Upon reading a little into a recently published review on panspermia, I am actually quite impressed by the intellectual rigor of the field. They have not yet uncovered anything truly definitive, but I will remark they have something of a foothold in the science of life’s origin. The notion that life began perhaps independently on this planet but was complicated by billions of years of infections and contaminations from space seems outrageous, but there does seem to be some strange incentive to believe in the galactic shuffle. Once it had been demonstrated that certain viruses could withstand the profound volatility of exiting orbit, my suspicions were given credence. For it was long understood that viruses, along with certain prokaryotes, could withstand the most impossible conditions. Once orbit and subsequent space travel were no longer an issue, the ever renewed insistence that bacteria recovered from the remains of meteoroids were cosmic in origin seemed worthy of consideration.
I know nothing for certain, but it seems outrageous that there would be no life outside of our planet. I imagine the entire universe is a thick swarm of prokaryotic life. Perhaps there are a few Oggs and Humbos out there too, but I suspect the possibility of motor-type cells infused into larger cells and their subsequent combined advantage over ambient conditions is generally quite low. In any case, viruses, being so simple in design while also being information-dense, seem a perfect candidate for extraterrestrial life. For the beautiful thing of viruses is that until exposed to a living organism, or perhaps some other sort of viral prey, they can remain in a sort of crystalline stage for impeccable stretches of time. They are frozen in a perfect geometry. Perhaps this is what life is in the universe. A million statues awaiting incorporation. There is nothing quite as erotic as the virus. The classic structure of the adenovirus surprisingly yields no Pornhub results: but it should. For the adenovirus looks like a thick loogie hocked into infinity. Its Nickelodeon splatter is a tremendous scar upon existence.
I am grateful that so much of the human genome has been tainted by these primordial sex-gods. A fair amount of DNA is the reproduced remainder of either coding or non-coding retroviral events, more than we can say for the pathetic genome, that C+ attempting at graduating, that worthless diploma. There is nothing more delightful than knowing that huge stretches of your very essence are the sick aftermath of cosmic alien sex. To peer into one’s soul is to see spilled wine glasses, puke, used condoms, cigarette butts: the aftermath of the Orgy.
Perhaps this is best understood by going deeper and deeper into the past. Let us look at the nautilus. The authors of the paper on panspermia remark that as one transitions from Nautilus to Squid to Octopus, there are Herculean leaps in the genetic code. For example, later Cephalopods such as the Octopus, when compared to the Nautili, have highly conserved conversion of Adenosine to Inosine within their mRNA sequences. I stare at the representations of the molecules, perceiving that the guanidine moiety has been transformed into an amide. Not impossible, but also not predictable. Biologically, this is extremely unusual, as the authors demonstrate that the vast majority of species do not have mutation numbers anywhere near as widespread as those of the Octopus. It is not certain how this animal was perturbed, but it would not be entirely surprising to discover it was the artistry of some fine celestial virus. There are, of course, other solutions to this dilemma, such as a small population size that allowed for highly convergent evolutionary sequences, or the octopi being true and blue aliens in the sense that their cryo-preserved eggs fell from heaven into the murky deep, but I am most attached to the retroviral explanation.
For when I learned that a significant aspect of human consciousness was contingent upon the infection of the Arc virus, I recognized the profound importance of sickness in the progress of the race. Indeed, although viruses should be taken as the classical invader, what is most hilarious is that the effects of violent genetic rape are indistinguishable from the tried and true course of Darwinian progress. The supposed “selection” for life is marred constantly by externality. All life is the blown-out aftermath of viral scribbling. The line between independent systems and their reference, is, as ever, perverted. There is only sickness, only disease. Disease being propelled forward by other diseases.
In the beginning, there was presumably one ape that really seemed to have struck gold. It began to act in a way that struck the other apes as profound. This is far in advance of Nietzsche’s slave revolt, but it is a similar process. There is a radical individuality brewing, coming out of nowhere like the wind bearing a mid-summer storm. All the other apes are staring at this ape. They cannot keep their eyes off it. “Let’s fuck the freak” the apes would seem to indicate, and what could have been either a polygamous or monogamous intercourse ensued. The mute apes looked back at both themselves and their former partners, and were overcome with feelings of acedia. But when they saw the mutant ape, hissing, hussing, making noise like a freak, they all wanted to fuck it. Every ape converging on a single body, a total erotic nightmare. Or perhaps some of the apes wanted to fuck the sick ape and others thought the sick ape was disgusting. Who knows! It is possible that this mute-sick correspondence was complicated by a factor that is more or less the uncle of the Oedipal relationship. For this was an early stage in Oedipal contact. Perhaps the viruses necessary for the full blown agony of the nuclear family were yet to plummet from space. At this point, mute ape fucks sick ape and perhaps by some light of God produces another ape that bears the dominant genes of the sick ape. Mute ape may fuck its sick ape offspring, or maybe the sick ape offspring will become infatuated with the sick ape parent, and so there will be a collective pursuit of the original, like delusional idiots crowding around an auction house for a Picasso. Yes, these weird ancestors of the Oedipus relation may have brewed. And to think that there was still no language at the time! Indeed, the apes were still caught in a pre-linguistic glue-huffing. These sick apes were beyond conception. All in all, I am not entirely sure that I buy the panspermic thesis. It is a viable option, but I am always happy to accept the LUCA hypothesis. There is nothing better than knowing that the whole tragedy of existence was contained to a dumb rock floating in nothing.