Physiological basis of instincts

[DNAunion]

I asked a side question in another thread, in the Evolution vs. Creation one, and it didn't get any responses. So I'll try it hear. The discussion was about dogs instinctively burying bones.



I still have a problem understanding the physiological underpinnings of instinct (haven't taken embryology yet).

For example, during fetal development of a dog, the neurons automatically (without cues from the outside) wire up in such a way that a dog has an innate [behavior] of burying bones from the moment of birth?

It's not hard for me to imagine neurons growing out and connecting to one another during development in a more or less "random" manner, a blank slate able to be trained once experiences with the outside world cause physiological patterns to be established, but neurons connecting up in a manner that contains preformed [behavioral] information? Dogs have "bury a bone" gene that controls neural development?

[Schneibster]

Best definition I've ever heard is that an instinct is behavior that makes you feel good, and that you feel bad if you don't do it.

There are different kinds of instinct, I think- suckling and breathing are instinctive behavior, and so is sex, don't need to be taught. I suspect that burying bones is coded for a bit more loosely than that, though. I'd like to hear what some of our local neurological experts have to say.

[premjan]

Best definition I've ever heard is that an instinct is behavior that makes you feel good, and that you feel bad if you don't do it.

There are different kinds of instinct, I think- suckling and breathing are instinctive behavior, and so is sex, don't need to be taught. I suspect that burying bones is coded for a bit more loosely than that, though. I'd like to hear what some of our local neurological experts have to say.
dogs like to bury their feces too. might be an aggregate instinct.

[DNAunion]

I seem to remember a discussion of orb-web spiders building their webs in which it was stated that all of that complex behavior was governed solely by instinct. That is, from the moment of birth, without ever having witnessed another spider construct a web, an orb-web spider has the neural prewiring needed to build one on its own.

How does this occur?

*************************
PS: A few of the first hits from a Google search on the words INSTINCT ORB and WEB.

“You can see that spiders really know a lot about spinning a web. Spiders are not taught how to do this, but are born with the instinct.� (http://www.spiderroom.info/buildanorbweb.html)


and http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v4_n3/JoA_v4_p201.pdf


and ...

� Instinctive acts, like reflexes, do not have to be learnt and they are adaptive in the sense that they tend to the preservation of the animal and of the race … But, unlike reflexes, instinctive acts demand an intact nervous system, and they are often directed towards a relatively distant goal. Many of the deeds that animals perform on behalf of their young will bear fruit only in the future, while reflexes are always concerned with affairs of the moment. Further, instinctive actions are sometimes capable of modification. All these characteristics of instinctive actions are well illustrated by the Arachnida.

…

The young Spider spins its first web quite perfectly - and a year or so later it may spin its last. The last will be no better and no worse than the first, it will not be spun more quickly or in a better place. The Spider has not profited from past experiences, and so has robbed us of all the evidence we might have had that the experiences were conscious ones. All its life it has just spun - instinctively, irresistibly, irrationally - for it has no consciousness, it has no mind. Such instinctive behaviour is, in general, largely governed by internal physiological conditions, just as tropistic behaviour is governed by external physical conditions.� (http://members.tripod.com/Spinnenman/ArachGewoontNed.htm)


Although I must disagree with some of that. I saw a show where researchers placed flies in the same spot in a spider’s web day after day and the spider adapted its web building, shifting the central hub, to make that particular spot better able to capture flies. And this was repeated for different spiders for different hot spots, with the same results.

[BillyTheKat]

Best definition I've ever heard is that an instinct is behavior that makes you feel good, and that you feel bad if you don't do it.

There are different kinds of instinct, I think- suckling and breathing are instinctive behavior, and so is sex, don't need to be taught. I suspect that burying bones is coded for a bit more loosely than that, though. I'd like to hear what some of our local neurological experts have to say.
Though I'm most definitely not a neurological expert, I suspect that suckling might be a combination of other instinctive responses, such as using the tongue to hold things in the mouth for instance, as the difference in actions between suckling form the breast and suckling from the bottle, and the problems of changing babies between the two (a baby brought up on the bottle is unable to suckle from the breast) suggests suckling is at least largely a learned action. Breathing, like the beating heart, is a physiological process which doesn't depend on an external process in the way that an instinct typically does. I suspect you might find a lot of women who would disagree with your comment about sex as well ;) :)

To the op: I don't see hardwired behavioural responses as anything more incredible than hardwired physiological processes, and certainly no more incredible than, for instance, the manner in which faculties such as sight unpack themselves in an apparently automatic manner in children, or in fact, the whole thing of an independent being in all its complexity resulting from the seemingly random binding of a bunch of cells anyway. Compared to that, a "bury the bone" gene seems almost mundane!

[Schneibster]

OK, so let's take that "makes you feel good if you do it and bad if you don't" and run with it the way that Dawkins does with memes.

So, another definition of an instinct is that it's an unlearned behavior that increases the host's probability of procreation. Thus, as mutations went on, those creatures that had instincts that increased their probability of procreation procreated more, and those creatures that lacked those instincts procreated less.

As for the physiological basis of this, embryology isn't going to help much- you need to talk to the neurological and cognitive-science folks for that. But I would say this:

The basis of neuron activity is not merely a "fire-dontfire" binary behavior, but a much more complex system of biases- in other words, a neuron changes its rate of firing based on the rates coming from (usually) multiple other neurons, and those "inputs" are weighted based on a lot of chemistry we understand, and a lot we don't. So I'd say that instinct is an emergent property of the neuron behaviors, rather than there being a "bone-burying gene."

[Schneibster]

Though I'm most definitely not a neurological expert, I suspect that suckling might be a combination of other instinctive responses, such as using the tongue to hold things in the mouth for instance, as the difference in actions between suckling form the breast and suckling from the bottle, and the problems of changing babies between the two (a baby brought up on the bottle is unable to suckle from the breast) suggests suckling is at least largely a learned action. Hmmm, I think maybe "learned" is a bit strong. Let's say there is a built-in feedback loop that works on a reward basis (do it right and get fed) to combine autonomic behaviors (making a seal with the lips, creating negative relative pressure with the tongue and larynx, swallowing, getting endorphins from getting a full stomach) into a complex behavior. The biases that create this combination of activities are built-in.

Breathing, like the beating heart, is a physiological process which doesn't depend on an external process in the way that an instinct typically does. I think that the line is extremely fuzzy, and that many instinctive behaviors are made up in a complex manner from underpinnings that are still complex, before you get to autonomic activity, and I suspect that even the line between instinctive and autonomic gets pretty fuzzy too.

I suspect you might find a lot of women who would disagree with your comment about sex as well ;) :)Heh, I was not speaking of "making love." That requires long practice and a great deal of motivation. :D

[DNAunion]

Schneibster: Best definition I've ever heard is that an instinct is behavior that makes you feel good, and that you feel bad if you don't do it.

But that definition doesn’t fit for the just-born orb web spider example. The brand spanking new spider doesn’t just happen to construct a complex orb web by chance, get some positive reinforcement (eating) from it, then continue repeating that behavior because it made it feel good. Rather, it knows how to construct an orb web – a complex behavior – right from birth.


As far as the instinct of sucking for humans, the discussion is focusing on already born babies, but sucking begins in the womb well before birth, when babies suck their thumb. That doesn’t parallel an orb web spider: they don’t spin webs in the ‘womb’ before they are born; but they can do so immediately after being born.

Schneibster: As for the physiological basis of this, embryology isn't going to help much- you need to talk to the neurological and cognitive-science folks for that.

Either the neural circuits are built up (by the formation of new synapses between the appropriate neurons), or they are formed “in reverse� (by destruction of incorrect synapses), or they are formed by a combination of the two – during embryological development.

It is during embryological development that the expression of the genes encoding the instinctual behavior would occur; as an analogy, for axons running to peripheral tissues, gene products guide the growth cones along to their appropriate destinations. Embryological development is the time and place to look for the underlying physiological construction of instincts.


Schneibster: The basis of neuron activity is not merely a "fire-dontfire" binary behavior, but a much more complex system of biases- in other words, a neuron changes its rate of firing based on the rates coming from (usually) multiple other neurons, and those "inputs" are weighted based on a lot of chemistry we understand, and a lot we don't.

Your description makes it sound like the process is not genetically encoded or deterministic, but rather the result of “chaotic� inputs: stimulus-driven adjustments that could end up in any number of possible configurations depending upon the specific stimuli. That makes sense to me for the formation of memory, learning, and other neural circuitry formed by experience, but not for the construction of instincts.

Unless, all of the temporal and weighted ‘chaos’ you mentioned were in fact deterministic. But that doesn’t seem to be what you are saying.

Schneibster: So I'd say that instinct is an emergent property of the neuron behaviors, rather than there being a "bone-burying gene."

The ability of a new born orb web spider to construct a complex object like an orb web has to have some specific information underpinning it; it can’t be the result of basically chaotic firings of various neurons spontaneously forming a coherent, complex, higher-level behavior - constistently and repeatedly.

[Schneibster]

But that definition doesn’t fit for the just-born orb web spider example. Agreed- that is a much more hard-coded behavior. I would say there is much more difference between the orb web spider's web and the dog's bone-burying, than there is between the bone-burying and the infant's suckling. And much more similarity between the web and the human heartbeat, as well.

As far as the instinct of sucking for humans, the discussion is focusing on already born babies, but sucking begins in the womb well before birth, when babies suck their thumb. That doesn’t parallel an orb web spider: they don’t spin webs in the ‘womb’ before they are born; but they can do so immediately after being born.I was not aware of that. It changes my opinion below on embryology, too.

Your description makes it sound like the process is not genetically encoded or deterministic, but rather the result of “chaotic� inputs: stimulus-driven adjustments that could end up in any number of possible configurations depending upon the specific stimuli. That makes sense to me for the formation of memory, learning, and other neural circuitry formed by experience, but not for the construction of instincts.

Unless, all of the temporal and weighted ‘chaos’ you mentioned were in fact deterministic. But that doesn’t seem to be what you are saying.I left out a crucial connecting concept: since we don't know entirely what all those determining factors are, some of them might be "built in" and associated (in certain neurons, for certain incoming connections) with pathways that express particular programmed (i.e. instinctive) behaviors. I'm pretty convinced that this is at least partly the case.

[BillyTheKat]

Hmmm, I think maybe "learned" is a bit strong. Let's say there is a built-in feedback loop that works on a reward basis (do it right and get fed) to combine autonomic behaviors (making a seal with the lips, creating negative relative pressure with the tongue and larynx, swallowing, getting endorphins from getting a full stomach) into a complex behavior. The biases that create this combination of activities are built-in.
Although I'd describe the behaviours you mention as reflexive rather than autonomic (as the autonomic system is more to do with managing states of arousal and calm), I have to say that's a pretty good definition of learning. Remember that learning doesn't necessarily need a teacher; I learnt not to pull the dog's tail about the second time she bit me...

I think that the line is extremely fuzzy, and that many instinctive behaviors are made up in a complex manner from underpinnings that are still complex, before you get to autonomic activity, and I suspect that even the line between instinctive and autonomic gets pretty fuzzy too.
Certainly at any kind of granular level the distinction between instinct and other forms of physiological activity becomes fuzzy, which is why I think it's useful to focus on the conditions which elicit instinctive behaviours, and which tend to be environmental. As the behaviorists found with their animal experiments, complex behaviours can developed from simple instincts, such as pecking behaviour in birds or "nosying" behaviour in rats, but in the absence of shaping stimuli, animals return to their instinctive behaviour; it would appear that these instincts can be modified but not permanently altered or stopped.

Heh, I was not speaking of "making love." That requires long practice and a great deal of motivation. :D
:confused: There's a difference? :Cheeky: ;)

[jonesg]

I asked a side question in another thread, in the Evolution vs. Creation one, and it didn't get any responses. So I'll try it hear. The discussion was about dogs instinctively burying bones.



I still have a problem understanding the physiological underpinnings of instinct (haven't taken embryology yet).

For example, during fetal development of a dog, the neurons automatically (without cues from the outside) wire up in such a way that a dog has an innate [behavior] of burying bones from the moment of birth?

It's not hard for me to imagine neurons growing out and connecting to one another during development in a more or less "random" manner, a blank slate able to be trained once experiences with the outside world cause physiological patterns to be established, but neurons connecting up in a manner that contains preformed [behavioral] information? Dogs have "bury a bone" gene that controls neural development?

I'll say what I know about instinct, its animal behavior, we are animal somewhat I guess because we have instinct. Social, sexual and survival instinct are carried by the same process or part of the brain which is called ego. I think I read somewhere tha the hypothalmus part of the brain is very active in teens but goes quiet after puberty so matbe thats a clue.

Extremely Egotistical people have instincts which are very out of balance.
They tend to be afraid (survival) anti social (social) and disfunctional sexually, they may be all of the preceeding or a mixture and it will manifest in odd behavior. Compulsive addictions, womanizing, compulsive shopping, gambling etc. In fact, I think you can look at any extreme behavior, I mean extremely strange such as pedophilia and see that EGO has taken complete control. Its a fatal form of selfishness.

The person has failed to make the transition from child to adult, physically they have grown but their mind is stuck in the child.
I'm not talking about "inner child" psychobabble touchy feely , I am describing a part of the hard wired brain which does not let go and prevents a child or teen from becoming adult in their thinking.
For example , see Michael Jackson. Obviously he became afraid and failed puberty, he turned back and stayed a child.

God plays a role in all this, for those who are stuck in the above conditions, if they want to let go of their previous ways, God can and will help. 1st Corinthians ch 13 speaks about this "when I was a child I spake as a child , and I thought as a child but when I became a man I let go of my childish ways".

[BioBeing]

I'll say what I know about instinct, its animal behavior, we are animal somewhat I guess because we have instinct.
We are animal, therefore we have instinct is I think the correct way round.

Social, sexual and survival instinct are carried by the same process or part of the brain which is called ego. I think I read somewhere tha the hypothalmus part of the brain is very active in teens but goes quiet after puberty so matbe thats a clue.
"Ego" is not part of the brain. It is something that emerges from the brain, one facet of our conciousness.

Extremely Egotistical people have instincts which are very out of balance.
They tend to be afraid (survival) anti social (social) and disfunctional sexually, they may be all of the preceeding or a mixture and it will manifest in odd behavior. Compulsive addictions, womanizing, compulsive shopping, gambling etc. In fact, I think you can look at any extreme behavior, I mean extremely strange such as pedophilia and see that EGO has taken complete control. Its a fatal form of selfishness.
I think you are conflating a lot of things together here and lumping them simplistically under one heading.

The person has failed to make the transition from child to adult, physically they have grown but their mind is stuck in the child.
I'm not talking about "inner child" psychobabble touchy feely , I am describing a part of the hard wired brain which does not let go and prevents a child or teen from becoming adult in their thinking.
For example , see Michael Jackson. Obviously he became afraid and failed puberty, he turned back and stayed a child.
Again, at best this is a very simplistic explanation.

God plays a role in all this, for those who are stuck in the above conditions, if they want to let go of their previous ways, God can and will help. 1st Corinthians ch 13 speaks about this "when I was a child I spake as a child , and I thought as a child but when I became a man I let go of my childish ways".
Ahhh - so here we have it. If we define mental problems as being "childish", we can point to a vague passage in an old book and say we have the answer. Methinks that you are making the definition based on your preconceived cure.

[BillyTheKat]

I think you are conflating a lot of things together here and lumping them simplistically under one heading.
I kind of get the impression that jonesg has managed to confuse Freudian Psychodynamic theory with Erikson's Developmental Stage Theory and Eysenk's Personality Inventory, which aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the psychology cutlery drawer...

Ahhh - so here we have it. If we define mental problems as being "childish", we can point to a vague passage in an old book and say we have the answer. Methinks that you are making the definition based on your preconceived cure.
Aren't we all supposedly children of god? Therefore, god makes us mentally ill! :Cheeky:

[improbablecause]

Eysenck! Eysenck! Eysenck!

Sorry, I've become picky about how people spell Eysenck's name. A carry-over from being in a personality psychology course where the professor loved the guy. He wouldn't have Eysenck's name spelled any other way.

Anyway, to add to the criticism of jonesg, Freudian perspectives in psychology are pretty much shunned in the scientific community these days. It's odd that the public continues to cling onto them, however. Whenever someone mentions "psychology", Sigmund Freud always seems to be the first name to come up.

It's kind of funny how the guy with the least evidence to support his ideas is the most popular.

[DNAunion]

Schneibster: So, another definition of an instinct is that it's an unlearned behavior that increases the host's probability of procreation. Thus, as mutations went on, those creatures that had instincts that increased their probability of procreation procreated more, and those creatures that lacked those instincts procreated less.

Okay, but how exactly could it occur for an orb web spider?

All of the genetic information encoding the neural circuitry needed for the complex behavior of constructing an orb web could not be expected to pop into existence all at once, in a single baby spider. So we have to accumulate the genetic information piece meal over generations. Yet without all of the genes/genetic information, spiders couldn’t make their webs.

Well, more precisely, the spiders couldn’t make (1) their current form of orb webs, (2) instinctively. Remove either one, or both, of those and it becomes plausible. Perhaps they had to learn how to do one final part of the construction by experience, and at some point, a chance mutation made it such that that instruction was stored in the genome (instead of having to be learned again each generation). Or probably more plausible, they had been building simpler webs instinctively.

Ah yes, how could I have forgotten. That’s gotta be part of the solution: simpler webs. I believe this kind of thing was simulated in silico as explained in one of Richard Dawkin’s books (Climbing Mount Improbable??).

So the generations preceding the first complete-orb-web-constructing baby spider could have produced simpler webs, with those neural instructions having been genetically encoded. A mutation that happened to have one offspring slap on an extra line or two somewhere, or move the hub more centrally or laterally, or what have you, leading to that spider catching more flies, could spread through the population over time by natural selection. Thus, the webs the web-building instinct (part) would have been creating would have evolved over time.

The potential problem with this explanation is that the backtracking to simpler and simpler webs is not necessarily linear. The building of an orb web consists of several distinctly different processes, some of which seem to be performed in anticipation of future steps.

Anyway, by logically looking back – reversing the hands of time and evolution – to simpler and simpler webs, we should be able to get to a point where the webs are so “trivial� that constructing them by instincts is not difficult to imagine.


I still have a gut feeling that this doesn't explain it all. Considering how complex the behavior of building an orb web is, I'd imagine that a lot of genes would have to be devoted to forming the neural circuitry during embryological development. But how many genes does an orb web spider have? Can it afford to devote x number of them to just constructing a web?

[BillyTheKat]

Eysenck! Eysenck! Eysenck!

Sorry, I've become picky about how people spell Eysenck's name. A carry-over from being in a personality psychology course where the professor loved the guy. He wouldn't have Eysenck's name spelled any other way.

Sos! I'm afraid I could never care strongly enough about Esnyeck's stuff to be that bothered about getting the name right. It's bad enough for a Brit like me to get Behaviorism spelt right and imo that's far more important than Esnecky... :D

[DNAunion]

As far as Freud is concerned, a potentially interesting, fairly recent (2004) article is "Freud Returns", by Mark Solms in Scientific American.

Here is one interesting ellipsed quote (I haven't had a chance to read the full article yet, not even once).

"Freud is back, and not just in theory. ... Testament to the renewed respect for Freud's ideas is the journal's editorial advisory board, populated by a who's who of experts in contemporary behavioral neuroscience ... Within this framework, it appears that Freud's broad brushstroke organization of the mind is destined to play a role similar to the one Darwin's theory of evolution served for molecular genetics - a template on which emerging details can be coherently arranged. At the same time, neuroscientists are uncovering proof of some of Freud's theories ..."

[Dark Knight Bob]

But that definition doesn’t fit for the just-born orb web spider example. The brand spanking new spider doesn’t just happen to construct a complex orb web by chance, get some positive reinforcement (eating) from it, then continue repeating that behavior because it made it feel good. Rather, it knows how to construct an orb web – a complex behavior – right from birth.


As far as the instinct of sucking for humans, the discussion is focusing on already born babies, but sucking begins in the womb well before birth, when babies suck their thumb. That doesn’t parallel an orb web spider: they don’t spin webs in the ‘womb’ before they are born; but they can do so immediately after being born.



Either the neural circuits are built up (by the formation of new synapses between the appropriate neurons), or they are formed “in reverse� (by destruction of incorrect synapses), or they are formed by a combination of the two – during embryological development.

It is during embryological development that the expression of the genes encoding the instinctual behavior would occur; as an analogy, for axons running to peripheral tissues, gene products guide the growth cones along to their appropriate destinations. Embryological development is the time and place to look for the underlying physiological construction of instincts.




Your description makes it sound like the process is not genetically encoded or deterministic, but rather the result of “chaotic� inputs: stimulus-driven adjustments that could end up in any number of possible configurations depending upon the specific stimuli. That makes sense to me for the formation of memory, learning, and other neural circuitry formed by experience, but not for the construction of instincts.

Unless, all of the temporal and weighted ‘chaos’ you mentioned were in fact deterministic. But that doesn’t seem to be what you are saying.

Your neglecting the effects memory has on us. Insects display set patterns in their behaviour. You can interupt this behaviour and make the insect do an 'infinite loop' effect where it will keep repeating the task because the environmental 'trigger' hasn't been registered yet.

I would hypothesise therefore that memory is an element that allows more variability and some form of cross-referancing and self checking. Even if it is limited in it's ability, it provides a vast advantage.

The ability of a new born orb web spider to construct a complex object like an orb web has to have some specific information underpinning it; it can’t be the result of basically chaotic firings of various neurons spontaneously forming a coherent, complex, higher-level behavior - constistently and repeatedly.

Complex doesn't imply absolute unpredictiability. Instinct isn't random neurons firing. It is a form of 'programming' that evolution has provided. Without some sefl checking device like memory to anyalse what the spider is doing and to input questions. It will happily go about it's business in a set way even if it is a complex one.

A moth will happily fly into a candle killing itself because it's programmed to fly using the stars off infinite focal length, not a candle which changes dependant on your position. The spiral pattern it displays is a very predictable behaviour that proves this. The process going on inside the moth may be complex but it still results in a fixed simple pattern in a given situation.

[DNAunion]

Your neglecting the effects memory has on us.

I'm not neglecting memory because memory is irrelevant.

Memory comes from experience: on the other hand, instinct, which is innate, doesn't. Since I am discussing instinct, memory is irrelevant.

The only way memory could be relevant to explaining the origin of an instinct in a newborn spider or what have you is if the memory is passed on directly from the parent to the offspring. Is that what you are proposing? Some form of inheritance of acquired memories?

Instinct isn't random neurons firing.

Which is what I said.

[Bob K]

I'll say what I know about instinct ...

Extremely Egotistical people have instincts which are very out of balance.

They tend to be afraid (survival) anti social (social) and dysfunctional sexually, they may be all of the preceding or a mixture and it will manifest in odd behavior. Compulsive addictions, womanizing, compulsive shopping, gambling etc. In fact, I think you can look at any extreme behavior, I mean extremely strange such as pedophilia and see that EGO has taken complete control. Its a fatal form of selfishness.

The person has failed to make the transition from child to adult, physically they have grown but their mind is stuck in the child.

I'm not talking about "inner child" psychobabble touchy feely , I am describing a part of the hard wired brain which does not let go and prevents a child or teen from becoming adult in their thinking.

For example , see Michael Jackson. Obviously he became afraid and failed puberty, he turned back and stayed a child.

Premise #1: If [P/Conditions/Causes] you claim that extreme behavior is not learned but instead is hard-wired, then [Q/Consequences/Effects] the individual has no conscious/willful control over his behavior—"My brain made me do it!!!"
Premise #2: [P/Conditions/Causes] Extreme behavior is not learned but instead is hard-wired.
Conclusion: [Q/Consequences/Effects] The individual has no conscious/willful control of his behavior.

Question: Has Premise #2 been proven? Is extreme behavior hard-wired?

If you cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Premise #2 is true, then the Premises do not prove that the Conclusion is true, and, therefore, the Conclusion is not acceptable as true. [The conclusion may be true, but for reasons not presented in the premise(s)—the P/Conditions/Causes.]

In an If P/Conditions/Causes, Then Q/Consequences/Effects logical argument, the P/Conditions/Causes must be verifiable/falsifiable/verified and relevant to the Q/Consequences/Effects—if the P/Conditions/Causes are present and none are missing and no additional variables are present, then the Q/Consequences/Effects must always occur [the causes must always cause the effects].

If you claim that ...

God plays a role in all this, for those who are stuck in the above conditions, if they want to let go of their previous ways, God can and will help. 1st Corinthians ch 13 speaks about this "when I was a child I spake as a child , and I thought as a child but when I became a man I let go of my childish ways".

... then ...

(1) You have claimed gods exist.

This is an unproven claim, and if you cannot prove gods exist, then this claim is useless.

You can prove gods exist (A) by defining a god to be an individual or a reality which has greater knowledge and capabilities for using that knowledge than human beings individually or collectively; (B) by capturing one, torturing it until it confesses that it is a god and agrees to perform stunts which prove it has greater knowledge and capabilities for using that knowledge than human beings individually or collectively and it therefore qualifies to be a god.

If you cannot prove gods exist, then gods are irrelevant to this discussion.

(2) You have implied that gods play roles in human brains' hard-wiring/instincts.

You will have to prove that gods hard-wired human brains and/or that they can change/affect the hard-wired human brain condition.

Obviously, if the extreme behavior is caused by the gods, because they created everything including the hard-wired human brain condition inre extreme behavior, then it would seem only fair that the gods take the responsibility to un-hard-wire human brains inre extreme behavior.

There is a serious unfairness/illogic in allowing gods to demand humans somehow willfully/intentionally overcome those instincts hard-wired/caused/created by the gods.

(3) You have claimed that individuals exhibiting extreme behavior have a consciousness which causes them to know their extreme behavior is wrong although hard-wired and that they can willfully/intentionally change their hard-wiring/instincts:

Premise #1: If [P/conditions/Causes] they [individuals exhibiting extreme behavior, which is hard-wired/not learned/nature, not nurture] want to let go of their previous ways, then [Q/Consequences/Effects] God can and will help.
Premise #2: [P/Conditions/Causes] They [individuals exhibiting extreme behavior [etc.] want to let go of their previous ways.
Conclusion: [Q/Consequences/Effects] God can and will help.

How can individuals exhibiting extreme behavior—which is hard-wired by the gods—want to change their previous instinctive ways?

Can spiders want to change their web-building instincts?

(4) "1st Corinthians ch 13 speaks about this: 'When I was a child I spake as a child, and I thought as a child but when I became a man I let go of my childish ways.' "

There is no reason to doubt that 1 Cor.: 13, written by a human, Paul, who may or may not have been inspired/instructed by the gods [requiring another set of proof(s)], has this quote, but the nature of the quote describes 100% human willfulness/intention and does not require the existence nor the interference/intervention of gods. The individual has to be able to generate a reason for the change and to intend to change, and, supposedly, if he does one simple behavior—to think not as a child but as an adult, then his extreme behavior will stop.

This statement describes psychology, no need for gods.

Pure Buddhism also describes human psychology and no need for gods:

The Essence of Buddhism: The Four Noble Truths

I. Dukkha: Man suffers.

II. Tanha: Man suffers because of greed, defined as excessive desire.

III. Nirvana: Man’s suffering can be alleviated.

IV. Marga: Man’s suffering can be alleviated by means of The Eightfold Path.

* A. Right View or Knowledge.
* B. Right Thought.
* C. Right Speech.
* D. Right Conduct.
* E. Right Livelihood
* F. Right Effort.
* G. Right Mind Control.
* H. Right Meditation.

Pure Buddhism does not claim gods exist; instead, it shows [I] individuals suffer, [II] individuals cause their own suffering by greed/excessive desire, [III] individuals' suffering because of greed/excessive desire can be treated, and [IV] individuals are responsible for their own treatment, and must follow certain guidelines for effective thinking and behavior.

Note the psychological concepts [individual suffering] and principles [individual suffering is caused by greed/excessive desire, suffering can be treated, and suffering can be treated by following guidelines for thought/behavior] described in pure Buddhism: No gods needed.

Thus, Xnity has no claim inre exclusiveness inre using psychological concepts [childish thoughts/ways] and principles [giving up childish thoughts/ways].

If an individual has a brain problem—his behavior is somehow hard-wired, then his behavior is excusable; courts of law allow for insanity, wherein, in theory, an individual does not know he is injuring someone else by his intentions and behaviors, or that he has a physical condition which forces him to behave and which he cannot control.

Proving an individual has a brain problem, a physiological/biological/chemical problem within his brain, that causes his behavior and over which he has no conscious control, is a serious challenge for any defense attorney, and, thus, juries do not grant this plea frivolously.

If Michael Jackson committed the alleged crimes, then (A) he had no control over his behavior because his brain is hard-wired inre that behavior and he is therefore insane and not guilty and he should not be punished but instead treated, if possible, or (B) he had control over his behavior because his behavior is willful and intentional and sane and he is therefore guilty and he should be punished, and possibly treated.

You are playing a John Kerry-type fence-stradling policy by claiming that extreme behavior is both hard-wired/unlearned [which would mean the individual cannot change and is not responsible for his behavior] and willful/learned [which would mean the individual can change and is responsible for his behavior].

This type of double-thinking gets us nowhere in determining and describing the causes of extreme behavior.