The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Intelligence comes from the Latin inter-legere, to choose between. There seems to be a capacity to make choices operating inside each cell in our body, down to the level of individual proteins and enzymes.
DNA is minded and conscious
Western culture has cut itself off from the serpent/life principle, in other words DNA, since it adopted an exclusively rational point of view. Paradoxically, the part of humanity that cut itself off from the serpent managed to discover its material existence in a laboratory some 3000 years later.
CosmicSerpent
In their visions, shamans take their consciousness down to the molecular level and gain access to information related to DNA, which they call "animate essences" or "spirits." This is where they see double helixes, twisted ladders, and chromosome shapes. This is how shamanic cultures have known for millennia that the vital principle is the same for all living beings, and is shaped like two entwined serpents (or a vine, a rope, ladder...).
Shamans and scientists
In 1999, three molecular biologists travelled to the Peruvian Amazon to see whether they could obtain bio-molecular information in the visions they had in sessions orchestrated by an indigenous shaman. They had no previous experience of ayahuasca shamanism or of the Amazon, though they did have an interest in alternative healing traditions and shamanism.
Neurogenetic Teleology
Larval philosophy has over-estimated human intelligence in relationship to other forms—in particular the DNA code and the atomic nucleus.
The Neurogenetic Circuit
The seventh brain kicks into action when the nervous system begins to receive signals from within the individual neuron, from the DNA-RNA dialogue. The first to achieve this mutation spoke of "memories of past lives, reincarnation, immortality," etc.
Video
- Molecular Biology's Central Dogma[1]
- DNA wrapping and replication visualization
- If we could journey inside ourselves, into a cell...
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Gene, Organism and Environment: Bad Metaphors and Good Biology
Richard Lewontin Research Professor, Harvard University
- DNA is not self-replicating.
- DNA doesn't make anything.
- Genes alone do not determine the organism.
- Organisms do not adapt to environments.
"We decided to look in human urine for all the DNA damage products...and the number we came up with...was always the same one, it was about 100,000 oxidative hits per cell per day. That number shook us up because it meant you had 100,000 damaged bases that were repaired out of the DNA every day per every cell...So our defenses work pretty well...but it doesn't pay nature to have 100% defenses because it really wants to put a lot of the energy into reproduction."—Bruce N. Ames, Professor of the Graduate School, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, UC Berkeley.
"100% of our carbohydrates, literally derived from energy from the sun, comes from plant material and astonishingly: 75% of the proteins that we ingest. So indirectly plants are the primary producers, they're responsible for almost all of our food substances...and they're very critical for our environment, for our ecology and for our way of life...In the 20th century you can see a 300% increase in the yield of crops on the average. This is a tremendous increase."—Robert B. Goldberg, Professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, ULCA Faculty Research Lecture.
Genetic Engineering, Biodiversity and Decentralization
A view from the Native American by Winona LaDuke
