Other Memory

[orald]

Dashing swordsman.

[Freakzilla]

Cellular memory

All cells in multicellular organisms are derived from a pluripotent zygote and contain the same genetic material (with a few exceptions). However, they are capable of recording a history of their development within the organism leading to their specialized functions and limitations. Cells often employ epigenetic processes that affect DNA-protein interactions to record this cellular memory in the form of mitotically stable changes of the genetic material without a change in the DNA sequence itself. This is typically achieved via changes of the chromatin structure.[3] Examples are methylation patterns of the DNA molecule itself and proteins involved in packaging DNA, such as histones (also referred to as "histone code").[4][5]

[4]^ Bird A (2002). "DNA methylation patterns and epigenetic memory". Genes Dev. 16 (1): 6–21. doi:10.1101/gad.947102. PMID 11782440.
[5]^ Turner BM (2002). "Cellular memory and the histone code". Cell 111 (3): 285–91. PMID 12419240.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_memory

[A Thing of Eternity]

Relocating this discussion as per your wink.

I think you're limiting yourself in your thinking that OM is genetic.

True enough, but I think that's (genetics) definitely what FH had in mind (maybe less so by the time he got to Heretics though as we've all discussed Duncan's seemingly magical memories of some events). Any other explanation for OM is way too pseudo-science metaphysical spiritual craziness for my mind.

What did you have in mind for that?

Cellular or even telepathic. FH said it was stored in nerve cells, but I don't trust him to get his science totally right:

"Are you aware of how I know my father?" she asked.
"I have some idea."
"Let me make it clear," she said. Briefly, she explained how she had
awakened to Reverend Mother awareness before birth, a terrified fetus with the
knowledge of countless lives embedded in her nerve cells -- and all this after
the death of her father.
~Dune Messiah

There is a topic on Other Memory in the Bene Gesserit forum.

1. Cellular storage other than DNA wouldn't explain how it gets passed from generation to generation.

2. Telepathy - maybe. Lets make sure I'm reading your idea right: You're suggesting something along the lines of the parents somehow telepathizing all of their memories (and their parents and so-on) into their offspring, where it would be stored in the same way as our actual memories are, but it would be untouchable except to those few who have been trained to do so (spice agony etc)?

[SandChigger]

I don't think "cellular memory" in that quote means exactly what we want it to mean.

Unconscious telepathic dumping of ancestral memories into a fetus before birth, is that what you mean?

Might work for the maternal OM, but what about the paternal in cases when the father is not present during the pregnancy, or dies, etc?

Sorry, still not seeing it.

[Freakzilla]

I don't think "cellular memory" in that quote means exactly what we want it to mean.

http://www.cellularmemory.org/about/cellularmemory.html

Unconscious telepathic dumping of ancestral memories into a fetus before birth, is that what you mean?

Might work for the maternal OM, but what about the paternal in cases when the father is not present during the pregnancy, or dies, etc?

Sorry, still not seeing it.

I was thinking Sharing could be telepathic.

Frankly it doesn't matter to me, there is some evidence of it, I see it as finely tuned "instinct", and without it the whole story falls apart.

[SandChigger]

I don't think "cellular memory" in that quote means exactly what we want it to mean.

http://www.cellularmemory.org/about/cellularmemory.html

GMAFB.

I was thinking Sharing could be telepathic.

Frankly it doesn't matter to me, there is some evidence of it, I see it as finely tuned "instinct", and without it the whole story falls apart.

Of course, Sharing has to be telepathic; there's no other way to explain it.

And there is limited telekinesis, at least at a microscopic level, as evinced by that "mote" that Jessica (and presumably others) use to change the Water of Life once it's inside the body. (I can accept prana-bindu as some sort of advanced mind-over-body control, but changing the chemical structure of poisons is a whole 'nuther order of phenomenon.)

(Some evidence of what, cellular memory? Yeah, right.)

[A Thing of Eternity]

GMAFB. =

[Rakis]

GMAFB. =

Give me a fucking break.

[A Thing of Eternity]

GMAFB. =

Give me a fucking break.

Ah. Then yes, I would probably agree. I think this is somewhere where we have to let go of reality to enjoy Dune. (shit... that sounds a bit much like some preeks and new dune ) It's may have been thought theoretically possible at the time - it clearly is not possible given current knowledge.

It doesn't stop me from enjoying FH, and I wouldn't say it's the only fantastical element of the series.

[Rakis]

GMAFB. =

Give me a fucking break.

Ah. Then yes, I would probably agree. I think this is somewhere where we have to let go of reality to enjoy Dune. (shit... that sounds a bit much like some preeks and new dune )

Simon is contagious i tell ya !!

[A Thing of Eternity]

GMAFB. =

Give me a fucking break.

Ah. Then yes, I would probably agree.

I read the second link too now, not just the first - and yes! GMAFB!!! This is on par with the UFO people if not worse.

[Freakzilla]

I don't think "cellular memory" in that quote means exactly what we want it to mean.

http://www.cellularmemory.org/about/cellularmemory.html

GMAFB.

I'm not saying I believe it.

(Some evidence of what, cellular memory? Yeah, right.)

No, Genetic or ancestral memory. I think instincts are the obvious example. There's also idiot savants. (I know, we've argued that particular point before (but here?). But I'm not entirely convinced the unusual abilities they demonstrate are learned.)

[Serkanner]

An example of "cellular memory" that could make you wonder is this: when you take a kitten away from its mother at a very young age and raise it yourself it will still know how to clean itself when it grows up. This has not be taught by its mother and, obviously, not by its human foster parent. So where does the "memory" comes from?

[Freakzilla]

An example of "cellular memory" that could make you wonder is this: when you take a kitten away from its mother at a very young age and raise it yourself it will still know how to clean itself when it grows up. This has not be taught by its mother and, obviously, not by its human foster parent. So where does the "memory" comes from?

That's what I meant by instinct. There's lots of examples.

Ever notice how a dog will walk in circles before it lies down? Theory is, that's to clear a place to lay down in tall grass.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Neither instinct nor savants are examples of OM. Memory is something you gain in life - and it cannot be passed on.

Instinct is pretty far removed from what savants have. Instinct is behavior patterns which are selected for after hundreds of generations. Some cats will randomly be born with a stronger tendency to lick themselves, or a tendency to hate being dirty. Those cats will be slightly harder to track/detect (or whatever the advantage is of the trait you want to argue as OM) and therefore will have better reproduction opportunities - and so on and so on. Instincts are evolved exactly the same way as physical traits. They are random and then are selected for.

Plain and simple, there cannot be any complex behavior patterns (like knowing how to play piano) handed down to the next gen because of one simple fact: you cannot pass down anything you weren’t yourself born with (aside from maybe some slight random mutations). You can only pass on to your offspring a tendency to clean yourself if you were born with it because of random chance and past genetics (which resulted from random chance), you cannot pass on that tendency if you learned to clean yourself lots after birth.

I guarantee everything a savant knows is learned. There simply is no mechanism for them to have been pre-born with it. That's pretty much what being a savant is - the ability to learn something (usually just one thing) and remember it perfectly. Most savants don't have any skill, the just remember certain types of thing perfectly, like the guy who can accurately tell you what the weather was like for each day of his life (he does by date and day of the week). He's no different than the blind savant who learned how to play a classical piece on piano perfectly by watching a movie which had that song as an intro.

Savants have perfect memory for key things. I really have never seen anything that even loosely suggests that they have genetic memory.

[Serkanner]

An example of "cellular memory" that could make you wonder is this: when you take a kitten away from its mother at a very young age and raise it yourself it will still know how to clean itself when it grows up. This has not be taught by its mother and, obviously, not by its human foster parent. So where does the "memory" comes from?

That's what I meant by instinct. There's lots of examples.

Ever notice how a dog will walk in circles before it lies down? Theory is, that's to clear a place to lay down in tall grass.

We are on the same level then

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

An example of "cellular memory" that could make you wonder is this: when you take a kitten away from its mother at a very young age and raise it yourself it will still know how to clean itself when it grows up. This has not be taught by its mother and, obviously, not by its human foster parent. So where does the "memory" comes from?

That's what I meant by instinct. There's lots of examples.

Ever notice how a dog will walk in circles before it lies down? Theory is, that's to clear a place to lay down in tall grass.

Playing the advocate of devil:

About the dog, I think he learns that by watching another dog doing it. It isn't a example of cellular memory.

I think cellular memory is related to your genetic bias to have o not some diseases, or to have protection against it, that you developed during your life. The natural instincts of a species is related to a junction of things that make you part of it, not solely cellular memory.

[Mandy]

An example of "cellular memory" that could make you wonder is this: when you take a kitten away from its mother at a very young age and raise it yourself it will still know how to clean itself when it grows up. This has not be taught by its mother and, obviously, not by its human foster parent. So where does the "memory" comes from?

That's what I meant by instinct. There's lots of examples.

Ever notice how a dog will walk in circles before it lies down? Theory is, that's to clear a place to lay down in tall grass.

One of my dogs spins in circles before he poops

[SandChigger]

Probably looking for someplace NICE TO POOP ON!!!

Instinct is hardwired behavior, selected for over generations, as Thang posted above.

Memory is laid down in the brain and nerves, through individual experience, NOWHERE near your gonads or germline cells. THE CONTENTS OF YOUR BRAIN ARE NOT PASSED ON TO YOUR CHILDREN IN ANY GENETIC FORM, only through their experience of being raised by you.

I haven't bothered to go look at the cellular memory article on WP; I know the one on racial/genetic memory (up for deletion at one point IIRC) was a real mess. What I got from the quote above was the impression that someone had misread something about cellular development, about how there has to be some mechanism keeping track of what steps in a process have already been completed.

???

[Serkanner]

Memory is laid down in the brain and nerves, through individual experience, NOWHERE near your gonads or germline cells. THE CONTENTS OF YOUR BRAIN ARE NOT PASSED ON TO YOUR CHILDREN IN ANY GENETIC FORM, only through their experience of being raised by you.



???

Ahum ... brain and nerves are also "build" from cells.

[Seraphan]

Memory is laid down in the brain and nerves, through individual experience, NOWHERE near your gonads or germline cells. THE CONTENTS OF YOUR BRAIN ARE NOT PASSED ON TO YOUR CHILDREN IN ANY GENETIC FORM, only through their experience of being raised by you.



???

Ahum ... brain and nerves are also "build" from cells.

But memory information that is stored in the brain is in no way stored in the gametes.
If a human is rased by wolves, that person will act like a wolf, it has happened before with two sisters. There's no genetic disposition that pre-renders us as beings that walk with two feet, eat with forks, dress, etc. It's simply information that isnt coded in the DNA (as far as it is known).

[SandChigger]

Yes?

Unless your brain is in your cock or ass, memory is nowhere near your gonads.

There is no mechanism for recording the experiences of an individual in the germline (reproductive) cells. Any recording of experience is in the brain and nerves of the individual. There is no mechanism for transferring such information to the egg and sperm cells.

The brain and CNS forms on the basis of "blueprints" in the genes. Instinct is "hardwired" reflexive behavior/response. If your genes created a brain/CNS with a certain built-in response to stimuli that gives you a survival advantage in certain situations, you'll be more likely to pass that on those genes/that brain structure to offspring. That doesn't mean that any of your future descendants will have a "memory" of whatever danger you managed to escape.

Other than in a very simplistic, uninteresting sense, instinct is not genetic memory.

[Freakzilla]

Unless your brain is in your cock or ass, memory is nowhere near your gonads.

I left mine in my other pants.

[Rakis]

Unless your brain is in your cock or ass, memory is nowhere near your gonads.

That would explain why i scratch my butt while i wonder " Where did i put this thing?"

[SandChigger]

Dewd...I DON'T want to know these things.