We Are Now Able To Edit DNA – But What Are the Implications?

by Tom Bunzel

The animation in the following video depicts the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing – a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the potential to treat human genetic disease.

This is yet another indication that “DNA is software” – not metaphorically behaving “like” software but literally and objectively the same form of “being.”

What does this mean?

Well, for anything to be edited it must convey meaning; the concept of editing is simply revising the expression of something – thus its essence or meaning has been altered.

And this can only be accomplished within a consistently intelligently behaving system with predictable patterns.

You cannot “edit” randomness or chaos.  By definition chaos’ changes occur randomly and not predictably.

In the word processing software used to write this article I can copy and paste words and sentences to reconstitute the look and thus the meaning of a page of text.  And I do so predictably according to rules–that is editing.

In HTML if the syntax of the code is changed — for example if “b.jpg” is substituted for “a.jpg” — then a different image will be displayed in a web browser based on the underlying code.

I have shared this video before but it is monstrously important:

In the video, geneticist Juan Enriquez shows the genetic code on the left in the slide above and identifies it as Ebola.

He also describes how code acts as an “executable” – performing biological tasks in the same way that HTML performs various electronic tasks – turning pixels on and off on your monitor to display web pages.

He also describes how, by taking the genetic code for a nearly extinct animal and putting it into the egg of a similar species, the original species is “born” (again).

Again, in computer terms, this is copying and pasting. We do it every day but never think about it.

Enriquez also describes how an apple is also an “executable”–an apple is an “application” according to genetics. Enriquez says that when it gets sufficient “input” in the form of energy from the sun, its code executes and it falls from a tree.

But now consider this:

We did not write the DNA code. It is as old as organic life itself – Presumable over 14 billion years old.

Let that sink in for a moment.

With HTML or a word processor we KNOW where the code came from – it was conceived and written by teams of brilliant programmers according to the specific intentions of other brilliant THINKERS.

So what is the source of DNA? Who “wrote the code”?

There is no answer to this question – I believe we simply need to accept not knowing the origin of DNA.

But in terms of modern science, we need to rethink the implications and not take them for granted.

Geneticists like Enriquez, who change genetic code through sequencing, seem oblivious to the implications for all of science: that what they are changing is literally “cosmic intellectual property.”

Let’s go a bit deeper…

We also know that there seem to be ways of “reprogramming” your own DNA.  Neuroscientists like Joe Dispenza (Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind) have written extensively about changing habitual patterns through dramatic action, and thereby changing the deep “grooves” of your subconscious conditioning to create new patterns that serve you better.

More recently, Deepak Chopra and Rudy Tanzi have published Super Genes: Unlock the Astonishing Power of Your DNA for Optimum Health and Well-Being, in which they present concrete ideas for achieving similar results.

Again this focuses on the biological aspects of genetics for achieving human goals – wellbeing and so on.

But humans have had “access” to software for only a few generations; our science has been mired in the conditioned beliefs of materialism for centuries.  We now need to make a profound mental shift.

What is apparent in all of these comparisons of DNA and software is something extremely significant but so obvious that is overlooked constantly: Meaning (editing) implies Mind – but not just any mental function but high Intelligence.

So if Life itself is manifesting a property (intelligence) through its means of expression (DNA), must we not shift our orientation as the primary source of intelligence in nature from Ourselves (humans) to Life itself?

If we now know that we can edit the code behind Life, don’t we necessarily need to redefine or begin to understand Life as the expression of Consciousness — instead of seeing ourselves as the source of such knowledge or insight?

This is the Copernican revolution in psychology. We (humans and our science) can no longer consider ourselves as the source and center of all intelligence. Indeed our very sense of being (consciousness) arises from a space or source that is both mental (intelligent) and nonmaterial.

“Think” about it deeply. Like considering the “outside” when looking at the Milky Way at night, our human mental capacity is not up to the task of understanding this intellectually.

This is potentially another Copernican Revolution, but this time it is an evolution of Consciousness.

It must be felt – we are literally the product of an intelligence we can barely comprehend; in comparison to the consciousness that sourced Life, our materialist science is on the level of a Neanderthal.

Understand this – in reality, not metaphorically, DNA is software – the “program” behind life – and it must be an expression of  Infinitely Intelligence.

As Eckhart Tolle says, this intelligence runs all of our bodily functions without our conscious participation in perfect harmony (unless there is disease).  It “manages” our circulation, digestion, respiration, elimination et al. using a system of coded instructions that convey meaning (they can be comprehended and edited).

This understanding must dramatically shift our focus in terms of consciousness as not being a product of our biology (residing in the brain) but rather being as energetic and intelligent presence for which our current science cannot account.

This is because our science is a science of objects–and DNA is an expression of something completely different — as Eckhart says, “no thing” – it is a living subjectivity.  It is not the product of a noun–it is an always present verb.

Take it in:  if DNA is software – who was/is the programmer?

Found @ http://www.collective-evolution.com/2016/01/06/we-are-now-able-to-edit-dna-but-what-are-the-implications/