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Dawkins accounts for desire as a necessary biological impulse required for reproduction andthus the selfish preservation of a self’s own genetic make up, “The evolutionary importance ofthe fact that genes control embryonic development is this: it means that genes are at least partlyresponsible for their own survival in the future, because their survival depends on the efficiencyof the bodies in which they live and which they help to build” (Dawkins 1978 p. 25). He skatesover the issue of incestuous relationships, save where, the mingling of genes to strengthenchances of survival is deemed to be a good thing and less likely if mating occurs with a self thatpossesses the same genetic makeup (i.e. a self’s parents). Damasio’s research prompted him toconclude that the physiological modifications through which a self passes during a stimulusresponseoperation are embedded in memory and are re-enacted when causal stimuli are appliedto the self. “As far as I can fathom, few if any perceptions of any object or event, actuallypresent or recalled from memory, are ever neutral in emotional terms. Through either innatedesign or by learning, we react to most, perhaps all, objects with emotions, however weak, andsubsequent feelings, however feeble” (Damasio 2004 p. 93)This accounts for the repugnance experienced by a victim of abuse who relives their experienceevery time the abuser is present to them whether or not there is physical contact. A comparisoncan be made at this point with the work of Timothy Gallwey, and the suite of books thatemerged from his seminal text, The Inner Game of Golf. Here Barry Green rehearses anexperience familiar to many musicians:“I was a nervous wreck. I felt sick to my stomach and was certain I would forget themusic I had taken such pains to learn. Playing in front of the acknowledged masters inone’s field is hardly the sort of thing that’s conducive to self-confidence and ease. Myhands were sweaty, my knees wobbled (which is a problem when you’re holding a doublebass), my heart was pounding, and I had trouble just breathing comfortably.” (Green &Gallwey, 1986 p.24).52Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)