Monday, May 14, 2012

The Eternal Genes, The Disposable Humans

From my previous understanding on the argument of The Selfish Gene, animals and plants alike are plain survival machines. We are survival machines replicators have created in order for them to survive the harsh competition they face on earth, and so they have developed to create armors, becoming genes in the process and live inside us to protect themselves. "Individuals are not stable things, they are always fleeting...When we have served our purposes we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever" (Pg. 35)

We live in the replicator's battle arena, or if you would like to call it, game. We are their playing cards, discarded and replaced, discarded and replaced, over an over again. It's a cycle, for a battle that will never end. Genes have come to be eternal, we are the mortals, whereas genes are the immortals. We are on trial battling others, but at the same time proving our efficiency. "We are all survival machines for the same kind of replicator-molecules called DNA-but there are many different ways of making a living in the world, and the replicators have built a vast range of machines to exploit them" (Pg 21) There are different arenas, the sea, which has survival machines designed for life in the water like fish, just like monkeys are survival machines designed for life in the forest. Each organism, is it a plant, an animal or even a virus are all made of the same kind of molecule, DNA, which is composed of genes, or as known before, replicators. 


Genes have come to become so small, and have so many descendants that it is virtually impossible nowadays for a gene to die. It is eternal. "Genes, like diamond, are forever, but not quite in the same way as diamonds." (Pg. 35) However, we, their robots are disposable in their never ending  ingenious game called evolution. Those who survive win, and those who die, simply loose. But those who are already imagining genes as jigsaw killer from saw, are just completely off. Genes do not think, they don't plan ahead, and they don't enjoy this game. Just as cells don't think but only divide, genes only survive, sometimes committing small mistakes that make everything change, or evolve. In the end everything is much worse, because we are living in a cycle, that no one can stop, not even their creators, the replicators, because they, they are long dead. 





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