The idea of a motor symphony would account for behaviors, simple to complex. Since an earthworm can move whether its nervous system is intact and its muscles aren't and vice versa suggests that the nervous system can cause movement either through a direct line or through feedback or both. The earthworm experiments don't indicate wheth the nervouse system does both all of the time or if it uses one only if it can't use the other.

When a muscle contracts, proprioreceptors experience an action potential that has the potential to travel to neurons that affect the movement of another muscle. Since contraction of one segement is simultaneous to the extension of the next, it is probable that in an earthworm a perfect motor symphony requires both to occur. I'm unsure if in the experiments the movement of the worm was at all slower when either the muscles were disjoined or whether the nervous system was disjoined. It may be that what appears to be motor symphony attained by a stored score is really just a condition of feedback that is too quick to detect by means other than with electrodes. If this is true, then to what extent is human behavior dependent upon simultaneity of movements or neural signals. The concept of motor symphony and central pattern generation could explain the differences in coordination between people or within one person. Perhaps, someone can engage in a behavior because of some central pattern generation but the behavior isn't smooth and coordinated because the feedback system is imperfect and the motor symphony is inadequate.

I still don't understand if the genes give the organism the potential to develop central pattern generation through some feedback system or if the genes themselves, enable certain behaviors immediately. It seems that comparing a human babies development to that of an adult, the stored score is very rudimentary. This implies that to understand central pattern generation and motor symphony, we need to incorporate learning into the picture. Although, in some organisms, infants can do almost exactly what their parents can and with almost as much coordination. Is central pattern generation just the idea that scores for the motor symphony are written and stored in the nervous system?

Yep, to the last. And the issues related to poor coordination are interesting/directly relevant. Are you clear about the distinction between symphonies that play out completely in the absence of sensory input during their performance and those that need sensory input during performance? That is an issue separate from what was needed to write the symphonies, which may be experience or genetic information (or, most typically, some combination of both). PG