4 ms·

What about humans? Are we individual, indivisible beings or are we colonies of cells cooperating as a superorganism? That may sound like a dumb question since

by jbotz 2y ago

What about humans? Are we individual, indivisible beings or are we colonies of cells cooperating as a superorganism? That may sound like a dumb question since our cells are so specialized that they can't survive individually and can't "stop cooperating"... or can they? They can, that's what we call cancer... it's some of our cells rebelling and deciding to do their own thing, and to hell with the superorganism. Of course that isn't all that smart since the cancer will die when we die, right? Well, maybe not... although I don't know of any documented case in humans, some cancers are known to migrate off their original organism and colonize others! An example of this is the tasmanian devil face cancer... it started on one individual and spread to others, the tumors on all infected devils having the genes of the original individual. But what about individual cells? Surely the buck stops there and they are individual, indivisible organisms? Not so fast! Cells of all eucaryotes (that's us) contain "organs" (mitochondria) that were once a separate form of life and still have their own genetic code, completely separate from the nuclear genetic code of our cells. Not only that, but it was recently discovered that they are still independent enough that they can migrate from one cell to another on their own. So, yeah, "individual organism" is an abstract concept that has different meanings at different scales and even at a specific scale is rather fluid. And I think "individual self" (or mind) is like that too, but that's another story...

spratzt 2y ago
This was wonderfully explored in the following paper https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/668166 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/668166
sandworm101 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chimera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chimera It happens, although only when we are at a very early stage of development, a time when we share some traits with jellyfish. The growth of an embryo tracks our evolution. If you ever see a dog, or a person (see the model taylor muhl) with a color split down the middle of their body, there is a reasonable chance they joined with a twin in utero. Absent a color split, no doubt many of us are totally unaware that we may contain multiple gene sets.
gcr 2y ago
You might also like reading about: - A summary of Dan Dennett’s hypothesis that plurality (multiple headmates sharing one body) was common and socially accepted in ancient times: https://meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ https://meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ - A primer from a few Google engineers who are plural and describe what that’s like, complete with anecdata, failure states, etiquette, suggestions for collaboration, etc: https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook Told through the lens of dissociative identity disorder (generalized) as an intuition pump. Audience is “sympathetic teammates who want to learn more” - Plural communities, eg https://www.reddit.com/r/plural/top/ https://www.reddit.com/r/plural/top/ - anecdata of everyday experiences communicated through memes
BurningFrog 2y ago
You can think of identical human twins as one organism with two bodies.

by jbotz 2y ago

spratzt 2y ago

This was wonderfully explored in the following paper https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/668166 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/668166

sandworm101 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chimera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chimera It happens, although only when we are at a very early stage of development, a time when we share some traits with jellyfish. The growth of an embryo tracks our evolution. If you ever see a dog, or a person (see the model taylor muhl) with a color split down the middle of their body, there is a reasonable chance they joined with a twin in utero. Absent a color split, no doubt many of us are totally unaware that we may contain multiple gene sets.

gcr 2y ago

You might also like reading about: - A summary of Dan Dennett’s hypothesis that plurality (multiple headmates sharing one body) was common and socially accepted in ancient times: https://meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ https://meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ - A primer from a few Google engineers who are plural and describe what that’s like, complete with anecdata, failure states, etiquette, suggestions for collaboration, etc: https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook Told through the lens of dissociative identity disorder (generalized) as an intuition pump. Audience is “sympathetic teammates who want to learn more” - Plural communities, eg https://www.reddit.com/r/plural/top/ https://www.reddit.com/r/plural/top/ - anecdata of everyday experiences communicated through memes

BurningFrog 2y ago

You can think of identical human twins as one organism with two bodies.