I do struggle to extract the exact meaning from your phraseology occasionally so just let me know if I've got the wrong end of the stick anywhere.Sapius wrote:Please note, my vocabulary is quite limited, and I would always welcome if someone gets the gist of what I’m trying to say and express it in much better terms.
Yep, there might well be as yet unexplained mechanisms at work that allow inheritance of acquired characteristics. What I'm saying though is that such a mechanism isn't needed in order to explain inheritance of learned traits, or indeed evolution by natural selection (now it's been mentioned).DT: I'm not so sure that mentality or memories are literally passed on genetically, but you can make a good case as to how they are figuratively.
Sap: Yes, I don’t mean it as an exact ‘reincarnation’ of an ancestor, with all or part of personal memory intact, but in a much deeper sense related to RNA rather than DNA. RNA is not fully understood as I understand it. I haven’t much knowledge about it either. If you click the “about RNA†icon in this picture, and go forward two pages, you will see the different types of RNA, and suspicion of probably there being more smaller RNA’s.
Yep, the bigger picture.DT: In a certain sense, traits are produced genetically by definition as it simply means an inherited characteristic, although obviously not all traits are inherited. These genetic traits are then liable to produce certain mentalities.
Sap: Exactly, but traits inherited could be because of numerous complex reasons, and not necessarily from two or three generations back, but may be ten or even twenty or more generations back. It could be more like a dormant gene passing on generation-to-generation, and may be triggering ten generation later. And what passes on is may be just a few percent of what one of the ancestor had, and may be a few percent of another, and so on.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. You can't mean that part of your genome is left blank. Maybe you mean part of what will become your genetic inheritance is left blank to be written by your experiences etc. and will be passed on by some, as yet undiscovered, mechanism? If so, maybe.Sap: Rest of the major part is left blank for me to develop my own unique traits in accordance to my experiences, influenced by the few percent of acquired traits however.
Or perhaps you simply mean that not all of your traits are a result of genetic inheritance? If so then they're definitely not but when it comes to genetic inheritance, the term trait strictly refers to a distinct phenotype of a characteristic, as opposed to the more general meaning of any particular distinguishing quality whatsoever. These phenotypes, or rather the genotype that produces them, are the only traits of yours that are selected, proliferated, mutated and variated, according to evolution by natural selection. In keeping with that theory, the ones that you develop over a lifetime cannot be inherited, except perhaps allowing for some as yet undiscovered mechanism.
The way that you can pass on those acquired traits and knowledge is culturally, via the mechanism of your relative success in proliferating them amongst your progeny, their progeny, and the population in general.
DT: The mentality of this extrovert arsehole, in a very general way, could be said to have been written in stone when his mother and father did the dirty.
Sap: Or even say the "good" work done twenty generations back,
Lol, I guess so. Although Catholics might disagree.
Again, maybe so. But it should be understood that such processes can be understood in the context of genetic inheritance in conjunction with cultural inheritance.but it may be relatively quite a small RNA transfer, but deeply seated and partially effecting how a person "thinks", but thinks HE does, in the most unique fashion as an end result.
I don't think there's any 'may be' about it. This science is definitely still in nappies (daipers).DT: More and more we are seeing that DNA and RNA are responsible for inherited traits previously unthought. Likewise we are understanding more and more about just how big a part inheritance plays in every aspect of our lives, mentality included.
Sap: I have no doubt about all that. We may be basically in the “kindergarten†as far as our knowledge in that field goes.
In part yeah. Its rate of expansion is hardly going to be commensurate with Moore's Law but you could make an argument as to how phenotypes that succeed in proliferating increasingly greater comprehension skills have been favoured by the selective pressures of recent history. But you wouldn't see the qualitative differences in the space of a generation, or indeed a number of generations.DT: I think you were referring more specifically to learned traits though. The way you use the example of increased intelligence seems a red herring to me in that it is more likely through cultural heritage, rather than genetic, that accumulated knowledge is passed on and assimilated more quickly and readily in successive generations.
Sap: No, what I mean here is that our capacity of grasping intellectually has increased tremendously over the past say 10 thousand years, and especially in the last two hundred years. It’s like how the speed of a processor has been doubling every year, increasing to every six months for the last two ~ three years
Again though, you could make a far better case which is more in keeping with the evidence available as to how the very same mechanism operates memetically, as opposed to genetically, via cultural inheritance.
Again, perhaps but it's all highly speculative and can be explained via cultural inheritance anyway. Cultural inheritance is very powerful and has a massive adaptive effects at a much higher rate of turn over than natural selection. Is there a single person over 25 on the planet who hasn't at some point thought, 'Oh no, I'm turning into my father/mother, even though I was determined not to'?Sap: However, certain behavioral patterns could also be RNA related, which too may be transferred, thereby effecting a mentality like you explained about the super-taster. On the other hand, knowledge gained effects behavior and mentality, and a certain change in my mentality, in turn may effect or have a minor change in my RNA pattern deep within, and this change may be passed on to trigger say after some generations, but would be a very minor part with huge effects when that persons experiences are also taken into account, but then too, according to his environment he faces. Say which country is he born in? Does his parents follow a religion? Are they open minded or closed? So although a small portion is acquired, external influences AND his internal OWN thinking, since that is the unique part which is open to all, creates a uniquely new mentality, with far better grasping power than ten generations back.
Yep, selection is always operative at some level. And we can only ever generalise when we're talking about populations.Sap: Now, I know someone might say that that does not apply to ALL, so one must also keep in mind, extinction happens all the time, and survival of the fittest applies for mental evolution too.
Indeed, although nationality will obviously have an effect depending on the over all cultural traits of that nationality but culture operates at all levels, from the individual to the entire populaton.DT: Intelligence wise, we are said to be no more capable today than at the dawn of modern man. It's just that knowledge is accumulated, rationalised, disseminated and thereby absorbed, more and more efficiently.
Sap: And I am thinking exactly in those terms, as species, not according to particular nationality.
I certainly can't disprove it.DT: The Lamarkian idea of the inheritance of characteristics aquired during a lifetime, and thereby the mechanism for inherited memories, is now moribund, if not defunct. Whilst there seems to be no mechanism to explain inherited memory as you propose it, there is definitely a mechanism that produces inherited biological traits, which in turn produce associated mentalities that can justifiably be referred to as inherited.
Sap: I had to lookup ‘moridund’, and I don’t know the ‘Lamarkian idea’ either. I will google it. However, I am suggesting that certain of my “memories†do effect my RNA, which are as good as recording certain of my “memoriesâ€, and effecting partially in some far off generation.
Or cultural inheritance. :-)So our supertaster who is a picky eater and thereby may become picky in life in general, just as perhaps their father and grandmother were, could be said to have inherited the 'memory' of a 'look before you leap' attitude to a higher degree than those without that trait, as long as we use the term inherited memory less than literally.
Yes, I am not talking in a literal sense, but neither do I think it is all “biologicalâ€, but something in between related to say RNA.