Science Forums 2

[HydrogenBond]

I am of the opinion the DNA is hardware and firmware, with the firmware giving broad based capacity that is then differentiated at the level of the brain. For example, the DNA makes us hungry and has related firmware to rough in the needed actions. But whether I gather chocolate or vanilla is at the level of software. There is not a chocolate gene but rather that is learned and wired by opportunity based on the underlying flexibility designed in the firmware and the capacity to create software.

I am going to shift directions and talk about some firmware that is unique to humans. One thing that was already mentioned and well understood, is the human baby requires longer term care by parents, than other animals. Although most animals care for their young using instinct, their DNA and firmware loops have a finite duration because their young develop faster to autonomy. With humans, although we may have the same basic DNA and firmware, the human firmware loop appears to be left open ended for the needs of the longer term care.

For example, the mother cat will care for her kittens, just as the mother human does. This is very similar at the DNA and firmware level. At the software level, the specific care is different since humans read books and will get verbal help from their own mother to differentiate the behavior. The cat does not do either of these things but can do it all on its own. The cat will wind down the maternal behavior earlier as the kittens get more autonomous. But the similar firmware loop in humans, can often extend for decades or even a lifetime, with mothers being mothers even when the child is an adult. This minor genetic tweak to the duration of the animal firmware, to keep the loop more open changes the way the species interacts with the young.

One way to look at this firmware change within human parents, are the parents become a more permanent feature of the human baby's environment, with the selective advantage of human babies, based on the ability of the human baby (evolutionary terms) to genetically adapt to this long term environment. To put this into perspective, if a river was part of an animal's environment, selective advantage would go to animals that develop the genes that can make the best use of the river. In the case of generations of human babies, instead of the river, we substitute the perpetual landscape features called mom and dad.

Relative to evolutionary changes within human babies, selective advantage will go to those who can find advantage in this situation. If a baby was more like an animal, wishing to go out on its own as soon as it could walk and feed itself, it would not survive in the wild. But if it developed firmware that allowed it to remain within the context of mom and dad, for continuing supplemental software assistance, this would lead to selective advantage. In culture, this evolutionary firmware within humans allows the continued adaptability for sequential programming from parents and symbolic parents such as the supplemental parents called teachers, mother-father country, mother nature, heavenly father, etc.