“Nurture” has a much stronger influence on us than “nature”

Question from the Internet:

“Do nature and nurture both shape a person’s personality? How so?”

A great, empirical natural scientist, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, in one of his landmark articles called “The Freedom”, describes 4 factors that shape a Human being (and everything else we can observe in Nature).

The first factor is our “core”, genetic inheritance. The second factor is all the processes, qualities that originate from that core and would manifest depending on external circumstances. The third factor is how those inherent processes, qualities would change by changing external circumstances, and the 4th factor is the external circumstances that can influence what becomes of the core.

This means that what we receive from Nature manifests in us according to the environment we are placed into, the environment that influences shapes us all the time.

And since through the environment we can even obtain qualities, characteristics we did not have in us by birth, “nurture” has a much greater influence on who we are, what we become than “nature”.

This is why many agree, that we are the product of the environment. And while for all other living creatures, elements in Nature these things are set without any free choice, for Human beings our free choice is very much confined to choosing the right, preferable Human environment that will inevitably form, shape us.