questionposter

Ok, well I was thrown off by the fact that that particular instance didn't pertain to genetics and the context I was talking about, so sorry about that.

Oh wait, it wasn't charon it was you How does something you learn ever get passed down genetically? I've never heard of that before.

Nope, that's still not it because I had already stated those things and still Charon said there was something else. I already understood what you were saying, but I don't see how the other part you didn't mention exists or how knowledge get's passed down through birth. By the way, you might want to be less arrogant before wasting a troll card.

So then how can things you learn be genetically passed down unless learning things alters your genes? It would make much more sense if merely the aptitude for learning something was passed down rather than the thing itself, but apparently there's more too it than that.

Well it doesn't really make a lot of sense how if someone learned say... how to play a c-major chord that their offspring could be born automatically knowing how to play it. What about genes would code for a c-major chord? Music is just something we made up.

Well if you heard on the news recently, some scientists predicted that the human's brain will likely not evolve to be much greater, but not because of emotions leading to natural selection necessarily, but because there are physical limitations such as how many connections per cubic millimeter the likely hood of all the best traits always being passed down. It's still completely possible there can be a few random changes that help, maybe even new emotions. Our emotions are probably part of what allows us to survive in the first place, because without the variety we have we likely wouldn't be able to form a society together. It kind of seems like your suggesting that because of things like love that the best traits aren't surviving or forming, when really you wouldn't be able to tell if someone has every improved trait without love anyway.

So are you saying the aptitude or better ability to learn something can be passed down or that a specific thing or skill you learn would be passed down?

And this notion that if someone learns calculus or guitar that their offspring might automatically know how to do those things is proven?

What? How could that possibly work? That's news to me... Unless learning things somehow alters your genes...

They don't reflect blue or red because they absorb red and blue, and you can't absorbs and reflect the same light at the same time. Why they absorb those colors is because those colors are most efficient to absorb for most plants rather than all the colors driven by random chance in genetic mutation. Some plants do reflect blue or red in some parts because they don't absorb red but instead absorb green, probably because of random genetic mutations that have survived.

Smaller and weaker one way, but stronger in others. Well, as much as I hate to say say it, perceiving consciousness doesn't have as much to do with that as it does with your brain releasing a chemical in response to it being in your life and over time habitual mechanisms build up. You could not want it hurt because its conscious, but it seems like most dog owners mistreat dogs in some way, like they cram them in a house and only take them for like 3 minute walks, and that's probably because they are more chemically attached rather than consciously attached.

True, but as much capability as society has to emphasize mental traits, it also has the ability to emphasize physical traits because more resources are more available for muscle growth and developement.

Many can peruse high level athletics because they are physically adapted to do so, like they can naturally run long distances without tire or use little oxygen and climb Everest or are tall and can spike things in tennis, or are more flexible and buoyant to swim. And I'd imagine some athletic people would be interested in other people who are also athletic.

Weaker people can reproduce, but so can stronger and smarter people. Most people need at least some physical strength at some point in their life to survive and often mental streangth, and about social class: poorer people reproduce more. A lot of people aren't attracted to people who are completely lacking in one area anyway, even if lacking some. Physical adaptions aren't disappearing, we're definitely not that technologically advanced and even if we were only muscular adaptions might become so diverse that many people would lack muscle strength, but there could easily be skin and lung and eye adaptations. What's happening is a more diverse set of physical adaptations is surviving due to technology. If you (not you personally) honestly don't need to even use physical strength even 1 time in your life, you probably don't have much of a life anyway and so you probably won't reproduce.

What about acquired altruism or attributes in that realm?

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Evolution hasn't dampened in the human race, but rather that the environment has changed which leads to the survival of different adaptations, such as with the mental modes. In this day and age, a muscle head can't just kidnap someone and make them their wife, opposite sexes are also interested in intelligence as well. Tools and technologies may lead to a wider variation in physical strengths, sometimes weaker, but sometimes stronger. Few people are very weak as a result of all these technologies, but for all those people that are that incredibly weak because of technology, there are also people driven to become physically stronger and devote their lives to athletics which could only happen in an organized society where those athletic people had enough resources to do so. Back when humans were first around, even though they had to move around a lot to survive, they were still often so weak they couldn't stand up straight for long periods of time and that was because of a lack of resources (nutrients).

Consciousness isn't something we can really measure, but based on brain scans, many of the same emotional experiences and thought processes (not like doing calculus or anything like that) humans go through can also be found in animals as well by looking at heat patterns, chemical responses and which parts of the brain have more neurological activity in repose to the same event (for instance, the same parts of the brain that are responsible for fear in both animals can be seen acting at the same time when both the person and the animal are afraid of each other in the same situation). I suppose it is tiny bit of a leap to say that just because we find endorphins in a fish's bloodstream when it get's injured means it feels pain, but it sort of like saying a black hole doesn't exist just because we can't directly see it. One pattern I have noticed in the differences between animals and humans in studies seems to be different adapted mindsets or modes of thought. These mental modes can vary throughout different members of the same species, but seem to influence the mood in which organisms naturally react as to make something more violent or friendly, layed-back or shy. In other words, there are different amounts of different chemical responses for the same action which are mostly coded for within genes. This leads me to think that in fact animals are much more closer to the thinking humans usually have since humans also have these attributes for which demagoguery is often used to appeal to in politics. There's a clearer picture in my head, but just try to imagine that it's not that animals automatically think a certain way, but that they have subconscious influences on their perception from chemicals and often don't really have a reason or sometimes the willpower to ignore them. If you don't smoke cigarettes, try to imagine feeling you are addicted to them at different levels and you should notice that you would desire cigarettes in different amounts. That's a way of getting perspective and seeing how simple it works. I've never even smoked a cigarette in my life, but I can imagine I am addicted to them and it makes me want cigarettes more. I assume it's this way that method actors can get stuck acting a certain way even after their roll or script ends, since the more time you spend thinking in a specific mental mode, the harder it is for your brain to stop. Also, about cells: I have not seen any evidence that cells themselves posses consciousness or are capable of thought in any way, however we don't know what consciousness is, nor do we know how it comes about existing exactly. These lead to open ended possibilities in which anything that is alive has to therefore has consciousness, that consciousness has to be built from something else that has consciousness (which does lead to a paradox with atoms not being composed of anything more), that consciousness only exists as the processing of information which means if certain things such as cells don't process information they are not conscious, or that consciousness can somehow be quantified as to form a direct relationship between the amount of something such as cells or molecules and units of consciousness.

I suppose game theory can give you accurate predictions, but I mean you could easily see how something like evolution on a world scale plays out just by using your imagination. Are the numbers generated actually supposed to be used for anything useful? What about fractal symmetry? Aren't biologists still preoccupied with that math?

I understand how game theory could apply to biologoy, but how is it really that useful? It seems like you could figure all that out just by thinking about it yourself. I suppose maybe if you used a computer model that had a global evolution through time that might be hard to think about, but you could still do it. It's not much different than playing chess.

I've only seen it applied to foreign affairs, and it works a decent amount of the time, but it's still just a model considering only limited factors.

I problem is you aren't reading my posts at all, because mechanisms can be subject to evolution without consciousness having anything to do with that, and I already stated somewhere back that morals are relative, so I don't see why you think I'm making a big fuss with considering them in evolution. I hardly doubt that what your suggesting describes every single action, because honestly people can do things independent of chemical feelings and and recognize when their subconscious mechanisms implore them to do a particular thing, but they don't have to do it. Also, regarding morals, it doesn't even take a genius or any sort of intelligent mechanism to know that getting killed and stolen from is bad for you, and since people don't want that, they support an institution of rules against those actions. Plenty of people can change morals anyway, they can consider something good that use to be bad or vice-versa. You might have a scenario where someone's brain associates particular objects or actions with fear such as when people become afraid of things for extended periods of time, but even if you are afraid and you don't even have to conquer those fears for any reason, you can consciously do so and by doing it over time your subconscious will adjust to that pattern and gradually not associate the releasing of the chemical that causes fear with a particular object or event. This is evidence to support that in fact your consciousness is a separate entity that is capable of even molding subconsciousness almost at will. I already said I think some of what your saying is logical, but it's really just not as simple as "your genes think this, so this happens", your genes don't even possess the capability of conscious thought.

The notion that everything happens because mechanisms determine what happens is the religion of determinism, and determinism itself doesn't exist in reality. There are plenty of people who might be stuck with things such as mechanisms that produce too much of the chemical that causes depression, but they can fight through it if they want, and its not the only factor. As you have already ignored but I'll try say again anyway, many subconscious mechanisms play a part in evolution, but there is little or no evidence to support that consciousness itself has anything to do with that. So far every scenario you have presented involves centering around processes of subconscious mechanisms. I find the reasoning for why depression is still around without assuming that the genes themselves think based on the information you had given, but there's perfectly healthy people that can still want to commit suicide without actually having done anything wrong relative to their kin, and there still is probably suicidal losers who probably don't, and some who even become successful. Although its helpful to view things working as mechanisms in psychology, especially when people aren't using their heads, everything can't be crammed under that single principal. Not every single thing is some struggle, and why should it be?

Hmm, I didn't say inbreeding causes mutations but rather that it increases the likelihood of the same genes that code for genetic diseases being paired with each other, but otherwise is the HWE thing not when the frequencies of alleles change from one generation to the next? Wouldn't it not eventually come to a complete equilibrium? I can't imagine that it would work so perfectly that every single allele or coefficient would eventually have the same exact amount.