this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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I doubt it is mostly instinct, there’s only so much information that can be stored in our genes so we instead rely on social relations for most things including adopting social constructs.
There's a surprising amount of stuff that can be stored in our genes, including reflexes. I doubt this has any relevance to what we're talking about, but sometimes people with degrading genomes have been seen throwing their arms into the air when falling, which is a reaction generally found in infants as a vestige from our tree-bound days, when a falling child could grab hold of a branch to avoid death. There are undoubtedly more examples, but I don't know any of them.
Personally I don't really like prescribing everything humans do to social interactions--- it feels too much like hasty guesswork, but most of the time I tend to be wrong when messing around with things I have no idea about.