Saturday, July 25, 2009

Contemplations on Evolutionary DNA: Infinite ability to change?

[Forewarning: this Blog makes a TON of unsupported claims/hypothesis. I would love to have every idea in this particular post researched.] The subject line is an issue I have been highly interested (and somewhat intellectually involved) in for the past couple months. I haven't really been able to find data or written resources firmly centered around my own hypothesis to follow, but I feel it's now time to attempt to write down my thoughts.

The human DNA structure is, in a word, amazing. Because of the complexity (and my lack of understanding) I'm skipping this part entirely; I suppose what I'm aimed at is more closely related to Evolutionary Psychology than hard science. Have you ever considered that at our moment of conception we are nothing more than a mosaic of our parents DNA? We are the sum of our parents experiences and DNA up to that point. From there our paths diverge and they continue leading their lives and we begin to live ours... always similar but changing in a myriad of ways; eventually we are no longer what our parents were, but something much more "evolved."

But, as we know from 10th grade biology class, there are differing genetic traits which can be passed on, nearly by chance. What if they are not? I meditate quite regularly and several times have had the unique experience of being what I can only describe as being a "watcher" in my own body. What is meant by this is that the barriers which seem to separate the conscious and the subconscious thinned and my conscious watched (without interference) the actions and thoughts of the subconscious.

In this state I experienced, among many other things, what I think was a "systems check," where the physical subconscious aspect literally re-maps the entire body. (Quite an interesting experience.) [From here choosing the best way to describe my hypothesis is a bit tricky, so please hang with it.] I had many more experiences like this one, where I was nothing more than an observer to the hidden aspects of what makes a person tick. I came to what I believe is a truth: the subconscious does what is best for the body, what is best for the benefit and survival of the organism. Hence why even though we find body fat (for the most part) unattractive, we have it and why it is so hard to get rid of.

From this I have formed several theories about how we work and ways to invoke change. There are 3 types of change a human's body can go through: 1)postural change, 2) extended change, 3) generational change. Postural change is merely an observation of a habit you don't like and changing it; the most common type of change. (Example: "Hmm, I don't like my smile. Ok, so open the lower lip a bit more... THERE!")

Extended change is more complex and requires a series of postural changes. The most common example would be weight loss. Another example would be the toning of certain muscle groups.

Generational change are changes associated with genetic recombination. That means that these changes are only visible in your children. (Or maybe they aren't visible per-say, but they are what you'd consider ideal traits.) Let me spin off from the current train of thought and explain another hypothesis I have: the subconscious is constantly trying to build the perfect human. It does this by marking certain traits in a form of evolutionary "memory" from interactions you have with other people. No doubt you like certain aspects about yourself; the evolutionary memory attempts to keep these traits while obtaining those you find desirable. (I suppose I'm getting into what would be considered "attraction.") Therefore one will seek out others who can compliment and enhance their own genetic structure. Sometimes this works... sometimes it doesn't. I believe that we have a way of marking our own DNA structure to pass on certain codes of information and traits more-so than is taught in genetic recombination, however this is just speculation until I manage to find proof.

Back to the original theory: infinite ability to change. The body is frugal (for most people) when it comes to energy expenditure. When it comes to change, it is even more resistant: why change what is proven to work? (The organism is APPARENTLY still alive...) The previous sentence is why we have evolutionary change, otherwise we might be able to convince our body to morph into our ideal form of beauty, that is IF we had the proper coding to work with. (DNA is that coding... some physical traits are just too far beyond our bodies DNA structure to conceive.) But, there is always the energy expenditure to consider... hence why we can burn fat and tone muscle, and even reshape the skin to a degree, but have a drastically hard time reshaping bone formation and structure: 1) too much energy expenditure and 2) our bodies might not know how.

That's all on this subject for now.

No comments:

Post a Comment