Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-666
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dc.contributor.authorEvers, Kathinka
dc.date.accessioned2016-10-26T08:17:26Z
dc.date.available2016-10-26T10:17:26Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.identifier.urihttps://openscience.ub.uni-mainz.de/handle/20.500.12030/668-
dc.description.abstractThe human brain is an essentially evaluative organ endowed with reward systems engaged in learning and memory as well as in higher evaluative tendencies. Our innate species-specific, neuronally-based identity disposes us to develop universal evaluative tendencies, such as self-interest, control-orientation, dissociation, selective sympathy, empathy, and xenophobia. The combination of these tendencies may place us in a predicament. Our neuronal identity makes us social, but also individualistic and self-projective, with an emotional and intellectual engagement that is far more narrowly focused in space and time than the effects of our actions. However, synaptic epigenesis theories of cultural and social imprinting on our brain architecture suggest that there is a possibility of culturally influencing these predispositions. In an analysis of epigenesis by selective stabilisation of synapses, I discuss the relationships between genotype and brain phenotype: the paradox of non-linear evolution between genome and brain complexity; the selection of cultural circuits in the brain during development; and the genesis and epigenetic transmission of cultural imprints. I proceed to discuss the combinatorial explosion of brain representations, and the channelling of behaviour through “epigenetic rules” and top-down control of decision-making. In neurobiological terms, these “rules” are viewed as acquired patterns of connections (scaffoldings), hypothetically stored in frontal cortex long-term memory, which frame the genesis of novel representations and regulate decision-making in a top-down manner. Against that background I propose the possibility of being epigenetically proactive, and adapting our social structures, in both the short and the long term, to benefit, influence, and constructively interact with the ever-developing neuronal architecture of our brains.en_GB
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsInCopyrightde_DE
dc.rights.urihttps://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subject.ddc100 Philosophiede_DE
dc.subject.ddc100 Philosophyen_GB
dc.titleCan we be epigenetically proactive?en_GB
dc.typeBuchbeitragde_DE
dc.identifier.urnurn:nbn:de:hebis:77-publ-550287
dc.identifier.doihttp://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-666-
jgu.type.dinitypebookPart
jgu.type.versionPublished versionen_GB
jgu.type.resourceText
jgu.organisation.departmentFB 05 Philosophie und Philologie-
jgu.organisation.number7920-
jgu.organisation.nameJohannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz-
jgu.rights.accessrightsopenAccess-
jgu.book.titleOpen MIND
jgu.book.editorMetzinger, Thomas
jgu.pages.alternativeKap. 13(T)
jgu.publisher.year2015
jgu.publisher.nameMIND Group
jgu.publisher.placeFrankfurt am Main
jgu.publisher.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.15502/9783958570238
jgu.organisation.placeMainz-
jgu.subject.ddccode100
opus.date.accessioned2016-10-26T08:17:26Z
opus.date.modified2016-10-31T11:30:01Z
opus.date.available2016-10-26T10:17:26
opus.subject.dfgcode01-108
opus.organisation.stringFB 05: Philosophie und Philologie: Philosophisches Seminarde_DE
opus.identifier.opusid55028
opus.relation.ispartofcollectionOpen Mindde_DE
opus.institute.number0508
opus.metadataonlyfalse
opus.type.contenttypeKeinede_DE
opus.type.contenttypeNoneen_GB
jgu.publisher.doi10.15502/9783958570238
jgu.organisation.rorhttps://ror.org/023b0x485
Appears in collections:JGU-Publikationen

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