“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I’m projecting my own ideas here, but I think that in all of its complexity DNA has motives for its physical existence [as mediated through Seth’s CU’s, or units of consciousness] that considerably enlarge upon its assigned function as the “master molecule” of life as we know it. Deoxyribonucleic acid may exist within its host, whether man, plant, or animal — or bacteria or virus — in cooperative altruistic ventures with its carrier that are quite beside purely survival ones. Some of those goals, such as the exploration of concepts like the moment point [see Note 11], or probabilities [and reincarnation¹⁶], really defy our ordinary conscious perception. In terms we can more easily grasp, social relationships within and between species may be explored, starting at that biochemical level and working “upward.” Basically, then, an overall genetics of cooperation becomes a truer long-run concept than the postulated deadly struggle for survival of the fittest, whether between man and molecules, say, or among members of the same species. Once again we have consciousness seeking to know itself in as many ways as possible, while being aware all of the time, in those terms, of the forthcoming “death” of its medium of expression, DNA, and of DNA’s host, or “physical machine.”

(As far as I can discover, science pays very little attention to any philosophical questions about why we’re here, even while most definitely telling us what’s true or not true. And while postulating that life is basically meaningless or goal-less [DNA doesn’t care what its host looks like, for instance], science fights awfully hard to convince everyone that it’s right — thus attaching the most rigid kind of meaning or direction to its professional views! [If I were very cynical, I’d add here that to Jane and me it often seems that science wants only what science believes.] At the same time, in mathematical and biological detail much too complicated to go into here, the author of many a scientific work in favor of evolution has ended up by undermining, unwittingly, I’m sure, the very themes he so devoutly believes in. I’ve hinted at some of those paradoxes in certain notes [mainly 5 through 8] for this appendix.

15. In microbiology, the first stages of the exciting and controversial “genetic engineering” are at hand. This long-sought goal of science involves the very sophisticated recombination of DNA from such different life forms as plants and mammals, say, into new forms not seen on earth before. Such work has been called vital for the understanding of many things — the genetics of all species, the control of at least some diseases, great improvements in the quality of food plants, and so forth. It’s also been called outright interference with the evolutionary constraints that prevent the interbreeding of species. Although risks may be present in DNA research, such as the unforeseen creation of new diseases, it seems that within strict safeguards recombinant techniques are here to stay.