Animus possible... for real?!
Happened upon this article in Scientific American, and it got me thinking. The magazine often bastardizes the real science going on in order to make it accessible to the masses, but most of the time they're not wrong. However, I wouldn't bring this up in a scientific community, because I don't think it's a possibility, but it's fun to think about.
We often think of ourselves as a single individual with all our cells containing our own distinct DNA.
But, it has long been known that baby and mother transfer cells back and through the placenta leading to microchimerism. To define the word, this means that a small number of cells originating in one organism are alive and well in another organism. In extreme cases, in early development, twin zygotes can combine to form one individual with different cells having different DNA. This person is a chimera.
The above article is an example of microchimerism. They found cells that had originated in an offspring in the brain of the mother.
What are the implications?
Many hypotheses involving microchimerism have been put forth "... from tissue repair and cancer prevention to sparking immune disorders." But I don't care about this (for this topic anyway).
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You know how sometimes twins can feel the pain of the other?
Or how a mother will know when her baby is in trouble? or vice versa?
If we suspend reality and allow ourselves a little science fiction (maybe), perhaps this comes from microchimerism. Twins have been shown to exchange cells in the womb. Mothers and babies too.
To steal from the comments that got me to Assassin's Creed...
"Maybe this is the way ... unconscious memory (instincts) or sometimes even conscious memories are transferred? Our own and all ancestors lifetime experiences reside somewhere inside us, and the only possibility to store such big amount of information I see (is) the chemistry inside cells ..."
"Maybe (the) theory that déjà vu is really memory cells from an ancestor isn't so far fetched."
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On to Abstergo and the future!
1 - IF memories can be stored in single cells (somehow)
2 - IF a technology could be generated to extract memories from these cells
3 - IF cells can be passed from mother brain to offspring brain (the above article is cells from offspring getting more or less lodged mother brain)
4 - IF technology can be developed to quickly distinguish "other" cells from "self" cells in a living person
----> Boom. Animus.
3 seems pretty likely to me given the science out there
4 may be possible in the distant future
It seems the roadblock to an Animus would be storage of memories (1) and extraction thereof (2)...
As for storage, it either happens or it doesn't, we just need to figure out which, and how to test it.
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Thus concludes your crazy science (fiction) thoughts for the day.
“Force has no place where there is need of skill." Herodotus