Memory transplant claimed in snails

They need to show it to satisfy you. I don’t think your position is unreasonable. Then of course there is Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of biomorphic fields, which may account for seemingly inherited responses perhaps?

With the giant hermaphrodite snails, there was a control group which didn't "inherit" the acquired characteristic, so apparently there's no scope for morphic resonance.

Presumably the ‘bootstrap’ responses I mentioned earlier must find their way into the growing organism - how else other than through genetic material?

 This is great discussion.  I don't want to derail it in any way.  However, I am committed to trying to re-organize the framework of the problem, so that it can be accessed in a modern scientific manner.  That said - I have nothing but a general knowledge of bioinformatics.

Problem: the framework of the "magic" theory of matter and a belief that our epistemological view of function "comes to life" from physical properties.  Solution: Correctly assign the processes to their appropriate level of abstraction and stop the conflation of physical activity from information activity.
 
In physics the model for the transformation of materials and their states of energy is cause and effect.   When the subject of investigation is instinct (a fascinating subject) the model of cause and effect modality fails; because instinctual responses are about signals and communication of informational objects.  Genetic material - as a cause in starts out with this problem, without specifying the informational environment activity.

The process model for communication (as expressed in the math of Shannon et all) is a 3 stepper, not just two steps.  (1)Signal from a source - (2) a channel of transmission (the environment comes into play) and (3) a receiving location where mutual information can be created.

Genetic material is not just a chemical object with logical cause and effect.  The physical environment is a factor and tacitly; so is the informational environment at all three locations that are part of the message system of RNA.  It is the factors regarding the informational environments that is missed in the traditional view of this.

The functionality of the RNA - is in a communication system!  The outcome of the specific signal from a RNA molecule is only causal in a system of a RNA/DNA/Ribosome/ laden environment.  Each of these other chemicals can be channels and regulatory signals for RNA expression.

And the "out of the box" idea - I am selling - is that the RNA/DNA/Ribosome laden environment is more than just chemical objects.  It is filled with probable information objects that can be generated, objects whose structure absorb meaning from the environment.

 A bootstrap is the program that initializes the operating system (OS) during startup.

  A bootstrap program is an excellent example of a formal information object.  It works as a signal source that doesn't physical cause something as a flow of electricity - but functions in an informational environment where a larger meaning system can receive its stimulus and evoke a response that is appropriate.

That was a long way around to say -- that it not the independent chemical magical property of RNA -- it is just coded for the right message to trigger a response in the informational environment of a species.  The RNA doesn't have a memory - it enables the meaning of the memory to be extracted form a meaning-laden environment.

And the "out of the box" idea - I am selling - is that the RNA/DNA/Ribosome laden environment is more than just chemical objects.  It is filled with probable information objects that can be generated, objects whose structure absorb meaning from the environment.

  A bootstrap program is an excellent example of a formal information object.  It works as a signal source that doesn't physical cause something as a flow of electricity - but functions in an informational environment where a larger meaning system can receive its stimulus and evoke a response that is appropriate.

That was a long way around to say -- that it not the independent chemical magical property of RNA -- it is just coded for the right message to trigger a response in the informational environment of a species.  The RNA doesn't have a memory - it enables the meaning of the memory to be extracted form a meaning-laden environment.

I'm sorry but, at least for me, you'll have to stray from the abstract a while and get to specifics. 

A bootstrap process in a computer is another program - like any other - hard coded to a ROM chip rather than stored in volatile RAM. The point I was making about instinct or inherited behaviours and abilities is that when people talk about it being "hard wired" or "programmed" into our DNA they are just shifting the mystery. Programmed how? Stored how? How do you program instructions to walk into genes which code for fabricating proteins? Yet we know that many animals can walk shortly after birth. In your theory, where exactly in the meaning-laden environment is the instruction set for an animal to do any one of the myriad of things it needs to do from the moment of birth in order not to die in an instant? Some of those things are so incredibly complex that robotics engineers still have not been able to design convincing simulations.

I'm not sure that your use of the term 'inherit' is appropriate?

I briefly read the paper... There was no snail breeding, they only injected (and then tested) fully grown adult snails, so I can't really see why you would expect to observe a morphic-resonance-type of information transfer in the control group mentioned in the articles?

Yes - I put "inherit" in quotation marks because it's not inheritance, but something similar acquired by transplant. I'm not sure if there is a word for that.

My thought on morphic resonance was that according to that theory, when the RNA donors were trained with electric shocks, other snails would tend to acquire the same reflex reaction. So it could be that the donees were acquiring it through morphic resonance, not through the transplant. But if that were so, the control group should also have acquired it, which they didn't.

Nope, there is no way I can see for the observed behavior of the adult control snails in this experiment to rule out a morphic-resonance-type effect.

If it were morphic resonance, why shouldn't the control snails show the same effect as the donees?

Because if it’s anything at all, it’s an effect which crosses generations, because it’s the conception/development stages of an organisms life which are so important to the idea of some type of field influencing the development of the organism, because that’s when the organism appears sensitive/vulnerable to the effect. It’s also always an influence from the past. Also these are just random wild snails, caught in the wild. There is absolutely no reason to assume they are particularly similar, i.e. they are not all bred from the same stock etc. Indeed, there were many snails which behaved quite differently, and wouldn’t cooperate with the researchers, as they wouldn’t change their behaviour when shocked, these snails were discarded from the study. There are lots of other reasons too... but that’s enough for the moment.

Sorry - having looked at the paper now, I see that what the authors refer to as controls is the untrained donors. What I had meant by controls was the donees who received RNA from the untrained donors. So perhaps we were talking at cross purposes.

What I'm saying is that if the effect is coming from morphic resonance instead of directly from the injected RNA, then (assuming the assignment of snails to the two groups of donees was adequately randomised) the donees who received RNA from untrained snails should still have felt the same morphic resonance effect as the donees who received RNA from trained snails.

I'm sorry but, at least for me, you'll have to stray from the abstract a while and get to specifics. 

A bootstrap process in a computer is another program - like any other - hard coded to a ROM chip rather than stored in volatile RAM. The point I was making about instinct or inherited behaviours and abilities is that when people talk about it being "hard wired" or "programmed" into our DNA they are just shifting the mystery. Programmed how? Stored how? How do you program instructions to walk into genes which code for fabricating proteins? Yet we know that many animals can walk shortly after birth. In your theory, where exactly in the meaning-laden environment is the instruction set for an animal to do any one of the myriad of things it needs to do from the moment of birth in order not to die in an instant? Some of those things are so incredibly complex that robotics engineers still have not been able to design convincing simulations.

You are making perfect sense within the standard paradigm of modern thought.  I need to trick you into a different way of thinking about the issues.  You ask to move the context from abstractions to specifics................

The context for informational realism - is that abstractions can be as specific in reality as are physical symbols.  In the conjecture I am trying to present, there would be an acceptance that informational objects are as substantial as physical ones.  This is a messing around with powerful tacit assumptions we all have.  Everyone is focused on consciousness as the key.  I submit that the more specific and measurable elemental mental process is understanding.

Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object. Wikipedia 

  There is no set of instructions for understanding, one is either experiencing a meaningful idea or not.  I subscribe strongly to the idea of direct perception.  It enables a deathblow to the Computationalism of D. Dennett, J. Fodor and S. Pinker.

Next, I present the central thesis of Informational Structural Realism of L. Floridi:

 it is suggested that an ontology of structural objects for OSR can reasonably be developed in terms of informational objects, and that Object Oriented Programming provides a flexible and powerful methodology with which to clarify and make precise the concept of “informational object”. The outcome is informational realism, the view that the world is the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other.

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2538/
http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/w...adoisr.pdf

Where is the information needed by living things to precede with life? - it is in their immediate informational environment, which is filled with information objects that are directly perceivable.  

I am sure this will not be satisfactory, but at least help you get that my view is like an M. C. Escher drawing.  You can see two images that fight each other for a unified perception.  Instructions can be specific code hardwired - or they can be instinct, without a basis in anything more than ambient meaning in the virtual environment.