Sure. What I am expanding on is the standard mechanism of epigenetic
inheritance. That entails obtaining epigenetic 'marks' directly from the
environment and incorporating them in the egg and sperm as DNA adducts,
i.e. methylation, ubiquitination, etc, that change the 'readout' of the DNA
affected. It is not yet known how the germ cells assign the marks to the
DNA during meiosis, but suffice it to say that it is known that the overall
mechanism is as described. At any rate, through the processes of
fertilization (forming the zygote), and embryogenesis the marks are
incorporated in the developing offspring. Sometimes the new epigenetic
trait causes lethality during development, but if the offspring effectively
assimilates the mark during development it becomes part of the DNA readout
of the offspring, affecting the way in which it copes with the environment
to adapt. So the mechanism of epigenetic adaptation alters the phenotype of
the offspring, affecting its interactions with the environment, assumingly
to benefit the organism in further transgenerational interactions with the
ever-changing environment. This is different from Darwinian evolution, in
which mating pairs select one another and merge their gene pools,
reflecting the phenotypes of the parents, giving rise passively to the
offspring. It won't give rise to the phylogenetic changes in the offspring
that account for fish evolving into amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds
to be blunt. I frankly don't see how Darwinian selection leads to adaptive
change other than by gaining benefit from  the phenotypic reproductive
success of the parents.....without specifically affecting the genetic
readout of the offspring in adaptation to environnmental change per se. In
contrast to that, the epigenetic mechanism is all about changing the
genetics of the offspring in compliance with environmental changes, the
phenotype actively interfacing with its environment in service to the
process of epigenetic inheritance as an active process, i.e. the phenotype
as agent.  Hope that made sense.

On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 12:11 PM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks, John. I completely agree that we should be entertaining these out
> of the box ideas.
>
>
>
> I think your Phenotype as Agent idea is very interesting to contemplate.
> Can you share a brief description of that concept and what you mean by
> “collecting epigenetic data”?
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Gregg
>
>
>
> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion [mailto:TOK-SOCIETY-L@
> listserv.jmu.edu] *On Behalf Of *JOHN TORDAY
> *Sent:* Friday, March 9, 2018 10:15 AM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: slides on behavior
>
>
>
> Hi ToKers/Gregg, I greatly appreciate the effort to delineate what we
> refer to when we use the term 'behavior'.....However, I would like to think
> that we can think outside of the 'box' of conventional thought once we are
> all on the same page regarding what we think behaviors are. In your
> presentation Gregg you mentioned, for example that objects show behaviors
> too. So in that vein, Newton described Gravity as the attraction of bodies
> to one another, whereas Einstein's out of the box explanation is that
> bodies distort the fabric of space-time. The latter is congruent with
> Relativity Theory so Gravity can be understood in the larger objective
> context rather than as the mundane common sensical experience of gravity.
> So for example Chance and I had a little side bar about how time controls
> us, but we should be controlling time in order to comply with our genetic
> destiny.....for example, it is now known that the Circadian cycle is 25
> hours, but we comply with a 24 hour clock. Moreover, digitization of time
> has distorted our perception of reality IMO. Perhaps a glaring example of
> how our behavior is forced to conform to what Big Brother wants out of us
> is the way in which we are induced to work for decades in order to have
> material things, healthcare, etc, etc, and then we are forced to stop being
> gainfully employed in retirement. We still potentially have many productive
> years ahead of us but lack purpose or relevance a) because we define
> ourselves by being employed, and b) that's how society sees us. The
> 'system' doesn't care about us once we are no longer seen as productive;
> what kind of behavior is that? Societies are judged in part by how they
> treat their aged. My point is that we are not behaving according to
> criteria that we evolved to comply with. In my paper "The Phenotype as
> Agent" I make the case for our behaviors being those that optimize our
> interfacing with our environment in order to collect epigenetic data, which
> is different from the way in which we usually think of behavior, only in
> the now. In an emerging age of self-referential self-organizing people with
> computers we could conform to our own set of principles in a way that would
> be more consistent with our physiology.....I am thinking of the dichotomy
> between Descartes and HD Thoreau, the former resorting to the rationale of
> Mind-Body, the latter going back to Walden Woods in order to regain his
> 'self' and live deliberately. On a related note, when Frank Gehry's
> psychiatrist was interviewed in a documentary about the architect, he
> related that most people who come to his practice ask 'how can I change to
> conform with the world?', whereas Gehry asked 'how can I change the world
> to conform with me?" I hope we can consider such out of the box ideas come
> April, if not before.....
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 10:59 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi List,
>
>   I am sharing some slides from a presentation I made at the conference I
> was at. It was organized by fellow list member Gary Brill. He brought
> myself and another scholar who works from a “Descriptive Psychology” frame
> together to talk about the concept of behavior. Although it was not well
> attended, I felt the exchange was productive.
>
>
>
>   One of the points I tried to make clearly is that previous attempts to
> define behavior in the field of psychology and behavioral biology have
> attempted to strongly distinguish between behavior and non-behavior. One of
> the central points the ToK makes is that we need to “start from the bottom
> or beginning” and define behavior in general and then realize that folks in
> biology or psychology or the human-person sciences are attempting to get at
> specific kinds of behavior, namely the behavior of organisms, animals and
> people.
>
>
>
>   The other cool thing from my perspective was that there is a very close
> line up with how Descriptive Psychology defines the behavior of persons and
> how the ToK does. Both essentially define the essence of persons behaving
> as persons as being characterized by a Deliberative actor self-consciously
> justifying their actions on a social stage. The Descriptive psychologists
> emphasized how this led to a parametric analysis of behavior that has been
> valuable. I found myself more fascinated by the conceptual correspondence.
>
>
>
>   To me, it has solidified one of the key conceptual insights about the
> nature of human nature. Namely, human beings are both primates and persons,
> and that these two dimensions of human beingness can be conceptually
> separated (even though enormously intertwined).
>
>
>
> Best,
> Gregg
>
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