/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2770227]

So, /sci/, this question has been bothering me since middle school biology..
Our bodies are made of 60 trillion cells.
Each cell is a living organism.
Are we actually one living creature or a colony of 60 trillion living creatures? And how do you justify your answer?

[‮ suomynonA‪‪‪‮‪‪‬‬‬‬‬ No.2770239]

We're meatbags, nothing more.

[Anonymous No.2770242]

nah the cells would die if they didn't have eachother, they are far, far to differentiated and specialized to have any essential individuality.

[Anonymous No.2770251]

obviously we're 1 living creature because it's not like you just piled 60 trillion yeast cells or e. coli cells or any other unicellular organism into a tube. All our cells (minus any cancerous cells, etc.) work in concert from the 1 cell stage with each cell having a specialization forming organs and all that.

[Anonymous No.2770254]

read prey by michael crichton

[Anonymous No.2770257]

>>2770242
but so does every other living being on earth.
For example, Pandas would die without bamboo, lice die without blood.

[Anonymous No.2770273]

>>2770251
a bee or ant colony also works in a highly organised, orchestrated way. WIth its various elements working to support the whole. Can they be seen as one organism too?

[Axel the Possum No.2770294]

>>2770227

Organism or colony? Why not both?

Just because we are identifiable as one entity doesn't mean we aren't also a conglomeration. I am me, I am composed of trillions of smaller entities that are dwarfed immensely in every way by comparison to the whole.

Corporations are similar concepts; they are a single entity composed of many, many smaller entities whose individual importance rapidly diminishes compared to the whole.

There's no need for the definitions to be mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous No.2770299]

>>2770273
No, because they may be small, but they are not small microscopic simply coded tiny biological machines.
They are also a combination of these tiny biological machines, which are all separated apart from each other, and simply work together because of how they evolved to do it and etc.

[Anonymous No.2770304]

>>2770294
hmm, profound philosophical consequences though

[Axel the Possum No.2770348]

>>2770304

Like what? Consciousness as an emergent property of the brain is hardly a new idea, nor is the representation of humans as hands or organs of some larger entity. The coming together of small things in something far larger is a common trope of life as far back as the beginning, when the non-living components of cells began to merge together.

It's interesting, perhaps even profound, but consequences? I don't see how it's any more consequential to philosophy than the discovery that consciousness lies in the brain and can be altered.