Breaking: It isn't the genes: the genes don't rule
By Jon Rappoport
In the grab-bag field of research involving human genes, some
biologists have speculated that the 20,000 components of the genome are
not enough to explain human function and behavior.
They have gone to another level---there must be additional programming that directs the genes to carry out multiple tasks.
This is all about cause and effect. In this case, the effect
is everything a human does or thinks or feels. The cause would be
whatever controls genetic activity.
When rare critics point out that explaining human life is
different from explaining, say, a consecutive series of billiard balls
striking each other on a table, researchers shrug it off.
One biologist I interviewed several years ago told me, "This
is the way science works. We start with a simple model of causation, and
then, over time, we adjust that model so it can account for a wider
range of effects."
I said, "But suppose you eventually run up against the idea
that an individual has free will? He can unilaterally decide to take an
action, without any prior genetic determination."
"That's impossible," he said.
"What makes you so sure?"
For that, he had no answer.
Genetic theory is just the latest in a long line of ideas
proposed to lock the human being into a structure. The will of the gods,
the divine right of kings, demons, Oedipus Complex, brain chemistry,
etc.
Every era and age has its preferred hypothesis about causation---which tries to shrink down what a human can accomplish.
And each of these explanations for human behavior is aimed at
submerging the individual into an overall context that is far more
important than he is.
Now, in the first flush of widespread computer use, many
people have concluded that "the human species" is basically a design
group. We build machines that think and solve and collate and organize.
Soon, those machines will design other devices. And so on and so forth.
If you follow this line of reasoning far enough, you will
come to the place where human beings are pictured as machines whose
final function is to re-design THEMSELVES...to become better automatic
machines.
Then the absurdity is complete.
For centuries, philosophers and pundits and propagandists
have debated the question of free will, which is like debating whether
there is a sky and clouds. Free will and choice are obvious.
But when people tie themselves up in the issue of cause and
effect, and when they exaggerate its importance beyond any rational
boundary, and when they are looking for a way to remain entirely
passive, they "discover" there is no freedom. They say that every
thought and action has a cause, and that cause is beyond human control.
Then they rest. Then they decide that all power stands outside themselves.
Then they act like robots.
Then they play that role.
They never stop to think that playing the robot-role implies
they can be phased out---because, face it, non-human machines make much
better robots than humans do.
If you want a full robot, you don't pick a human.
On the other end of the spectrum, a free human making free
choices and knowing he is making those choices---well, that explodes the
whole lock-and-key myth of cause and effect.
That is a refutation. Some might even call it a revelation.
I've written a number of articles about The True Rebel. The
Rebel stands outside the dominant myths. He rejects ideas and thoughts
that claim he is less and less powerful. He refuses to knuckle under
when the "robot makers" come calling. He sees the system that wants to
absorb him. He sees how freedom is being managed and buried. I'm not
talking about "crazy and irresponsible rebels." Quite the opposite. The
True Rebel is the sane one.
The question is, what is he going to do with his sanity?
Answering that question has been an ongoing action of mine
for the past 35 years. My three Matrix collections form a major, major
answer. My articles take apart various components of limiting myths and
knock them over. I'm on the side of the true rebel. I want him to
succeed. I want him to bloom in all his glory.
Every highly technological civilization eventually founders
on the rocks of its own ideas. Particularly those ideas which eat into
freedom and substitute determinism. Naturally, it is science which leads
the way into the blind alley of brick walls and the vapid desert of
passivity. Science is hijacked to explain why humans are pawns.
Scientists are enlisted to act like buffoons. They are
essentially saying, "I'm here to freely explain to you that there is no
freedom."
Cue the laughter. Thunderous laughter.
Many, many years ago, in my youth, a dour psychiatrist told
me he was "driven" to accept the human brain as the bottom-line cause of
all action and perception, because, otherwise, he wouldn't be a
psychiatrist. Somehow, I wasn't impressed by his approach. I asked him
how he felt about his "position."
"Rather depressed," he said.
I then asked him if he was taking medication to treat his condition.
He said no. He would press on with his work, which was: upholding the scientific establishment.
Rather grim.
The emperor really doesn't have any clothes.
I told him that, for me, freedom was electric.
He nodded sadly.
The robot psychiatrist...
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