What is consciousness and Where Does Mind Reside?

[Dave]

Actually--unless I'm misunderstanding--what Nick is describing sounds Lamarckian, not Darwinian.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

I'm not familiar with Lamarck... 'splain?

[Debbie]

I always thought it was instinct that led to unconscious reflexes....is that just another name for genetic memory?

[Dave]

Charissa, Lamarck's theory was that traits acquired during an organism's lifetime get passed on to its offspring, whereas Darwin's theory was that given a certain population of organisms with slightly different inborn traits, some organisms will have a better chance of passing on those inborn traits. I was specifically focusing on this statement in Nick's post:

If genome (a) were to decide to build a boat and float to the home of genome (b) genome (a) would have to learn and learn fast to hide or arm it self.once this is known it is automatically imprinted and thus passed on to offspring

But like I said I could be misunderstanding what Nick was saying.

[Dave]

Actually I think I am misunderstanding. Nick is talking about genomes, not individual organisms.

I have a cold.

[Reads with Scotch]

Pretty much, Debbie, But I guess I am asking how wide of scope is instinct/genetic memory. What determines what becomes a I/GM? Survival instincts are not universal, the native populations in Australia were cautious and thus very knowledgeable of insects. why because most of them will kill you if bitten. I am not saying they were born with extensive knowledge of insects, I am just saying they were born with the knowledge that it was important to pay attention to THIS bug. Almost like a wife trying to tell her husband whats bothering her without actually saying what is bothering her. Personally I think the genetic memory thing works better then the wife's attempts. :D

[Todd]

But do human beings really have instincts? When I was in college the accepted answer was no. For example humans have a sex drive not a sex instinct. We have the impulse, but not necessarily the knowledge of what goes where. We learn by experimentation and by exposure. We hear about others sexual experiences, share experiences or see it depicted.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

that was true about breast feeding as well. I totally had to learn how... and so did my daughter. It seemed so humiliating that it didn't come completely easily. In fact, it took days and it was very difficult to learn.

[Todd]

I have heard that about breast feeding. I guess that is why some hospitals and clinics have lactation specialists. I inquired about a position as a specialist but they called security on me.

[Todd]

But, seriously folks....I wonder if there is a correlation between instinct and cognitive function as in the higher a species cognitive functions the less instinctual their behavior will be. The same issues with learning sex and breast feeding has been observed in some primate groups as well.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

I do think we have traded our animal instincts for higher cognitive functions. I have observed on many occasions that the more intelligent someone is, the less connected they seem to be to their more primitive instincts. It can be a problem, especially when it comes to raising children. It's a bad situation when you can reason yourself out of a natural instinct to protect a child.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

when a mother stops protecting her child from: abuse, sexual molestation, etc... it's my observation that she has reasoned herself out of following her natural instincts. Unfortunately it happens a lot.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

I can say from experience that the maternal instinct does exist. It is quite different and stronger than the normal feelings a person has to take care of children.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

Instinct
n.
1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals.
2. A powerful motivation or impulse.
3. An innate capability or aptitude: an instinct for tact and diplomacy.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

As a primarily intellectual person, who loved children already, I was startled to discover the extent to which mammalian urges compelled me to attend to my daughter. To the extent that while pregnant I was compelled to do weird things like organize my spice rack alphabetically. It's called "nesting". Or to avoid strong odors, such as glues or gasoline, which had never bothered me previous to that. Or after my daughter was born to ask my husband to teach me to use a shotgun so that I could protect her while he was away on the road. Prior to that I was a committed pacifist and definitely anti-gun.

Seriously... those are instincts. No reason was involved in the making of that film.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

And many people put pressure on me to ignore and reason away my instincts. Our society is very uncomfortable with mammalian instincts. Women are pressured all the time to give up their maternal instincts in favor of behaving "reasonably". Unfortunately many of them do.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

Sorry if I pushed a button Bun! Totally unintentional!

[Todd]

On a highly speculative and philosophical note we might make a case that insticts interfere with concepts of free will. If we come into the world with a set of pre-programmed behaviors (which is what instincts really are) then these behaviors define our reactions to environmental and social stimuli. We could say they pre determine the course of events to a certain degree.

Instincts can only be over-written by behavior modification which in the case of bird flying into a window take could take a long time. The bird will either break its neck or stun itself unless something acts on him to change his direction.

The other is behavior modification applied by a higher cognitive being as when humans train dogs or other animals.

Yes, we can apply behavior modification to ourselves with a great deal of success. But the primary diference is our cognitive ability. An individual can choose to modify their own behavior with or without the help of other individuals.

Our impulses and/or drives are left overs from our instinctual behaviors. We have the impulse for sex or for breast feeding, but we don't necessarily know how to do these things until we learn.

The impulse to care for our young for example is not so much an instict as it is the result of attachment or bonding. There are plenty of examples of people who are unable to bond and subsequently develop no impulse to care or protect others.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

huh... that's a very interesting point.

[Cosmic Sher]

Not to necessarily discredit instinct, but I have heard of another theory that I think is really interesting and may prove to be, at least part of, what influences our behavior, knowledge & impulses. I believe it is related to, or possibly an off-shoot, to the Collective Unconscious theories.

I've been reading about this thing called Morphic Fields, where each strand of DNA may hold the hardware (or archetype) of the being that it represents but it is influenced by the fields of energy that surround the DNA like a downloadable blueprint. This initially defines what the being is, including unique aspects of the individual, as well as instinctual behaviors that it may possess. It retains the energy that already existed from previous versions of the form, so that a tree knows what kind tree it is and information about the environment it's currently in. But, these fields also are adaptable and mutable, sensitive to the surrounding energy so that changes or new information is related to the individual, and then to the entire community, and thus have a better chance at surviving whatever changes may be ocurring in the environment.

The idea is that as knowledge is gained within a community, usually beginning with family and growing outward as a child grows and experiences more than family, the Morphic Field will change as well and spread throughout the community that it affects. It will have already communicated historic knowledge/energy to its members but will continue to grow and adapt as new information is added. These fields constantly are downloading this information at a cellular level, and the more beings that tap into this and act on it the wider that information is spread, possibly to neighboring groups as well. And this can make permanent changes in the actual structure of the DNA itself.

This reminds me of the stories that are reported of great scientific or technological advancements that seem to 'spontaneously' happen at the same timeframe in different, uncommunicating spots of the globe. What if these individuals are somehow tapping into the same Morphic Fields, either because of a similarity of genes or perhaps because of the nature of the knowledge they are accessing, which doesn't always have to follow a purely physical connection. If there is energy behind thoughts, maybe the actual field of thoughts are tied by a common energy as well?

I know much of this is way over my head, intellectually, but it really gets my brain turning to think of the possibilities.

[Félix]

You should read about epigenetics, Sherrie.

[Debbie]

I have concluded that the consciousness definitely resides in the brain 'cos mine is starting to hurt!!!!!

[Todd]

Heh! I think that is a metaphysial migraine you are feeling. I get those all the time. :-)

[Cosmic Sher]

Larry, that sounds like a really ooky disorder - "I'm sorry sir, but you have a clear case of epigenetics" I'll have to check it out.

Yup, metaphysial migraines, I have those frequently. :P

[Cosmic Sher]

Larry, as a note, Jared (my LTFB) says "Thanks a helluva lot. Now I have more nutball science stuff that I have to listen to from Sherrie". Hee-hee!

[Félix]

That's funny, Sherrie.

Epigenetics is the real thing, though. A friend of mine teaches it at an Ivy League college. Organisms change the expression of genes (switching on or off) based on their life experiences (environment).

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

[Cosmic Sher]

This is really quite amazing... and I can see how these things in our environment can have a definite expression on our genes. I'll have to read more about it. This is similar to what I was saying, but on a more physical level. If you can think of everything having an energy imprint that can affect DNA, it amounts to the same thing.

Hmmm.... now I must go eat more soy to counteract the epigenetic factor in my pudginess. :)

p.s. Jared is now looking at the website. Ha-ha!

[Félix]

Here's a TV show about it, Sherrie (and Jared):

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/storie...

[Todd]

I need to quit speed reading...I just read this as "orgasms change the expression of genes."

Larry wrote: "That's funny, Sherrie.

Epigenetics is the real thing, though. A friend of mine teaches it at an Ivy League college. Organisms change the expression of genes (switching on or off) based on their l..."

[Cosmic Sher]

Um, a little Freudian there Todd, dontcha think? ;)

[Todd]

Maybe just a little.

[Debbie]

Nah...I saw it too....it's just a slip of the eye!

[Todd]

Thank God, er Freud, for that.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

crazy cool. just when you thought science was going to simplify everything for us... it just goes and describes exactly how complex it all really is!!! the gods are laughing at us.

[Cosmic Sher]

Yup Char, that's what I love about it all. It's all intricately intwined... and, I think the gods are laughing at us, but are waiting to laugh with us. ;)

[Todd]

Interesting stuff

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

at first I thought it said The History of Consciousness. I thought would be a pretty daunting topic.

[Todd]

Heh! :-)

[Cosmic Sher]

But mucho interesting!

[Félix]

Yes!

[Debbie]

Carry on then! I'll watch with great interest!!