Philosophy of Genetics

Everyone has the genes for every human trait, but an "on switch" for very few

We all have the same "genes", which are 99% similar to everyone else's.  Shy people and outgoing people have the same basic genes, but their personality traits are different.  How can that be?

It's important to understand that not all of our genes are put to use.  A shy person may have their "outgoing genes" permanently switched off by a few "master genes".  Most of the 1% difference among humans can be found in the genes that act as master keys.

This implies that everyone carries all the genes for all human traits, including the capacity to be a psychopath, which is simply a more rare innate trait. (The only exception is male/female traits, since women don't have a Y chromosome.) 

It's easy to see why this would be true.  If shy people had to inherit hundreds of unique (specialized) shyness genes as a package, that trait would quickly deteriorate when the genes were passed down from parent to child.  Having children tends to remix the genes, so keeping genes together (and keeping them separate from the genes for outgoing traits) would be impossible.

The "Jennifer Aniston" Neuron

Recent research has shown that we may remember certain concepts, ideas, or people (such as "Bill Clinton" or "Jennifer Aniston" or my "grandmother") using a single neuron in the brain.  In other words, our memories are not holistically (or holigraphically) spread across the brain, but may be stored in very specific locations.

When we learn a new concept, it is temporarily stored as "short-term memory" by neurons in the center of the brain (in the hippocampus and related regions).  For example, the first time you saw "Jennifer Aniston" on TV, your hippocampus stored the "Jennifer Aniston" concept in your short-term memory.  Later, that memory was transferred to your higher brain (the cortex), which resembles an enormous switchboard of neurons.  It seems that the memory gets further refined into a pure concept over time, represented by fewer and fewer neurons, until it is represented by a single neuron.

This research has implications for how our genes can affect our personality.  If our mental concepts are stored all over the brain, it wouldn't be possible for our genes to exploit them.  But if our memories are consolidated and categorized (e.g. keep all memories of pretty girls stored in the same place), a genetic signal (or a boost of testosterone?) could affect how we use those memories.

HIV and Intelligent Design

Humans can design things.  Humans can make plans.  Therefore, a product of evolution (people) can plan and design.  Since humans are made of matter, it follows that certain types of matter can design and plan other types of matter.

The question is, did this ability originate with humans, or did it evolve earlier?  Indeed, is it an inherent part of the process of evolution itself?  In other words, can the "process of evolution" (the grand designer, if you will) plan and design future beings?

If it could, it would need a way to "stand outside" of the organism it was designing or modifying, and be able to step back and observe how well it was doing.  So, what type of DNA can be transferred from one organism to the next (and perhaps pass on a signal of some sort). 

Why, HIV, of course!  HIV can be transmitted from one person to another, and the genetic material becomes integrated with the DNA of the new host.  HIV has an exceptional knowledge of monkey (and now human) DNA, since it is able to exploit many other genes in the host to replicate itself.  So it could be thought of as extra-human DNA!

The process of evolution (as we currently understand it) involves an early death of the host (before he/she can bear children).  In other words, if you're not innately fast enough to evade a predator, you get eaten.  In the same way, the HIV virus could be bringing an early death to certain weakened individuals (such as those with tuberculosis), as part of an "intelligent design" scheme.  It gets treacherous to speculate, of course, because there is no proof for any of this, yet. 

Switches and latches

In my story about the elevator, I wrote that understanding "switches" is crucial to understanding the interaction of nature with nurture.  Our nature -- including the configuration of our body, the connections between our nerves, and the specific location of hormone receptors throughout our tissue -- is designed to respond to specific experiences, or nurture.  In other words, we're designed like an elevator, waiting for our buttons to get pushed before we act.  We are designed to respond to specific types of experiences, and we ignore the rest, as an elevator reacts to a pushed button but ignores strong smells.

Pushing a button is a momentary act, yet the elevator has special circuitry that "remembers" the decision, and also ignores us if we accidentally push the button twice in a row.  In electronics, that "memory" circuitry is known as a switch, or latch.  A single experience has a lasting effect.  In the human body, permanent changes in genetic expression can result after receiving the right stimulus (i.e. for which they were designed to be affected).

Some human genes act as switches or latches.  A single experience can be "remembered" by temporarily or permanently switching off a gene, which may set in motion a complex, one-way, irreversible developmental process.  In other words, a latched gate swings closed behind you, cutting off your option to return.

That's another reason genetically identical twins aren't exactly the same in appearance or mannerisms.  One twin may have an experience for which a genetic latch (which they both share) was designed to be permanently closed.  If the other twin does not have that same experience, his latch remains open.  In the same manner, two elevators may have an identical design (nature), but are sent to opposite floors because different buttons were pressed (nuture).  In this case, the changes are not permanent, however -- it just depends on the design.