Wanted: Sense and sensibility

Geesh, aside from osteoporosis and breast cancer, it seems that women have another thing to seriously worry about: dates from hell. Okay ladies, I know that we all have had our share of those, but I am talking about those red-eyed monsters from THE "Hell" – as in the eternal deep fry. Well, that is, if you are to believe Fr. Jose Francisco Syquia, a professor of spiritual theology at the San Carlos Seminary and one of the few "designated" exorcists in the local Catholic hierarchy. The Nov. 1 Inquirer news service quoted him saying that "women are prone to demonic possession because they are generally more psychic and intuitive" because women, he said, are "more open to the spiritual world" than men. There are so many things absent in his statements and logic is on top of my list. What does being intuitive necessarily have to do with being "spiritual"? More importantly, what is it about women’s intuition that the exorcist pointed to it as a "welcome mat" sign for the devil to come in and treat a woman’s body and mind as a bed and breakfast? I did not know that my chromosomes being XX presented a promo package that the devil would consider a great bargain stop in his world tour. Hmm, first the glass ceiling, and now this gaping trap hell door. And you all wonder why we women always have this one permanent crease on our faces. It is over statements like that.

I will just go straight to what the neurosciences say about women’s intuition. Brain scans have, indeed, revealed that women generally have larger corpus callosums and large anterior commissures than men. The corpus callosum is that part of the brain that bridges the two hemispheres seeming to facilitate women’s use of both hemispheres in some tasks like in Math, as opposed to men mostly relying on just one. The large anterior commissure is supposed to link those parts of both hemispheres that store our "unconscious" thoughts – "intuition." So ladies, neuroscience journals have not yet mentioned anything about this "bridge" in your brain as the likely flyover that the devil would take. Anyone who insists that simply being a woman renders you as such would be well advised to take a detour to avoid crashes due to leaps in logic.

Both TV and newspapers were obviously visited the past few days by all sorts of features involving spirit-questers, reincarnation specialists, ghost-busters, exorcists etc. While I can understand that these are interesting stuff for TV or print, it is inexcusable as to why media does not even provide the slightest effort to footnote these claims in science along with the supposedly hair-raising stories of these characters. Media, with their the dictum "verify, verify" should always seek independent confirmation of these claims. Otherwise, primetime news should also regularly report whatever is happening in the "spirit world" that the "experts" seem to be the only ones who have ringside seats to.

But before you think I only poke fun at efforts to catch the ethereal stuff above, let me tell you what the marriage of science, business and culture have brought us lately. It is the family tree and like the "date from hell," it is not a metaphor. It is a literal family tree. Some company called Biopresence, as reported in Wired.com recently, is an art venture formed by Shiho Fukuhara and Georg Tremmel, that thought of again another way to immortality by inserting the DNA of the recently dearly departed (not all but only those whose relatives can shell out $35,000) into a plant cell so that when the plant grows into a full-blown tree, every cell in the tree would have the dead person’s DNA. Hmm, WHAT FOR? Is it really news that we will all die and did they all miss out on that science class that says that however we die, we will get recycled back to the Earth at some point and that is the only claim to "physical" immortality anyone could ever have? What bothered me the most in their website is it said, "Biopresence creates Human DNA trees by transcoding the essence of a human being within the DNA of a tree in order to create Living Memorials’ or ‘Transgenic Tombstones.’" The essence of a human being is simply DNA? Genetic essence maybe, but the meaning of being human? We should not confuse our bio-chemical blueprint with our humanity.

In order to have this family tree, a common bacteria (that acts like a FEDEX of DNA to plants) will be "asked" to deliver a dead person’s DNA instead to a plant gene. Then the gene that now contains human DNA will be inserted in that part of the plant that does not change the code for proteins that make the plant the plant that it is, which means you will not have a tree looking like "Granny." This is called a "silent mutation." When that plant cell grows, it will produce all other cells containing that silent mutation. For $35,000 a pop, it is the most money one can pay for a low-profile genetic existence. And if at all this biopresence catches on, when we see people start hugging trees, it may not be to simply protect a tree but also "Granny." I do not know about you but this memorial tree service may clash with those who believe that everything should go when you go permanently out of business. To those who subscribe to this belief, how do you think a dearly departed can really depart if he/she has left some of his/her DNA behind? But look at the bright side. Think of all the extended CSI plots now that they can also look inside trees to find human DNA. Ah well, we always find our way back to entertainment.

Wait, let us not forget the tree, which now has an adulterated identity (not "genetically modified" as Biopresence maintains). As if the threats that trees face from deforestation and climate change are not enough, here we are trying to "possess" trees. So here we are, moving from being possessed by devils to "possess" plants in turn. And if this happens, not far behind am sure will be exorcists who specialize in "possessed" trees. Ah Pumba, the circle of life… and careers.

I myself have been asked all sort of questions about the spirit world the past few days and I do not know why. This is my 168th column and I have learned many things writing these past years but none approaching the level of any competency in matters concerning ghosts, reincarnation, demonic possessions, alien abductions, apparitions and the like that the experts I have seen on TV claim they have. So, please go ask them instead.

I personally find it very amusing at how we humans, particularly cultures like ours, ingratiate ourselves with so-called "expert opinions" that overtake explanations that simply make much more sense. When we talk about the universe, why are we only interested in aliens and UFOs? I am usually asked if aliens have already sent us messages and I always say "yes." And when asked what the aliens said, I always shift to a serious look, gather breathfuls of momentum, bend over to his/her ear and say in a cool collected voice: "Ma’am dvd…dvd Ma’am...dvd...dvd..." Some have carried their awe over our space travel capabilities too far and have been selling titles to the Moon. Okay, I can imagine wackos selling them but buying them? Apparently, there are. A physicist and I joked that maybe we should set up a tollgate at the Lagrange Point (all spaceships that go to the Moon pass this zero-gravity point in a Figure 8 path from the Earth). Investors, anyone? Mike?

Why and when did "sense" take such a backseat in our sense of wonder? One aspect of beauty that I so deeply admire is the sparkling clarity of thought. Amid the running muck of superstition, or the overwhelming political, economic or religious power of those who invoke that only they can see or hold the truth (whatever it is), or the tempting ease to just go with the cascading flow of nonsense, when you can still dip your mind in all that and then sift and filter and grind, to come up with a few choice grains of logic and incisive perspective that could lift you from being a perpetual slave to your DNA or to some voodoo – that is no less than beautiful than a tree or poetry about it. Give it a voice and listen to it.

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