Mutations
_I: The perfection of the creation mechanisms such as DNA, inevitably has its counterpart, as you told me yesterday: mutations.
_AM: This is one of the most important qualities of Gemini on a physical level, since mutability, adaptation to the environment, are crucial for this aspect of our being.
_I: So… Aren't mutations bad?
_AM: Like everything, always, “it depends.” It depends on the circumstances, the reasons, the capabilities, the being, the environment. “Mutation” is the action of changing. Transform from one thing to another. You will be able to understand, then, that a mutation is something that has affected you a lot in life. Well, whether you like it or not, you are a mutant.
_I: The word mutant resonates a lot in the movies. In some films the Mutant is portrayed as a deformed monster, and in others as the superhero, a fascinating person. Clearly, I am fascinated by the X-Men saga, where mutations are key, and go through a discourse that is also somewhat political and sociological: the acceptance of what is different.
_AM: This is one of the cornerstones of the mutant discussion. Acceptance of change. If you look closely, the visions of mutants as evil and deformed monsters were born in times of conservative thoughts, in which social stability was sought through the same, the equivalent, and everything that was different was wrong or could represent a threat. Mutants began to be the good guys when the audiovisual medium was taken over by more progressive thoughts, where being different was okay. In fact, the words “freak” and “monster” to define the strange and monstrous, went from being insults to being proper qualifiers.
_I: Encompassing everyone who was different. But what was it to be different?
_AM: Basically not being of the same religion, same race/ethnicity, and the same social group.
_I: That is, Christian, white and middle class.
_AM: No. That is another stigmatization. Racism does not exist only in white people, but in all races or ethnicities. Racism is not unidirectional nor typical of an ethnic group, but rather it is typical of people with a lack of knowledge, something that crosses all social strata, religions and ethnicities. Classifying racism as stemming from only one ethnic group makes us racist. Qualifying an entire gender to be machismo makes us sexist. If you look closely, both currents make a serious mistake.
_I: Which one?
_AM: Conservatives separate people by their differences, and progressives evaluate people by their differences. They both do the same thing, highlighting differences as the only determinants of who we are, when in essence, we are all human.
_I: Instead of strengthening the human condition of freedom, it focuses on different conditions such as positioning and valuation.
_AM: And this is understandable. Thousands of years of oppression, in some things more than others, many traumas experienced between ethnicities, philosophies, diverse feelings, and all of this has inevitably led to the need to fight for Equality, but with the focus of “valuing differences.” . It's like saying "let's fight for peace", a meaningless phrase, perhaps a kind of oxymoron that carries over to the phrase "differences for equality." Conflict occurs when, by valuing differences, we continue to divide ourselves into increasingly specific groups, as if dividing human qualities according to their attributes, a kind of castes.
_I: Yes, I notice this a lot, for example in the fight for gender equality, the same people who talk about “everyone being equal and that there are no flags, let's be one”, are the ones who create flags for each sexuality, emblems that recognize some, separating them from the others. Therefore, although I am 100% in favor of freedom in all its forms, I refuse to publicly support ideologies that separate us even further by claiming to be for equality.
_AM: Differences are what make us human, what make us living beings, and the great importance is to accept them as they are, without major conflict, to naturalize the different qualities. The conservative fear of social mutations that imply constant changes has generated a wave of incessant transformations. Like in the X-Men school, everyone has different powers, but they are all Mutants, equally. And that's what you are, a mutant. And every difference you see in each human being is in turn a mutation. And as you can see, mutations, in essence, are not negative, but evolutionary. Accepting differences is crucial for development.
_I: Then we must say that more than fighting for equality, we must collaborate for the acceptance of differences. Since they make us nutritious but they do not define who we are.
_AM: Spots do not define the cat. The cat is a cat, and its spots are attributes, but not definitions, since each cat will have different mutations, different spots. In this way, everyone is human, defined as human, with different attributes.
_I: I understand... We are all mutants, some more visible than others, but in the long or short term we all experience mutations, so it is not the mutations that define what I am, but rather they show my qualities in a specific context or time.
AM: Once you understand this, we can see where the mutations come from.
_I: What is its origin?
_AM: The small chemical reactions produced in DNA by external factors, such as Ultraviolet Light emitted from the Sun.
I eat!? Does light determine our changes?
_AM: That's right. In the first instance, when cells were unique organisms, without large structures, their protective films only contained the genetic material, but did not protect it from all the sun's rays. Photons pass through these layers, and especially ultraviolet rays have the ability to be directed directly at the molecular level. This affects the sensitive formations of chemical compounds (adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine), deforming or disassembling them, causing them to connect in a different way.
_I: Like confusing the cables, and connecting them with others that weren't the ones, generating a short circuit.
_AM: Exactly. At the nuclear level, these modifications produced by light photons rearrange certain data inside the cell, producing a chain reaction that will end up being a Mutation. If one of these data said that the cell is round, when the genetic code is modified it can become oval, since the gene determines the arrangement of each cell in relation to the others, just as algebraic codes determine colors and shapes in computer programming.
_I: Binary data of 1 and 0 ordered in a specific way controls whether a color is red or blue on the screen, so if I change the order of them, I can change it to green or orange, or much more disparate colors... Only with the rearrangement of the same numbers in different positions.
_AM: And sometimes just a minimal change is enough, just one number in a long sequence, to deform everything and completely change the sequence and therefore reality.
_I: It's incredible. That is to say, everything has to happen very perfectly so that everything always remains the same and there are no malformations every day...
_AM: The wonderful genetic machinery works by resonance, and knows how to order structures perfectly as exact copies. The irradiation of the Sun and its effect on matter is what produces effects in the nucleus that modify these codes, producing errors in the sequence. But those mistakes can make the difference, being the key to evolution.
_I: In what way?
_AM: Well, a cell that is exposed too much to sunlight and is affected by its ultraviolet rays, which produce a mutation in the nucleus, can develop a strange attribute such as changing color, and processing melanin, retaining it in its walls. instead of deleting it. Suddenly, this cell has a better chance of surviving in bright environments, while the others die. This mutation allows it to be the only one capable of reproducing in hostile environments, so all subsequent cells will have the same layer, the same error, which became its quality.
_I: Oh, sure! Suddenly, what was a genetic error began to form a different quality that allows adaptability.
_AM: These processes take thousands or millions of years, trial and error, but as you have seen, they work, since it is this mechanism that allowed the appearance of each species on Earth.
_I: We are all Mutants… Every plant, every animal… Every human…
_AM: And every virus and bacteria, above all. A complex being like a mammal requires thousands of years to result in a mutation, since each of its cells has to integrate this change; however, single-celled organisms do not require more than a year to achieve this.
_I: That's why every year many get vaccinated for the flu, because every 6 months it evolves, mutates.
_AM: Viruses and bacteria are excellent in the art of adaptation to the environment, and they know how to take advantage of resources to modify themselves. Within a living organism, changes are constant, depending on what is consumed, the temperatures, the attacks of the immune system, while for a human the mutation can occur in a lifetime, because the cells must incorporate the cultural, emotional, contextual information that this being is experiencing, recognizing itself. A virus recognizes the smallest of environmental changes, and they do something amazing: they inoculate themselves. They can absorb other dead viruses in the environment, incorporating the genes that they have had previous experience, and due to their high level of reproduction, they can generate thousands of themselves in a few hours.
_I: That's what you mean by “new strains.”
_AM: No one can stop a virus, and there is no vaccine to stop it, but there are vaccines to lessen its effects; vaccines that over time have to be remade for new mutations. The same thing happens with bacteria. Physical bodies are accustomed to this constant attack, and therefore the immune system has all the tools to counteract these mutations, as long as it does not have other issues to deal with at the same time, which lowers immunity. The body has mutated to adapt to this over millions of years. A virus does in 6 months what humans do in 300,000 years, generating new strains, what we humanly call ethnicities, or what we colloquially refer to as races.
_I: The white race, the black race, the yellow race, the red race... They are all mutations of the same human species...
_AM: All humans with different attributes, adapted to each context. Mutations produced by mitosis are errors in the copying of information that we make every day, something that is seen in old age, in the mutation that the body experiences when it enlarges and ages, and this type of mutations is the oldest of all. The mutations produced by meiosis were caused by data copying errors during the emergence of the sexual reproductive system. These copying errors give different qualities to the new individuals, qualities that can be qualified in different ways.
_I: In what way?
_AM: First of all, there are three main bases for defining mutations: Genetic, Chromosomal and Genomics. Gene Mutation is one that affects only one Gene in the DNA chain. Chromosome is what affects an entire chromosome, producing visible and concrete changes. And Genomics is that which affects the entire genetic sequence of the complete DNA, modifying the general and global appearance of a being.
_I: So the first could be, for example, something that causes freckles, the second modifies the color of the entire skin, and the third marks the formation of my ethnicity.
_AM: We could say it that way in broad strokes, yes. From these mutations, we find many more diversified ones. There is Somatic Mutation (which involves the reproduction of a genetic group within the zygote, which generates a multiplication of this gene, providing two different groups of information within the body in formation) and Germinal Mutation (which occurs within the cells reproductive characteristics of the parents, which from the beginning will determine the genetic evolution of the gamete, without two parallel lines of formation, but rather a joint one). Also Morphological, which is denoted by the structural and physical change of a being. The Lethal and the Deleterious, those that affect the mechanism of life leading to its early death or preventing its functionality even if they do not lead to its death. Also Conditional Mutations, these are keys to adaptability, which show mutations that allow us to live in different spaces or that prevent us from living in said spaces, leading us to extinction. Biochemical mutations are produced by those things we ingest. Others lead us to lose certain functions, while others lead us to gain new ones.
_I: So there are mutations that promote evolution, and others that generate diseases...
_AM: Exactly. Ultraviolet light, the climate, errors in copies due to mitosis or meiosis, the food we eat, and even the culture in which we live and the emotions we experience... Even the thoughts we have are energy and vibration factors that can reconfigure the order of genes. Like playing Jenga or Scrabble, mutations give us new structures that strengthen us, or make us fail. Those who have known how to use their genetic differences have survived.
_I: For example?
_AM: Bears are originally black, as they usually hunt at night. This color was useful for them to hide from predators or not be seen by their prey. However, during the ice ages, ice covered the bear forests, and black bears could no longer hide in the snow, so their prey saw them coming from very far away. They died, and had to leave. But not so with albinos, bears that were born with genetic skin problems, causing the absence of melanin to leave them white. What was very negative for a bear in a forest, was very positive for a white bear in the snow. Therefore, they were the only ones capable of surviving. Thus, they began to reproduce, only white bears being born.
_I: The polar bear!
_AM: A genetic error was the origin of a beautiful species from the boreal zone. All the species you know today were mutations, genome errors, useful to the environments, but few remember those that could not adapt, and perished, becoming extinct. Which were many. And they still are.
_I: Can we prevent the extinction of species?
_AM: No, for several reasons. One of them is because in this world there is no place for everyone, and each species plays a fundamental role. The reason we exist is because many others have disappeared, and if they had not, many other species that we know today would not have prospered. What we can do as humanity is try to ensure that, as we are a conscious species, we are not the ones driving this extinction out of greed or unconsciousness.
_I: Sure…
_AM: We cannot control the natural course of events, but we can be responsible for our own actions.
_I: And what about diseases?
_AM: These are the mutations that test us in evolution. They are errors in genomes, in genes that disrupt their real function to perform irregular functions. Like cancer, a cellular mutation in which the cells themselves, instead of reproducing, consume each other.
_I: Can these mutations be prevented?
_AM: Yes, but not eradicated, because a new one will always appear. What you call illness are actually tests of nature that control stability and adaptability. It may seem cruel, but there is no one controlling this, it is natural, it is a process of natural selection. Diseases control populations.
_I: I once saw a documentary about ants in the Amazon, which talked about fungi that penetrate the nervous system of ants, turning them into zombies, until they die and devour them from the inside, emerging from their heads. This fungus exists in various forms and each one specializes in a species of insect. The interesting thing is that you could say that this seems terrible, and it must be eradicated, but then they show you the image above and you can see that if it were not for these fungi, the ant colonies would have wiped out vast areas of territory, leaving many without food. other insects. So, the fungus functions as a kind of population regulator, something that we do not take note of because we are “moralists.”
_AM: That's right, precisely, everything has an order. A society that has greater control of its population, greater control over its diet, that lives with less stress and less exposure to chemicals, is a society less prone to disease. However, we will never be exempt from genetic errors, since they are what help us evolve. As bad as it may seem in some cases.
_I: But... What about what they are doing now and trying to normalize, with assisted mutations, in which parents can choose the color of their baby's eyes, or skin, hair, height, health …? Isn't this immoral?
_AM: Immoral in what sense?
_I: Shouldn't this be left to the mercy of nature?
_AM: Why are you getting dressed?
_I: How?
_AM: Yes, why do you wear clothes, if it's hot and you can go naked, at the mercy of nature?
_I: Ummm… I don't know…
_AM: By culture. Morality is culture, it is religiosity. What makes it seem immoral to you to choose the color of your baby's eyes but not choose his beliefs and way of thinking? What do you see as immoral about preventing genetic diseases, and why is it moral to fight for the health of these people when they are already sick?
_I: Ugh… I don't know, you just hit me over the head with this. Because, that is, I consider myself a naturalist, I consider that nature makes things as they should be, and that humans are not ready to do this type of thing, to mess with the genetics of a new being just for personal pleasure.
_AM: When you choose someone blonde to breed with, you are making a genetic choice. When you look for someone similar to you, or someone you like to have a baby, you are making genetic selection. When you feed your baby a vegetarian or omnivorous diet, you are making a genetic choice. When you decide to live somewhere hot or cold, you make a genetic choice. When you do artificial insemination, it is a genetic choice. When you cut your child's hair one way or another, it is a genetic choice, when you choose one education over another, it is a genetic choice.
_I: I understand…
_AM: You are moralizing something that you morally cannot fight against. Every day, humans make choices that modify their genome, and decide for others about their own. Natural selection is built from the subconscious, while genetic selection is chosen by the conscious. And like everything, it will be trial and error, until humans see what the conflicts generated by these genetic decisions have been.
_I: So, like everything, this will be more of a trial and error process.
_AM: Accepting abortion and denying the genetic modification of a gamete is contradictory. Life is an evolutionary constant, in which genes will inevitably be modified, and there will come a time when even adults themselves can choose what to modify. Do you know what the biggest problem is here?
_I: Which one?
_AM: Believe yourself conscious. There is nothing worse than confusing conscience with morality. Consciousness interprets and understands changes, and tries to take all innovation as a tool for its transcendence. Morality has a preconceived idea of how things should be, and it clings to it. If it had been about morality, polar bears would never have existed.
_I: I must accept, then, that mutation, for better or worse, is part of our eternal nature...
_AM: And knowing this you must recognize what your mutations have been, and how they have been useful to you, and which ones you would modify if you had the possibility. Remember, mutations do not define what you are, they give you attributes to be.
_I: I am a Product of all circumstances…
_AM: Cause and Effect. So, you have no choice but to become the cause of every effect, by recognizing yourself as the effect of every cause. You are, and that will not change, but your ways will constantly change, and you cannot avoid it. Therefore, recognize it…
_I: I am a Mutant.