This and That
Click to dream.
It is nearly a nihilistic question, but there is a
metaphysical affirmative. And it
can point in a vaguely scientific direction, but that's the thing, I'm still just illustrating with speculation.
But the general idea is that chaos constrained will reflect the constraints and rules thereof; essentially, yes, we can conceive of something like this, so it is in some context "possible", but that is about as useful, then, as an obvious comparison: So is faster than light travel "possible". And so is the Hand of God, even literally, though ... I still wonder about MacDuff, and the idea that one can
enter but not necessarily
exit paradox—to wit, was the question of the davenport ever actually resolved? Practical specualtion suggests he must be overlooking a factor, or measuring something wrongly, but it is at least not proven impossible that the result is correct, and there is no way for the davenport to have gotten there in the first place.
So, sure. It's possible. We're quite a few generations away from that, as near as I can tell. I don't think we've developed the genes to facilitate the full data transfer.
To the other, though, it is known that some mammals, at least, do pass on defense and survival information, though what is confirmed is fairly vague; we can program operantly-conditioned responses into a future generation before it is conceived.
Presently, I don't see a transfer matrix, so possibility ultimately remains a matter of speculation.
• • •
It is one thing to invoke the Jungian, as Treffert does, but there is no evidence describing how that collective works. Similarly, Treffert's treatment of Gazzaniga is a little undisciplined or without nuance. The literary review within the article is almost entirely implied and insinuated; even the quoted sections are notoriously vague. The problem seems to be that Treffert has become fixed on a pet thesis; the idea of genetic memory seems far to suitable in a
post hoc context, as if
this is the
outcome and therefore the
purpose of the outcome. The history of humanity is littered with harrowing detritus that serves as evidence of what happens when we presume the moment we are born into is that which God most loves.
Honestly, knock a mathematical system out of balance and watch it phase. Now and then, humanity will produce spectacular results.
My personal pet thesis is to view some aspect of mind and brain as a
filter, such that our thoughts are not so much generated from a pool of information as what remains when we have removed as much extraneous signal as circumstance allows. Impulse is as impulse does; everything else is filtered, such that there is an impulse, and certainly a sensation, or perhaps sensations if we should be picky about degrees. After all, there is
hungry, and then there is some manner of, "I could go for a burger". That one could go for a burger, or a bowl of cereal, or chips and salsa, does not, by this outlook, rise up as a thought generated, but, rather, an expression that falls out for being what is left.
As such, when you see, for instance, a musical savant such as Treffert made famous, what if we are considering filters? If we presume what we normally describe as disability or handicap, how, then, do we describe the filters? How differently are they filtering? If we start looking for the phasing, and patterns in peak and trough—all of this, of course, metaphorical, as we have yet to quantify the values represented in the visualization—every once in a while a particular nexus will occur in some, to put it coldly, aesthetically significant or coincidental context such as what we're describing.
It is difficult enough to imagine this detail of genetic memory in effect simply within a bloodline—show me the ancestral mathematician or musician—but invoking the Jungian is, presently, doubly ridiculous; that is to say, translating it to a relevant context would difficult enough even if we could demonstrate its existence.
In his hardware and software analogy, Treffert presumes some manner of particular programming; this presupposition is extraneous.
Desynchronize dynamic math and you can perceive the phases. If the savant is disrupted, then there is strong likelihood that the savant behavior—defined in significant part by accessibility of aesthetic expression—is a
result, a relationship within the math that just happens to express this way instead of another.
All of that is eventually testable. I don't propose we'll be able to collect the data properly for a while, still; nor would I expect we will be able to read it correctly straight away. Still, the musical savant is an excellent example; music has powerful influence over and in the brain. We knew a bit about mind, but the picture emerging of what music can do to brain is pretty striking. And we should also note that music is really, really mathematical Every once in a while, the math is going to line up, and somebody will be able to do this.
I couldn't tell you why one "normal" person has a better feel for music than others. Or why one has a better sense of melody while another is a rhythm machine. It's one thing to say they're two fine athletes who can run and lift and jump just alike, but there will also be a reason why ... actually, you know, golf works even better. Seriously:
golf. We might note, generally, to those who have not played the game, golf, as stupid as it looks, is ridiculously difficult, and yes, some people just have a feel for it, and it's
creepy.
This is all taking place in people's brains. And none of us are perfect, so there is phasing and irregularity in every one of us. Think of the banshee wind whistling 'round the house or howling over the land. And every once in a while, here and there under just the perfect conditions, all that disrupted sound settles into something that just happens to be harmonic.
Phase the math, every once in a while the expression will amplify. I consider this much more rational than invoking the Jungian corpus mysterium, or significant data-transfer structures and processes so blatant in their effect yet so subtle as to escape detection. In either case, the potentials of what we already know about are much greater than inventing new literalist expressions of metaphorical fancy.
I will declare the Jungian real when I find it; I will remove the sorceries from the realm of magick to that of science and technology if ever it should happen that I can. But if these things were so easily discovered I would hardly be the first. Similarly, if we have genetic memory to such a degree, we should have found our way to the Promised Land already. Or maybe there
is genetic memory, and we are a failed species, because all this repeating of history was supposed to drive us extinct by now. Can't even kill ourselves right; on the upside, how's that for the epitaph ne'er writ?