- The experiences of being structured by DNA provides the structure of our rational thought.
- Grammar and math owe to genetic structuring, to its motions.
- Religion and philosophy have origins in gene/meme interactions.
Care to explain any of that?
This makes me think of a book by a dude named Lewontin called, “biology as ideology: the doctrine of dna”.
Thanks. I’ve read some of Lewontin’s writings on evolution, but not the work you mention. I see you tube has two podcasts on Lewontin discussing that work. I probably need to see them.
I’m not into theories of evolution. My thesis covers construction of the human organism from fertilzed egg to full fledged human. DNA in these constructions makes cell, organ and organism. The processes by which this is done provides an experience of being structured that we can use in adapting to the extrasomatic environment. The experience is of construction or structuring, which provide the ontological basis of grammar, math and thought.
All of that comprises a sort of “half truth”, a “devil in the mind”.
What the DNA provides is a body (a “structure”) that can perceive affects upon it concerning almost everything relevant to it (as evolution would eventually demand). Along with providing a body, a brain is also provided that can associate the occurrence of affects into patterns used to predict upcoming affects, also required by evolution. The task of that brain is to organize a model of cause-to-effect and “name” the entities and actions involved (“conceptualize an inner ontology”).
Thus it is what those affects do that determines the structure of thought. The affects determine what associations are made via the body’s senses. The affects upon the body form the concepts involved in thought. The DNA’s body merely provided a means. And evolution merely made certain that the means gradually got better at allowing useful (“rational”) structure of thought. Remove all sensing of affects and there can be no structure of thought regardless of what the DNA intended.
Yes, that is correct. Materialist reduction, rather to genes or levels of biology in the organism, will always miss the larger point. That’s why I see no explanations in this OP, but only descriptions, ways of defining a basic relation without actually invoking anything “rational”, necessary or empirical models.
It’s like trying to define language by appeal to grammar alone, without ever considering either vocabulary or connotations.
Organisms are made of “consciousness” which is just the accumulated substances they’ve engendered over the course of living, of experiencing. Biology and genes are very helpful tools for us, but one does not mistake a hammer for the act of striking a nail, or of building a house.
And furthermore and even more interestingly, one must question the motives of scientists who are driven to deconstruct reality, consciousness and experience in terms of such absolute and narrow reductionisms. What is the psychological appeal of such a tactic?
Was that meant to be rhetorical?
To answer it to you requires knowing from what stance you currently misread the world. 
The potential answers range from minuscule upgrades, to major and probably unbelievable revisions of perspective.
Oh, I hadn’t actually meant that as a rebuke of your own method, but now that you mention it…
Structure is function. This is the crux of my argument. DNA does what it is. From where would any sense of functional structure come if not from the experience of being structured to function?
Please keep the discussion within the parameter of growth and development of a single human organism. Evolutionary theory is beside the point. Experience is the point.
This seems like a circular argument. Due to us beings structured in terms of DNA, we think in terms of structure, such as the structure of DNA.
A progression such as DNA construction is circular by feedback but moves forward to producing functional structures.
My piano is a set structure with certain limitations. It allows me to play any type of music, while being restricted to twelve tones. The music is an outcome of structural functionality. So is my thinking mind.
No, the music is not an “outcome of” the structural functionality, the music is an outcome of the relationship between the inputs/stimulus with respect to the structural functionality and the structural functionality itself.
If you were to plot the music as a function on a graph, you need both sets of coordinates: those representing the (unchanging) limit/logic of the system itself (x axis) and those representing the (changing) inputs into that system (y axis). The music cannot be reduced to one of these without the other. This is the heart of the error of reductionism, rather in biology or elsewhere. Structure does not equal function, rather structure and function are in a relationship with respect to each other. The relationship is key.
It’s not S=F, it’s F= f(S)
I cannot evoke from my piano any sounds that are not already sructurally possible. This is about progressions of structure, not about relationships. As for the piano the media provides the message; the structure provides the function. As for me the stucture of my thought is provided by the structure of my construction. This experience provides my sense of the validity of my thought.
What do you mean by functionality?
I’ll tell you what you mean: the relation between two structures.
The playing, whether physical or mental, which you had forgotten to include in the definition of music.
That is like saying that potential is affect.
Just because one leads to the other when given the complete opportunity, doesn’t make them the same thing. They are different ontological elements.
“Cause A” =/= “Effect A”
“Cause A” =>> “Effect A”
DNA is the house that builds itself, given the right materials. It’s purpose, if it can be called a purpose, is to construct an organism that can adapt to an environment. It produces a this which must transact with a that in order to survive. I’m talking of a progesssion here from fertilized egg to full-fledged human. Noting the elaborate system of neuronal connections in the brain does not disprove the progession that made brains possible.
This is a bottom up description of the progession, not a top down one. Ricouer believes that such a progression cannot be described; Chaneux believes it can be desribed. I’m with Changeux.
DNA is the house that builds itself, given the right materials. It’s purpose, if it can be called a purpose, is to construct an organism that can adapt to an environment. It produces a this which must transact with a that in order to survive. I’m talking of a progesssion here from fertilized egg to full-fledged human. Noting the elaborate system of neuronal connections in the brain does not disprove the progession that made brains possible.
This is a bottom up description of the progession, not a top down one. Ricouer believes that such a progression cannot be described; Changeux believes it can be described. I’m with Changeux. See “What Makes Us Think”.(Ricouer/Changeux).