Once while I was thinking about developments in Science and other fields and how each person has to go through all the work done by others before him/her in his/her particular field to start introducing new ideas, I just thought how good it would be if knowledge could be transferred by genetic process through parents to children. My first reaction was the happy realization that in such an event the rate of development would be amazingly fast and humans as a race would go so far in terms of technology.
But then I realized that the situation will probably not be as happy as I initially thought it will be. Firstly there were some other questions that came up in my mind when I thought about genetic transfer of knowledge: If the child would have all the information the parents have, would the child still be technically a child, at least as far as the mental growth goes? The answer that I came up with was that though children will have all the information their parents have, they still won’t have the maturity that adults have and thus would still be children, albeit very informative children!
Then come some of the negative consequence of the knowledge being genetically transferred. If genetic transfer of information becomes possible then the disparity between people who are educated and people who are uneducated will become extremely high and would keep on rising. Imagine two different classes of people. One is from the upper class, lets call him A, who went to one of the most renowned universities (mostly due to the tremendous amount of money his family had). The other is from a poor family, lets call him B, who could barely afford the minimal level of education. Now in present circumstances, the children of the poor man (B) could still study in good schools/colleges (they might get scholarship or any other similar thing) and hence they might actually come to the same level of education as the children of the rich man (A) would be. And hence the disparity between different classes of people (education-wise) is not permanent in the present world.
But now imagine the world where there is a genetic transfer of information from parents to children. Now the children of A would have all of A’s education and they would potentially be a full life-time of education ahead of B’s children. Now if B’s children, being from a poor background, fail to get good education as well, then their children would become two-life time of education behind of A’s children’s children and it would become harder and harder for them to catch up. This process will go on until A’s generation will become so far ahead of B’s that it will be almost impossible for them to catch up with A’s generation’s information level. It will almost be like two different species of homo-sapiens: B being the primitive and under-developed while A being the surviving and leading segment of the species.
And with this disparity, generation-B will not be able to find any work except for manual non-technical work (assuming that machines haven’t taken over such work by that time!) because employers will always prefer the highly educated generation-A compared to generation-B.
Indeed the world won’t be a pleasant place for people who will belong in generation B if the genetic transfer of information and knowledge ever becomes possible.
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4 comments:
Good logical thinking.
Though, i wonder, maybe there is a saturation limit to the amount of knowledge a human mind can retain enough to be of use?
And the understanding we have of a genetics at the moment, it is not possible even theoretically to consider the possibility transfer "data" through genes. But some form of 'knowledge' can be transfered; it is the instinctual knowledge, a knowledge of certain acts. For instance, a new-born knows how to suckle by instinct; its in his genes. So most likely, even with scientific advance, there would be a limit to what sort of knowledge can be transferred.
However, suppose it does become possible, then the geeks would become hot in demand, and chicks would be running after them to get married and have babies ;)
Of course the whole post was based on a hypothetical situation which in real life would probably never be possible.
I guess geeks by then would have learned through genetic-transfer of info that chicks would be running after them, so they would probably be on the look out ;)
These are thoughts that are based on what humans perceive now. One must realize that any passed on knowledge would most likely be in the same form of knowledge that is perceived. For example. Having gained knowledge and knowing how to utilize it is two different things. I arrived at this post for one reason. If two people at opposite ends of the earth have the same ideal but only seen it in their dreams is it coincidence or was it really some kind of knowledge that leaked through the other 90% of the brain that is not in use. It is remotely impossible for it to be coincidence due to the fact a third or fourth person had a similar ideal in the past but could not utilize it. Eventually the product or ideal comes into realization over many generations. Food for thought.... Is this not what happens anyways?
It would be wrong of us to think that knowledge is aware of whether it knows that a person is even going to school. The passing of knowledge could be happening without anyone even knowing it does. Having knowledge and actually utilizing it is two different things, it may be happening on a level that most people do not understand yet. I arrived at this post with a simple search due to an experience I could not explain. My example is simple but eludes me at the same time..... Two different people on the opposite ends of the earth out of the blue have the same dream. They wake to drawing their ideal and do their best to make the ideal a reality. They soon discover after research the ideal is not so new but only new to them. They compare their drawings and find they are almost the same. Soon it is discovered that many people from way back in time had the same ideal and dreams. I dare not think that it would all be coincidence but how we perceived the knowledge passed down that could be stored in the other 90% of the brain we can not access yet. We as humans throughout history have had ideals and yet some of them come to pass while others sit until the knowledge can be utilized. Food for thought.... When we have ideals and put them together then improvements are made. The knowledge is becoming utilized and a part of reality. With everything that happens in this reality, is this not what happens anyway? There are just too many examples that point towards the genetic transfer of knowledge. We just do not know how to utilize it yet.
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