…coincidence?
I mainly wanted to know that this stuff was factual, because then it directly implies that you can theoretically predict a person’s whole life.
…from start to finish.
Besides cats & dogs are very, very easy to predict within their behaviors. You can do this with human animals too.
Now “factual” means different things to everyone right? The book is considered an authority I suppose, and the arguments are logical and consistent. If that qualifies then…
If anybody else beside me thinks what I do, then it can be factual.
Now if somebody else deems them a “scientific authority”, then that means even more, simply by implication.
Well. . .
This whole bit is off, as I understand genetics. Definitely, what Felix said is more accurate than what you’ve described. Certain traits are cut out, or diluted to the point where they may as well be cut out. Even if every symbol in a genetic code were passed on, it wouldn’t entail that the information is passed on. If I combine two sentences letter by letter, or even word by word, the overall meaning will differ greatly. That becomes especially significant when you’re dealing with complex traits like “good at business” which involves quantitative reasoning, language proficiencies, emotional awareness (both of oneself and of others), etc.
As far as I know, women actually add more to children than do men. Mitochondrial DNA is definitely passed down through the mother. I also think the mothers immune system is passed on to the child. This actually contradicts Felix a little: the mother’s experience with disease can affect the child’s immune system. Also, Tab posted something a while back that was pretty good, dealing with methylation of DNA. I’ll try to find it. The basic gist was that the mother’s experience changes the way that the child’s DNA is expressed. So, a mother that had sufficient nutrients might give birth to offspring whose metabolism is less economical, while a mother who lacked nutrients might have children whose immune system is stingy and takes every last nutrient.
This is quite a leap, and there’s little evidence for it. You’re making an empirical claim, and whether you like science or not, you have to acknowledge that your claim is falsifiable, and is at best untested.
This isn’t the best way to approach science. Poetry is lovely, but you can’t get very far in terms of predicting and manipulating nature with it. The problem with turning all the science into metaphor is that you end up arriving at conclusions that seem scientific, when in fact their metaphorical, but you still seem to treat them scientifically. If by “women” you’ve actually meant “my mother” all along, you can’t switch back at the end of your story; you’re still talking about your mother.
This seems to contradict this:
On the one hand, you’re saying that clones, with identical DNA, can still be different. On the other, you’re saying that you can predict a person’s entire life from their DNA. How can you reliably predict different things from the same set of DNA?
I buy a good amount of genetic determinism, but not that much. At the very least, quantum physics will always predict a certain amount of randomness.
Well, that is fine & dandy, but I believe that I already gave you the reason as to why there is no “cutting” involved in the process.
That is linguistically-false. Take the following lines-of-words: 1) “good at business”, and 2) “likes to fish”.
Say both are genetic codes that are passed on. Once #1 and #2 mix, then the sentence structure may read: “good at business and likes to fish”, or, “likes to fish and good at business”. Perhaps such a person would own a fishing business??? The chances for this are high, but not necessarily true. And if this person determines that his “likes to surf” desire is more pressing, then he may dilute the “likes to fish” genetic tendency, but that does not imply that the #2 code is ever cut out of the string. You end up with this: “good at business, likes to surf, and very rarely likes to fish”.
You need to qualify this statement more stringently for it to hold weight. In what particular way could it be true?
The man contributes a different half than the woman, but it is a [half] nonetheless…
Upon reading this, I would hypothesize to you that a mother’s DNA is more in control of the bodily longevity of any said-children.
A father’s DNA is more about progression, and contributing something new to the procreated generation: difference over similarity.
I never stated otherwise.
I am not a “scientist” Carleas. I would like to say that I am a “philosopher”, but I will leave others to judge that for themselves.
That is incorrect: “1+1=2” is a metaphor. And I definitely can manipulate nature with that male-logic.
Well if I metaphorically state that the #1 exists as an object, and when metaphorically-added to another #1, that an equation metaphorically creates a #2, then I do not have much choice but to associate the #2 with an object strictly-metaphorically-speaking. The #2 is then an “assumed-object”. Whether it is categorized as science is not really within the domain of philosophia. Why would I care to prove the equation if I already hold it as self-evident? Am I attempting to convince you or me of its truth & validity? I am trying to convince me, not necessarily-you. If you are convinced, then it just adds to what I already conceived to be true. – what a coincidence, what an irony, that you believe in “1+1=2” just as I do!?
There is no other way. When you refer to women yourself, you are referring especially to your own mother.
This is a direct linguistic implication of metaphor and language.
No, there is no contradiction when you understand that a “prediction” is not absolute. If it is absolute, then it is actually more of a “prophecy”, which is self-fulfilling. And I am not prophesying here. I said, definitely-speaking, that a genetic clone allows for non-identical discrepancies insofar as the entities are relayed different memetic information. And furthermore, expanding upon such a fact, the lives of these particular clones can be predicted insofar as the memetic variances are controlled and understood, as well as the genetic/biological impulses.
You will have to take my word for it that Quantum Mechanics is not so much deterministic as you might think, unfortunately.
-There has to be cutting involved. Otherwise, the lenght of the human genome would double each generation, and that hasn’t happened. Even if we make such an absurd assumption, there’s no reason to assume that we would get “good at business and likes to fish”. Why not “good to fish and likes at business”? Or “good likes at to business fish”? My point is that when you merge two genomes, even if no symbol is cut (which we have good reason to believe to be false), the grouping of the symbols will affect the information they convey.
-You cut out my statement (“Women actually add more to children than do men”) from the explanation of it (“Mitochondrial DNA. . .”), and inserted between them a request for an explanation (“You need to qualify this statement more stringently for it to hold weight”). Why?
As for “difference over similarity”, I’d have to agree, but not on a social level (which touches on your metaphorical use of this whole topic, which I’ll address in a minute). Male DNA is more prone to mutation, because the y chromosome is flawed. It’s not always progress, though, sometimes it’s really detrimental.
-“‘1+1=2’ is a metaphor” is an abuse of the term. There is a sense in which “you are the light of my life” is a metaphor and “1+1=2” is not. To apply ‘metaphor’ to everything is just to strip ‘metaphor’ of a meaning as distinct from ‘word’, and thus to require a new word to signify what ‘metaphor’ is supposed to mean. That’s just silly.
The sense in which you are using science and genetics as a metaphor that is incorrect is your implicit mapping from genetic facts to social facts, e.g. crediting men as the instruments of social progress because their genes tend to mutate more drastically. The two are unrelated, and the metaphorical use of the terms glosses the dichotomy.
-It is highly possible to refer to women without referring to your own mother. If you mother has had a double mastectomy, and you say “women have mamary glands”, you’re clearly saying something about women that isn’t true of your mother, so the two must be distinct. Thus, there is a subtle difference between saying “women have two x chromosomes” and “women will just abandon you” that makes it more appropriate to accuse the latter of being intended metaphorically than the former.
-To say that we can predict something sort of implies that we can accurately predict something. If you don’t mean that, you can “theoretically predict a person’s whole life” based on absolutely any observation. Because there is a coffee mug on my desk, I can predict that you will be a great philosopher. Clearly, true as the consequent may be 
, it doesn’t follow from the stated facts, and it isn’t significant that I can throw out the prediction based on the facts.
-Quantum mechanics is a full-fledged non-determinist scientific system. That’s what I meant to point out, sorry if I was unclear. I meant this in response to a misinterpretation of your use of “prediction”, addressed above.
No, you are reaching here. Let us consider that I “cut out” some of your sentences. This implies to me that I cut a page in half, let one half fall to the ground, and never picked it up. That half-page would be disposed one way or another. It may dissolve into the earth via deterioration. Or, somebody else may come along, deem it useful, and pick it up for themself. Either way, this is not the analogy that I accept. It is more accurate to say that my mind reads and absorbs your words. I then choose what to respond to and what not to respond you. Although I may ‘ignore’ some sentence-structures, because I deem them less-important or non-important, this does not mean that they have been “cut away” into some parallel dimension of non-existence. They still exist under the surface. The process of defragmenting this kind of information while I sleep removes the information further, but it only slips deeper into my subconsciousness as a result. The half-page seeps into the earth. So hopefully you see that a “cut” is not a proper reflection for the process described here. Normally, I see that people would assume that the other half-page that was “cut away” magically-evaporates out of reality. This is clearly-not the case. The metaphor fails itself regarding the point either you or I are attempting to make.
And let us say that the DNA-structure reads: “good likes at to business fish”.
This is known as “retardation”, a genetic anomaly that occurs as a severe natural & nurtural-deficiency.
The effects are almost absolutely environmental. The body is forced to cope and reorder the structure: “good at fish, likes to business”. But if you know anything about retardation, then you will know that it takes an enormous amount of work to reorder and catch the particular person up to where others have already surpassed them.
As for the bold-section that I highlighted, the “Y”-chromosome is definitely not “flawed” in any way. It was designed for a purpose. That purpose is to progress or regress. If a particular male is ‘successful’, then his genes literally-progress. If a particular male is a ‘failure’, then his genes literally-regress (social stagnation), or straight-out die (suicide).
I disagree.
When you take into account all linguistic maneuvering as metaphorical, it enhances the meaning of the metaphors rather than destroys the meaning of ‘metaphor’-itself. You begin to see a whole new world, so-to-speak. Literal translation occurs contrarily though. As all words become metaphorical, they seem less literal. And you can work towards the opposite direction as well, assuming everything as literal and not metaphorical, which will end with the same result via inversion & perversion.
I disagree.
And you seem to have not even founded a case against this point…
Genetics exist so that men may become social tools to be used and eventually-returned to Nature.
There is no qualitative way for it unless ‘mother’ does not exist. But my mother does exist. And I bet that yours does as well. In fact, I bet that every human animal that has ever been born has a ‘mother’ that exists in one-way-or-another. It may be possible somehow, but I see it as almost absolutely-improbable.
You must take into account the double mastectomy though. I can say all women are born with two feet, but then one woman might be born feetless due to some genetic anomaly, which would seem to discount my statement. However, then you must take into account this ‘retardation’, which would be socially-deemed to be a problem, because human people use their feet and love them. They are an integral part of the human body. To say that a war veteran who got his leg blown off by a landmine is not part of the equation “all men have two legs” does not do anybody any justice outside of this context where the soldier clearly “lost his leg”. This is circumstantial…
The metaphorical difference is negligible and a matter of intellect, according to my definitions.
Well, that just depends on what your vision and aim is. If we include consequential events, then I can form and assert any line of reasoning, and whether it is ‘accurate’, ‘predictable’, or ‘logical’ would all depend on judgments involved. “I see a balloon.” “The balloon is red.” “Walt Disney is dead.” Do you see the problem with these three statements? There is a void in consistency. Reasoning fills in the gaps, which it can do.
So, when it comes to the “coffee mug on my desk”, I can equally-say in return, “Carleas enjoys coffee” and “I personally despise coffee”. Thus, “I have a coffee mug on my desk too Carleas, but I never drink coffee from it, which I suppose is ironical!”
I see.