This is something about which I have had quite a few discussions on other forums.

It has been said that there is no such thing as " cellular memory ".

But how, then, does one explain instinct?

Science claims that those instincts are " just there " naturally.

But what mechanism gets the instincts in place?

I would think that something being " just there " would indicate at least SOME form of cellular memory.

How could something just be " there " without it having been passed down through evolution in some form?

Now..evolution scientists say that these instincts are passed from generation to generation. Again, this would indicate that there is some form of cellular memory.

Yet genetic/cellular scientists will insist that there is no such thing.

I think it's more likely that science just hasn't managed to discover the mechanism as of yet.

After all...a few hundred years ago...the Earth was flat and the Universe revolved around it.

Any thoughts??

Fantastic.

No one has a single thought on this subject.

Amazing.

I didn't see this until now. Its actually a very interesting topic to me.

It depends on what you mean by instinct. Do you mean the kind instincts that animals have to do certain behaviors even though they've never been taught? Or do you mean instincts or feelings about a person or situation that you get sometimes not based on information you have from other sources?

I am referring to the " birds fly south for the Winter " kind of instincts.

But...it could also apply to a human's instincts when it comes to dealing with people.

I don't think what I mean is referring to that as much as it is instincts in the natural world.

What is it that tells the birds it's time to fly?

Those who refer to instinct as something that is just there and always has been, yet refute ( without fail ) some kind of cellular memory just baffle me.

Are they saying that, even though they can't come out and admit it, there is a " higher power " or " creator "??

If those instincts have " always been there " then where did they come from in the first place??

By the way...thanks, Ruth.

I would have hated to think that no one wanted to bother with this question because I think it's definitely something to think about.

Instinct... is a hard-wired behaviour in the brain. I believe it's not on a cellular level, meaning that knowledge is preserved in a single cell. Much like I believe a person needs the coordinated effort of many-many braincells to experience thought or vision or hearing, the same person also has behaviour in his life that is not thought, but born-with, what I call an instinct. This behaviour is not the automatic and hardwired response to certain stimuli that is preserved in one or another cell; no, it is preserved, I believe, in a number of cells.

This reasoning is the easies to shot down by the argument that at the beginning of a new life (biologically, not spiritually or legally) a living thing, such as a human, starts out with being a single cell, a fertilized egg. So if the same person is born with some pre-existing knowledge (which is actually not that, it's a pre-existing hard-wired behavioural response to stimuli) then if it's present at birth, no bull, then it must have been present already, at least in its bud, in the fertilized egg state.

To which the counter-argument would be that the operative part was "in its bud"; not every feature of a human, which is otherwise an inalienable quality of his, such as two eyes, one stomach, etc.) is present in the fertilized single-cell egg. So if a nose or a leg can form from the coded commands of the chromosomes, then the pre-programmed instinct can also be formed, without it being present in the fertilized egg.

Once upon a time a mother skunk had two children named "In" and "Out". They were very active children and whenever In was in, Out was out. When Out was in, In was out.

One day when Out was in and In was out, the mother skunk said "Out, go out and find In and tell In to come in." Out went out to find In to bring In back in. Within a minute, Out came back in from going out and Out brought In right back in.

Amazed, the mother skunk said, "Out, you just went out to find In and brought him right back in! How DID you do it?"

To this, Out loudly proclaimed: "INSTINCT!"

Would the instinct then be a part of the very DNA passed to the single cell egg when fertilized??

Not the information itself, but rather the building commands for building proteins that create the number of cells that get that information not implanted by external learning, but by internal inheritance.

In other words, the DNA of a single egg and male sperm united carries not the behavioural code, but the code that builds that behavioural code, without any necessary intervention.

Think of it this way. Mrs. Claus gave birht to many elves. Each elf makes a part for a toy, which gets assembled by other elves. The ones who make the parts have no clue what the final product will be like, but they all make something according to the design specification that had been given to them.

Once the toy is put together, it will take the shape of an airplane or a doll house. The elves who make the parts (these elves can be thought of as the dna of the fertilized egg) have no clue what the parts will be used for. But once the parts are put together, their functionality comes to life. The functionality is not part of the learning process of the part-making elves, yet it is an inevitable end result. The instinct is not a part of the fertilized egg, but once the parts that the fertilized egg produces are put together, the functionality (instinct) comes to life.

Wow, Wux! That was a great explanation. Even I could understand that. You should be a science teacher.

Ok. I see where you are coming from with that.

However, that would still point back to a form of cellular memory.

If the sperm and egg contain the " code that builds the code ", then that code MUST be, in some part, embedded in the sperm and egg cells.

Well, yes and no. The code of a code. The human body has many different types of cells, some look and function completely differently (like a neuron and a cell in a hair follicle.) But they both differentiated through a coded process from the fertilized egg. Could a fertilized egg grow hair from itself? No. Could the fertilized egg transmit nervous signals? No. So the code is not functional in the original fertilized egg. Such function, therefore, is not in the memory of the egg. (If it were, it would be able to do it itself. I could do math if I can remember how to; and if I can`t do math, it`s because I forgot it or never learned it. Same way, the feritlized egg can`t grow hair, because it is not in its cellular memory how to do it.)

One more thing to ponder about 'codes'. There are algorithms in existence that can make a message of, say, 500 characters, be transmitted in a way so that much fewer characters are used, like 10 or 20. Very complicated math is used, but very interestingly, they don`t need more charactes, and with the same set of charecters they can make a message a shorter one.

Think of this as an application of the chromosomes and their commands how to build a man from a single fertilized egg.

Perhaps " cellular memory " is the wrong term for me to use in this case.

What you would be referring to, I think, would be more along the lines of a " genetic " memory.

That would get closer to the " code of a code " idea that you would be referring to.

But, scientists say that transmitting something like natural instincts in the genetic code isn't possible.

My only problem with the whole idea of instincts just " being there " is that for those instincts to take hold, they would HAVE to start somewhere.

An example, off the top of my head, would be the argument I heard about windmills.

DTE wanted to install a wind farm in the county I live in. One of the arguments against it from the environmentalists was " Well..birds might fly into them and get hurt or killed. "

Now, that could possibly happen for a couple of generations of the birds in question, but after that, the birds would start flying AROUND the windmills.

It would be an " instinct " to do so.

But by what mechanism would that instinct be instilled?

Would it just be the fact that the birds that were dumb enough to fly into the blades didn't survive to breed, leaving the ones that were smart enough to avoid the blades?

Instinct and cellular memory

To understand the difference between memory passed down and instinct pass down, you must first know the difference between the nature of "hard-wired" behaviour, and learned behavour.

After that, you must understand the way hard-wired behaviour develops.

Hard-wired behavior is something that someone, or an animal, never needs to learn, and it is very hard to unlearn, sometimes impossible.

Such may be the fact that chicken who never saw a hawk will run under a bush if a hawk appears on the sky. The chicken will do the same if a paper-cut-out in the shape of a hawk is dragged abovehead, on a wire. The chicen will NOT run for cover, if the hawk-shape is dragged backward over them.

You can teach a chicken that seeds will be thrown to them to feed if a whistle is blown. In fact, if you keep throwing the seeds in a certain spot, always, and just after the whiste blow, the chicken will eventually learn to run to to that spot on the sound of the whistle. It takes time to learn this, as in the beginning a whistel blow does nothing to the chicken.

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Hard-wired behaviour cannot be unlearned; hard-wired behavior can be invoked at any time in the life of an animal, even in its old age, without any prior experience. In that sense, it is automatic, and immediately accessible. Learned behaviour is not automatic, and if not practiced, it will fade over time.

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The way evolution works is it randomly changes the shape, the limbs, the internal body functions, and in some cases, the hard-wired behaviour of an animal. The way man became a biped, and lost his hind hands, was done not because he was already walking on his hind hands, and they needed to change, but because random changes made his hind hands into feet. This random change conceivable made some monkeys (or apes, let's not get technical) with front feet and hind hands. The ones with the hind feet and front hands survived, and the ones with the hind hands and front feet did not, because it's harder to earn a living and easier to be hutned down then.

Instinct is a behavour that developed this way, too. There were chicken in whose repertoire of hard-wired behaviour the hiding from the hawk was quickly, from one day to the next, developed, by random changes; and the same day, some chicken's hard wired behaviour changed them to ran out to the clearing and lie down for the hawk. As in evolution, those who survive will reproduce, and those who quickly die, will not.

Thus, since hard-wired behaviour is inherited on the chromosome (DNA) level, it cannot be changed by will, and it takes no effort to learn it, it's automatic. Because of this, the offspring of the chicken who survived the hawk-attack the best, had the best chances to have many-many of their children and grandchildren survive, and thus they made more and more chicken with the automatic reaction to how to hide from hawks.

However, the chicken who ran to the feeding spot on the sound of the whistle, could not pass this skill on without perhaps teaching it to their young. A whistle-follower chicken, if she dies before her eggs hatch, will have new fresh chicken-children who will not have any idea of the whistle-rule.

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So this is important. Memory is not passed down on the cellular level, if you define memory as the ability to recall a past experience. Instinct, on the other hand, does get passed down, and nobody has a say in it whether it ought to or not.

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If a bird had memory passed down, they would not fly into glass plates in patios and living-room windows. It is conceivable that one day a given bird species will produce a baby in whose governing principles the mutation will occur, to not fly into glass plates. If that bird has children, this instinct will get passed down.

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If birds avoid windmills, that is so because it is a learned behaviour. The first experience of seeing the accident will cause the bird to compare this with the experience of seeing no sudden deaths in their compatriots if those fly far away from the windmill's arms. This is learned behaviour, and it only seems as if the birds knew it from birth. I think if you take an egg of a bird which knew about the windmill-rule, and you hatch the egg far away from windmills, and the chicken will grow up around no windmills, then if you take that chicken back to the windmill, he will be unaware of the deathly danger of the windmill.

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You must give enough credit to animals to see they can learn really important lessons. Using any mouse trap will be fruitless if a man uses it long enough in a site of mice-infestation, because the mice, by observing their fellow mice die in the traps, will aviod the traps even if the man lines it with caviar and champagne.

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So no, memory does not get passed down on the cellular level; if memory is learned, and I use the word "memory" as in the sense that it forces behaviour to happen that has been learned by the individual.

If a "memory" is not learned but still present, that's what we call "instinct", and we have a different name for it because instinct is somewhat different from memory: It is not learned, it is automatic, and it is passed down in the DNA or in the cellular level. How does it get created if it's not learned? Instinct is a product of random mutation, just like physical changes in a species. The random mutations are not always good, but only those individuals survive who have the mutated changes that are beneficial. More "bad" mutations happen, but guys with those don't survive as easily, so the changes that happened to them do not get to survive in the gene pool.

"But, scientists say that transmitting something like natural instincts in the genetic code isn't possible. "

This I believe is a false statement. If you can quote a scientist who says that, please give references here. (Name of author, date and name of publication, name of publisher, page number.)

________________FOR GOD'S SAKE, WUX,_________________
...............PLEASE, BE GENTLE WITH THAT SCIENTIST!!!

Jane, you're getting funnier and funnier. I think you're coming of age.

I am hoping the scientist will be a tall, willowy blonde with big hooters... and she will BEG me to be rough with her. (Like punch her in the knee, as I'm only 5'4".)

Actually, John, from your suggestion to JUSTAGUY -- -- I was under the impression you were going to give that scientist a peice of your mind (or definitely a peice of something) thereby dishonoring him...

But, if your hopes will come true -- the scientist will be a tall, willowy blonde with big hooters -- I can think of a better way You could dishonour Her!...

I got your joke the first time, Jane... thanks, it was funny. I just replied not to the joke by explaining it, but by carrying the joke farther. Never mind, it was still very funny, even with an explanation, and that say a lot for the humour of a joke, because most jokes get killed by their own explanation.

And your second joke is funny too... I did not think of this angle.

Jane... are you tall, willowy? Blonde? Do you feel like being one?

Wux beat me to the punch, here. There are so much we don't know about genetics (and we know that we don't know...) that I doubt a scientist would say this isn't possible...

...unless they were referring to some kind of strawman characterization of the idea, like a kind of "explicit instruction set for behaviors", like "If (TCA) hawk shape (CGC CCA CGT TGC GAT CGA) flying forward overhead (TTA GTC CGA ATT ACT) run for cover (GAT GTC CTA)".