Quote:
Originally Posted by HydrogenBond
To separate the DNA aspects of instinct or the main river of basic instinct from the natural branches of species, from all the canals of human culture, it is necessary to first break each of the components down into simple terms.
The genetic based main river of common instinct is analogous to hardware emulating software. The analogy I have used before is an old fashion mechanical Coo Coo clock. The time keeping, the bird coming out, the coo cooing each hour, and then the bird going back into the bird house, is all done with springs, gears and levers. This is the type of control system is what one might expect from the DNA, using chemical feedback as hardware to create actions that sort of look like software. For example, when the food value in body or blood begins to get low (not exactly correct) this triggers chemicals, which trigger chemicals, etc. leading to chemicals associated with being hungry. It is a coo coo clock using only hardware but it is very amazing.
Although the DNA is fairly large or compose of a large number of genes, most of these genes are junk, while the majority of the rest are needed to take care of the thousands of activities within and between the billions cells within the body, all with swiss watch precision. This sets a practical limit with respect to how far this hardware emulation of software can go, relative to all the real time needs of the instincts with the dynamics of changing environments. The first branching of the DNA hardware river forms, what can be seen as firmware, which gets the brain involved. This are little fixed programs that assist the DNA hardware instincts. These can interact via feedback, but have a loop which sort of follows or parallels the hardware emulation.
For example, the animals gets hungry via the DNA hardware loop, due to whatever trigger the DNA has evolved for that animal. The little firmware programs help gets the legs moving, the nose sniffing, etc., with the sensory feedback having an impact of the firmware programs. But these firmware loop with with the DNA cycle. Once the DNA is satisfied, the firmware also stops.
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Try this on:
The genome is a collection of instructions for embryology. The emergence of an organism from the womb is one step in this process, not necessarily the culmination. Humans are born very prematurely, that is, very early on in the embryological process. (This process does not culminate in an adult until about 25 years.)
I see this window of time, when the organism is exposed to the environment but while body and especially brain assembly is still taking place, as an opportunity for the genes to do things not otherwise possible. DNA instructions can go from "do this...then do this..." to "if...then...else", to reassume your computer jargon. It can take cues from the environment. This can enable DNA to adapt an organism to environmental situations that it otherwise could not forsee.
Keep in mind, the human genome represents about 40 meg (I think - something like that) and the fully assembled adult brain bares something like 10 trillion synapses. Even if these figures are grossly estimated, it's clear that the genome is not a large enough body of information to wire a human brain.
I know that the neurons involved in the visual apparatus do not wire up in the womb - in fact cannot - but wait for cues from the sensory input. A simple rule like "neurons that fire together wire together" bootstraps the prosses of assembling our visual machinery. The golden example of this trick is language aquisiton.
Does the 25 years or so humans spend in this window shed any insights on this topic?
