Consciousness is an immensely perplexing phenomenon with myriad explanations and effects, according to religions and science.
Consciousness is considered to be the ground of all being in some philosophies so a new report claiming that an ancient virus which entered our genome is responsible for human consciousness may come as an affront to some. However, this finding could be understood a number of ways. Not all of the suppositions implied in this report need to be accepted for the basic discovery of a means by which the human organism gained access a greater field of consciousness to be of value.
The Arc gene is vital to our brains’ functioning. When it is removed, synapses die off and mutations to this gene have been linked to neurological disorders. The Arc gene is thought to be essential to how our nerves transmit information and it is essential to longterm memory formation. It may be accountable for our ability to reason and respond the way we do.
New research indicates a line of genetic code in the Arc gene originated within viral cells that entered our genome during the course of a viral infection. These were incorporated into the Arc gene half a billion years ago, when our ancestors would have still been a mouse-like 4-legged species, according to evolutionary biologists. (That last bit will be the kicker for many reading this!)
That last bit will be the kicker for many reading this! The fact is, we don’t know for sure how humans came to be. We can have faith in religious texts or in scientific ones – but faith is not knowledge. This study is about genomics and you can’t blame these guys for trying to get to the root of it all.
