16. Antagonistic Pleiotropy and Holiness
The rules of a game almost never change in the middle of a match. Have you ever felt like the rules of life changed somewhere in the middle? This episode explores how the genetic theory of Antagonistic Pleiotropy sheds light on common mistakes in the spiritual life.
Video Version
Audio Version
Timestamps
2:30 - Philosophical Inspiration from Scientific Theories
4:00 - Antagonistic Pleiotropy (AP)
7:30 - An example from science: mTOR
11:00 - Applying this concept to my life
13:00 - Spiritual Antagonistic Pleiotropy
14:00 - Overemphasis on Study
17:45 - Transition to Contemplative Prayer
23:30 - Apply this to your life
“Applying the best insights from faith and reason take us from surviving to thriving.”
“In my view, it was Bohr’s first identification of the wave/particle complementarity of light in physics that led to Dietrich von Hildebrand’s application of the word “complementary” to the relation of the married woman and man.” Sr. Prudence Allen, R.S.M. The Concept of Woman V. III: The Search for Communion of Persons, 1500-2015. 367
The Antagonistic Pleiotropy Hypothesis - “Pleiotropy” is the phenomenon of one gene controlling for more than one phenotypic trait in an organism. Antagonistic Pleiotropy is when one gene controls for more than one trait, where at least one of these traits is beneficial to the organism's fitness early on in life and at least one is detrimental to the organism's fitness later on due to a decline in the force of natural selection. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypothesis
Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) - Gene that encodes for the proteins regulating cell growth, mortality, protein synthesis, and autophagy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTOR
“In the spiritual life there are things that are essential early on that as we progress and get to later stages in the spiritual life, the same things that were essential early on, slowly become less important and eventually problematic”
ERROR - At 14:45 and onward, I misidentified “Procedural Memory” as “Structural Memory”. For more information on Procedural Memory go to https://www.livescience.com/43595-procedural-memory.html
“If formerly it sought sweetness and fervor, and found it, now it must neither seek it nor desire it, for not only will it be unable to find it through its own diligence, but it will rather find aridity, for it turns from the quiet and peaceful blessings which were secretly given it its spirit, to the work that it desires to do with sense; and thus it will lose one and not obtain the other, since no blessings are now given to it by means of sense as they were formerly” St. John of the Cross. Living Flame of Love. Commentary on Stanza III.
“Wherefore in this state the soul must never have meditation imposed upon it, not must it perform any acts, nor strive after sweetness or fervor; for this would be to set an obstacle in the way of the principal agent, who, as I say, is God.” Ibid.
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