(WIP)
Life does not happen without stimuli. It becomes alive only through the constant metabolism/catalysis with “the world” external to the cell (or whatever we define as the minimum quanta of life for the virus/RNA/RNP fans). The action of this metabolic/catalytic process, which serves as the foundation of our definition of biological life, is the basis for the response mechanism critical to the definition of stimuli. Without external energy, “life” stops responding.
Memory is a stored response to stimuli. We have “innate”, or genetically coded “memory”, and “adaptive” or “learned” responses to stimuli. We do not store stimuli directly, only responses. Organisms without an adaptive response system rely entirely on “genetic memory”. Glia provide the substrate of the “adaptive memory” system.
Behavior is expressed memory, invoked by stimuli.
Dementia as adaptive stimuli response decline.
Aging as stimuli response decline.
These are biologically distinct tracks.
“Natural” lifespan of organisms is a derivative of adaptivity to stimuli.
Developmental stages in organisms optimize for stimuli response, “maturity” optimizes for metabolism.
“Maturity” is determined by base stimuli response and modified by adaptive response. Our adaptive system provides powerful control over base stimuli response. “Maturity” can be delayed or advanced, in whole or part. It also may not occur at all for specific developmental components.
Variance in “maturity” rates may be an effective analog to “adaptive stimuli response” at the species level.
(What’s the difference, if any, between “loss of epigenetic information” and “stimuli response decline”?)
All “conscious” memory is “artificial”, constructed entirely of stimuli responses rather than the stimuli itself. For example, organisms do not “remember” red, they “remember” how their physiology “reacted” to red. Top level cognitive concepts are a collection of reactions, rather than objects themselves.
It is these reactions to stimuli which are ultimately translate into behavior.
Behavioral training is the process of associating/re-associating reactions to stimuli.
We have an intuitive understanding of this, nearly all of our “therapy” regimes focus on re-associating responses. Events themselves do not change, our “reaction” to them does