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Self-Cognition and Genes

The moment we understand our own mortality, something breaks in the genetic machinery. “We are not our DNA,” as philosopher John Dupre (2004) put it. We are conscious beings, aware of death — and of pleasure. And the two aren’t always aligned.

Genes are biological replicators. They program our bodies, our drives, our instincts — but not our philosophy. Their singular aim is reproduction, even if that requires the suffering of the body they inhabit. Richard Dawkins (1976) called us “survival machines” built by selfish genes.

But what happens when the machine looks into a mirror and sees more than circuitry?

Self-cognition — the ability to reflect on our own existence — creates a rift between what our genes want and what we, as conscious selves, might choose. “A human being is a deciding being,” Sartre famously said (1943/2007). And we may very well decide to stop playing the genetic game.

Reproduction, after all, is not a personal benefit. Once we die, we don’t get a receipt. “Natural selection has no foresight,” explains neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky (2017). It simply favors whatever spreads genes. But pleasure?

And so arises the conflict: our genes want replication; our selves want satisfaction. The former drives us to propagate even through pain. The latter seeks to maximize orgasm and minimize suffering. One may lead to legacy. The other, to joy.

It is this conflict that makes self-cognition possibly maladaptive. We can now opt out of our biological purpose — because we know it's not our purpose. “The gene-centered view of life,” writes Ernst Mayr (2001), “overlooks the autonomy of higher levels of organization.”

And what’s more autonomous than saying: I choose not to reproduce.

Our true interest, logically, is not genetic continuity. It is peak sexual experience — and after that, a comfortable death. That’s the only reward guaranteed to benefit the conscious self. Reproduction may serve the DNA, but self-cognition serves the soul.