Genomic Thinking: Where am I thinking from?

[Jon Freise]

What differentiates a cancer cell from a normal human cell?  The cancer cell has "forgotten" it is part of a larger ecosystem it needs to survive.  It replicates itself without restraint, destroying the very body it needs to survive.

Humans face a similar problem in our relations to the ecosystem but also to each other.  We often "forget" that we cannot survive independently.

But we also need to survive as individuals.  If everyone who believes in the greater social good stopped having any children then those lessons would not pass on and the only people left would be those who do NOT believe in the greater social good.  Evolution is full of paradoxes!

Our thinking is flexible.  Sometimes it is narrowly focused on me and myself.  Sometimes it is wide ranging.  But this shift is often unconscious.

One thing I am playing with right now is looking at the thinking of myself and others and then asking "where on the GAIA genome is this thought centered?"

If I identify with "us" being a United States Citizen, then my thinking represents a small subset of human genome.  Or being Anlgo-Saxon.  Or being Italian.  or being European.  Or wider yet, post-African.  Or wider, Primate.  Or even Mammalian.  

I admit I love furry animals much more than scuttling multi legged insects.  But I probably could not survive without the busy activities of those multi legged critters that cause my skin to crawl when they run over my toes!

This is the challenge of our time.  Human life is not independent of all other life.  We are like a brain cell that has decided it is "superior" to the body as a whole and will mass produce itself.  The Earth is dying of human overpopulation and the poisons of our metabolic processes.  We cannot recognize this because our thinking is centered on the human part of the genome as "us" and the rest of the genome as "them".  Again, like the brain deciding the liver is "them".  Silly.  And, as science is uncovering, it is just as silly to think humanity can survive without insects, worms, and gut bacteria, and everything else.

Humans can do things other parts of the biome cannot.  We are self aware and can conduct scientific studies.  Understand how systems operate.  We could intercede in helpful ways.

Right now, I see big conflict in our society as between a very, very narrow of the genome and the much broader more inclusive view.  The narrow view is powerful but ultimatly suicidal.  The wider view is more correct, but also requires more abstract concepts like fairness and justice and self sacrifice.

We are seeing individuals destroy complex common systems for personal gain.  Often times the genetic viewpoint is as narrow as a single individual (and maybe their children?).

I think, at its best, religion helps us move from that individual view to a much broader view.  Do unto others as you would have done unto you is a very simple reminder of the greater good.  Turning the other cheek.  Treating strangers as you would treat your brother or sister.  Forgiving tresspasses.  Forgiving debts.

The concept of a personal heaven where the earth is left behind, was, I think, an evolutionary misstep.  It promotes a "what happens after me does not matter" mentality.  It is a good sales pitch for adopting the religion (pay in time and cash now, but reap eternal rewards in another hereafter) but this mismatch with physical reality sets up destructive short term behavior loops.  There have even been apocalypse seeking cults who wanted to bring about nuclear war to hasten the 2nd coming.  A sort of mental doom loop.  Logical, but evolutionary suicide.  The church even had to ban suicide by saying it blocked you from entering heaven.  (Why wait on paradise?  Why not take a short cut right now?)  That was an emergency patch on the ideology to bring it back into alignment with physical reality.

I think the concept of reincarnation is much closer to the physical truth and thus much more helpful.  The reality is that we never leave earth.  And it is likely that we never will.  We exist because of the patient accumulation of soil and seeds and techniques of cooperation from our ancestors.  Our genes are widely shared throughout the whole human and GAIA genome.  If we have kids or not, our current lives certainly have impacts on the future and descendents who will feel those impacts.  It is helpful to be reminded that we never leave.  And that the state we leave behind is the state that our next incarnation will need to deal with.  There are no messes left behind in our ascent (not even to Mars).  Nor good works lost to the death of a single individual.

As I realize that humanity has likely missed its chance to control climate change and is deep in overshoot and thus will suffer a multi century decline (and risk self extinction) I begin to wonder what patterns of thought and behavior might be helpful to us in the future?

When I put my hands in the soil and feel a touch of revulsion at all the things that wriggle, I can say to myself, oh, that is the primate mammal part of me afraid of getting bitten, stung, infected.  It is ok to feel that.  It was necessary for survival somewhere in my past.  But this is safe.  These are all needed friends!  I am so glad to see all of you thriving in the soil!  You are a sign of a healthy "body whole".  I am grateful for all your work and gifts.

Leaving with the song "I am breathing tree" by Barbara MacAfee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYrZ64EVBNE

Metaphor and physical reality.

-Jon