.

Robert Burns, in his poem To Louise wrote:

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

(Oh would some power the gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us.)

To that i would add, and the power to notice what neither we nor they are accustomed to see. Look at the shadows you and others cast, and not simply the light reflected in the mirror.

Thanks a lot

You might want to do a reverse analysis.

Pick ten of your most defining traits, or things (intrinsic to you) that are the most vital to you...and figure out WHY or HOW they became so important.

Like--who are you?

An extrovert--an avid reader--love animals--demand honesty--creative--inquisitive--sincere--

Why are you an extrovert? Was this modelled by your parents? Maybe they were opposite, so you made a choice to be different? Maybe there is some internal effervescence you just can't quiet...

Do you get my drift? Write down 'who you are' are question yourself to see how you got that way.

Then, in writing your answer--employ help from Setanta's answer--what parts of you are derived from your environment or upbringing or "Nurture"--and what springs from your widdle insides--or "nature"?

Re: Please help!
Evolution, biological structure, education, social, economic, historical and geographic referencials and your own personality.

Thanks everyone..I am already done..If I get my mark by tomorrow or on Monday, that is if my Thread is still here, I will tell all of you what I got..Anyway thankyou so much

By having us help write your assignments you just took your first baby steps to becoming an intellectual wasteland...welcome in any case.

so true.

I would just write "What the hell do you think?" and hand it in, even if you fail. The professor probably won't get it, given that he doesn't appear to teach psychology.

Excusme, but I didn't ask you to do my assignment, I asked if anyone had suggestions..and don't worry I didn't use any information from anyone here..I wrote it on my own..and as for cavfancier I am still in grade 12

well excusme...I'm just an old fart ...prone to grouchiness.

Nonsense . . . she didn't ask anyone here to write the assignment, she asked for help. No one wrote the assignment, they simply offered pointers. In an ideal world, every student would have a single, dedicated tutor, instead of an instructor facing anywhere from a dozen to thirty or even forty students. What she did is perfectly acceptable pedagogically, and Lash's response was a well-considered "helping" method, appropriate to the aims and traditions of teaching.

Baby--even if you didn't get the best marks, i hope that you've learned something. Be welcome here, and ask for our help any time. We won't write your papers for you, but i think many here will be happy to point you in the right direction, if we are able.

What makes us who we are? Should'nt it be 'What makes us what we are"?Sea Sponge's !Some researcher's believe we evolved from the "Sea Sponge" Hence the reason we "soak" up certian thing's.I think we are what we are because we choose to be.We are WHO we are because of blending of genetic's of two human being's."Sperm" more or less.We are WHAT we are because of society and inviroment,social economics,and interaction with peer's.We have no choice in decideing WHO we are,but we do have a choice in decideing WHAT we are.

I would say you have it mixed up. What we are is two cells that multiplied into a human. WHO we are is determined by either nature, nurture or some say both.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be grouchy, and I'm glad to hear you wrote it yourself in the end, as perhaps the teacher was trying to get you to use your own personal experience to define yourself in a creative way, a la 'Finding Forrester.' I'm actually thrilled you didn't take any information from this site. Had you, you would have missed the point.

If all goes well, feel free to post what you wrote here. Incidentally, I was just a brat in grade 12. Don't take my initial comment too seriously. :wink: It's just the sort of thing I would have done, just to push the limits.

We aren't just two cell's ,many cell's.We are WHAT we are because of the combination of those cell's,but they still don't make us who we are.Who has many defination's,who =our name,our parent's,our status in society,even our color at time's.Defineing WHO is a bit complicated ,as WHO mean's"Who is used where a nominative pronoun such as I or he would be appropriate, that is, for the subject of a verb or for a predicate nominative; whom is used for a direct or indirect object or for the object of a prepostion. Thus, we write the actor who played Hamlet was there, since who is the subject of played; and Whom do you like best? because whom is the object of the verb like and To whom did you give the letter? because whom is the object of the preposition to. ·It is more difficult, however, to apply these rules in complicated sentences, particularly when who or whom is separated from the verb or preposition that determines its form. Intervening words may make it difficult to see that WHO do you think is the best candidate? requires WHO as the subject of the verb is (not whom as the object of think) and The man whom the papers criticized did not show up requires whom as the object of the verb criticized (not who as the subject of showed up). Highly complex sentences such as I met the man whom the government had tried to get France to extradite require careful analysisin this case, to determine that whom should be chosen as the object of the verb extradite, several clauses away. It is thus not surprising that writers from Shakespeare onward have often interchanged who and whom. Nevertheless, the distinction remains a hallmark of formal style. ·In speech and informal writing, however, considerations other than strict grammatical correctness often come into play. WHO may sound more natural than whom in a sentence such as Who did John say he was going to support? though it is incorrect according to the traditional rules. In general, who tends to predominate over whom in informal contexts. Whom may sound stuffy even when correctly used, and when used where who would be correct, as in Whom shall I say is calling? whom may betray grammatical ignorance. ·Similarly, though traditionalists will insist on whom when the relative pronoun is the object of a preposition that ends a sentence, grammarians since Noah Webster have argued that the excessive formality of whom is at odds with the relative informality associated with this construction; thus they contend that a sentence such as Who did you give it to? should be regarded as entirely acceptable. ·Some grammarians have argued that only who and not that should be used to introduce a restrictive relative clause that identifies a person. This restriction has no basis either in logic or in the usage of the best writers; it is entirely acceptable to write either the woman that wanted to talk to you or the woman who wanted to talk to you. ·The grammatical rules governing the use of who and whom in formal writing apply equally to whoever and whomever and are simililarly often ignored in speech and informal writing. So What make's me whom I am,would be more correct.Because WHAT defines a object,such as cell's. As who should say, it were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be found wiser than his forefathers were. --Robynson (More's Utopia).

I never said we were two cells...I said we were two cells that MULTIPLIED.
And man, you are overcomplicating this whole thing.

Who are you? implies getting information about a person. Not their molecular structure. What are you? implies getting structural/molecular information about a person/thing.

Don't overcomplicate a simple question. What makes us who we are? Yes, skin, bone, blood, tendons, nerves, etc....but the question was not an anatomical question. It was a social question.