Peace: Teaching the teacher so we can Learn

Our efforts at finding a solution to the self-destructive behavior that prevents us from enjoying permanent, universal and lasting peace are hampered by the fact that among the species we have discovered on this planet we are the only one that displays such behavior. But we are not only a species. Because we live in a world of systems we are also a system. It turns out that we are not the only system that displays self-destructive behavior.

One of the organ systems that make up living organisms is the immune system. The immune system enables the organism to fight off any attacks by antigens. But there is a class of disorders among living organisms called autoimmune disorders in which the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue and threatens the existence of the organism. It should not be too difficult to see the parallel with human behavior. Cancers are one class of antigens that the immune is supposed to fight. Cell division is the basis of all life; cells grow by dividing. Normal cells multiply when the body needs them, and die when the body doesn't need them. Cancer appears to occur when the growth of cells in the body is out of control and normal cells divide too quickly. It can also occur when cells “forget” how to die. The immune system is unable to fight cancers for the same reason that it mistakenly attacks healthy body tissue: faulty information from the organism’s DNA.

No help from Mother Nature
Nature is unable to correct these disorders because each organism operates on the assumption that every instruction that comes from DNA is correct. But the absence of a natural model for curing cancers and autoimmune diseases does not mean our cause is hopeless. Medical research has taught us enough about these “natural” disorders to direct us in our search for permanent, universal and lasting peace. DNA accounts for everything that happens in the world and we have learned quite a bit about DNA since its structure was revealed. Now that the genome has been sequenced scientists hope to be able to change an organism’s DNA to correct the faulty instructions that cause the body to behave abnormally.

Creating lessons Nature does not teach
Cell division is the most likely reason for the incidence of faulty instructions in an organism’s DNA. Before a cell divides the DNA replicates itself so each of the two new cells formed will have a copy of the original DNA. The two strands of the original DNA molecule are unzipped and, through a complicated process, new strands chains of nucleotides are attached to each strand to form two DNA molecules for the new cells. This process often results in errors that cause mutations of the DNA and faulty information. Scientists have determined that they could correct these mutations by removing the errors.

Even though gene therapy has not yet provided the hoped-for cures, an understanding of this process holds hope for humanity’s future when considered in the context of systemic reality.