[extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat

[Brett Paatsch]

Samantha Atkins wrote:

>
> On Dec 22, 2004, at 9:56 PM, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>
>> Spike
>>> If we had had him cloned, surely the genetically identical
>>> offspring would not take up these evidently starvation-induced endearing 
>>> behaviors.
>>
>> Surely not, I agree. His experiences shaped his neural net in
>> conjunction with his genes. Both genes and experience matter
>> and there is an interplay between them.
>>
>> He isn't him, you aren't you, and I aren't I on the basis of genes alone 
>> any more than a recipe produces the same cake at varying
>> temperatures of oven.
>
> Dunno.  Some of the separated at birth identical twin literature suggests 
> that genetics have more impact on subsequent choices and behavior than the 
> above would suggest.

Ultimately any analogy will break down. But I'm pretty happy with the
above one for present purposes. I don't imply that genes don't matter
they do, a lot.  Exactly how much they matter in relation to determining
complex behaviours is still unknown. A good book popular science book
on this would be Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate.

You mentioned recently that you were a double gemini. A comment that
I took to mean that you and your twin are both geminis. If you happened
to be an identical twin and raised with you twin then you'd probably be in
just about the best possible position to know that even subtle changes
in environment produce difference in personality, behavior and
environment.

I don't think the state of scientific knowledge at any level of abstraction
from molecular biology to developmental biology is good enough to say
with certainty exactly what combination of genetics and environment is
responsible for the phenotypic behavior of Spikes cat.  I'm confident
that the cat's brain when it produced the behavour Spike reports though
would have been developmentally influenced by learning. And learning
will have affected the shape of the neural net to some extent.

I stand ready to have my explanation refuted, supported or extended
by subject matter experts (or otherwise) armed with facts but I made
only a fairly modest analogy and I thought it was sufficient for
the purpose.

Brett Paatsch