Memories and Prediction

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson—

Brains are prediction machines. Cells are too, elementarily. Not prediction machines that predict the future magically. But forecast calculators. Trying to calculate (guess, anticipate) future factors. And potential probabilities. Based on known priors and histories (memories). Whose lives depend on predicting competently. Because survival boils down to making the fittest decisions possible. Which competent prediction-making makes more probable.

Here is a basic outline of our wetware -

The Wetware of our Brains

Hard Drive - Hippocampus

Permanent storage location of all data (memories) that are downloaded (experienced) via the sensory inputs such as the eyes and ears

RAM - Prefrontal Cortex

Cache storage of, and hyperlinks to, the Hard Drive's recently experienced memories and frequently visited memories

Processor - Neurons & Glia

Circuits, like from the eye, to the optic nerve, to the visual cortex, to the prefrontal cortex in order to access & search the Hard Drive for relevant image-references (memories)

Operating System - Cells & Limbic System (or just Cells in organisms without Limbic Systems)

• Primary Instincts - 2 Source Code Instructions

  • Predictive Motivations that are encoded into each individual cell

    Drives all senses of cooperation & competition

    
    

    1. Try not to die

       • Motivates all cells' and organisms' urgent desires to remain alive

         
         

    2. Avoid extinction

       • Motivates all cells' and organisms' urgent desires to divide or propagate, respectively

       
       

• Emergent Instincts - Specific actions derived from the 2 Primary Instructions

  • Predictive Skills and Knowledge that are encoded across networks of cells

    Like birds building nests or lizards growing back tails. To humans doing everything from being startled by a snake, to problem-solving (for example, by inventing a new type of medicine by exercising imagination, creativity, and predictive hypothetical thinking, followed by lab testing, followed by a clinical trial)

The Primary Instincts to survive and multiply are life's 2 Source Code instructions. Emergent Instincts are a Recursive & Scaling Algorithm. All specific Emergent Instincts across all varieties of living things emerge from nothing but the 2 Source Code instructions, no matter how wildly diverse any specific Emergent Instinct might be.

Each next generation of any given type or species starts preloaded, with their unique Emergent Instincts already encoded into their respective Cells & Limbic System (or just Cells). Not long-term memory, but looong-term - as in handed-down. You can call it Successive Memory or Root File Memory. It's like each specific instinct is some sort of Engram Heirloom passed down from prior generations.

Browser - Prefrontal Cortex, Frontal Cortex, Cortex & Neocortex

Search Engine for references (memories) that might be found in Hard Drive - used for thinking, problem solving, imagination & creativity. Like searching for (trying to remember) your password that you know you know, but can't put your finger on. Performing search queries with terms that you predict (guess, anticipate) are likely to have the highest probabilities of success, like - Did I use all all CAPS? Like I most often do?

Programs, APPs - Hippocampus & Cerebellum

Acquired Knowledge & Skills.

Behaviors and Knowledge, that are practiced, and that through trial-and-error, prove to get rewarded - rewarded behaviors and knowledge are repeated with the expectation that the reward will be repeated - the more recursive that the behavior-knowledge / reward loop gets, the more likely that the behavior and knowledge will get encoded for passage to the next generation - these are called emergent instincts. These Emergent Instincts are like the iterative upgrades that come already built-in from the factory with each year's newest iPhone model.

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Primary instincts are predictive survival motives. And emergent instincts are predictive skills and knowledge, drawn from priors and histories (memories). Inherited species-specific memories that come preloaded at birth. Successive Memories, descended from prior generations. Root File Memories, derived from prior iterations. Engram Heirlooms, passed down from the past. That. All living things - with every last single cell in their body - are dying to pass along to the next generation.

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