4.13.2003
April 13, 2003 || 10:36 pmIt seems that blogger has been down the whole day.
They say that scientists are identifying every human gene there is. All of 100,000 ++ of them. And they are starting to track the gene in its developments including to the human bain.
A new theory is rising. That the we are born with a set of properties. Givens. And that these determine our personalities. Not circumstances. Not actions. Not free will.
Rather that these givens bring about the circumstances. Determine all our actions. Make the illusion of free will.
The Calvinists' Predestination advanced to a sci-fi level.
They are saying that Descartes was wrong. That "cogito ergo sum" (I think I am) is wrong. Because there is no cogito. There is no duality of the body and the mind. It is all one machine. Our body, the genes, from birth, dictate what we are. What we will become. Our deaths.
Imagine the movie Gattaca, taken to the extreme. A computer, they say, will be able to predict our actions. The doubts that I am having now, the shake of the head, the flutter of an eyelid, these words I am typing. They are all predetermined. Ford was destined to succeed as Tolstoy had to write Anna jumping towards the train. It is all in the genes.
It is frightening. At the same time, I am in awe at the daring of their thoughts. And curious of the possibilty. If it is true, then there is no reason to be happy, to be sad, to live, other than the reason our genes set us to do. Life wouldn't be drudgery rather just one rollercoaster ride you can't jump off from. You have to take all the turns and the spins until the ride is over.
And as with the myth of eternal return, everything is pardoned in advance. Right and wrong don't much matter. Everybody will have a reason for failure, for misery. They can easily say they were built that way. That it's all in the genes.
God and the devil would stop being the stop gaps and the explanation for everything. Bahala na would be something like DNA na (or maybe not kasi corny haha). If that were true, excuses wouldn't be excuses. Rather they would all be just babblings along with other babblings.
The whole world, one fantastic genetic machine.
Ernan at 11:03 PM