Getting back to the original idea, why are humans born evil? Because
even in the presence of admittedly superior thoughts, our instincts
encourage us to pursue natural objectives, which are for the most part
unworthy.

This post attempts to cross a vast and jagged landscape... I intend to
discuss ethics, education, the possibility of doing research work on a
subject that cannot bring monetary profit, the public perception of
genetics and the present aims of the scientific community. For
convenience, I've split the post into two areas, one about philosophy,
the other about biology...

Above all, I'm looking for links to free
genetics/neurology/biochemistry texts, as well as essays related to
ethics and the "human condition". While I won't be able to buy
textbooks and the like (unless they happen to be published in
Romania), I suspect there's enough free stuff on the internet to keep
me reading for a while.


~PHILOSOPHY~

For the first part of this text, I'll use "Homo Trismegistos" to
describe the corrected human. The reasons should be obvious.

The ideas I present here will shock a few and bore many others - they
have been discussed throughout history, in some form or another,
though I don't know of any attempts to bring genetics into the issue.
The fundamental idea is the man is born evil, and must struggle to
dispense himself of his natural condition. very few have the
determination and the wisdom to achieve this, and most often, evil
succeeds thoroughly.

Let me define good and evil... Rather than go into a lengthy
discourse, I define "good" as anything worth being, and "evil" as
anything unworthy of being. A good action is an action that deserves
to be performed, a good project is a project that deserves to be
pursued, a good thought is a thought worthy of thinking etc. How does
one decide what is worthy and what isn't? Pure, unbiased analysis has
proven to work so far, and even though it doesn't yield perfect
ethical decisions, it has a better effect than simply pursuing a
doctrine that one considers worthy. Through this, "good" gains another
meaning - the pursuit of understanding what should and shouldn't be.
An action remains good so long as it is proven thus, and when refuted,
it must by all means be rejected. Because one can always expect a
better ideology to lie outside his own, it would be evil to mindlessly
pursue one's goals, and good to analyze them. This is a rudimentary
and probably well-known idea, but that doesn't stop it from being
true.

Note that murder can easily become good under this definition - if it
helps the goal, it becomes a potential part of the goal itself.
However, the self-destructive mechanisms released when attempting
muder would go against the murderer's ability to pursue his goal, and
need to be taken into account.

Getting back to the original idea, why are humans born evil? Because
even in the presence of admittedly superior thoughts, our instincts
encourage us to pursue natural objectives, which are for the most part
unworthy. They restrict conscious thought in the absence of clearly
identifiable problems, discouraging the ordinary man from questioning
himself (this helps for creatures that only want to live and breed,
but not for those gifted with complex objectives); they rely on the
balancing effects of thoughtless imitation, which may help infants and
lower animals, but restricts the mature human's mind; they encourage
deceit, xenophobia on all possible levels, superificial cooperation
and rivalry, all of which have visibly impaired humanity, despite
their successful results on primates; and so on. Human nature is,
quite frankly, obsolete.

A lot of would-be philosophers (including Spinoza himself,
unfortunately) declared that, through philosophy, they could discover
the way to infinite satisfaction. Maybe it was folly, or an attempt to
gain public approval, but... The only thing that can provide infinite
satisfaction is death. Rather than strive for satisfaction, the human
being needs to learn how to hunger - that is, how to establish
worthwhile objectives for itself, and relinquish those that are no
longer useful.

The pursuit of pleasure seems to be adamant in the minds of ordinary
people - it's even treated as a right in at least one constitution -
despite the fact that it leads away from the pursuit of ethics and
their enactment. At best, it can keep the individual from improving
his ethics or enforcing what he considers good. At worst, it
deteriorates his ethics, enslaving him and forcing him to follow a
rigid belief system. If every truly ethical action were painful, the
pleasure-seeker, pinned to his obsession, would remain unethical. I
recognize that pleasure itself can be "tamed" (that is, painful
actions could be made pleasurable), but its restraining effects would
still function. Unless the perfect ethics were to be discovered, the
ethics that someone taught himself to enjoy would eventually become
obsolete, forcing that person to train his pleasure once again. Also,
very few would ever want to tame pleasure, as that would go against
their nature in many ways. It would weaken their harmony with the rest
of their society, it would "waste" time that they could otherwise
spend pursuing pleasure, and in the end, their effort wouldn't really
let them feel much happier, since upholding a complex ideology would
be more difficult than, say, having sex. This relates to pleasure's
biggest problem - it's fundamentally connected to evil actions and
thoughts. Take nutrition, for instance: one can eat too much and still
enjoy it, as the primitive mind cannot accept the truth that most of
what is being eaten isn't needed. Some types of simuli give pleasure
regardless of the mind's consensus... This means that humans, while
capable of limited self-control, may not truly detach themselves from
their detrimental instincts. It would be nearly impossible to rewire
the brain in such a way as to make it independent, and again, even if
the option were available, who would want to take it? Genetics seems
to be the only way of giving the human being a mind that can defy
natural urges. It would, in fact, ensure that no human were ever born
evil. It would free mankind's new generation from the limitations that
nature imposes, and allow people to pursue their own objectives,
rather than those dictated by pleasure.

This is what I want to suggest - a Homo Trismegistos, a thrice wise
human. Before I begin describing it, I need to know whether any essay
or book has been written on the subject, so that I might compare my
views to those of others.

Let me define the differences between Homo Trismegistos and the
natural human: volatility, unrequired thought, reasoning and
self-control. Volatility means lacking a fixed ethical judgement
system that would regulate what one considered worthy and unworthy. In
other words, pleasure and pain wouldn't be associated with precise
actions and thoughts, but could be applied to any. This is crucial to
the human mind's development... Without it, the human would find
himself in a perpetual war between his nature and his good intentions.
While it's in the spirit of Homo Trismegistos to question his
ideology, there's no point in turning to nature for that, since nature
itself is an example of a stagnating ideology. Other than logic and
the urge to think, no part of human nature is needed for an ideology
to exist, so a volatile mind could easily work. It would still need to
know which thoughts to inhibit, and which to support, but it would
rely on its own logic for this rather than appealing to nature. Note
that Homo Trismegistos would probably have to start with many natural
beliefs, such as the fact that physical harm should be avoided and
that sweet-tasting foods should be consumed, but be given the
opportunity to correct those beliefs. The natural beliefs that are not
proven unworthy will carry on through his life, so that he'll always
know that getting his hand chopped off is not a good idea.

Through self-control, Homo Trismegistos would be able to replace his
natural judgement systems with more sophisticated ones (or suppress
them altogether), thus allowing himself to think and act against his
nature. Self-control essentially means being able to consciously
"mark" something as pleasurable or painful. A natural human might hate
black folks because he got mugged by one, and his hatred would endure
well after social reforms turned the black community into a model of
middle-class society. His feelings would thus override his knowledge.
By contrast, Homo Trismegistos would be able to add pleasure and pain
to his knowledge directly, as well as take it away when he finds it
unnecessary. This way, he wouldn't need to consciously encourage
himself to do good things, or ward himself from dangerous actions.

Unrequired thought is the ability and willingness to spontaneously
think about any subject - that is, to place any part of the mind under
assessment. Without unrequired thought, it would take direct exterior
influence to produce any change in ideology. People would worry only
about their recognized problems, and would stagnate in a context that
was not itself dynamic. Humans with a high capacity for unrequired
thought have the potential to expand their ideology in any context and
for any reason. It's common knowledge that very few natural humans
have this trait - the entertainment industry alone has more than
enough proof of this. It's also common (but easily ignored) knowledge
that these people are the ones who assure mankind's prosperity.
Without unrequired thought, there would be no theory of gravity, no
vedas and no philosophy whatsoever. It goes without saying that this
trait would benefit Homo Trismegistos.

Reasoning is more than the ability to think logically... It also
encompasses the now-unconscious ability to make decisions based on the
probabilities of certain things being true. Natural humans cannot
acknowledge more than one worldview at the same time, and compare the
possibilities of either being true. At best, they choose the worldview
whose corresponding neurons get more excited. The ability to study
probabilities would help Homo Trismegistos immensely, as it would
allow him to appraise seemingly weak ideas rather than dismiss them
entirely.

These are the abilities that Homo Trismegistos would have to possess.
Anything else is auxiliary. Volatility would liberate his mind,
self-control would softly organize it, unrequired thought would
stimulate his evolution and reasoning would allow this evolution to
branch in several directions. Unlike natural humans, whose innate
purpose is to breed, Homo Trismegistos would be born with the goal of
personal evolution. Should this be the purpose of the next human
species? I assume that, because of its ability to self-evolve, Homo
Trismegistos would find a more worthy purpose for its own progeny, and
be much more diligent in enacting it than natural humans will ever be.

At this time, I have no idea how (or if) these principles would
translate into neural structures. In fact, I know next to nothing
about neurology. Even if I did, the details of Homo Trismegistos would
take years to unravel, so a discussion limited to principles is worth
pursuing on its own.

Modern societies and governments consider it their duty to protect the
citizen from his own nature. When people commit crimes for a living,
it's usually because they're too ignorant to find something better to
do with their lives, or too strongly influenced by a natural stimulus.
Sometimes, illegal action is worth pursuing, which suggests that Homo
Trismegistos would indeed commit crimes, but with much better motives
than the natural human. Even so, the laws of a society populated by
Homo Trismegistos would probably be more lenient and less resistant to
change, due to the principle of volatility. His economy, governed by
clear objectives (as opposed to greed or envy), would serve instead of
dominating him. Also, because of his superior ethos, he would be more
willing to pursue non-profit work (like writing fiction) and provide
the foundation for a real democratic system, in which people voted for
ideas rather than smiles and charisma. If anyone has arguments against
these statments, I'm anxious to hear them.

Otherwise, show me an alternative to Homo Trismegistos, a set of
principles that a genetically engineered human ought to bear. This is
an issue that truly deserves to be discussed, not just for the sake of
theory, but because genetic engineering may indeed produce a corrected
version of the natural human.

But what if this doesn't happen? What if the human species heads on
its intended course? I, for one, am quite sure that it will prosper.
It might expand across the universe, and fill it with the principles
of human nature, just like the amphibians once filled the Earth's dry
surface with the principles of froggy nature. And after that...
Nothing, really. At best, the humans will discover a way to obtain
infinite gratification without dying, overdose on it and wilt away,
leaving the few who shunned pleasure in charge of humanity. At worst,
humans will clog the world forever, keeping it stuck in their ideal of
pleasure, and use incomparably advanced technology to gratify
themselves. The universe will glint with joy and... well... Nothing,
really. Through , humans will seal themselves into their natural
state, succeeding at their century-long quest to give the world a
highly compex shape that best fits their primitive spirits.

Seriously, though... Is genetic engineering truly necessary? Can I
expect the human species to escape its nature without direct action?

~BIOLOGY~

As a student in the last year of high school, I've decided to devote
the devote the greatest part of my life to the study of the human
being, and of the ways in which it can be remedied. That means
neurology, to determine the inner workings of humanity's deepest
failures (which I describe below, in the philosophy section) as well
as finding an alternative, and genetics for the possible ways of
removing said failures. I expect my training at a local university to
be minimal, both on a theoretical and practical level, so I'll
probably need to complete my studies abroad. Is this suspicion
correct? If so, what university should I move to? Is there, in fact, a
university that might give out scholarships (I'm completely ignorant
when it comes to them) for pure biology? Exactly how much effort would
it take to join a prestigious university like Cambridge, and would it
actually benefit me?

While you may already know this, I stress the fact that university
isn't entirely about learning or doing research work. Even Jeff
Schmidt's Disciplined Minds might* not cover the whole formative (or
degenerative) experience. One of the potential benefits I see would be
that of establishing contacts with people that might later support my
main goal, directly or indirectly. The internet could be a good place
of that as well, but I have no clue where all the good forums are
hiding. Every genetics-related site I can find either talks about the
evils of genetic engineering or the wonders of agriculture.

*I say "might" because I never read the book. Also, since it's
unavailable here in Romania, I'd really like it if someone gave me a
link to a pirated electronic version.

One of the problems I expect to face is that any research made towards
designing a corrected human will need to be either purely theoretical,
or heavily financed. I know very little about economics, and even less
about business, but I do know enough to realize that it would mean
selling my soul to go into it. Therefore, I can either depend on some
entity's funds, or limit myself to the theoretical side of the issue.
The latter would achieve very little, so the only option I can see for
myself is to find some group willing to sponsor the process. I don't
expect to do much on my own... There are so many aspects to the
problem that it would take many people, of many specializations, to
create a solution. Therefore, it would take either a massive project
(which I doubt will ever take place) or a network of smaller ones to
build the foundation of knowledge that would allow the corrected human
to be created. I don't expect tangent research to do much - even if
the corrected human is discovered by coincidence, it also needs to be
enforced, and that's something that must be done intentionally. Maybe
the research would go as far as creating the human itself... But
unless that human also has a genetic property that will miraculously
enable it to correct the genome of its mate, its offspring will simply
sink into the gene pool.

Aside from the social barriers such as the mistrust shown towards
genetics (which can be diffused or even turned against itself -
history is full of examples of blind mistrust being warped into blind
trust), capitalism is a major issue in that regard: the corrected
human, while better for the universe to bear, would go against the
present techniques of capitalism, as it would very likely be
invulnerable to the marketing principles used today. A corrected human
wouldn't buy a bigger car or shinier watch for the sake of his pride,
he wouldn't sheepishly abide the call of fashion, and his buying
habits would have more to do with his objectives than with pleasure.
Since his needs would be reduced, companies would have to appeal to
larger markets, using limited methods. A compromise between the
uniqueness of a person's objectives and the availability of products
would surely be reached, but I doubt it would benefit capitalism in
any way.

Evolution, natural or societal, will never produce a corrected human.
If children could be genetically augmented, they'd receive abilities
like beauty (further condemning the human condition), quick thinking
(though not a willingness to think - the subjects would solve
perceived problems very quickly when they arose, but almost never
think in the absence of such problems), increased physical abilities
(possibly a metabolism that copes with sedentary life), longevity
(which is absolutely grotesque - if people won't evolve as individuals
beyond a certain point in their lives, what's the point of keeping
them alive longer?), a sociable attitude and possibly an ease of
obtaining happiness (again, further condemning the human condition).
In other words, nothing that will correct the individual. Evolved
humans will probably be to the homo sapiens x2 like dinosaurs were to
early reptiles - improvements in efficiency, but not in scope. I
haven't given much thought to whether a corrected human might
naturally emerge in a world of evolved ones, and whether it would
successfully take it over.

My biggest dillema, then, is whether some fiscal powerhouse, such as a
state or corporation, will take the great step forward and bring the
corrected human into the world... While I'm not sure how the modern
corporate world shapes the individual on his way to the level of a
CEO, there have been occourences in history of wealthy individuals
supporting worthy causes, although such things can never be depended
on. If I were to rely on private charity, the problem of funding would
come down to spreading the philosophy of the corrected human, finding
out (after an extensive PR effort) who would want to endorse its
creation and dissemination, then maintaining that person's interest.
This is in fact how public (government-backed) charity would work,
except that I would substitute "person" with "tangled mass of
taxpayers and politicians". The problem here is, why would a state
ever want to finance the creation and dissemination of a corrected
human? Unlike the human genome project, it wouldn't fulfill any
selfish desire for the "improvement" of the human race. To the
contrary, it would make the corrected descendants vastly different
from how present-day humans would intend to be. If psychology can be
trusted, most parents want their children to be precise replicas of
their ideals, and this sentiment may be projected to the species
level.

The intent of creating a corrected human might also suggest to people
that they're obsolete and faulty, which is an unpleasant truth. The
average person would much rather seek improvement than correction, as
the former does not imply any fundamental defect on his part.

This suggests that the correction should be combined with
"improvement" in order to make it feasible for governments and
populations to accept. But if it doesn't contain "improvement" in
itself, and visibly opposes human nature, why would anyone not want to
shave away the correction part and leave only improvement? As
neurology suggests so far, the human mind is constructed in such a way
as to make improvement and correction entirely separate, so it should
be possible, genetically, to construct a human that still follows the
objectives of lower animals, albeit in a way that leaves him happier
and fitter. This is what most people, and probably most governments,
would want. Three questions arise here: how does one fool a population
into thinking that improvement and correction must go together? Easy
answer, I guess... If they're fooled by a Colgate commercial, they can
be fooled by real science. How does one fool a government? That's a
bit tougher, but still easy, thanks to the ammount of specialization
encountered in every science. Now, the hard question... How does one
prevent members of the scientific community from noticing that the
corrections don't need to be developed for the new genome, while a
project to develop an improved and corrected human is underway?
Keeping the project away from public eyes might work, but it would
bring in a lot of new issues.Encouraging a consensus among scientists,
that humankind *must* be corrected, would seem to work at a first
glance... However, I've recognized too much bigotry and timidity in
some scientists to presume that they would ever willingly defy the
laws of nature.

The very existence of such a project presumes that people will be
willing to adhere to government-established genetic standards. In most
developed countries that I know of, healthcare is run completely or in
part by the government, which means the same will likely happen to
genetic engineering. I presume that the governments of developed
countries will do their best to promote the genetic engineering of
humans once it becomes advantageous - in other words, once it proves
to generate benefits that would apparently outweight the costs of
advertising it.

From your experience, how do people see genetics? I'm especially
interested in the paradigms of countries that have progressed in the
field, such as America, France and Britain. Is the hmuan condition, in
terms of genetics, actually being talked about? Am I completely insane
in presuming that I can take part in the process of correcting
humanity? What am I being naive about? I strongly encourage you to
speak your mind about this. If you had the patience to read through
all this, I'll have the patience to accept the harshest of your
comments.

Possibly the most impotant part of my effort in the next few years
will be the direct study of genetics and neurology (I say "possibly"
because I may have as much success preaching the idea as I would have
exploring it). So far, my formal training has been absolutely trivial
- I'm guessing it would take me two weeks to learn what I went through
in two years. Genetics is almost entirely neglected during high
school, and being a young science, it might also be treated poorly at
university, despite showing great promise to the economy. This is why
I need a good list of resources, whether they're free or available in
Romania.

All I know, at this point, are the principles - mendellian laws,
linkage and stuff, a bit on procaryote reproduction, the structures of
the nucleic acids, some types of mutation, a very primitive idea of
how proteins work, vague notions of the translation process and so on.
Nothing profound, nothing remotely interesting. Physics and chemistry
are barely connected to high-school biology, but that will hopefully
improve. Memetics has not been discussed at this point, and neither
has evolutionism (although it will be mentioned briefly later this
year). Cytodifferentiation is completely avoided, and I have yet to
find out what makes a fertilized egg (spherical in shape) evolve into
a human. I suppose it's been the object of much research, but I just
couldn't find any document about it. Beyond that, I'm slightly curious
about the possibility of blueprint tissue - clusters of cells that
would trigger the mechanisms for organ development, allowing the
regeneration and possibly the reconstruction of some organs. If
complex cells could somehow tend simple ones, which would then evolve
in ways determined by chemical stimuli, it would be possible to even
stunt old versions of certain organs, slightly change the genome of
the blueprint tissue and have new organs grow in the old ones' place
(complete with blood vessels and neurons leading from the cells). I'm
mainly talking about organs that are loosely attached to the rest of
the body, like the eye and the pancreas. The heart and kidneys
wouldn't work, since they are strongly integrated in their systems and
perform vital bodily functions. As far as I know, one cannot alter an
organ at its most basic level without dealing with every specific cell
(there are no special "breeder" cells in any organ), which would imply
sending in viruses. Reconstructing the organs might prove to be more
feasible, not to mention more powerful. Blueprint tissue would also
allow one to experiment with new organs on the same organism, and
eliminate the need for most types of organ donation.

I might be completely off with this, and I realize that the ability to
generate neurons in a mature organism is only theoretically true (to
my meager knowledge, no one attempted to do this). Nevertheless, a
discussion on the subject (or a set of links to previous discussions)
would be welcome. At least, I might learn something out of it.

To end this monster of a post, I'll ask a rather awkward question...
How many researchers want to improve humanity, and how many want to
correct it? That's not hard to answer, as I presume many have made
their beliefs public.