A NEW VIEW OF BEHAVIOUR AND THE OMNI-ENVIRONMENT.**
December 31st, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: A NEW VIEW OF BEHAVIOUR AND THE OMNI-ENVIRONMENT. :: A NEW VIEW OF BEHAVIOUR AND THE OMNI-ENVIRONMENT. :: A NEW VIEW OF BEHAVIOUR AND THE OMNI-ENVIRONMENT. :: A NEW VIEW OF BEHAVIOUR AND THE OMNI-ENVIRONMENT.**
In a message dated 12/30/2007 6:04:37 PM Eastern Standard Time,
GEVANS613 at aol.com writes:
In a message dated 30/12/2007 22:17:48 GMT Standard Time, Bernx at aol.com
writes:
In a message dated 12/30/2007 11:44:00 AM Eastern Standard Time,
GEVANS613 at aol.com writes:
THE NATURE OF BEHAVIOUR
For the human brain, ensconced on high in its protective bony carapace, the
human body is as much a part of the environment as anything else. I do not
hold with a psychological environmental dualistic model of environmental
intrinsicality – extrinsicality. There is plenty of empirical evidence to support the
view that corporeally we are a result of our genes. For me behaviour is the
brain’s manner of exercising control over its own constitutional (corporeal )
environment together with, and in an overall response, to the exterior
environment. This article must be read in the sense that the word *environment*
refers to the brain’s somatic milieu, as well as the exterior environment of
which the human holism is a part.
>From that I see no reason why other (normal) behaviours should not be
genetically programmed, default, instinctual, gene-engendered, drives and traits
responding and undergoing modification to the changing omni-environment. I agree
with those experts who define behaviour as BOTH standard physiological
responses (the tortoise withdrawing into its shell) and *intentional activity* or
*purposeful behaviour* - the emotional and aggressive throwing of a brick
through the window of a child molester perhaps? In that sense if I run away
from a man with a gun, or throw an egg at a corrupt politician I am responding in
a way my genes dictate – and my genes are determining who I am.
Does that mean, Jud, that your genes are immutably predisposed, fixed in
*moira* or *kismet?* I thought you had read my article on “The New Determinism”
(PREDETERMINATION AND A QUESTION OF ALTERNATIVES , “A Critical Review:
Hyperobjective Reality and the New Determinism” by Bernard X. Bovasso:
http //members.aol.com/bernx/bohm1.htm ). Or perhaps you have not heard about
the epigenetic trend among evolutionists and the re-polishing of Lamark.
Bernard
Jud:
I shall certainly re-read your excellent “The New Determinism”
Predetermination And A Question Of Alternatives. And no, I do not maintain that genes are
immutably predisposed, fixed in *moira* or *kismet - but rather as I say above
*gene-engendered, drives and traits responding and undergoing modification to
the changing omni-environment. I am also working on linking the idea of
behavioral genetics to the biological homeostasis of the human behavioural entity,
which maintains its genealogically prescribed environmental temperature,
sugar, seratotin and adrenaline and other levels over a wide ambient inner
bodily spectrum. Epigenetically the human gene adapts itself to exterior
influences and ingested substances. It is a very subtle process in which no *single
gene* is responsible. In fact it is now apparent that no individual gene is
responsible for ANYTHING - many genes are needed to interact to produced Down’s,
Homosexuality etc. The > “inheritance of acquired characters” of Lamarckism
was cutting edge in the eighteenth/nineteenth century, but by present
genealogical standards is passe and almost childlike in its naivety.
Regards,
Jud
Well, then, Jud, some of your learned countrymen at Cambridge must be
“childlike in naivety:” In a BBC report:
“Scientists believe your genes are shaped in part by your ancestors’ life
experiences. Biology stands on the brink of a shift in the understanding of
inheritance. The discovery of epigenetics – hidden influences upon the genes –
could affect every aspect of our lives. At the heart of this new field is a
simple but contentious idea – that genes have a ‘memory’. That the lives of your
grandparents – the air they breathed, the food they ate, even the things they
saw – can directly affect you, decades later, despite your never experiencing
these things yourself. And that what you do in your lifetime could in turn
affect your grandchildren. The conventional view is that DNA carries all our
heritable information and that nothing an individual does in their lifetime will be
biologically passed to their children. To many scientists, epigenetics
amounts to a heresy, calling into question the accepted view of the DNA sequence – a
cornerstone on which modern biology sits. Epigenetics adds a whole new layer
to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of ’switches’ that turn
genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition
and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans..
In a remote town in northern Sweden there is evidence for this radical idea.
Lying in Överkalix’s parish registries of births and deaths and its detailed
harvest records is a secret that confounds traditional scientific thinking.
Marcus Pembrey, a Professor of Clinical Genetics at the Institute of Child Health
in London, in collaboration with Swedish researcher Lars Olov Bygren, has found
evidence in these records of an environmental effect being passed down the
generations. They have shown that a famine at critical times in the lives of the
grandparents can affect the life expectancy of the grandchildren. This is the
first evidence that an environmental effect can be inherited in humans. In
other independent groups around the world, the first hints that there is more to
inheritance than just the genes are coming to light. The mechanism by which
this extraordinary discovery can be explained is starting to be revealed.
Professor Wolf Reik, at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, has spent years
studying this hidden ghost world. He has found that merely manipulating mice embryos
is enough to set off ’switches’ that turn genes on or off….”
_http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml_
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programm…)
Sincerely;
Bernard
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