Are our brains prewired

Does our brains come prewired to learn certain functions while others are not attainable. We all know that sometimes people follow in their parents footsteps into certain jobs but is that because their brains come with a set of circuits already laid out. And when they go to school or on the job training those pathways are opened up and they become a doctor or a lawyer. At the same time does those same pathways when affected by a defective gene prevent someone from say learning verbal cues like a person with Aspbergher's syndrome. Or something as simple as learning to tie a knot or whistle. Yet we as humans except what we can't do with ease and grace and become what we are comfortable with.

 

Very good question. One of the dominant viewpoints in early modern philosophy is that we're born a 'blank slate', and that the brain just 'forms associations.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa

This is related, in some degree, to Skinner's 'black box', where he argued that we have no access to thoughts inside another person's mind, therefore the science of psychology can only deal with behavior.

See, Chomsky demonstrated (basically) that behaviorist conditioning is not itself sufficient to explain language acquisition. This both opened the door for Cognitive Psychology, and allowed for the identification of a 'language instinct.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_chomsky#Contributions_to_linguistics

See, 'instincts' are something psychologists have avoided attributing to humans. Part of this is because the discipline of psychology, early on, endorsed eugenics and was used to select who is 'fit' and who is not. This contributed, to some degree, to the rise of Nazism. This point is historically significant, but it wasn't universal, the discipline has matured a great deal, eugenics has been rejected, and Scientology is flat-out wrong when they imply that the holocaust was some evil plan developed by psychiatrists who brainwashed a nation into doing their evil bidding.

So yeah. Last century, psychologists purged all talk of language. This is why Stephen Pinker's book 'The Language Instinct' is so significant. Pinker works with Chomsky, fyi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_Instinct

Now, Cognitive Psychology - as contracted with Behaviorism - utilizes 'Folk Psychology' (the attribution of beliefs and desires to rational agents). This requires that we start thinking in non-physical terms (a 'belief' is NOT a physical object). When psychologists were able to demonstrate that rats could memorize the layout of a maze, they proved that there MUST be SOMETHING significant (that is not always expressed behaviorally) going on in the 'black box' of that rat's brain.

But 'mental objects' are a useful fiction. Donald Davidson shifted the language in philosophy of mind to discuss 'mental events' rather than 'mental objects', and that shift in language allowed us to overcome our default view of Cartesian Dualism. Daniel Dennett identifies the 'zombic hunch', which is our pre-disposition to think in cartesian terms. In a decade, the 'zombic hunch' will likely be included in standard lists of 'cognitive biases.' Cognitive biases indicate something about the structure of the brain, though I wouldn't really phrase it as 'pre-wired.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombic_hunch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

I'd be happy to expand on the details, or answer any questions you have. But this is a good starting point.

 

If I were a Determinist then I might say that people were all born wired a certain way and became what they are due to biology. To some degree, you can take this element
into account. I think there are other factors that greatly influence the brain once a person is born; for example, your day to day environment. Your social upbringing, and the influences on your personality while growing up. So do I think we are all just naturally prewired? No, but biology does play a role however I think all of the surrounding factors throughout your lifetime is really what molds you and shapes you in society.

 

There was once a man who hit his head, and suddenly he could play the piano so yeah I'd say that there are certain functions in our brain that we've yet to discover.

 

I would LOVE to see a source on this.

My bee ess detector is off the charts here.