Z
azenbozo, in an interesting recent post, off-hand introduces a concept by biologist Richard Dawkins that genes, rather than organisms are the proper object of understanding life. Whether or not his paraphrase is an accurate portrayal of Dawkins’ view on the matter, I think amongst a section of the populace there is an idea that one’s genetic heritage is the actual “thing in charge” — that our action, behaviors, and actual manifestations are best conceived of as “methods of delivering genetic material through time”.
On this view, genes are a sort of secret, manipulative hand behind all life. While we perceive living creatures as having their own existence, and pursuing their own goals, in actuality, these are all complicated machineries for protecting and distributing the “secret code” of genes, and all living behavior is predicated on more or less successfully maintaining the gene line. We are the unwitting benefactors of a shadowy force that cares only for itself.
It is in the nature of “understanding” to be able to conceive of things in many ways, and use these differing conceptions for a variety of purposes (thus, a “rope” can be many things, from a way to drag ones truck from a ditch, to a vital tool for suicide). Thus, it is off course possible to conceive of life as a “delivery method for genes”. But is this the best way to think of things?
Consider for a moment the blueprint of a house. To make a more specific example, let’s consider a community that has to construct houses that will endure a variety of unpredictable and difficult weather. Architects design the houses and write up blueprints, which are carried out by workers. Houses that do well have their blueprints copied, perhaps modified a bit by the next generation of builders, in order to continue their overall goal of making strong houses. Over time, lineages of architects maintain a lineage of blueprints to facilitate the house-making, and the blueprints are a vital part of the process. One could say that “the blueprints are in charge”, and that the houses are a nothing but a way to “prove” the blueprints, and ensure that they are carried forward through time in a sort of family tree. But imagining blueprints in this way immediately feels farcical — obviously, the blueprints are tools, facilitating the obvious and central goal of building good houses.
Put in this way, it is obvious that genetic material is a tool, not an agent. Family lines of organisms, themselves desiring to exist over time, have developed a sophisticated system of blueprints to further their ends, and the importance of this system by no means implies that preservation of the tool is the overall purpose, any more than that the purpose of houses is to make more blueprints.
The important thing to understand here is that existence is good. There is a truism in evolutionary biology that “survivors survive”. The same holds true for existence more generally — “existors exist”. For simple things like rocks, they exist over time via being hard and stable. Things which do not have a consistent method of existing of some kind cease to exist, and pass on into nothingness. Living creatures have their own mode of continuing to exist, which here means to participate in creation — their chosen method (to date, very effective) consists in replication, or generation. Living things exist in family lines, where individuals grant parts of their own form to future generations, with a certain amount of variation, and a certain amount of stability. It is in the nature of life to make more of itself, and on the planet Earth, the primary method of doing so involves the use of the blueprint of DNA, enshrined in every cell of an organism, and passed on through a variety of means.
Just as the blueprint for a house is not determinative of how the house will be used (though it certainly has a great deal of effect on it), genetic information is not determinative of the life of a particular organism. Rather, one’s genetic code supplies the means for generating a large variety of creative powers for navigating the world, in service to the continuing existence of the organism’s family tree. These powers, whose design is encoded in DNA and RNA, take on a life of their own, and interact with the world creatively. Obviously, if the new life of these powers results in an organism unable to continue its line, it will disappear, taking its genetic code with it. But the actual way that life functions, which we see from simple observation of the living world, is one of a breathtaking variety of forms and functions, engaging with their various powers in ways particular to the creatures themselves. Things wish to not just live, but live well. Endlessly, they push beyond simple survival (or mere repetition of genetics) into beauty, and into joy.