Exogenous Reflexivity of Ontological Epigenetics
Early Adapters Humans have excelled in adaptation to their environment for at least 300,000 years. In fact, possibly better than many of our animal peers. We have certainly helped ourselves in our own cause by the dexterous use of tools as well as diligently reshaping our environment to better suit us. We have been Scientifically taught that our Darwinian genetics adapt to our natural environment (via natural selection) typically over the course of many thousands of years. Modern research is uncovering examples of very rapid Selection; in some instances, almost virtual immediacy. Frugal Genes Humans carry a more frugal set of genes compared with, say an earthworm. Current scientific thought attributes this to the ability of Humans to employ epigenetic expression more adaptatively. The early Anthropocene changed very slowly prior to Human technologicalization of their immediate surroundings. However, the pace of technologicalization has increased frenetically to the point where it is now startlingly Red-Queenish. Trans-Ribonucleic Expression Throughout this process, Human adaptability has kept up quite admirably. The continued ability of Humans to adapt at the current unnatural pace of advancement indicates that genetic selection has advanced to include trans-ribonucleic means of expression. And why not? We have already noted that extended cognition has transcended the mere bounds of the Human brain; even to the exteriorization of Consciousness: beyond the nervous system of the Human body. Trans-Individuals and Exogenous Reflexivity If Whitehead is correct, it takes no stretch of the imagination to find that there is a Process Mind (or Minds) operating well outside of the individual cognition. This implies that Social Function may be more a matter of Extended Agency than of Individual Agency. Extended epigenetics will turn out to redefine the gene as exogenous reflexivity at the trans-individual level as well. The Living Agency All of this points towards a deeply meaningful Truth: that Sociology is Alive and Social Functions are Living Beings, not mechanical activities that emerge from the clanking machinery of interpersonal reductionism. Read the full article
