Quote: "So, the question for this post is:  How do you feel?" unquote!

I feel with my finger tips, in the dark or the daylight! Next question!

Obtuse--of course you feel with more than your finger tips.  Quite retarded of you to think such a constipated response is worthy of this thread.  Ha. Ha.

See how that made you feel?  Irritated?  Dismissive??  Bored???  Nothing to do with your finger tips.

Can't tolerate the notion that you have feelings?  How conservative of you:  now stop being retarded.

Quote: "So, the question for this post is:  How do you feel?" unquote!

I feel with my finger tips, in the dark or the daylight! Next question!

How do I feel?
With every PAIN in my body.

: Obtuser  April 11, 2012, 05:21:12 AM

Quote: "So, the question for this post is:  How do you feel?" unquote!

I feel with my finger tips, in the dark or the daylight! Next question!

How do I feel?
With every PAIN in my body.

“I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism.”
― Milan Kundera, Immortality

Just seemed appropriate here. I lost this thread a long time ago and should probably catch up.

I do think genetics plays a bigger role in our lives than it is still given credit for.  Is there a republican/crazy/fascist/zombie gene?  Of course not---but there could be a "complex" of such genes.  Why do we all think the way we do?  Why is reality not perceived the same way by all of us?  Why do some people refuse to change their minds???

I blame the amyglia.  Its a part of the brain that would form the alter of whatever I would worship if I were given the command to do so.  Ha, ha.

Here is a recent study showing the differences between Liberal and Conservative minded people.  I believe it completely:  100%.  Group measurements still allow for all kinds of individual variability.  As a liberal, this study says I should understand that and be comfortable with it.  And I am.  As a conservative, this study says you will not understand that and will be quite uncomfortable with that.

So, the question for this post is:  How do you feel?

The tease:  "As far as toleration goes, the research certainly suggests that liberals and conservatives alike have strengths and weaknesses, and ought to fare better in some situations than others. Liberals are better at handling nuance, uncertainty and flexibility, while conservatives do better with leadership, duty and loyalty. There are good things about both ideologies."  ///  My response:  what in the world is "good" about doing better with leadership, duty, and loyalty???  HahHAW==looks like LAME STREAM MEDIA BIAS again--trying to equate the two sides, the opposing sides, of an argument trying to make it look like there is a fair choice between them?

I'll wait for the studies as to why Republicans vote to their own injury.  Thats where the rubber meats (sic) the road.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428590.200-political-divides-begin-in-the-brain.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Twins studies are indeed intriguing.

However, as a couple of books I've now read point out, there are one hundred billion neurons in the brain and several trillion connections. But, there are only 20-25 thousand genes. Even if the older estimates of 2 million genes had been correct, there just aren't enough genes to code for the entire makeup of the brain.

The gene deficiency argument leaves me wondering just how much of the brain really could be genetically determined. Perhaps some broad patterns could be encoded for. However, we must keep in mind the evolutionary purpose of the brain. It is a general problem solving machine. The genetic codes for our brains have not changed significantly from the days of hunting and gathering to the days of agriculture to the days of high technology.

A San bushman raised in New York and educated in so-called modern society would do, on average, as well as anyone else. That's what makes our brains the powerful tools that they are and what makes throwing 20% of our caloric intake at them worthwhile. Why would evolution hard-wire political bent into us? If it has done so, the explanation will be very difficult to discern. What benefit did this give to our hunter-gatherer ancestors just 500 generations or so ago?

For that matter, what does it do for us today to have this genetically encoded? Is it as valuable and as easy to evolve large brain structure as it is to evolve lactose tolerance? I doubt it.

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

I can't find it now, but have also read similar studies showing a conservative bias in first children and a liberal or progressive bias in second children. Supposedly, first children grow up jealously wanting to maintain the status quo, where their parents devote all of their love to the first and previously only child. Second children want to upset that balance. I don't really buy this explanation either.

I think that a fully formed brain just requires way too much environmental input, including environment in the womb while the brain is developing, and right up through the late teens when connections are being severed and the brain is essentially completing its development. Even after that though, we know from stroke victims that the brain can continue to form new connections and grow new neurons throughout a person's life.

How can all of the resultant formation of such a complex brain come from even today's highest estimates for total numbers of genes that may range up to a couple of hundred thousand at the highest estimates?

Even if we limit our brain discussion to just the amygdaloid complex, we're still looking at 12 million neurons. There just aren't enough genes to code for the details of the whole amygdala, even if all of our genes did this and nothing else.

I'm not saying, of course, that genes do not have any part in our brains. Of course they do. I'm just questioning how detailed the programming can possibly be.

I'm suggesting that there is a strong tendency today to blame a lot of our detailed behavior on our individual genetics. Some of this will likely be true in some very broad categories of behavior. But, this tendency seems, at present to be going too far in the so-called nature rather than the so-called nurture of the so-called nature-nurture debate. Both are important. And, the genetics have the limitation of just not having enough information or enough evolutionary selective force to encode such detailed information in our general purpose brains.

BTW, if you don't like the gene deficiency argument and still want to believe that genetics determines liberal versus conservative political bent, you will also need to explain:

A) How is it possible that the uber-liberal hippies of the 1960s and 1970s later elected (in my most derisive tone) Ronald Reagan?
B) Why are homo sapiens liberalis and homo sapiens conservativis both going extinct at the hands of homo sapiens right-wing-nutjobis?

Note: Just to needle bobbo a bit, I figured that since this is claimed to be genetic, I would give the politically based races/subspecies latinate names. I hope these new names are obvious and understandable despite being neither scientific nor previously recognized by anyone. Consider it my answer to bobbo's funktuation.

Scotty:  As the issues appear to me:

1.  Even if the older estimates of 2 million genes had been correct, there just aren't enough genes to code for the entire makeup of the brain. /// No?  Then how is the brain created?  Your statement makes no sense at all.  OF COURSE the genes code the entire make up of the brain.  I thought simple fractal theory had made a big impact on this?  Only 2-3/15-23??? genes needed to tell a blob of protoplasm to grow in a certain way.  You are using some special definition of "coding" and ignoring all the other ways to achieve the result.  If not genes.....what?

2.  The gene deficiency argument leaves me wondering just how much of the brain really could be genetically determined.  /// Its obvious 100% unless you believe in magic or faeries?  Now--what we think AFTER the brain is formed is an entirely different subject.  Are you confusing/conflating the two?  Another bad definition doing violence to the brain?

3.  Why would evolution hard-wire political bent into us?  ////  Less than 1.0 positive correlation is not hard wired.  But more to your point of confusion, political bent is not genetically encoded but rather the precursors of it--all as discussed in the article.  Fear/discomfort with change for instance.  There is a biological/genetic basis for discomfort with change and that tends to produce Republican Voters.  Very loose connections at each link.  You are being very resistant to this idea yourself.... ba DUMP!

4.  Birth Order ///  I believe it.  So genetics shows a positive correlation and so does environment.  Isn't that conflicting?  NO!!  That all goes to what a loose positive correlation means.  Nothing "hard" about it.  Just a tendency.  Not an Absolute!

All coming to the point/gravamen of your post:  5.  I'm not saying, of course, that genes do not have any part in our brains. Of course they do. I'm just questioning how detailed the programming can possibly be.  ///  And this study is a valid exposition of how detailed that programing is.  Just a slight (or can we even say moderate?) positive correlation.  Anything less than perfect 1.0 correlation still allowing for many exceptions, personal variability, environment, and magic.

tHE FUN POINT i SEE TO OFTEN IS THE COMPLAINT AGAINST communism and socialism..
I make it a point to suggest that is they KNOW the bible, then they may not know what they are talking about.
SHARING isnt against the law.
And if you look at what we have NOW...the money GOES to the government, then is distributed...MOSTLY to the corps.
Being a republic there is NO FIXED way to govern this nation..
The problem we have is the definition of the 2 groups that WANT to control this nation.  And the LACK of alternative choices.
In the last 30 years its become very BAD..
YES we need government..
to fix roads..
To break up fights
and a few other thingss..

ECA--isn't the point made repeatedly that there is only one group wanting/in fact having control of the USA:  the corporations.  Nader said the D and R were simply two sides to the same coin.  If there were two groups, we the people might have a chance.  But there isn't, and we don't.

tHE DIFFICULTY WITH THE 2 GROUPS IS how THEY WORK, AND how THEY WANT TO DO IT..
same OUT COME, NEW bull.
sEE,
I cant tell when MOST of this started happening.  I think most of it started around 1900 and Around Roosevelt.  The SLOW take over of MOST of the gov(state,county, fed) with People that these groups could CONTROL.(free this, that, MORE money, better living,...)  Looking back we keep seeing the SAME NAMES running the country, State, county, fed..
Then in the 70's, Congress and reps, Passed the law that they could VOTE their own wages.

Look for a movie, by andy griffith..about being a POLITICIAN..A Face in the Crowd..its pretty good.
But in the past, there were Others warning about what was going on...no one listened.  no one had any power to fight it.
NOW 30%(total of the 2 groups) of the USA votes on who runs the gov.  15-17%(1/2 of the 2 groups combined) elect our president.
1 president said.."THE BUCK STOPS HERE".  it dont anymore..they just PASS IT ALONG until the BUCK runs out..

ECA--you are  babbling.  Family dynasties have been with us since we evolved---for a variety of reasons both good and bad.  I'd say the Great Depression with New Deal reforms reset the American Political Landscape.  Face in the Crowd isn't about politics but rather is about fame.

Pull your expansive matrix of dots closer to home and you'll be closer to any mark worth making.

bobbo,

ROFLMAO!!! You can't really be misunderstanding me this badly.

Do you honestly believe you were born with all of your current knowledge? That you were born with all of your brain cells in their current configuration and with all of your current memories already in tact? No? I didn't think so.

Then you know that your brain changes with learning. Your genes did not code your knowledge. And, they didn't program your political bent.

Did you figure out how the genetically programmed liberals of the 1960s suddenly became genetically programmed conservatives in the 1990s?

No?

Then perhaps this wasn't genetically determined.

Did you figure out why we used to be genetically programmed to be either liberal or conservative but are now increasingly being programmed to be neither liberal nor conservative but instead to desire radical change to make the wealthy wealthier and the middle class poorer?

No?

Then perhaps our brains are not genetically programmed for particular politics.

Scotty - here is an excellent example of you doing violence to ideas:  "Do you honestly believe you were born with all of your current knowledge?" ///  No where did you say or imply that.  You are posting idiotically as if you don't know what a correlation is.  Its very tiring to put up with this spastic understanding of simple words.  Worse than bad punctuation.  Where you call Hitler, I say:

Silly.

Bobbio, you are ignoring/forgetting that many genes through out our bodies are inactive and until some factor occurs are turned on or off. Thus the scenario is far more complex than just whether a gene is present or not. Furthermore, is there not some recent finding that genes can be and are modified/morphed by some factors causing chemical changes in the body? If the gene set inherited changes moderately throughout ones life, this means our understanding needs to be changed. [I am not knowledgeable in the area of gene therapy!]

Scotty - here is an excellent example of you doing violence to ideas:  "Do you honestly believe you were born with all of your current knowledge?" ///  No where did you say or imply that.  You are posting idiotically as if you don't know what a correlation is.  Its very tiring to put up with this spastic understanding of simple words.  Worse than bad punctuation.  Where you call Hitler, I say:

Silly.

bobbo,

Obviously you do not understand what you mean when you say "call Hitler". Are you unfamiliar with Godwin's Law? I used that on another thread as a [technically invalid] way of ending the thread.

You did not say we were born with our current knowledge. What you said was:

No?  Then how is the brain created?  Your statement makes no sense at all.  OF COURSE the genes code the entire make up of the brain.

Then you deny that the current makeup of your brain, complete with all of its knowledge and learned behavior came from your genes. Of course, it didn't come from your genes.

Neither did you political bent.

That is my point. Your political bent comes from a sum of your learned knowledge and behavior and upbringing and etc. etc. etc.

Your genes did not code for it.

If genes coded for political bent:

A) A liberal hippie would have been incapable of voting for Ronald Reagan. And yet, millions did.
B) You would have to explain the function of this genetic bias and how it has helped survival of the species when, for 95% of our history, we had no politics at all. And, for the vast majority of the rest of the time, the vast majority of the human population had no say in politics. So, how did such a gene evolve?

Much of the world today sill does not allow most people to participate in politics. Of the places that do, few have had most people involved for more than 100 years. There just isn't time for such a gene to evolve. And, it would have too much work to do in hard-wiring the brain.

And, it is disproved by people who have switched political bent during their own lives.

Further, both the liberal gene and the conservative gene, if such things existed, are nearly extinct.