The Perlegen Genotype Code

Well, we've come one step closer to Baudrillard's concept of human as code. Perlegen Sciences revealed today "a map of genetic variation across populations." (Guterman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/02/2005021805n.htm) The map suggests that "many diseases and medicines affect people differently, at least in part because of variation in genes. " (Guterman)

While the media suggests that there is an initial fear that this data will perpetrate some racial stereotypes, Perlegen Sciences suggests otherwise saying that "71 individuals do not represent all of the genetic diversity of their races, and that genetic differences would exist between any two small groups of people."

Perlegen even called their research a "'bar code' to predict the susceptibility of a given person to cancer, for instance, or whether a drug would lower an individual's blood pressure." (Guterman)

Baudrillard suggests that we cannot truly understand reality. In fact, there is no reality per se, just a code or system of signs of the real that we substitute for the real. As a result, we are encoded to act certain ways or understand the world in certain ways primarily through technology and language. In Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard suggests that cloning delineates the human being into code. You are no longer unique or special; you are a series of genetic code that can be exactly replicated and reproduced in every way. Therefore, if an exact clone can be made of you, what qualitatively makes you the real and original person?

This recent discovery by Perlegen Sciences disturbingly accents Baudrillard's idea. We can determine how you will react to medicine and disease. We can map it out and predict it. The map or representation will become more real than your actual existence. You are nothing but prescient code. If you visit the Perlegen website, you can see their genotype browser (http://genome.perlegen.com/browser/index.html) where your race is now visually represented as code.

However, almost as if to stave off the existential desperation that can come across as a result of this discovery (and of course the possible racial implications), Perlegen says that their findings aren't exactly predictable. We could be wrong...but we're also possibly right. Their findings are true...yet untrue...real...yet unreal.

The end of individuality. The end of chance...mystery...the imaginary...reality. The end of humanism.

The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski

I was reading The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning (an online journal of higher education [go figure] issues and discussion you can find at http://chronicle.com/), and read an interesting article on the films of Krzystof Kieslowski and the moral philosophy of Charles Taylor (a Canadian btw). I have actually never seen any of Kieslowski's films, that include The Decalogue series and the Three Colours Trilogy (Blue, White, and Red). But after reading this article, I'm highly intrigued to go to Generation X (our local arthouse film store) and find them. Apparently they deal with deeper issues of isolation, subjectivity, community, and morality. Kieslowski's characters search for transcendence, some sense of the divine, and some reason to hold on to metaphysical moral narratives.

Here's an excerpt from that article:

"In his films, Kieslowski raises all sorts of philosophical puzzles, but he does so less through explicit dialogue than through complex artistry -- the silent framing of what initially appear to be isolated objects, the imageless presentation of sound, the tendency toward abstraction in the use of colors and objects, and the subtle interweaving of lives and plots. In those and other ways, Kieslowski's films enhance our appreciation of moral and metaphysical phenomena in ways philosophical argument cannot."

The Chronicle is actually offering a free month, so you may be able to sign up for it. It may be the only way you can read the articlle. But check it out and see what you think.

Kieslowski will be some of my next viewing...right after I see Napoleon Dynamite of course (see previous post I am a liger...)