Mindful Evolution: Can You Guide What Your Genes Are Doing?

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Rudolph E. Tanzi, PhD

 

Past and FutureHuman beings are unique in the scenario of life on Earth–that much is obvious. We are guided by awareness, and to implement our wishes, dreams, and inventions, the higher brain (chiefly the cerebral cortex) has evolved to extraordinary proportions. Although classical Darwinism is mindless, and staunchly defended as such by strict materialists, Homo sapiens is no longer caught in the clutches of natural selection. As we saw in the first post of this series, human society is very different from the state of nature. Chimpanzees don’t get their food at the grocery store, and we don’t get ours by fighting with rivals in the treetops.

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'I Am the Master of My Fate' — A New Take on Free Will

By Deepak Chopra

master

Back when schoolchildren regularly read uplifting poetry, there was a famous Victorian poem that affirmed the human birthright of free will. It was “Invictus,” by W. E. Henley and began:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

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Big Idea 2014: You Will Transform Your Own Biology

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers pick one big idea that will shape 2014. See all the ideas here.

By Deepak Chopra, MD and  Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D.

To date, one of biology’s greatest achievements, mapping the human genome, is only just beginning to translate into medical advances. But in 2014 there will likely be more headlines about another type of study in genetics that is already impacting everyone. (more…)