We are all familiar with the tooth and claw model of evolution. Even if its basis in concrete science is questionable, it has been adopted as a cultural value, one that still poisons us to this day. But there is another phenomena that plays into the theory of natural selection.
The genetic replication process is in a sense imperfect though in Taoism there is no such concept as imperfect. Those things we consider to be the most flawed are the most perfect to Taoist thinking. They are even discovering in nanotechnology research and development that introducing an impurity is often the key to the most useful forms of order. Another word for imperfect would be primitive or elemental, the roots and essence of Tao.
I know homemade baking is better than store bought simply for being not totally perfect.
Need a grain of dirt to form a cloud.
Some folks are kind of uncomfortable around perfection. They must think they have to measure up.
Like the first matrix…people rejected it.
Perfection as people envision it is unnatural, unstable. It instinctively triggers our sense of disease. Even eventually giving rise to actual disease as we are seeing all throughout our population and the ecosystems on this planet.
But yes, the facet of genetic inheritance that I was mentioning, genetic drift… The replication process in DNA is not perfect as much as DNA seems to seek to copy itself consistently over time. When genetic drift leads to prolonged survival in a specimen, then this specimen has an increased chance of reproducing, adding offspring to the gene pool. No violence or strength or competitiveness necessary, just simple ability to survive longer.
It’s said in Taoism that that which resists the Tao cannot endure. So when the Tao manifests like that self organized criticality they observe in our brains in the lab, the entire gene pool is strengthened. Where as when disease creeps in to a population, which often also gives rise to hyper aggressive behaviour, rogue or anti-social behaviour, the population is often weakened. It’s survival threatened, decoherence.
Is it true the pure bred animals have more health risks than mixed breeds? It is.
Because perfection is weaker. Tightly controlled reproduction allows little room in the Tao to self correct a toxic genetic strain.
Pure breeds could be more aggressive then.
There are people trying to dissuade people from breeding pugs anymore, because they can barely even breath now.
Perfection as resistance is universally weaker. Perfection as artificial control or “selection” is anything but perfection. It is distress and disease.
I think about religious doctrines – and heresies.
Many things in their pure form are poisonous.
I think about hypoallergenic dogs and cats. Well, perhaps we should look at pets.
Self organized criticality in a sense acts as an error buffer. It drowns out noise in flavor of larger patterns, all else being equal. Species that can co-exist with each other will move more freely in the information flow that is the Tao, even without artificial intervention, just long co-existence. Dogs for example have evolved to be very well equipped to read and predict human behaviour, and interact with humans in a way that solicits the behaviours they need for their own support and well being. This is in what geneticists would describe as wild-type dogs, no genetic controls in place.
And they say the cats ‘meow’ emerged specifically for human interaction.
Kittens evolved to be super cute.
They want to try and breed the aggression out of pit bulls. That makes me kind of sad. A recent study actually disproves the notion that pit bulls have any specific aggressive traits, or that any breed of pet has any specific behaviour traits explainable specifically by their genes.
So a puppy knows that humans are their life support? Indeed they do, or they quickly learn it.
Cute is a trait I think, to make us want to take care of them. Our own offspring have that same trait, and for the same reason. If you see things in that way, your genes are not yours.
Big heads and big eyes and wobbliness.
True. Even baby spiders are cute. I used to love playing with them as a child. They can be coaxed out of their fear, and from everything I have heard tarantulas make fine pets, docile even, even the “giant” South American breed.
I don’t want the brown hairy ones in my house. They bite and can give you horrible infection. Most spider venom are no genuine threat to human health. The number that threaten human beings is actually quite small in the big picture of things. The average scorpion sting is no worse than a bee sting. Though should you be one who is allergic to venom, well, it’s just bad luck. What do you think?
Brown Recluse are the one we have here.
I think that humans also bite, and can cause infections.
I am not afraid of scorpions the same as spiders. Doesn’t trigger the creep response like spiders do.
People bites are worse than dog bites. I fear human bites more than any animal bites. I have dealt with it. A “rabid” human is much more threatening.
Scorpions hurt a lot worse than bees. I’ve had both.
I don’t fear spiders, I just don’t want them in the house. They would find more food outside.
Humans are by far the most dangerous animals.
Lions don’t go out of their way to hunt us with guns, but humans will travel for days to do it.
Lions with guns, sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads, when will it end?
They should revolt. We deserve it.
So, we see ecosystems emerge and grow and prosper because of this shared connection between all things in our world, in our entire universe. A collective movement or drift, like the symbolic sand pile, and for most species the idea of imposing their individual will on the collective drift is absent, alien even.
Human thinking could very reasonably be compared to an infectious disease, I believe. We see the scars of that infection all around us, even in the bodies and minds of other species.
Was it Loren Eisley who compared human civilization to cancer?
Controlled thinking is the disease.
And all the extinction.
I think it important when entertaining that train of thought, to recall why it is that cancer is even a problem at all. Cancer is not itself unnatural. It kills because it acts like a closed system – no interacting with the organ or tissue around it, no response to signals from it, nor constructive or coherent signals to the rest of the body. The breakdown in cancer is a failure to communicate.
Perhaps cancer is the true inheritors of the earth and humans sole purpose is to gestate it.
Cancer can still not survive by itself. As much as it may behave like it could, again same as human beings. If anything, cancer is just the physical manifestation of ignorance of the Tao of the human body, or the communal body of life on earth.
What do you think of that idea? Or non ideas as the case may be, as well as observations of it.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~