[extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat

[Jeff Davis]

Regarding the cat of spike's story,
  
--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> 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...

This is an oft repeated factoid--the nature/nurture
mixed influence effect.  Yet how true is it really?  I
think there is a presumption that among humans--the
"you' and "I" in "...you aren't you, I aren't I..."
above--that behaviors are shaped more, maybe
substantially, maybe predominantly by experience. 
According to this view, experience informs judgment
which then influences future behavior.  

I do not think this is the case to anywhere near the
degree it is assumed.  I think self-consciousness,
cognition, and judgment are but an insubstantial
patina glistening atop the legacy of several billion
generations of evolved fleshy deterministic instincts.

Are there twins, separated at birth, who many years
later, despite divergent life experiences, are
strikingly similar, not just physically, but
behaviorally?  Is this generally the case?  And I see
many animals which, absent cognition,  nevertheless
demonstrate very complex,  genetically predetermined
behaviors.  Behaviors not learned, but rather built
in.  

Humans are subject to the same inheritance, but
deceive themselves about just how 'instinctive' their
behaviors actually are.

Just my two cents.  YMMV.

Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles




		
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