dna of history

An Artist's* Rendering of History:Ideas built by DNA

Extending R.G. Collingwood's

Idea of History*Jonah Lehrer "Proust was a Neuroscientist"

copyright 2012 Robert W Myers

Idea of History• Robyn George (R. G.) Collingwood, Oxford Don (Pembroke College) wrote several books on History, Art and Philosophy.

• Lakes District. Ruskin. Died in 1943• History as the study of mind (personal note:reflct)• Held history as "recollection" of the "thinking" of a historical personage.

(Herodotus/Thucydides)• He saw History as the science of the study of mind (2 people can have the

identical thought) Wikipedia biography. • Thought is rethinkable (A thought is publically accessible if due diligence is

done on thinker's state of mind) ('mind' not brain)• Much of history has been the recording of rituals around life but 'life is

eating and dying not dining or death rituals' (paraphrase)• So how do ideas originate? What does it take to exercise due diligence on a

thinker's state of mind?*Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyCopyright Robert W. Myers 2012

Body's Building BlocksData point #1

• "The iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were all forged in [exploding] stars. We are made of stardust," LSU physicist Edward Zganjar

• "Matter is much older than life. Billions of years before the sun and earth even formed, atoms were being synthesized in the insides of hot stars and then returned to space when the stars blew themselves up. Newly formed planets were made of this stellar debris, the earth and every living thing are made of star stuff." Carl Sagan

• "Almost all the atoms of HYDROGEN within water, within our bodies, and everywhere else on and within Earth are more than 13 billion years old. If many of the atoms within us are 13 billion years old, and as "we" are our bodies, ... then, in a way, WE TOO ARE 13 BILLION YEARS OLD." Connie Barlow. http://www.thegreatstory.org/Stardustbackground.html

• The building blocks from which an idea will emerge, are as old as the Universe

Copyright Robert W. Myers 2012

Symbiotic Microrganisms*Data point #2

• Bacteria enter cells and evolve-->Symbiosis; e.g.,Mitochondria (mtDNA)• Kinetichores-->Flagella evolve to axons• 2 billion years of evolution not 2 million• This is who we are

Image of a human cell showing microtubules in green, chromosomes (DNA) in blue, and kinetochores in pink

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_MargulisCopyright Robert W. Myers 2012

Bacteria Communicate and Decide• Bonnie Bassler• 90-99% of DNA in humans is bacteria DNA• bacteria communicate chemically• photosensitive bacterium helps squid hunt in moonlight• Bacteria secrete hormones(aka peptides) which reach a quorum and vote

• (Seeley "Honey bee Democracy")

Copyright Robert W. Myers 2012 Intra-species communication peptide

Inter-species communication peptide•Bacteria communication occurs constantly, impacting ideas

DNA Migration TrackingData point #3

• National Geographic and IBM: Genographic– Dr. Spencer Wells-

• Explorer-in-residence– DiCesare mtDNA migration

•V-15K yrs-ice age refuge-tool makers•HV-out of Near East-Cro-magnon-end of Neanderthal-Arab slave trade•pre-HV-Near East European Eve-Caucasus Mtns•R-into Caucasus & Middle East•N-up the Nile-lived with Neanderthal •L3-Out of Africa- 80K years ago•L2-W Africa-US slave•L1-Eve-E Africa


DNA Basics*• 20,000 DNA genes are the same for all people except for 100 genes (.5%)

– 23 pairs (mixed) chromosomes from parents w typos(SNPs)• Y from father to son, mtDNA from mother to children, autosomal

from both• Genes are subsets of chromosomes and determine traits

– make proteins which give structure to cells» Digest food» Carry oxygen

• Brain, blood, skin, liver, bone, etc cells have same DNA• Genetic switches (fka "junk DNA") make cell genes produce proteins

– At right time and In right sequence– Phenotypes (genetic and environmental) make characteristics

• *23andMe-https://www.23andme.com/gen101/genes/


Sykes "DNA USA"/"23 and Me"

Green==>AfricaOrange==>AsiaBlue==>EuropeGray==>Not Genotyped

Racism's End

DNA is Record of Regional/Racial Influences

• DNA is a key to interpreting someone's perspective• Chromosome painting shows probable influences on

our thoughts: genetic and cultural influences rather than familial origin stories

• Looking at the chromosome painting as a geographic mobile whose weightings in combination influence our thoughts and ideas. Our identity shifts from mostly one race to many– Tiger Woods as Cablinasian (Caucasian-Black-

Indian-Asian)


Present and future historiesData point #4

• Page 85 in "History Man" Inglis– "Recovery of the past by way of understanding purposes and intentions [of some

historical actor] would serve only this present corner of history, not all presents still locked up in their futures."• Constant approximations under a curve?

– Red hair of Neanderthals is not the red hair of homo sapiens (Stringer p 192) the red hair was genetically "rediscovered"*

• http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=138h621– paleo-experimental evolution

Postdoctoral Fellow Betül Kaçar and Associate Professor Eric Gaucher are watching evolution in action resurrecting a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserting it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria.

EF-Tu gene did not accumulate mutations. Instead, the modern proteins that interact with the ancient EF-Tu inside of the bacteria had mutated and these mutations were responsible for the rapid adaptation that increased the bacteria’s (survival) fitness. ... the ancient gene has not yet mutated to become more similar to its modern form, but rather, the bacteria found a new evolutionary trajectory to adapt.

*Genes designated as Neanderthal, European, Asian, etc., are gene patterns found in creatures with those backgrounds in common. This does not mean necessarily that those creatures were Neanderthal or Asian descendants: these genes could originate through other antecedents and merely coincide with Neanderthals or Asians. Chris Stringer "Lone Survivors"


•Different paths at different times to a similar idea

Our Bodies are our Subconscious Minds*Data point #5

• Cell surfaces have receptors that accept, perhaps even attract, certain kinds of peptides (aka hormones: e.g., Insulin could be a peptide)

• Cells in our bodies, our blood and more densely, but not exclusively in the brain have receptors specifically for neuropeptides.

• 'Mind' is a flame, constantly flowing throughout our bodies not residing solely in our brains• John Cage's anechoic chamber experience: high sound is nervous system , low sound is blood

flowing• People take on the donor's personality for a few months following a heart transplant• Stability of heart rate indicates death is imminent. Heartbeat is part of 'mind'• 1-cell organisms have peptide communication with each other• How we feel is controlled by our emotions• Bottom up (as opposed to brain down) originated response times might be explained

combinatorially by peptide reservoirs as distant as inches from cells with peptide receptors residing throughout the body and distributed action-initiating centers like the dorsal spinal cord sending electrical signals at Asimov-estimated 220 mph over shorter distances

• Our subconscious minds (our bodies) influence our ideas*Dr. Candace PertCopyright Robert W. Myers 2012

Secret lives - Real History• We assert a story

– A harmonic of perceptual fabrications– Meanwhile we live, reproduce and pass on genes, creating underground DNA streams and rivers

(genetic drift)– Our cells are created by genes confabulated in various regions of the world– These cells, throughout our bodies, have receptors that bind with neuropeptides to create emotions– These emotions influence the thoughts that our minds invent to compensate for the discontinuities

in our perceptions• The ideas of our history are carved from our chromosomes and underlie our intellectual assertions • Christopher Hitchens: "... Presence of the supernatural in every day life"• This is the belief story which our religions build on• The Prosopagnosia of Chuck Close vs Capgras delusion. (Wikipedia)• We know there is something out there but we cannot see it: "the belief in things not seen"• The microsaccades covering our retinal blind spots (Mlodinow "How your unconscious mind rules...".

Phonemic restorations too not just sight)• Kant's "Das ding an sich, Das ding für uns"• History: Truthful answers to the right questions asked in the right order. Inglis "History Man"

• We are: Proteins created at the right time and in the right sequence. 23andMe


The metadata of history

• I think we have been writing pre-histories in DNA• DNA provides a template for our behavior (Stringer "Lone Survivors")• Intellectual inheritances from these pre-histories influence every day

observations from which we fabricate comfortable, coherent travelogues, the street lamps of our consciousness whose penumbra tautologically (self-reinforcing) confines our search for lost genetic keys– Where did that math ability come from?– That artistic flare– That ability to memorize– That ability to hike in high altitudes– The empathy with animals, the whisperers, those passions for subjects

far removed from the day to day, those tastes for exotic foods– That illness, the propensity to gag on broccoli


Due Diligence on the State of Mind• I think that our brains are constantly fabricating reality to provide for our

safety and preserve our existence– our brains are the story machines, the microsaccades, our individual

reality• Daily reality is a story, a spiritual body built on the observations, the

sensory inputs, the intellectual bones of our physical bodies• The cells in our bodies are bacterial symbionts, built from stardust,

evolved over 2 billion years from a chromosome grab-bag blueprint of mixed geographical/regional/racial/cultural DNA chromosomes

• The words of our story were written by the thousand, million, billion year interplay of evolving DNA and mutating proteins, nudged by our body-mind's emotions, spun by the brain's neuropeptide-cell receptor monoculture, creating our reality, producing the ideas history records


Thank You!• Stardust

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g4d-rnhuSg• Evolution

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxDOpAM2FrQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

• Quantum– http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DZGINaRUEkU&feature=youtube_gdata_player• Religion

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfix_e1QnbM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

• Bonnie Bassler– http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/

bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.htmlCopyright Robert W. Myers 2012

Goals and Aspirations

• 5 Data points: preconditions for an idea• How does an idea form?• What is due diligence on the state of mind?• By the end of the talk, I hope you are

convinced that we are the confluence of many streams and rivers


dna of history

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