Genetic memory... the wisdom of all who came before?

Interesting thread, surprised it is not longer than 2 pages, but perhaps it is not as interesting a subject to some as others.

Food for thought, people with a multiple personality disorder, or whateverthey call it now, actually are more in tune with parts of their genetic memories? What if they are so in tune that they end up becoming other personalities of the individual eventually send them into needing phsyciatric help. I am talking about people with true multiple personanalities, not the ones faking it for whatever reason they might.

Originally posted by veritas93
The last study that I read suggested that so far... it's believed that upwards of 40% or more of our behavior is genetically determined. For example, I laugh and smile exactly like my father who I didn't really get to know until later in life.

I had a good friend who committed suicide after he got into trouble that he saw no way out of. Before he fell into trouble and was in turn jailed, he had gotten his wife pregnant. He never got to see his son, but I can tell you that his son who is now about 7 years old is exactly like him in mannerisms, speech, as well as looks. It is as if, we are seeing my friend sometimes, yet he never met his boy.

I personally believe we are like a house and the light to which those past see by and reside in. I believe we are our ancestors inheritance.

"Build up your treasures in heaven..."

Peace

Yikes! You guys are way too smart for me.

Author Jean M. Auel has written a series of fictional stories that take place in ice-age europe. In her stories Earth Children Series, she indicates that neanderthal man and cro-magnon man existed simultaneously in various regions of Europe. I've read the series about 8 times each (5 books with a sixth due any day now) and everytime I learn something new. This author researches extensively and weaves a believable and exciting story that touches on this subject.

Her idea is that neanderthal man was a different type of human with genetic memory of all ancestors. However their evolution was ultimately ended by reason of the ever-increasing size of thier brains. The brain size increase was due to the assumption that they were born with the memories of their ancestors. Instead of relearning everything (like cro-magnon man or us) these humans instead, remembered what their ancestors knew. The memories were segregated by gender. After a couple hundred thousand years the species evolution was stopped by the physical size of their brains which eventually led to their instinction.

Cro-magnon man differed greatly wherein their brains were capable of fore-thought, imagination, ingenuity, creativity. Therefore, this new species of human advanced, evolved and grew to the civilization we know and recognize today.

I think this storyline and theory are remarkable. In case you don't recognize the theme, the series began with Clan of The Cave Bear. The movie was horrible. Read the books.

reply to post by veritas93

...What would happen to the human race if we technologically (or otherwise) gained the ability to access this wealth of experience and information? I know that the movie Altered States (which I believe was based on a novel by Paddy Chayefsky) touches on this subject as does Frank Herbert in his Dune novels. Maybe these people were on to something.

I think they were on to something but science shows pretty clearly that while such 'memories' are inherited (epigenetically), they are NOT genetic. They're software, not hardware, and can be rewritten. I'd like to know if "over-written" memories can be recovered. I suspect they can.

Interesting thread… this topic has crossed my mind a few times over the years while I cannot be sure of the root of it I've had things that I see as subjectively peculiar relating to the topic. My farther died shortly after I was born and his character/history played no role in my development aside from the effect the absence of such a character would play (I didn't ask questions/had no interests in what I could see no use in knowing). The reason I bring this up is because as an adult I did learn things about him and peculiar enough ostensibly at the least I seemed to inherit a lot of similar hobbies/dispositions/certain behaviors/other little proclivities that I developed on my own like my fondness for good scotch/cigars. All that was without similar upbringing, no real knowledge of the person, not even keeping in contact very much with the people he was raised around. My immediate conclusion was that we were products of our cultural upbringing but our cultural upbringings as Americans living without associated similar environmental attributes does not suggest that. I kept thinking about it and settled on possibly some basic genetic attribute that affects how a person responds to base environmental affects. So it's to say not that the behaviors are not a memory as we think of memories but more so a basic attribute that influences how you respond to your environment which just so happens to result in things seeming like memory.

Later on in life… when my mind opened up a bit more I came up with a different hypothosis related to what we might consider/label a spiritual aspect of life. It was really just free thinking about an evolution of thought/conciseness that kind of explained logically what appears as possible genetic memory (without sturdy foundation since the belief in what we call the spiritual aspect of things has not been objectively verified). Due to the nature of the hypothesis I'll leave it out as it would be more suited to a different forum I think.