What is a Virus: a Philosophical Answer

The biology of viruses is such that, scientifically, it is unknown whether they are alive or not.  See Wikipedia for an overview of the virus.  They have some of the characteristics of life-forms, but not all.  They are sub-microscopic things that infect larger things, that is, plants or animals, even bacteria.  Essentially, a virus is genetic material, a string of DNA or RNA molecules.  They are free-floating genomes loose in the world and we know that the genome is powerful stuff, structuring and ordering cells.  Cells are the basic units of biology.
A virus cannot replicate on its own, it needs cells to do that.  It enters and takes over cells, forcing cells to manufacture many, many copies of itself. What is going on here?  Here is my answer:  a virus is a refugee from dead, extinct life-forms, maybe dinosaurs, maybe long-dead protozoa, perhaps even extraterrestrial.  They are stranded in the world, survivors of their original cells and are trying to recreate paradise, i.e., the primal organism they once powered.  The midichlorians of Star Wars are like unto real-world viruses.  The midichlorians mediate a 'Force' that gives purpose to intelligent life.  Viruses like the SARS-CoV2, exert force on living things.  Is this force good or bad?
An answer to this last question should not be easy, but should require not only scientific analysis, but philosophic, as well.  The easy answer would be viruses are bad; this is the common approach and also the medical view.  Viruses have been causing problems, uncomfortable, unwanted symptoms in people for millenia, though our discovery of the virus (Latin: poison) dates to the nineteenth century.  Yet viruses also have good results or outcomes in species.  Check out Charles Zimmer and his book.  So we have to consider that viruses are good and bad, from a practical standpoint.
A virus is an agent of change.  It changes living matter in an orderly process according to its memory of an original state. Its original state, some long-dead creature, is not compatible with recent life-forms, but a virus doesn't know that.  Its original, primal state, its long-gone context is not known to us.  It demands study and fully understanding the virus will tell us something radical about life in the cosmos.
Ask why change persists in the universe.  Why do things change and not stay the same? 
           

Movie: '3022'

I've viewed today, a 2019 film, 3022, with actor Omar Epps in lead role.  This is a science fiction movie, as it is set in the future when Earth has a colony on Jupiter moon, Europa and a refueling station is established along the way there.  All action takes place in and around the station, named 'Pangaea.'  Epps is terrific in the role of captain Laine, maintaining an admirable dignity though he suffers great stress, nightmares, illusions and seesaws between rationality and the edge of madness.  Early in the film, Earth is destroyed, blown up, though we don't definitely realize that until later, when three refugee astronauts from the International Space Station make it to Pangaea.  These three bring along hidden evil and conflict to the crew of Pangaea and eventually only Laine and crewmate-engineer Jackie Miller (actress Kate Walsh) are left alive.  These are the last two survivors of the human race (except possibly the colonists on Europa, but there is never any communication from these).  To subsist, engineer Miller comes up with plan to split Pangaea, thereby extending oxygen and food.  Accidentally the two survivors are separated when Pangaea is split and Captain Laine is determined to rescue Miller who is heard poignantly crying by radio.  In ending the film, Captain Laine arrives at the cast-off half of Pangaea and searches until finding crewmate Miller.  She is destitute when found and the two look at each other when Laine comes through the doorway with the focus changing from Laine to Miller and then back to Laine.  Laine's expression is a sight to behiold, with piercing eyes and quivering lips.  The camera lingers on his face and thought of Adam and Eve entered my mind.

   

Approach to Meaning

Some things came together today, Tuesday, August 13, 2019, for me in the area of finding meaning in experience.  First, I read online the daily Scripture - Dt.  31:1-8; Mt. 18:1-5,10,12-14 - which I try to do each day on USCCB.  Second, as I was scrolling through the Sirius/XM lineup on my car radio, I stopped at the 'Phish' channel and listened as I drove to my Mom's and from my Mom's apartment after my visit.  Trey Anastasio played a song from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, "Fishing for Fishies," which I liked.  Yesterday's Gospel reading was Mt. 17:22-27 and I'd been pondering its potential meanings off and on for a day now.  The 2nd part of the passage involves fish.

   24 After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

25 “Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”

26 “From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27 “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

New International Version (NIV)

Peter and other disciples of Jesus were fishermen.

The lyrics of the King Gizzard song advocate against fishing.

  Fishing for fishies

Don't make them feel happy
Or me neither
I feel so sorry for fishies

It seems like cruelty to me
And I'm hungry, leave them be

I don't want to be fishing for fish
I just want to let them freely swim
I don't want to be fishing for fish
I just want to let them freely swim
All heights honk
Egos tying knots being fate
Don't do it
You ain't a God
Don't hunt salmon, cod or carp

In our day, we have the environmental problem of overfishing and possible extinction of species.  This was not an issue in Jesus' era, two-thousand years ago.

I'm still thinking and pondering.     

To See Jesus

    I apologize for beginning this post with a picture.  There's something inherently wrong with pictures, a deception of the viewer that goes unnoticed.  This particular picture of Jesus is very popular, having been seen and recognized by many people in Christendom since it was painted by Walter Sallman in 1940.  A copy used to hang on a bedroom wall in my childhood home.  It hints at certain qualities the ideal person would have.  Jesus is a hero, a model of holiness, righteousness, but these attributes might not be seen by looking at him as he was, but in pondering his teachings.
A question - how does one "ride an endless train to the end of the line."  How can there be an end to what is endless?  Is this not a paradox?
The quote comes from the first verse of Randy Bachman's song, 'Lookin' Out for No. 1.'  Indeed it contains a contradiction between the words "endless" and "end."  As a piece of advice - "every day is an endless train, you got to ride it to the end of the line" - it'd be rejected by logical positivists and analytic philosophy.  Yet there is sense to the saying.  Days go by in humdrum sameness and end in night, usually with sleep.  The repetition of our days makes them seem endless.  A day shall come, for all, that ends in death.  In between, we have lots of choices.  To see Jesus, to want to see Jesus, because of what he represents, could be one of these choices, a decision reaffirmed day after day.

I came ... not to do my will, but the will of  him who sent me.  (Jn 6.38)
Who has seen me has seen the Father.  (Jn  14.9)
... seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.  (Mt 7.7)
Thy will be done on earth.  (Mt 6.10)
Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, sister and mother.  (Mt 12.50)
... walk in the day, ... those who walk at night stumble.  (Jn 11.9)
Labor not for food that perishes, but for that which lasts.  (Jn 6.27)
My food is to do the will of him who sent me.  (Jn 4.34)
I must walk today and tomorrow and the next day.  (Lk 13.33)        

Thank-you for walking and showing the path to life, Master.  I follow.  I'm so glad to have your words.

              

The Real World

The real world is the world in which God may exist.  The question is, how to turn potential into reality.  Is there a way to turn the possibility of God into the actuality of God?  Yes there is a way and that way is called faith.  Faith is belief in God.  Faith is understanding that a supreme Being exists. 

To be noted about faith is that it's an individual, personal viewpoint.  There are people without faith, those who don't believe in God.  This is the real world.

For the faithful, miracles happen.  To infidels, miracles aren't works of God, but rare occurrences which might be explained scientifically.  So we are back to potentiality.  We live in a world of possibility.       

If a person says that God does not exist, that one isn't living in the real world, for God may be. 

From Detroit, USA to Cape Town, South Africa: a Humble Man & his Work

A man who embodies humility, humbleness, is Sixto Rodriguez.  Born in Detroit, Michigan, 1942, currently age 76, Rodriguez is a musician, singer/songwriter, construction worker, husband, father and political activist.  He has become famous, worldwide, as a result of the 2012 oscar-winning documentary, 'Searching for Sugar Man', but he was famous in South Africa and a couple of other countries before that because of his music, two record albums, 'Cold Fact' (1970) and 'Coming from Reality' (1971).  His songs have been an inspiration to many.  They may be heard on YouTube.

Humility is a quality of human personality, opposite to egotistical pride.  Merriam-Webster defines the noun thusly, "freedom from pride or arrogance : the quality or state of being humble."  To be humble is a way of life or personal attitude advocated in world religions.  In Christianity, many thinkers and leaders have expounded on humbleness through the centuries.  Of course actions do not always agree with words, practice doesn't always go along with principle.  The importance of humility in Christian morality comes from the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.  When Jesus was arrested, his followers tried to defend him, but Jesus didn't allow that, surrendering himself in submission to God's will (Jn 18 and par).  Some sayings of Jesus that bear on the meaning of humility:

 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23.12).

    So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last (Mt 20.16)." 

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Mt 5.5).

Love your brother as your soul; watch over him like the apple of your eye (GTh 25).

Whoever among you becomes least will know the kingdom (GTh 46).

Love your neighbor as yourself (Mk 12.31).

Sixto Rodriguez gave up the music business and turned to renovating abandoned houses in Detroit.  He did the dirty work of this job day after day, year after year.  The music has never left him, however and he keeps playing guitar, performing his songs.  He has run for elected office in Detroit, but never got enough votes.  His reticence and humility, as evidenced in the documentary film, are impressive, indicating a well-grounded person, or depending on viewpoint, may elicit scorn and a wave of dismissal.  He is a stranger and a friend.

Further reading:  Craig Strydom & Stephen Segerman, Sugar Man: The Life, Death and Resurrection  of Sixto Rodriguez (South Africa:  Penguin, 2015)

The Death of Wayne Keenan

My friend, Wayne Keenan, died on Friday, August 31, 2018.  He was around 71 years of age and suffered from heart problems and diabetes.  He was a single, white male and had red hair (his nickname was 'red').  He received a general discharge from the U.S. Army and held many jobs up until the age of 33 (approximate), when his application for disability insurance with U.S. Social Security was approved on psychological grounds.  Wayne had mental problems and I'm not sure of the source of those problems, but I know he had a rough upbringing and youth in West Orange, NJ.  After the deaths of his grandparents, who had raised him, Wayne lived in orphanages and it was in one of these that he was tied to a bed and raped by older boys.  Wayne never knew who his father was and his mother was unable to care for him, though Wayne remained friendly toward his mother.

I first met Wayne in 1970, maybe it was '71, when I was 15 years old.  We met at Romeo's Pizzeria in Orange, a local teen hangout.  Wayne was a delivery driver for Romeo's.  We became close through the years owing to various shared adventures with the DeMarchi boys, whose family owned Romeo's. 

Around the age of 34, Wayne moved into a subsidized apartment in a senior building on Oakwood Avenue in Orange.  Here he lived the rest of his life, though he was always trying to move into other senior buildings, especially down the shore.  Wayne liked to fish, especially deep-sea fishing.  He had lots of fishing equipment.  He had a dream of living near the ocean and fishing every day. 

In his cluttered apartment, Wayne and I had many meetings.  We would have discussions about all sorts of things; local politics, religion, philosophy, fishing, girls, the end of the world, God, Kierkegaard, love, enmity among residents in his building.  We also watched TV.  We'd  often eat out at the local Burger King or once in a while at IHOP.  Wayne bought many things from Home Shopping Club and often would call me to come over and set up this or that gadget and explain how to work it. 

Wayne Keenan was a big source of encouragement and fellow-feeling for me.  I always felt comfortable in his presence. 

On that Friday, my phone rang around 7pm, but I was already asleep and didn't answer.  The next morning, I got the recorded message from Wayne's dialysis center to please call them.  I could not get through to them that day nor the next and of course, I called Wayne's apartment, but he didn't answer the phone.  I left a message for him.  I called two local hospitals to find out whether Wayne Keenan was a patient - "no he wasn't."  I reached the dialysis center on Monday by phone and they offered me condolences on the death of my friend, Wayne.  They explained what happened on Friday, that Wayne's heart stopped and they did everything to try to revive him, but were unsuccessful.  The Fire Department was there, also emergency medical technicians.  They told me Wayne's body was in the morgue at East Orange General Hospital. 

I cried several times between getting the news of Wayne's passing and going to the hospital morgue.  I called my Mom and told her the news and she said she was so sorry for me.  I waited a long time in the hospital lobby for someone to take me to the morgue.  A nurse supervisor arrived and conducted me there.  At the morgue door, a security officer had me sign a paper and we all went in.  The body was in bag on a gurney.  I unzipped it and saw Wayne - his body anyway.  His eyes were open and in his mouth was the emergency breathing tube for administering oxygen.  I clasped his hands and said some prayers.  I looked around at the other gurneys with their occupied body-bags.  I looked at the two people standing near and said thank-you and we left.  This was how it ended for Wayne and me.