Science Forums 2

[HydrogenBond]

What I was trying to do is show a distinction between genetic based and brain/mind based changes in humans from 20,000 years ago. Biological or genetic evolution, from what I have learned, is based on drift, random change and selective advantage. The brain/mind connection evolves more in terms of progression. For example, computers, which stemmed from the human brain, improves and progresses over time, with a sense of direction that is defined by the computer R&D visionaries. The goals are already there before anything is made. The future form is limited by support technology which also has to progress. From what others have said, DNA has no goal but drifts in the wind.

Human evolutionary confusion is connected to genetics and brain doing it differently, yet both are connected. I am sort of diverging from the topic of monogamy, but this background will loop back. Most scientists call monogamy a product of the brain and not a part of genetics. This is correct in the sense it is connected to the brain/mind aspect of human change and not to genetics.

One possible way to separate the genetic and the brain/mind effects of human progression/evolution (direction and drift) is using a computer analogy. The genetics is analogous to the hardware of a computer, with better hardware having an advantage. The brain/mind aspect is more like software. Software will not work without the hardware, with better hardware allowing better performance. But software can be used to emulate hardware. For example, software can be used to take the place of hardware like an audio card. The brain does not have to wait for genetics to make an audio card, so to speak, but can approximate this with software.

For example, say it gets cold, animals who are not use to the cold would need go through a genetic change to get thicker fur for insulation. Selective advantage will go to those would develop this genetic hardware. This will be passed on through breeding. With the human brain, we can simulate the genetic fur hardware, with clothes. We don't have to wait for genetic hardware changes. Instead of humans with clothes having to breed, biologically, to pass on this software-hardware simulation, it is passed on via the brain copying the behavior.

Once humans put on the clothes, the genetic drift of all the other animals to the cold does not fully apply to humans, because of the software-hardware simulation. Hardware drift toward fur in humans could lead to a disadvantage because of too much insulation. Human genetic selective advantage will go one way and the animals the other way because the human brain and its hardware emulation.

We need to go back in time, to the point where genetics has dominate control, and the earliest humanoids were based primarily on hardware. In this state, the humanoids would be like a mechanical device, where hardware simulates software. For example, an old fashion mechanical clock, composed of gears and levers, uses hardware to simulate software. It can keep time and trigger a wood cutting to come out and chop every hour and then go back in, with the door shutting. This is done all with hardware. Genetic evolution improves the gears and levers. Shifting to software, simplified the increasing requirement of genetic hardware for gearing and levers.

The observation that humans are progressing via the brain/mind faster than can be attributed to hardware alone, seems to imply the brain/mind favoring hardware emulation because of the speed. This means behavior, at some point had to change away from that which would favor gears and levers to simulate brain software, into favoring software to emulate gears and levers.

The easiest way to make that shift, is to disconnect, some of the brain, from a direct connection to genetic gears and levers using a separate control console. Human will power is this separate console. But we also have the genetic hardware with its ancient gears and levers for software emulation.

If we compare promiscuity to monogamy, promiscuity is better geared to the needs of genetic variation. This will improve the genetic hardware, fastest. But on the other hand, all things being equal, monogamy within parents improves the mind/brain software in the next generation of brains, which are the children. Humans are composed of hardware and software, creating a dichotomy.

Monogamy in adults is better geared to the software emulation of hardware, within children because it doesn't change programming oars in midstream. It would be like writing a program and then the boss saying we can't do it that way because the wind is not blowing from the north but now from the south. There will be software bias that can effect the final hardware emulation. The result may be the need to start up in safe mode using genetic software emulation.