Extract from Organisium:
“At any given instant, all the beings of earth may be said to be symbionts; related and interdependent in arising, persisting, and in all living activity; comprising a wholism from which emerges a verifiable and concretely observable self-awareness, intention, cognition, and sentience, arising on a planetary scale. It is an awareness which is not only available to every living being here in some domain, but also forms, in a real sense, an aspect of the basic physical and cognitive structure of any living form which evolved or exists here.”
I believe that we are more importantly interconnected than separate. But why limit ourselves to the planetary scale? The universe→omniverse scale seems a more fitting extent for the context of wholism. Being conscious of our co-symbiants doesn’t appear to be necessary for the symbiosis to exist.
The parts of any whole cannot exist and cannot be understood except in their relation to the whole.
“The parts of any whole cannot exist and cannot be understood except in their relation to the whole.”
The more I think about it, the more important I realize it is… Expanding our model to include ever grander supersets just feels right.
“Being conscious of our co-symbiants doesn’t appear to be necessary for the symbiosis to exist.”
I think that's because consciousness, as in the awareness of co-symbiants, is just one possible by-product of life/symbiosis and not necessarily present in all manifestations of it, thus not always necessary.
Deep post:)
Life, if split up and taken as constituent parts (as in, for example, a cell) may not necessarily be fully conscious. However, if we take the perspective that life is the conglomerate of all these parts symbiotically being, wouldn't complete awareness / consciousness be de facto?
Is it meaningful to take an ever-smaller slice of the whole and question whether awareness remains?
I can imagine many overlapping scales of awareness between states of broader awareness and more constrained awarenesses. Near the center of a given zone of influence, both levels are aware of one another. As we move away to either direction, awareness fades.
To illustrate — With attention, the bodymind can be aware of one of its organs, say the heart. The bodymind can be conscious of its action to some degree. Conversely, the heart has some awareness of its host, responding as it does to the host's activity and environment. If we consider some of the heart's components, let's say cells – could we say the same about the bodymind's awareness of a particular cell, or vice-versa? Or humanity's awareness of a particular protein? But perhaps a cell could be said to be aware of a protein as it docks into one of its receptors…
While awareness / consciousness would appear to have some scale range about itself, it would seem not to be the full spectrum.
So, even the highest consciousnesses are unconscious of its distant sub-parts? What does that say about the wholeism?
Life, if split up and taken as constituent parts (as in, for example, a cell) may not necessarily be fully conscious. However, if we take the perspective that life is the conglomerate of all these parts symbiotically being, wouldn't complete awareness / consciousness be de facto?
Is it meaningful to take an ever-smaller slice of the whole and question whether awareness remains?
I can imagine many overlapping scales of awareness between states of broader awareness and more constrained awarenesses. Near the center of a given zone of influence, both levels are aware of one another. As we move away to either direction, awareness fades.
To illustrate — With attention, the bodymind can be aware of one of its organs, say the heart. The bodymind can be conscious of its action to some degree. Conversely, the heart has some awareness of its host, responding as it does to the host's activity and environment. If we consider some of the heart's components, let's say cells – could we say the same about the bodymind's awareness of a particular cell, or vice-versa? Or humanity's awareness of a particular protein? But perhaps a cell could be said to be aware of a protein as it docks into one of its receptors…
While awareness / consciousness would appear to have some scale range about itself, it would seem not to be the full spectrum.
So, even the highest consciousnesses are unconscious of its distant sub-parts? What does that say about the wholeism?