Where does instinct come from?
The first thought that I can come up with is that the information is stored in the genes, but there is a problem with that. When you are born, your genes are set, and the things you experience in life do not change your genes. So, if a gazelle knows how to walk at birth, how does this advantage get passed on to the next generation?
The next thought is natural selection, but this too has a problem. Many instincts are complicated strings of events that must be done in a particular order. How dose a dragonfly know that once it reaches maturity it must mate and reproduce?
There is the concept of the collective consciousness; a dance of desires. Could instinct be stored within a mechanism similar to this?
According to Buddhism, there is what is known as the 8th level of consciousness, were all karma is stored. Could this be a better solution?
I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer to this because frankly, we don’t know. However, let’s try to see if we, all together, can come up with other possible answers.