Ways of Seeing
- Exploring Modern Metaphysics -
INTERPRETATION - The DNA Imperative
There are an unlimited number of interpretations of experience possible by humans. These arise from the DNA-produced characteristics we inherit upon conception, and from the experiences we are subjected to (and subject ourselves to!) as we age. But consider just how much the DNA-produced characteristics we inherit actually have upon how we see and interpret the world.
Physically we have sense organs that color our interpretations. A dog, for instance, pays much more attention to smell than sight according to his DNA. Most bats don't even use their eyes at night, only an acoustical "radar" to get around. Imagine how the world must look to a bat at night!
Now consider the brain. A crow, for example, may see a person get into a car and drive off. The crow will get a completely different idea of what has just happened than a person who sees the same thing. It would be very conservative to say that 99.9% of what a human does during a typical day would be completely misinterpreted by a crow simply on the basis of the way the crow's brain is constructed due to the DNA-produced characteristics the crow inherited at conception.
In a sense, what we see and the interpretations we make IS the DNA (as shaded, of course, by our experiences). If we were to meet a truly alien race, that is, one that did not have the DNA makeup and background that we have, then would their interpretation of the universe be so different from ours that neither of us could even comprehend the other? We will probably never know the full extent to which our interpretations of reality are shaped by our DNA background until we meet intelligent life of a different (evolutionary?) background; I suspect that extent is almost, if not completely, total.
Now consider: the only reason we see the universe at all is because we have sense organs that are a part of (embedded within) it; if we didn't have these "embedded" organs we wouldn't even know that the world exists. Perhaps this is the only sense in which the world does exist - as an intrinsic (complementary) part of "The (self-defining) DNA Imperative (Inertia)". The universe of interpretations is much bigger than the one we see, because there are many more perspectives possible than that of the DNA; ones we can not possibly begin to conceive of. But, what about consciousness without interpretation?
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