Metaphorically, our genes may chuckle at how we humans unwittingly define our morality to serve the interests of our genes, even above our own. Sounds weird, but cliched and true. Humans have been genetically designed to get pleasure from doing things that tend to perpetuate our genes. Indeed, our genes have been very successful at getting themselves perpetually copied into new generations of babies by causing our ancestors to feel pleasure during sex.
Our bodies are no more than "protection vehicles" in which our genes ride around, pursuing their perpetuation interests, not ours. The critical point: While we each seem to willfully pursue different methods for getting the things we want, the fundamental things we want are not determined by our wills, but rather, by our genes.
In the simple model of mind, memes are the currency of human thought.The mocking memes and the laughing memes can be manifested by the simple evolutionary principle: the pattern of replication, a recombinant style of mutation and selection through simulation. So once again our desires and activity of laughing and mocking are ruled by our genes.
These are few examples on the behavioral patterns of human beings but the real activity is controlled by genes and not by our wills. Many middle-class Indians so 'healthee' , euphemism for fat? Is it because of our fondness for fried foods, our sedentary lifestyles, our aversion to physical exercise? Perhaps. But according to a team of British scientists the real villain of the piece is a 'fatness' gene. Researchers at Imperial College, London, have identified a gene, MC4R, which is associated with appetite regulation and energy expenditure. Indians tend to have variants which affect the activity of this gene, resulting in obesity, and its associated health problems like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So the fault lies not in us but in our genes that we are fatties.Obesity is only one of the conditions that humankind at large can avoid responsibility for and lay the blame on genes. For example, heroin addiction is caused by a particular gene, AGS3. A cocaine addict, however, has developed the habit thanks to a different gene, DAT1.
According to genetic science, there is a gene for everything, from baldness to criminality, homosexuality to hyperamnesia. A criminal could argue that he had been driven to commit his crime because of a gene, D4DR, which geneticists claim leads to high-risk, dangerous behaviour. Me? Rob a bank? Certainly not. It was my D4DR which did it. Put my gene into jail, not me.But the law doesn't understand the genetic principle ...
The gene genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and nothing is going to get it back in. As more and more of our actions and behavioural traits are ascribed not to our volition but to our genes, we increasingly resemble programmed robots. So what happens to old-fashioned ideas like free will and individual responsibility?
Well, neuroscience discredited those fuddy-duddy concepts when it proved in laboratory tests that a subconscious part of the brain initiates an action (such as writing this article) several seconds before we consciously decide to do something( reading this article)....
In other words, 'we' are not the authors of our actions, not responsible for what we do, it is a chemical reaction in our brains which compels us to do what we do.Minds consist of brain and brain is the biological machine. The neural architecture provides a basis for the evolutionary process of thinking.The self organizing , bidirectional , nested hierarchical structure of brain upward from the sensory neuron to the lower cortical nodes forms the vehicle which controls all our voluntary and in voluntary actions.The overall process is dominated by genes.
However, you can still feel free to believe in free will. So long as you realise that you're being made to do so by your 'free will' gene. Thus, BLAME IT ON THE GENE.
Our bodies are no more than "protection vehicles" in which our genes ride around, pursuing their perpetuation interests, not ours. The critical point: While we each seem to willfully pursue different methods for getting the things we want, the fundamental things we want are not determined by our wills, but rather, by our genes.
In the simple model of mind, memes are the currency of human thought.The mocking memes and the laughing memes can be manifested by the simple evolutionary principle: the pattern of replication, a recombinant style of mutation and selection through simulation. So once again our desires and activity of laughing and mocking are ruled by our genes.
These are few examples on the behavioral patterns of human beings but the real activity is controlled by genes and not by our wills. Many middle-class Indians so 'healthee' , euphemism for fat? Is it because of our fondness for fried foods, our sedentary lifestyles, our aversion to physical exercise? Perhaps. But according to a team of British scientists the real villain of the piece is a 'fatness' gene. Researchers at Imperial College, London, have identified a gene, MC4R, which is associated with appetite regulation and energy expenditure. Indians tend to have variants which affect the activity of this gene, resulting in obesity, and its associated health problems like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. So the fault lies not in us but in our genes that we are fatties.Obesity is only one of the conditions that humankind at large can avoid responsibility for and lay the blame on genes. For example, heroin addiction is caused by a particular gene, AGS3. A cocaine addict, however, has developed the habit thanks to a different gene, DAT1.
According to genetic science, there is a gene for everything, from baldness to criminality, homosexuality to hyperamnesia. A criminal could argue that he had been driven to commit his crime because of a gene, D4DR, which geneticists claim leads to high-risk, dangerous behaviour. Me? Rob a bank? Certainly not. It was my D4DR which did it. Put my gene into jail, not me.But the law doesn't understand the genetic principle ...
The gene genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and nothing is going to get it back in. As more and more of our actions and behavioural traits are ascribed not to our volition but to our genes, we increasingly resemble programmed robots. So what happens to old-fashioned ideas like free will and individual responsibility?
Well, neuroscience discredited those fuddy-duddy concepts when it proved in laboratory tests that a subconscious part of the brain initiates an action (such as writing this article) several seconds before we consciously decide to do something( reading this article)....
In other words, 'we' are not the authors of our actions, not responsible for what we do, it is a chemical reaction in our brains which compels us to do what we do.Minds consist of brain and brain is the biological machine. The neural architecture provides a basis for the evolutionary process of thinking.The self organizing , bidirectional , nested hierarchical structure of brain upward from the sensory neuron to the lower cortical nodes forms the vehicle which controls all our voluntary and in voluntary actions.The overall process is dominated by genes.
However, you can still feel free to believe in free will. So long as you realise that you're being made to do so by your 'free will' gene. Thus, BLAME IT ON THE GENE.
