Bloodpath and Beyond

May 17, 2021

The other day, as The Imp was getting ready for work, I asked an innocuous question: "Do you think that our DNA contains ancestral memories that we are only subconsciously able to access?" The Imp is a molecular biologist. She works with genes. I thought this would be a reasonable question to ask her.

While putting on a shoe and adjusting her mask at the same time, she replied: "That's partially right, but I don't have time to explain the many ways in which it is also wrong." Then, she walked out the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I never followed up on this conversation with her, so I have instead decided to make up what she might have wanted to say. And so we end up with:

BLOODPATH AND BEYOND: A BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION

I read a Youtube comment this morning. Believe it or not, I generate a lot of my ideas by reading Youtube comments. It's a place where people feel free to be themselves, for better or for worse, and because they are responding to a prompt (the video), they are often already deep in the process of developing their thought by the time they begin. If the video is in any way meaningful, the response will reveal a deeper and deeper look into the psyche of the commenting individual.

The following is the comment in question, 'lightly' edited for grammar:

The thing is, your criteria of needing others to be better for your sake, and you needing to be better for other's sake, is based on your standards of desire as defined by the process that resulted in you, those being the laws of physics that result in replicators. What's actually going on here is that we are DNA replicators who are codified with traits that push for a bias toward the copying of ourselves, and if you fail to do so (copy yourself), the traits that make you up will not be transferred to the next generation. Only the traits of those who copy themselves will be transferred. You may not care about that; you can reject this concept and just live your life, but by doing so you are ignoring the process that created you. As far as injecting my subjective desires go, I would say this should be your number one priority over anything else. If you want a future in the direction that you desire, the best thing to do is make copies of yourself, and that is how you change both the real world and the hyperreal. If you don't others will.

This man, in a strange way, is making a strange point. He is being ridiculous, yes, but he is also speaking some sort of truth. His truth is logically incoherent when exposed to inspection (for one, his confluence of cultural and biological 'traits'; for two, the fact that he thinks human reproduction results in a 'copy'), but we will ignore these problems for now, and focus on the underlying point, which seems to have an attractive force to it, considering how often I see it subconsciously assumed by people out in the world.

If I were to take a guess, I would assume that this commenter is heavily inspired by nationalist, ethnocentric sentiments about the passing on of genes. The phrase, "if you don't, someone else will" certainly points to this sort of pseudo-Darwinian breeding competition between people groups vying to make up the majority of the human race, thereby obtaining power over the rest and steering the course of the future.

However, this commenter is not explicitly saying any of that. He has modified the rhetoric, perhaps because he doesn't actually agree with the racist implications. (I am giving him the benefit of the doubt; bear with me.) In his new version, it is not racial or cultural traits that are being passed on, but individual personality traits. If you believe yourself to be the right type of person for the kind of future you believe in, then it is in your best interest to procreate. That way, your children — who will, in this argument, also be the right kind of people — can have children — who will, according to this argument, also be the right of people — and those children can have children, to the point where they form a majority of humans on the planet, causing the world to tilt towards your desired future.

One need only to look at an evil father and his good-hearted son, or a good-hearted father and his evil son, to see the apparent gap in this argument. The idea that we can pass on personality traits via DNA is tenuous at best, and freaky at worst.

Of course, it is true that we cannot ignore biology outright. We can not deny our cells. The function of these cells is encoded in DNA. DNA is an interesting object; it is a biological script by which proteins are created and given tasks. It serves its purpose well. Little thingies in our cells can copy parts of it, and take those parts away in order to show them to little machines, and these little machines make proteins. It's also double-sided, which provides redundancy in case of partial destruction. So, it's got some nice features.

When humans procreate, DNA is transferred to the new organism. There's some DNA from one parent, some from the other. The DNA is transferred via chromosomes and zygotes in a way that I won't and can't get into. Genes (sequences of DNA) can determine certain physical traits, such as eye colour, hair colour, etc. Some genes are more powerful than others. Some genes could do something, but don't, either because another more powerful (dominant) gene is used instead, or maybe because they just don't feel like it for whatever reason.

Obviously, our genetic code plays a role in determining the type of person we become, but only to a small extent. Genes can be turned on or off. We don't even know what most of our DNA is for. There's so much DNA in there! Some of it may have been useful a million years ago, but isn't anymore. A lot of it might just be complete gibberish.

Genes are neat, and DNA is neat, but they're not more or less neat than, say, mitochondria. They serve a function for cell activities, and my body is made of cells. But does that make me one giant cell? Does that mean that I have to act like a cell? You may as well say that it's in my best interest to split myself in half every once in a while.

To me, claiming that my interests should align with those of my DNA is akin to saying that my interests should align with the atoms that make up said DNA. Should I be concerned with sharing electrons with my friends? Is my life a quest for atomic stability?

Am I being ridiculous? Okay, let's set aside atoms for a second. I should be aligned with the interests of my cells, you say. Well, should I be aligned with the interests of my liver? That's a part of my body too. If my liver ceases to function, I die. But that doesn't mean that I should only drink water, abstain from alcohol, and otherwise direct all of my activities towards the health of my liver. I am not simply a vessel for my liver. The same goes for all my organs.

DNA can do what it likes! It can make my eyes blue and my hair blonde. It can make little proteins that eat up evil materials and use them for profit. That's got nothing to do with me! I'm not in this for them. I don't do what I do for the sake of microscopic strands of nucleic acid. Do I look like a god damned fool?

If I have kids, it's going to be because I think it's funny. Imagine a little idiot running around my house, bumping into stuff, speaking nonsense. That's hilarious! One day, he decides that TVs evolved from computers, and the moon is a giant egg. The next day, he forgets all that and becomes obsessed with a cartoon fish. Eventually, he grows up and becomes some sort of adult, with interests diametrically opposed to mine; with weird habits, some of which came from me and some of which came from God knows where; with a whole lifetime of memories and experiences that no one else will ever know about. That's why people have kids! It's interesting! It's amusing! It's entertaining! It's fulfilling! It's got nothing to do with 'traits' and peptide chains.

Your kids aren't even going to want to change the world in the same way you do, anonymous internet commenter! They're going to get their own ideas. They're going to invent their own world. That's the whole point.

What can we do to change the world? How can we pass on the traits we believe to be beneficial? The only way to transfer social traits is to socialize, and the only way to pass on cultural traits is to participate in the creation of culture. You can pass on your blonde hair and blue eyes via DNA 'replication,' if you think that's so important, but you have to keep in mind that such a sentiment puts you in some pretty nasty company. There are many other wonderful ways to change the world: for example, writing inane un-researched articles on Substack.

We've evolved beyond the stage of being merely a collection of cells! We're past DNA replication now! Try to keep up, Phil! We've got words, now. We've got words with which to yell at each other about what we think. We've got words that we can write down for generation upon generation. Hypothetically, I could write something down that someone in 2324 could read! By which time my great-grand-kids probably won't even know my name, or that they're related to me, if they even exist at all.

The human body is an interesting mechanism. It is worthy of study and exploration. But to subjugate your interests to those of your DNA, or your cells, or even your muscles, is to throw away what makes human life such a beautiful state of being. If, from the perspective of DNA, we are simply a vessel, or an (altogether overly-complex) machine for replication, that's well and nice for DNA. But DNA is only along for the ride; the future of humanity is decided by us. Whether we destroy ourselves or raise ourselves to new heights is determined not by our biological traits, but our social, cultural, and spiritual traits. These are forged not by physics and chemistry but by language, art, and introspection.

It would be unjust for DNA to demand our compliance in its quest for replication (if it can be said to possess the agency required to conceive of quests), just as it is unjust for us to demand DNA support us in our goals. Our paths are interconnected, but they are not the same path.

In this way, I don't really believe in ancestry. I am of the first generation of my family to be born in this country. As far as I am concerned, my family tree goes back to my parents. I've met my grandparents face to face less than ten times. This is also true of all my uncles and aunts and cousins in that land. I'm sure they're nice people, and I like them when I see them, but I don't feel a strong familial bond.

My family consists of my parents, siblings, and my aunt and cousins who live nearby. As far as ancestry, heritage, or anything else goes, that's about as far as I look. English culture, to me, is funny and exotic. It's also comforting in a way; as a child, my parents prepared for me many English sweets and foods, and I was introduced to English cultural products, such as rugby, Postman Pat, and silly words ('I'm zonked,' my mom would say, after a rough day.) However, I would not consider English culture to be 'my' culture. I would not consider England to be my homeland. I don't feel any particular connection with the English people of today or yesterday.

What I mean to say is that, although my genetic code most closely resembles (by a fraction of fraction of a fraction of a percent) those who hail from the British isles, that does not make them my family. No matter how many chaps or blokes come hopping to my door to borrow a quid from their long-lost cousin, I will turn them all away. Then, I will call them back. I will say, "I am not your long-lost cousin, my friend. I am your brother. We are all brothers - from the mightiest gorilla to the most gregarious chimpanzee. From birds to bugs to bats, we are all brothers. So here is a few quid, my friend. Buy yourself something nice at the Tesco's."

I'm getting off track.

I do feel a deep connection to the past. When I think of ancestry, I think of Melville and Proust. I think of ascetic monks and ancient poets. I think of all of the strange individuals whose writings have survived the test of time and landed in my pocket. These are the progenitors of the type of person I have become. There is something deep within my soul that resonates with these writers of the past. This is beyond DNA; it is even beyond culture.

A Japanese man in 1330 writes a sentence. Seven hundred years later, I read it, and I think, "Exactly." I feel as if I can see the world through his eyes. I feel as if our minds are doing the same thing. We wonder in the same way.

Sometimes, I feel like I can only explain certain feelings I have about the world via a theory of reincarnation. Have you ever met a person and known immediately that you are going to be friends? It's almost as if you knew them before they started talking. And then, have you ever been on the same wavelength as someone to an extent that seems magical? You agree without even saying anything. Months later, you have changed your mind. You present this change of mind to them, only to find that in the intervening time, they too have changed their mind, in the same way.

Maybe there is a limit to how many different types of people can exist. There are seven billion on Earth right now; many more have died in the past. At some point, there must be an overlap. Two people, in different eras, in different parts of the world, but with the same 'soul.' Philip K. Dick was haunted by such a vision. In the 20th century, he was a science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick. In the first century AD, he was an early Christian named Thomas, awaiting the return of Jesus the Christ. He was both of these people, at the same 'time.' In his writings, he never explicitly claimed that Thomas was a genetic ancestor of his. Their connection was greater than that.

I have a friend who I have known since I was four years old. I often suspect that we are part of an immemorial archetypal friendship that is reborn across time periods. We are not necessarily reincarnations; we are not the same people as those in the past who shared this friendship. The friendship itself is what is being reincarnated. That’s another one of my ideas.

To answer the initial question, I don’t believe that there are ancestral memories contained in our DNA. DNA is, at its core, a binary code. It is a storehouse of information. It is a storehouse of information about how to make proteins. In no way is it the right medium for ancestral memories.

And I have come to the further conclusion that this medium is not, as I have previously supposed, related to writing, or even language. You do not gain ancestral memories from a book; if anything, the text simply unlocks knowledge already contained deep inside of you.

No, ancestral memories are carried in a much different fashion. The nature of this mechanism is beyond my grasp. I have presented here simply a few observations; to formulate a theory may take decades. It seems to me that there are connections between people that go beyond what we have previously fathomed. Long, meandering pathways travelling through a medium beyond time and space, linking one soul to another. We call one such pathway ‘love.’ Perhaps we could call another ‘brotherhood,’ to use its most abstract meaning. I guess it’s not important to call them anything. We all feel them, deep in our bones. We all understand this feeling. Maybe putting it into words is beside the point.