Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Peace: How we Planted the Fragmentation that Causes Distrust

It is always difficult to talk about religion. Even though we all acknowledge that it plays a significant role in our lives we don’t really want to consider exactly what that role is.

We need to discuss religion here because we just spoke about how the beliefs that our human ancestors held about the one they believed was responsible for their existence had the unexpected consequence of leading to the first murder among humans. But this discussion has to begin with ancient religions because it was there that the foundation was laid.

Priests played a central role in all ancient religions but they did not serve the same roles that their modern counterparts serve in contemporary religion. Ancient priests were not separate from the mundane activities of life. Their primary job was to meet the needs of the gods and goddesses but it was considered to be an ordinary job. However, unlike other positions of leadership in ancient societies, they were not appointed to that position because of special knowledge they had about the area they represented. They were as clueless about the gods and goddesses as were the ordinary man in the street.

That ignorance about the deities the priests served was to their advantage. There was no one who could question any claims they made about the deity. It is no surprise that so many religions developed around so many gods.

As the influence of religion and the priests increased in society the need for additional priests grew. New initiates were required to perform the various rites and rituals that had developed over time. This legitimate need led the ancients to make the first attempt at formal education. For the first time individuals were gathered together in a group, we now call it a classroom, primarily for the purpose of instruction. This was the foundation of our modern system of education.

From the very beginning of this blog we have emphasized the role that education plays in ensuring the optimum development of the species. But when the foundation of our system of education was laid the architects were not concerned with the interests of the species. These classrooms were not established to educate the wider society, and certainly not to develop the species as a whole. Their only purpose was to educate priests in a narrow area of expertise that was based on knowledge that could not be independently verified. Each ancient classroom and its curriculum were focused on the development of priests who served in a limited form of religion in a limited locale.

We can see that from the very beginning we began our experiment with formal education on the wrong foot. Our ancestors did not realize that those first classrooms had the wrong focus. It is not surprising that today scholars are lamenting the fragmented state of the modern curriculum. This has always been the focus of our education system. Instead of being used to complete the evolution of the species was our education system that was used to develop only a subset of humanity and this perspective has been at the center of our educational development. A new paradigm is needed if our education is to serve the species as our DNA intended.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Peace: The Roots of Distrust

For a long time I struggled to understand how humans changed a situation that worked perfectly in other species into one that bred distrust, violence and crime. Finally, I found the answer in evidence that is found in the old book of Genesis.

According to the Genesis story after the woman was formed from Adam’s rib he called her “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” even though it must have been obvious to him that she was very different from him. This was a clear statement that he accepted her uniqueness and accepted her as part of himself. Clearly, this is what nature intended as we can see from the various organ systems that work harmoniously together to produce a healthy body.

One chapter in the book of Genesis later, we discover that Adam has changed his tune. The camaraderie has disappeared and he now refers to his partner as “the woman you gave me.” This is an interesting change. What caused it? Before we answer that let us take a look at another example of that transformation.

In the next chapter of Genesis we find the well-known story of Cain and Abel; the sons of Adam and Eve. These two brothers were very different; one was a farmer and the other was a shepherd. Within a few verses of that chapter brotherly love had changed to jealousy and hatred and Abel was dead. What was at the root of that change?

The only common thread between those two stories is knowledge about God. In the story of the man, Adam, and the Woman the central cause was a belief that God would treat the different people differently because of their behavior. Based on that belief, Adam hoped that he could escape any punishment he believed was about to be dispensed by separating himself from his wife. What he did not realize is that this is exactly what he did; he erected a wall within the species where one did not exist. She was not different because of who she was but because of what he thought. This principle is painfully obvious today.

The story of Cain and Abel builds on that principle. For a long time I missed the foundational message of that story. To me it was simply a story of one boy who chose to do his own thing then killed his brother when he was rebuffed. Only in recent times did I realize that both Cain and Abel, both of whom are representative of stages of human development, were victims of the same misconception about God. Both had a warped view of the Creator that posited that God doles out his beneficence based on our behavior.

Given that view I finally understood why Cain killed Abel. If you believe in the fundamental fragmentation of the species that was birthed in the mind of Adam and accept that humans are not part of one body perceiving that God favors other people besides you can have only one result. If the Creator of the Universe is not on your side but seems to favor the other side all you can look forward to is a life of subservience. The only way to maintain your sense of worth would be to eliminate those on the other side.

The problem is not a belief in God but a warped view of who God is and what He stands for.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Peace: Division of Labor

The distribution of a growing body of knowledge among a gradually increasing human population was the first example of the division of labor. Predictably, this division of labor resulted in an increasing number of pockets of expertise.

Some of these areas were naturally associated with biological function. Males and females were experts in areas associated with their own gender. The same was true of humans in different stages of physical and emotional development.

Humans also developed areas of functional expertise based on proficiency. Among the first hunters and gatherers some were better hunters and gatherers than others.
Out of these areas of expertise the first leaders of human society emerged. First we had leaders of families and tribes based on biological seniority. Other groupings had leaders based on functional expertise.

From the modern perspective it is easy to blame an increase in specialized knowledge for the fragmentation we experience. None of these divisions posed a threat to human existence because they were based on natural conditions. The same divisions existed among the other species and they are still evident today. Even with those divisions non-human species experience intra-species peace. This shows that we cannot blame differentiation or specialization of knowledge for the tensions we experience today.

Something else is to blame.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Peace: Developing Human DNA

In the beginning of human history there was man and man knew nothing. He did not know what to eat. He did not know what to drink. He did not know what to wear, if anything. He was in the tabula rasa state – a blank slate.

Life would have been impossible if that is all that were true. Thankfully, that backward state, compared to the other species around him, came with a healthy curiosity. But, as we can see from the fragmentation that haunts us, it came with a price. How did it happen? I think that ancient human literature casts some light on this. See if you agree with my reconstruction, if you will?

The early years of human existence on this planet will forever be shrouded in mystery but we have sufficient information to retrace the steps of our ancestors.

A Closer Look
Whether you subscribe to its teaching or not there can be no doubt that the book of Genesis is a part of human literature and it provides an early perspective on the development of a young species.

According to that story, our history began with one individual whose future development was contained in the information encoded in his DNA molecule. It is an interesting commentary on the organismic nature of the species that each human being also begins life as a one-celled zygote. As trite as it may sound, it is good to note that this individual, who is called Adam in the book of Genesis, knew everything that humans knew. He was the entire human race. He represented its present and future existence.

I can imagine that his first curiosities revolved around the need for survival. He had to satisfy his needs for food, water and shelter. He was only concerned with his survival but his survival was inextricably tied to the survival of the species.
Obviously, he satisfied these curiosities by observing the other species around him. This is important because observation is the first step in the scientific method that has driven so much of contemporary human existence.

At the same time that man was gaining new knowledge from his curiosity the population of the species doubled. It is interesting to note that the zygote also divides to become a two-celled organism.

Whatever knowledge humans now had was in the minds of two individuals, then four then more. This is the same process that occurs with a developing human being as cells divide under the direction of the DNA molecule. Each time a cell divides a copy of the DNA molecule is reconstituted in the new cell. Each time a new human being arrived in the species a copy of the information known to humans at the time was passed on so he could contribute to the survival and growth of the species through his own survival and growth.

In this respect humans were no different from non-human species. To some extent the infants of each species have to learn from the adults of the species those skills needed for survival, whether it was how to hunt or how to fly. Humans were different in that they were adding new skills to their DNA profile but the process of education was the same.

The DNA molecule consists of information and education, as well as cell-division, is the process by which the transfer of information occurs. In the same way that cell-division sometimes results in flaws in the organism’s genomic instructions our continuing education as a species seems to have resulted in a flaw in our genomic instructions as a species.

The saga continues.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Peace: Managing Change in Our DNA

Change happens. Life is a series of changes. But the changes that humans have experienced over the centuries go beyond the changes all life experiences. These changes have changed the cultural identity of humans as we have gained a better understanding of ourselves and our environment.

The problem with this set of changes is that, unlike our biological and physiological changes, it was not under the direct control of our DNA. When humans first arrived they had no way of knowing that, centuries later, man would leave the confines of his earthly home and walk on the moon. Our technological advances never crossed their minds. They did not realize that they were consciously completing the evolution of the species, so as to bring us to a perfect end.

Because they did not know the nature of the process of change they were involved in, they were not in a position to manage it. Our failure to recognize that we have gone through this process is the reason we have been unable to control it.
Several important ideas have been overlooked. First is the idea that the purpose of education is to complete the development of an organism. As a result we have consistently confused instruction with education. A related idea is the fact that the human race is an organism, nor an organization. Because of the tremendous achievements we have made because our ability for scientific enquiry we have overlooked the fact that instinctive action is the highest state of existence.

Intelligence allows us to come up with creative solutions to the problems and challenges we face. (We will talk about the difference I see between problems and challenges another time.) But when we arrive at a solution or a working method we switch into the instinctive mode because that is the only way progress can be made. In the process of coming up with new solutions we also gain new information. All of these new ideas become part of our cultural DNA and it is copied into each new human arrives.

The process of enlarging our cultural DNA carries with it the same risks that exist each time a cell divides to produce a new cell. No one cell contains all the information needed to make a body function. The knowledge needed to make a body function is the sum of the information found in all the cells of the body. So, there is no such thing as a human cell but a human cell of a particular kind. The zygote is the only cell that contains all the information needed for the human organism.

In the process of unraveling then recombining, mutations often occur in the DNA. This is the source of auto-immune diseases and cancers. As humans began to explore and to reproduce through division two things happened. The information needed to establish the identity of the human species began to increase and parts of this knowledge were necessarily distributed among various members of the species. Even the most intelligent human is ignorant as far as the entire catalog of human science is concerned. It is only collectively that our species is educated. But the process of dividing our cultural DNA has produced a severe mutation that has resulted in the cancer of humans placing pressure on other humans and the auto-immune disease of humans attacking other humans as if they were their enemies.

Next time I will share my ideas of how I think this happened.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Peace: A Different Kind of DNA

Humans have undergone few substantial biological and physiological changes since they first appeared on this planet. Our organs are in the same place they have always been. Our reflex reactions are arguably the same. Our cells develop and divide the same way. On the other hand, few would deny that we have undergone significant cultural changes, i.e. changes involving human choice, over the same period. This is one of the reasons that inspired the name of my blog. Humans appear to be an anomaly within this eco-system.

When humans appeared on the planet the species that preceded them already had all the tools needed for their survival; their DNA had adequately defined them in terms of appearance, function and behavior. Their anatomy was fixed, their diet was fixed, their markings were fixed, and their reactions to external stimuli were also fixed. Given the success of this model one would expect that human DNA would be the same. But this was not the case. There was one marked difference between the instructions for cultural behavior found in human DNA and those found in non-human DNA.

Most noticeable is the fact that humans do not inherently know how to react to external stimuli. No species has changed the face of the earth the way humans have, yet it is also true that everything we know has come from observing other species and the environment.

This does not mean that we arrived here with an incomplete DNA. That would be a complete departure from the successful state that existed. But it does portray human DNA as being subject to change, with a concomitant change in what it means to be human as time passed. Our identity as humans has changed as we have increased our understanding of the world around us. There was a time that humans could be defined as being cave dwellers or hunters and gatherers. Today our identity includes space travel, nano technology and mastery of nuclear energy. This change in identity is acknowledged in the various eras used to identify the progress of human history.

But the changes in our cultural DNA are never permanent, neither is the direction of change a controlled concept. The fact of change is hard-wired into our nature but the direction of change is not. The direction and timing of any change depends on our ability and willingness to pursue knowledge. Change can be fast or slow; it can be progressive, regressive or neutral. A good example of this is what happened when Galileo demonstrated that the Earth is not the center of the universe and we rejected geocentricism. Many people know the story but most forget the more important parts of this story, like the fact that 1500 years before Galileo, Aristarchus had suggested the very same thing, or that there was never a time when the Earth really was the center of anything but the relationship with its moon.

Aristarchus lived from 310 BC to about 230 BC. This is what Archimedes wrote about him in The Sand Reckoner:
You ['you' being King Gelon] are aware the 'universe' is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere the center of which is the center of the Earth, while its radius is equal to the straight line between the center of the Sun and the center of the Earth. This is the common account as you have heard from astronomers. But Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the 'universe' just mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the Sun remain unmoved, that the Earth revolves about the Sun on the circumference of a circle, the Sun lying in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of the fixed stars, situated about the same center as the Sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the Earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the center of the sphere bears to its surface.


Interestingly, some wanted his head for making such a suggestion. According to Plutarch:
Cleanthes (a contemporary of Aristarchus and head of the Stoics) thought it was the duty of the Greeks to indict Aristarchus on the charge of impiety for putting in motion the hearth of the universe … supposing the heaven to remain at rest and the earth to revolve in an oblique circle, while it rotates, at the same time, about its own axis.


We now know that a proper understanding of the structure of the space was essential before man could explore beyond this planet. By how much was our space exploration delayed because we did not pay attention to Aristarchus but followed Aristotle instead? Change happens but rarely does it move forward without coaxing.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Peace: Global DNA and Information

Central to our discussion on peace is the link between DNA and information. The main role of the DNA molecule is the long-term storage of information. As we have discussed earlier, it contains the instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. This is why I asked the question whether DNA is God. The bottom line is that without the information that is encoded in DNA there would be no life and the characteristics and properties of all forms of life appear to be the outworking of the instructions in some master DNA molecule in the universe.

The difference between human and non-human DNA sheds a great deal of light on our discussion. Based on our observations, and that is the best source of evidence we have, at the biological or physiological level DNA in human and non-human species has not changed appreciably over time. Any appreciable difference in the instructions found in a DNA molecule is indicative of a different species.

As intimated in an earlier blog, these discussion focus on the cultural aspect of DNA.

Again, there seems to be no appreciable change in the cultural DNA of non-human species over time. Regardless of specific views on origins, species do not seem to change their cultural behaviors over time. Whales are hard-wired to eat a particular diet and this is all they eat. If their food source were to disappear they don’t change their dietary habits to suit the changing circumstances. This is one of the reasons why species come under pressure. Carnivorous species do not become herbivores when they are unable to find prey.

The variability that is encoded in the DNA molecule allows for “unique” behaviors individuals but the behavior of the species remains constant. For example, we may be able to train dolphins to perform tricks but if two trained dolphins mate their offspring will not be similarly trained. All of this seems to indicate that each non-human species is well-educated; fully developed and mature.

The generally fixed behavior that we observe in species determines the parameters within which the infants of the species will be developed. As an example, newly hatched larks cannot fly and they also cannot whistle. Everyone knows that they will soon learn how to fly but will never learn how to whistle. The reasons are obvious. They learn their cultural behavior from their parents. This cultural behavior includes the desire to work together for the health and survival of the species.

This process has continued unchanged for thousands of years under the watchful eye of an unchanging DNA molecule.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Peace: The Roots of our Desire

President Obama’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, as well as comments on the last blog by two readers, illustrates why it is important for us to incorporate into our thinking the idea that the human race is an organism bound by invisible bounds instead of a collection of independent individuals. We are not just alike; we are the same. This is not a new technological discovery from which we can benefit. It is an essential aspect of our existence that we have lost sight of over the years.

It is no surprise that our desire for peace is driven by a need to get rid of and violent conflict and crime. But, as we can see in the rest of nature, violence is not antithetical to life; it is necessary for the food web to function. Because we often think of the immune system as the defender of the body it is easy to overlook the fact that it is more realistic to recognize that the immune system exists primarily to wage war against all pathogenic enemies of the body. Anything that attacks the body is attacked by the immune system. It is for this same reason that war is seen as the precursor to peace. Since the human race is an organism it must also have an immune system. Unlike most organisms in which specialized cells perform specific functions, all humans have the potential to serve in any role necessary for the survival of the species because all men are created equal.

It is hard-wired in us that any of us can serve in any role that contributes to the survival of the species, and that includes fighting our enemies. This is why war is not our problem. It is natural for us to fight our enemies. Our problem is our misidentification of other humans as our enemies. As long as we perceive that we have enemies we will be willing to fight them.

This brings us to an interesting point because, as we have discussed earlier, all of this occurs under the guidance of the DNA molecule. In the next blog I will discuss more about this aspect of DNA and how we can exert influence over it.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Peace: Introductory Thoughts on the Role DNA Plays

This blog has been difficult to write for reasons that may or may not become obvious.

It has begun to emerge that the attainment and maintenance of peace will involve some aspect of the exciting subject of DNA. But there is more to DNA than just the instructions pertaining to the development of living cells. I have been thinking of the implications of the fact that DNA contains the instructions for what happens in every living system.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, it appears that the DNA of every species is a copy of the Master DNA in the universe that existed before any other living thing in the universe. This means that in the beginning there was DNA. But this is the same thing I say about God. Am I being sacrilegious to entertain the thought that DNA is God or that God has DNA?

Then Romans 1:20 states that the hidden things of God are revealed in the things that He made. What does that say about those who study the creation, especially those who are studying the structure of the human genome? Are they looking into the eyes and mind of God?

What think ye?