It is also in this sense that the contemporary biologist speaks of writing and pro-gram in relation to the most elementary processes of information within the living cell.
—Jacques Derrida (1976)
A gene is an evolving text. Let us represent it by X. Its most recent version, X0 was a choice of nature in which X1 + ∆1 was chosen and X1 – ∆1 erased where X1 was a prior sameness and ±∆1 a prior difference. (In mathematical parlance, ∆ is the symbol of difference and ± the union of positive and negative in the interchange of sign.) The deconstruction of X is iterative because X1 was itself a prior choice in which X2 + ∆2 was chosen and X2 – ∆2 erased. Thus, X0 can be deconstructed as (X1 + ∆1), which can be deconstructed as ((X2 + ∆2) + ∆1), which can be deconstructed as ((X3 + ∆3) + ∆2) + ∆1) and so on to the nth degree of deconstruction:
(((((((Xn + ∆n) + ∆n–1) + ∆n–2) + ∆n–3) . . . + ∆3) + ∆2) + ∆1).
At the nth-level of bracketing of the text, the originary text Xn is a minor term in the accumulation of differences and could itself be further deconstructed as a sum of earlier differences. The text is a blank, struck between hammer and anvil, that bears an impress of past choices (ΣΔ) and erasures (–ΣΔ) where Σ signifies summation. The trace of differance (±ΣΔ) is the value of the coin. This mathematical model sentence is an undisciplined metaphor of meaning of a gene, an evolving text that never comes to closure and is interpreted anew at each writing reading. Choices and erasures are not values on a line The tense of the text, the progressive present of being written, is poised between the past perfect of has been rewritten and future imperfect of will be rewritten. A sense of the text unfolds as being read.
Le champ de l’étant, avant d’être déterminé comme champ de présence, se structure selon les diverses possibilités—génétiques et structurales—de la trace. (Derrida 1967, 69)
The field of the entity being, before being determined as the field of presence, is structured according to the diverse possibilities—genetic and structural—of the trace. (Spivak translation of Derrida 1976 2016, 51)
In an early rewriting of the previous chapter, I adopted “text” to designate “an interpretation intended to be interpreted.” I was vaguely aware that theories of the text were central to recent scholarship in the humanities, but this was a literature of which I was poorly informed. After my text stabilized, I borrowed a copy of Of Grammatology (Derrida 1976) to gain a sense of what its author had to say about texts. An early impression was that Derrida and I were writing about the same relations in different language. Were genes the originary arche-writing, the first durable institutions of signs? Could Derrida and Dawkins be on the same page with a shared concern for the centrality of inscription?
Derrida rejected the idea that we have immediate access to something exterior that is presented to consciousness as being. He wrote of the writing and rewriting of texts. Daniel Dennett similarly rejected a Cartesian theater, the mythic place in the brain where experience is presented as consciousness. He wrote that there was no canonical text, just multiple drafts subject to endless revision. Could Derrida and Dennett be secret bedfellows with a shared dedication to the deconstruction of consciousness? Both play with self-touching arousals of self.
All living things have the power of auto-affection. And only a being capable of symbolizing, that is to say of auto-affecting, may let itself be affected by the other in general. Auto-affection is the condition of an experience in general. This possibility—another name for “life”—is a general structure articulated by the history of life, and provides a space for complex and hierarchical operations. (Derrida 1976, 165)
We can speculate that the greater virtues of sotto voce talking to oneself would be recognized, leading later to entirely silent talking to oneself. The silent process would maintain the loop of self-stimulation, but jettison the peripheral vocalization and audition portions of the process, which weren’t contributing much. (Dennett 1991, 197)
My distaste for a terminological distinction between “adaptation” as original function and “exaptation” as supplemental function is akin to Derrida’s rejection of originary meaning. Derrida wrote, “A meditation upon the trace should undoubtedly teach us that there is no origin, that is to say simple origin: that questions of origin carry with them a metaphysics of presence” (2016, 80). The search for original sense is the insistence upon a definitive answer to the question of the chicken or the egg. It is the demand for a univocal reading of a poem. It is the desire to assign blame and justify grievance in recursive recriminations of “he started it.”
At a very late stage of composition of my book, I discovered I would not be the first, if ever there is a first, to detect a strong subtext of biology in Derrida. Francesco Vitale’s (2018) Biodeconstruction is structured around a seminar taught by Derrida in 1975 on François Jacob’s Logic of Life, but a close reading of Vitale’s close reading of Derrida’s close reading of Jacob’s interpretation of life shall be deferred. Some readers will protest that I have misread Derrida, but I imagine him jumping to my defense. Texts have no meaning outside of interpretation. My text is a reading of Derrida’s text being rewritten as you read. With due deference, “Jacques Derrida” is not (otherwise) present in this text, but his traces are everywhere.
(Genes (Memes (Memories (are inscriptions of the) personal) cultural) evolutional) past.