The Second Algorithm: Our Brain of Conflict

Abstract

Our brain evolved out of accumulated mutations, confirmed by natural selection, in the genetic information repository of our DNA. RNA, the sister nucleic acid, continued its primarily intermediary role between the DNA repository and the translation of that genetic information into three-dimensional behaviorally-interactive proteins. The brain, then, develops in the individual under the prescriptive guidance of DNA which, despite a considerable amount of developmental and experiential plasticity, assures a high degree of fidelity in the replication of fundamental brain architecture. The main features of our brain, then, like the main features of our human body plan (head, trunk, arms, legs) are expressed in common across our human species. It is essential to remember that our brain structure is the three dimensional essentially protein representation of the largely two dimensional DNA informational matrix. Again, something is not made out of nothing. The connection between genetic informational matrix and phenotypic or individual behavior—the mind-body linkage—remains.

If I am not for me, who will be? But if I am only for me, what (good) am I?

(Hillel)(Wigoder 1989: 341)