The DNA Legacy

I'm reading VALIS, by Philip K. Dick, and one of the core principles of Dickian religion is that the hyper-universe is made of information, and that the phenomenal world is derived from that. No info - no rocks, planets or people - the info comes first. The modern computer is a microcosm of the macrocosm - where 1's and 0's combine in complex forms of "to be" or "not to be", yin and yang, and thus everything is created from the Word, or as I like to say, the Code.

Human Beings are also microcosms of this basic "as above, so below" architecture. The human organized system (organism) is made of info encoded into the spiral helix of the DNA molecule, and it's possible to clone an entirely new "you" from just one DNA molecule, which is also encoded into every cell of your body. It's as if the schematic blueprint of your car was microscopically embedded into every single nut and bolt of the automobile.

This creates the tantalizing idea that it should be possible to monkey around (hack) the DNA code, which Big Pharma is successfully doing, for profit. Never mind they are putting us all in grave peril in the process, the fact is, they proved it. DNA really IS the code that commands our meat puppet selves.

This is not to say that DNA is God. DNA is "like" God, in a fractal sort of way. The DNA mad scientists aren't accused of "playing God" for nothing.

PKD supposed that there could be a level of information organization that is above even DNA, and this level PKD called VALIS, or Zebra. The ones and zeroes that evolved into DNA, that evolved into humans who can learn to read and write with letters, and eventually learn to read and write DNA, and finally read and write the ones and zeroes. You know... that "God Particle".

Anyhoo, I've long been interested in the idea that both DNA and 1-0 writing can be approached and manipulated by symbolic means - in other words... magic. Its the Holy Grail. That's how writing works anyway - a few scratched symbols on page, that we interpret into words, meaning, entire novels. I mean, if a human author can conjure up an entire world with the use of 26 symbols, what might a god get up to?

I suspect the only difference between a man and a god is the quality of his symbols - good penmanship still counts.

So... all this is whirling about lately, and out of the blue, I get an illustration job from Nordic Tugs. The illustration is a drawing for a newly updated model, but George (the president of NT) called and told me it was really important to "preserve the Nordic Tug DNA" in the illustration. He said it twice.

WTF?

It occurred to me that much of my DNA is in fact... Nordic/Germanic. However, I don't know much about Nordic myths, in fact, I've avoided them because I dunno, they just seem so barbaric. Helloooo... maybe my DNA only speaks "Barbarian"? It occurs to me that if one is trying to contact one’s DNA, one should use the symbolic language that it is most likely to understand.

The Nordic Tugs commission came on Thursday, or Thor's Day. A day later, I'm walking around town, and I see that Kon-Tiki is playing, which is about the famous Nordic iconoclast Thor Heyerdahl. Hmmm... maybe I should look a bit more into my DNA heritage.