🚀 go-pugleaf

The film "The Fifth Element", (which hints tantalizingly at what European
film production teams
could do if given a Hollywood budget to play with, but that's another story
altogether...) contains the archetypal example of the Memetic / Genetic
feedback
hypothesis contained in this thread.

After being destroyed while in transit back to Earth, "Liloo" (Milla
Jovovitch mmmm)
is reconstructed in minutes from all that remains of her - her hand - with
her full
thousands-of-years memory intact right up to the moment of her previous
destruction.

Liloo was sci-fantasy, but how long until we retro-virus ourselves add-on
genetic
memories - implying memetic immortality through cloning?

benedict@memia.com

"Michael Jameson" <m.jameson@hunterlink.net.au> wrote in message
news:3BD2FD6A.DE70DA@hunterlink.net.au...
> et_al@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:32:40 +1000, Michael Jameson
> > <m.jameson@hunterlink.net.au> wrote:
> >
> > >The New Scientist article indicated that the general hypothesis has
'only
> > >circumstantial evidence so far' - 'DNA certainly has the capacity to
act as a
> > >stable blueprint...
> >
> > And its this very point that makes me doubt the theory. DNA *is* fairly
> > stable, yet this theory proposes to make it less so. Any one neuron may
> > be involved in the 'storage' of many memories, so the DNA would have to
> > be subtly modified for each one, which seems fraught with danger to me.
> > How do you ensure that changes are only made to the "waste" 97%  and not
> > the "active" 3%  where even a small change could have catastrophic
> > effects for that cell.
> >
> > The second problem I can see is that memories are not permanent, cast in
> > concrete, unchangeable things. My recollection of a past event can, and
> > often does, change over the years. How does that fit with them being
> > stored in "a stable blueprint"?  It seems to me this theory changes
> > memory from, say, the malleability of this post stored on my HDD to the
> > permanence of it being burnt into a CD and that doesn't seem to accord
> > with reality.
>
> Thanks. These both sound like fair criticisms to me.
>
> > OTOH, the best theory we have, that storage is a product of the
> > plasticity inherent in changes to cell interconnections, synaptic
> > density, receptor types/placement/densities, etc, seems to be consistent
> > with what occurs in practice. Moreover, we know these changes do occur.
> >
> > >> And no, more that 3% of the data are used.
> > >> That would say that only 3% of the DNA were used to create a human
during
> > >> developement.
> > >> It seems more data are required
> > >
> > >I don't understand. The abstract said that 'approximately 3% of our DNA
is
> > >used'. How are 'DNA' and 'data' interchangeable? Do you believe that 3%
> > >figure to be incorrect?
> >
> > I don't know whether it is or not, but it seems probable.
> >
> > Every cell, including neurons, contains the entire DNA sequence needed
> > to make any of the bodies cells, but a particular cell only needs to
> > read a small part to function.  So that reduces the "active" percentage
> > considerably.
> >
> > And quite a bit of the DNA is "junk" that we and our ancestors right
> > back to the primordial soup have accumulated from transcription errors,
> > viruses splicing parts of their DNA into it, charged particle damage,
> > etc.
> >
> > Add that all up and the amount of DNA that controls a particular cell is
> > probably fairly small, though I'm guessing that all may need to be in
> > place for the cell to be viable.
>
> Again, makes sense. That we don't see any use doesn't mean its place is
> irrelevant.
>
> > I don't think you could have a cell
> > that only contained just the DNA sequences it needs. Which opens the
> > possibility that while the cell may not actively use a particular
> > section, that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't important in finding the
> > right sections. Perhaps someone who knows more about this could comment.
>
> Someone else did mention that the notion of 'junk' is basically only
saying that
> we can't say what it does.
>
> > Ian
>
> Mick.
> --
> "You are the music while the music lasts" - Antonio Damasio (after TS
Eliot).
>
>