Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas.

How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. [John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding : in Hernnstein & Murray, 1994, p.311] * To say that all the materials of reason and knowledge come only from experience is a claim which demonstrates how far neuroscience and psychology has taken us since Lockes time. Tools used for reasoning include capacities for thought, language, abstraction, attention, retainment of knowledge and morals. Obviously, these capacities are not knowledge in themselves they are empty vessels to be filled but they provide the framework through which experience is filtered. We are born with qualities which can be improved or maintained over time with effort and input of information. For the purposes of this argument, it is to be assumed that Locke is correct in saying that knowledge is entirely experiential. This is not a difficult concept to accept, when knowledge is defined as being something which is learnt, reflected upon and rejectable if conflicting knowledge is obtained. The argument will provide evidence of capacities and how abnormalities and disorders in these capacities affect antisocial behaviours and morality. The ability to perceive is a tool that leads us to reason and logic. Perception can be defined as the brain ordering and labelling information from the senses. It stores this information as knowledge which can be used at a later date. Prior knowledge can also affect perception. As we know, the brain finds perception easier when there is contrast, or change. For this reason, the growth of the perception of a child in utero is limited. There is very little temperature change in the womb, the womb is dark, the infant is supplied with constant oxygen pressure, there is no wind in the womb and there is very little change in pressure on the skin. Before birth, the only incoming data with major variances are through the vestibular system (the gentle rocking that occurs when the mother is moving) and the auditory system (the muffled voice of the mother is the most frequent source of sound of consistently strong amplitude) (Kisilevsky et. al., 2003). Helmholtz knew in the 1860s that the brain infers information it has garnered below the level of conscious thought. For this torch to have been carried by scientists for the next one hundred and more years, it must stand that the faculties which allow the brain to retain information are at least present if not active before conscious perception begins. Two acts which are commonly used to relax a baby are for the mother to speak softly to it and to gently rock it (Kisilevsky et. al., 2003). This indicates that children retain information from within the womb, before the tumultuous birthing process. That children associate these actions with tranquillity shows that from very early they have had the ability to link these gentle stimuli with the slightly varying states of sedation. This link could be argued to occur either before birth inside the calm seas of the mother, or post-birth after the child can compare the womb with the stresses and inconsistencies of the outside world. Neither position can reasonably say that the child could have NO memory (be that memory conscious or unconscious (Wang et.al., 2010)) of its mothers speech or in utero rocking.

If, as the Locke statement seems to assume, there is indeed no perceptual preprogramming, why is it that, when heard simultaneously, two sounds a semitone (Western classical scale) apart in pitch are frequently said to hurt the listeners ears? (Zentner & Kagan, 1998). Infants with no musical experience show a strong preference for consonant phrases over similar dissonant phrases (Zentner & Kagan, 1998). The very existence of consonant and dissonant intervals is due to the hairs in the cochlear giving overlapping information to the cochlear nucleus and beyond. This unchangeable functionality has produced a system that allows us to distinguish between consonance and dissonance, allowing for the advent of polyphonic music a widespread social practice in many cultures. That we develop such a strong preference so early in life for consonant and therefore easy to organise music, suggests that humans (and other animals) have a specifically set-up, preconcious capacity for interpreting musical sounds. It has become widely accepted by scientists that human morality can be linked to physiological capacities in the brain. Functional MRI studies in which people are morally stimulated (Moll, de Oliveira-Souza & Eslinger, 2003) promote a morality network (Mendez, 2006), of which the ventromedial frontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and amygdalae are key components. In addition to imaging studies, research on people with brain pathologies illuminates further facts. Sufferers of fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting the frontal and/or temporal lobes display a disinhibited responses to moral dilemmas, as well as a restriction in the emotional value given to the same (Mendez, 2006). This degeneration of the moral centre is a reduction in the moral CAPACITY of the patient, as evidenced by studies which show loss of theory of mind (Snowden et al., 2003), alteration of facial empathy in artists (Mendez & Perryman, 2003) and how FTD patients solve moral dilemmas impersonally and deliberately (Mendez et al., 2005). FTD is not, as Locke might have had it, a culmination of experiences resulting in amorality. Further, in data gathered retrospectively by Wong et al. (1994), inmates in a maximum security mental hospital were grouped by the violence rating of their offences, preadmission. In the violent group, 20% showed focal temporal electrical abnormalities (electroencephalogram) and 41% showed structural abnormalities of the temporal lobe. The figures for the less violent group were 2.4% and 6.7%. There was no suggestion in this study that inmates were sufferers of degenerative illnesses and, according to the study below, it is reasonable to assume that some of the 372 males studied have had these abnormalities for life. Blake, Pincus & Buckner (1995) conducted a small study of 31 people awaiting trial or sentencing for murder, or appealing a murder conviction. Subjects were drawn from defendants seeking neurological examination via legal counsel. Most subjects were given an EEG, an MRI or CT scan as well as a battery of neuropsychological tests. The examinations revealed that n20 subjects fitted the rather broad category of frontal dysfunction while a further nine showed evidence of temporal abnormalities. Among the 20 subjects diagnosed with neurological disorders, two were found to have cerebral palsy, a condition associated with pre and neo-natal cerebral trauma. In addition, the study found a documented history of profound, protracted physical abuse in twenty-six and of sexual abuse in 10. The studys abstract concluded: It is likely that prolonged, severe physical abuse, paranoia, and neurologic brain dysfunction interact to form the matrix of violent behavior.

It is acceptable to think that experience has a great hand in filling these capacities out turning these broad hungers for information into dense tapestries of knowledge, ideas and morals. It cannot, though, be said that the human mind begins as a blank sheet having nothing with which to decode or retain information. This is entirely implausible, considering the ever-clearer, tangible evidence of neurophysiological bases of many areas of intelligence and antisocial pathologies. The entirety of Lockes argument should not be thrown out; he makes numerous pertinent points in his second essay regarding perception, retention and reflection. Where Locke falls down is that he regards environmental qualities as agonistic in trying to force their way into the mind of the human. We now know that people in fact actively collect as much information as they can devote their attention to.

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