From the CHIASmus archive: April 27, 2020 . "VIRUSES. UNDEAD PATHOGENS: THE BORROWER AND DESTROYER OF LIFE. (PART 2)"

 April 27, 2020

(Image from:  Yellow Fever 1793.  philahistory.org)

If a virus is basically an undead gene machine, that requires to be activated when it infects the living host, then its evolutionary reasoning as an invading mechanism remains apart of the overall mystery of this entity.  The research and origins of these pathogens continues, with a foreknowledge of extensive research into the single living cell of the bacterium, that also spreads as a deadly pathogen, responsible for the Black Plague, which devastated Europe in 1300's and other plagues/pandemics throughout history.  However it is the microscopic virus, although it has existed for billions of years, has only researched and discovered in the last 200 hundred years is by far the most deadly and illusive.  A replicator of DNA and the single and more unstable RNA, its evolution and purpose still holds an enigma.  Yet, it has evolved without any consciousness, intelligence or biological reasoning to infect living cells and in most cases, destroying them in the process.  

A virus does this mercilessly, as scientists studying an outbreak try to reveal the DNA coding in observing the virus replication process of inserting its coding into the host cells.  More importantly is the race to find a vaccine, if the argument posed by some in the virology community is that a virus is by natural design a necessary remodeler of genomes through the billions of years of history, that somehow a virus has compounded itself in assisting in the web of life.  Speculative theory by some researchers, that outweighs the detriment that a virus is capable of eradicating not only infected host, but also its self.  Further implying these viral entities maybe inherently self destructive.  In biology and its research, there maybe a cold detachment, but reality is the suffering these microscopic carriers of disaffected DNA creates.  It is hard to find any mentation that viral entities hold a biological significance to lifeforms.  

However it is the social implications of wide spread infection, despite the biological similarities of what virus DNA may entail, if we look at it in a logical manner, is devoid of any purpose apart from infection. Even its sole reason as an intrinsic perpetuation to replicate cells within its evolutionary framework, once these microscopic entities infect a larger populous of humanity, it throws civilization into utter chaos. 

There is a philosophical and sociological aspect here that can't be ignored, an undead compound of DNA, needs life to animate, whilst poisoning the biology of cells, these microcosmic carriers therefor become the deepest fear of humanity.  But, also through an irrationality of those fears, it exasperates the crisis. 

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(A.Glass 2020)