this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Science Memes

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top 11 comments
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[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 hours ago

There's good evolutionary reasons for babies to not possess a copy of the parents brains. It allows for much better adaptation to the current surroundings, and thus better survival of the species.

[–] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They would never survive urban life given their susceptability to disease

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 hours ago

yeah this would probably result in a D&D Beholder type species that necessarily has to hate and be revolted by others' presence simply to keep the species from immediately dying of disease

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Is it safe to assume that fission in a complex organism would actually transfer learning?

I'm not confident enough in my grasp of it to say either way. That being said, the geek in me that writes fiction can see the brain duplication ending up with two newborns, or two individuals with bits and pieces of the established pathways of the parent.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Using a highly scientific method I estimate you'd retain about half of your knowledge and skills.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 minute ago

Witch! Heretic! What strange magic is this?!

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 11 points 3 hours ago

I think that would require a grasp of how brains work that we simply don't have.

[–] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Not sure if this could instead count as meiosis. But yeah, one of the two.

[–] SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 3 points 3 hours ago

We use fission+fusion! We randomly divide our genome, providing the information we have accumulate over Eons, then fuse with another to combine our knowledge. Family group animals are weird because we need to perform additional learning, vs most other animals that run mostly off instinct.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

Splits off all the bad. Gets an evil twin.

I mean sometimes you have to let go of things too right?