Natures wonders: memory carried in metamorphosis (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, July 30, 2021, 19:57 (1210 days ago) @ David Turell

Amazing study:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7fAQS7WYAcF8Rb?format=jpg&name=medium

"The Astounding Resilience of Caterpillar Memory, Or, What is it Like to be a Metamorphosing Caterpillar?
Imagine you are a caterpillar, nestled inside your cocoon, on the brink of metamorphosis. First, you flood the cocoon with enzymes that dissolve all of your tissue, save for small bundles of cells known as "imaginal discs". At this point, the contents inside the cocoon - you - have melted from a wriggling caterpillar to protein soup, with a few floating discs.

“'If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out", writes Ferris Jabr in the Scientific American.

"The discs then slurp up the soup they're floating in, using the proteins to form wings, antennae, and all the other bodily structures that make up a butterfly.

"Now, it turns out that butterfly's remember what they learned as caterpillars, despite dissolving their bodies. We learned this by torturing caterpillars. Electrical shocks were associatively paired with an odor, so that the caterpillar learned that it would receive a shock every time it encountered the odor. When these caterpillars became butterflies, they retained the learned aversion to the shock-inducing odor. Researchers believe the memory persists thanks to synaptic connections that remained intact through the metamorphosis.

"Here's a thing: Caterpillars flood their cocoons w/ enzymes that dissolve every tissue of their body, save for little "imaginal discs".

"The discs then use the protein soup as fuel to rebuild into a butterfly.

"BUT THE BUTTERFLY REMEMBERS WHAT IT LEARNED AS A CATERPILLAR.

"So here's the question: what does all that feel like, to a caterpillar? To the degree that caterpillars have subjectivity, to the degree that there is something-that-it-is-like to be a caterpillar, from the caterpillar's first-person (first-caterpillar?) perspective, what's it like?

"Because if enough synaptic connections survive the metamorphosis process to preserve memories from before the melting-and-rebuilding situation, then they might also carry memories from during the process."

Comment: Wow!!! Memories carried to the butterfly form in the discs of genome. That wasn't designed by chance. Chance could not have logically developed metamorphosis. Only a designer.