WHO DOES WHAT?

"Do you think that I know what I'm doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?

As much as a pen knows what it's writing,
or the ball can guess where it's going next."
Rumi

Our mothers taught us to chew our food. But after we chomp down a few times on whatever it is that is in our mouths, we don't really digest that food, do we? It is done for us. And when we want to make a baby, those little gyrations that we do together, as profoundly satisfying and bonding as that experience may be, we are not really making babies are we? At most we are turning on the switch, or, perhaps more appropriately, plugging in the plug. It is done for us. Aside from the occasional times that we perform for our doctors, we don't really do breathing, and we certainly don't oxygenate our blood supply which is the result of that breathing. It is done for us. Really, we are being breathed. We don't circulate our blood and we don't grow ourselves. It is done for us. When we have an overwhelming desire for a piece of cherry pie, we don't put that desire in our bodies, that desire whose satisfaction simultaneously gives us intense pleasure and supplies us with vital nutrition, do we? It is done for us. And when we find the smell of that fresh baked pie absolutely intoxicating, we don't put those sensors in our nose that allow us to have that experience, do we? It is done for us. And when we race over to the pantry to grab a plate and fork and seat ourselves at the table, we don't provide ourselves with all that equipment (our muscles and bones and nervous system) that allows us to move wherever our desires take us, do we? It is done for us. And when we find the taste of that pie, as we are chomping down on it, to be too delicious to adequately describe, we don't put those taste buds in our mouths that allow us to have those sensations, do we? It is done for us.

For the last two hundred years or more, we have learned about many biological processes that take place in our bodies. Everyone now knows that we digest, we reproduce, we eliminate, we metabolize, we grow, etc., etc. But all of these are misnomers. We do not actually do any of the biological things that are happening in our bodies. We may, acting on our desires, do things that initiate certain processes. But even those desires, the ones that are integral to our survival, like the desire to eat, to drink, to sleep, to have sex, come from urges put in our bodies that we automatically react to. Everything that happens biologically within our bodies, is being done for us.

Now let's get much smaller. Our bodies contain one hundred trillion cells. And over the last one hundred years we have learned, thanks to the microscope, and many sophisticated forms of chemical analysis, about many biological processes that happen within these cells. One of the important functions of cells is growth. Our bodies grow as various cells replicate. But the cells know no more about how they biologically replicate than we know about how we biologically reproduce. It is done for them. And when they replicate the cells don't say, "I think I'll replicate now, because little Joey needs a bigger arm." When they replicate and how often is not coordinated by the cells, it is done for them. Cells don't really 'figure out' how to make anti-bodies to protect them and us from a wide variety of viruses and bacteria that might invade their cell walls and harm them, do they? Cells know no more about producing antibodies than we know about producing blood, sweat and saliva. It is done for them and for us. And enzymes are manufactured in the cells, enzymes that keep us alive and keep all our biological processes working. But our cells don't decide, "Hmm, I think Dr. Dawkins needs a little more glyoxalase. Let's see, where among these three billion genes did I put that glyoxolase sequence? Ah, yes here it is. I'll just copy it, move the copy over to my ribosome and manufacture a little." Cells don't really know how to manufacture enzymes, do they? It is done for them. And although all the ten quadrillion biological processes that are taking place at each moment in the cells of our bodies are all synchronized and coordinated, it is not our cells that are synchronizing and coordinating these processes with each other, are they? You don't think that same cell of Dr. Dawkins calls five hundred million of his neighbor cells on his phone (a cell phone) and says, "Listen Molly(or Dora, or Irving or Stinky) I was thinking of making a little glyoxalase this morning. Are you making any, because I don't want to make too much?" Cells don't communicate with each other. It is done for them and for us.

Cells have multitudes of molecules within them, just as we have multitudes of cells within us. Cells know no more about what their molecules are doing than we know about what are cells are doing. If we, who are the supposed pinnacle of evolution, know nothing about our cell's activities, how can we imagine that our cells, which are supposedly only the beginning of evolution, know anything about what their molecules are doing? They don't. The knowledge of our cells' activities and the coordination of our cells' activities are not known or coordinated by us. They are done for us. The knowledge of a cell's molecular activities and the coordination of those molecular activities is not known or coordinated by the cells. It is done for them and for us.

Now lets get a whole lot smaller than that. Thanks to the electron microscope, and ever more sophisticated instrumentation and analysis, including DNA microarrays, X-ray chromosome analysis and single molecule sequencing, we now know that each human cell contains some three billion pairs of nucleotides. Some twenty thousand stretches of these nucleotide pairs are arranged in codes which are recipes for enzymes; the basic building blocks of all the physical ingredients that make up our bodies. Do the nucleotides arrange themselves into codes so that the body can manufacture enzymes? No, of course not. Do letters form themselves into novels? Do numbers form themselves into equations? It is done for them and for us. Do these genetic sequences or the cells in which they are housed figure out when to copy these different sequences to provide the body with its moment to moment needs? No. It is done for them and for us. Do these nucleotides control the construction of our bodies, so that the enzymes that are manufactured are combined with other enzymes to form proteins and then shaped and imbued with function and purpose to create the organs of our bodies? No, of course not. Not even Michaelangelo could come anywhere close to creating and molding such precise shapes; how could we be insane enough to imagine submicroscopic pieces of nucleic acid doing any such thing. It is done for them and for us.

Modern science's understanding of life begins when a DNA molecule, or a molecule similar to DNA, containing a genome, an entire set of genes, which it supposedly had accumulated by an amazing series of fortuitous coincidences, including thousands of week long lightning strikes and its thousands or millions of organic components somehow bonding and staying in tact for millions of years; when this molecule replicated, or, as Richard Dawkins says, 'began to make exact copies of itself;' that was the beginning of life and evolution. But this, of course, is also a misnomer. A replicating molecule does not replicate itself. It is a molecule. It has no self. It does not replicate. IT IS REPLICATED. Replication is done for it and for us. Even if you accept Dawkins' perspective and his time line, you must say accurately, that life began when a DNA or a DNA type molecule was replicated. And if it was replicated, who replicated it?

Dear God, dear Allah, dear Cosmic Consciousness, dear Tao, dear Brahma, dear Atman, dear Great Father: please forgive our scientific brothers and sisters. In their enthusiasm to find out all the things that You have been doing on this physical plane, they forgot that You were the One that was doing them.



Please feel free to comment.