Humans are extraordinary creatures. We are actually hybrids, collectives, communities of the organisms from which we have evolved, living inside multiple worlds, inhabiting a living planet. Each of us — though we are really not “individuals” in an ontological sense, but we experience ourselves as having thoughts, feelings, etc. that we believe are “our own” — exists within a matrix of living beings that are, in a sense, as much a part of us as we are a part of them. And this is not just a “metaphorical” description; it is also an empirical and scientific one:
Real organisms are like cities: Los Angeles and Paris can be identified by their names, by their city limits, and by the general lifestyles of their inhabitants. But closer inspection reveals that the city itself is composed of immigrants from all over the globe, of neighborhoods, of criminals, philanthropists, alley cats, and pigeons.
Like cities, individual organisms are not Platonic forms with definite borders. They are cumulative beings with self-sufficient subsections and amorphous tendencies. And just as they are composites of species, they are also the working parts of larger super organisms, the largest of which is the planetary patina. An organelle inside an amoeba within the intestinal tract of a mammal in the forest on this planet lives in a world within many worlds. Each provides its own frame of reference and its own reality. (Margulis & Sagan, Microcosmos, 1997 edition, 1986)
We now know that we are a community of cells and bacteria, and that in fact our 37 trillion or so cells are outnumbered three to one by “the vast army of microbes” on whom our life actually depends. (Though some dispute the numbers; but even if the ratio actually 1:1, that’s still 37 trillion or more organisms that are integrally a part of us.1) The human “microbiome” refers specifically to the collective genomes or genetic materials of our resident microorganisms. So we are literally communities of organisms, and are ourselves only a part of larger communities, extending out to the living community that is our planet (or, if you prefer, the biosphere that resides on our planet, though in truth the two are inseparable).
So just what is an “individual” anyway?
Is it the “single” amoeba with its internalized bacteria, or is the “single” bacterium living in the cellular environment which is itself alive? Really the individual is something abstract, a category, a conception. And nature has a tendency to evolve that which is beyond any narrow category or conception. (Microcosmos, p. 123)
Do “I” think, as Descartes held, or should it really be “we” think?
And if we’re really more than single organisms, who distinguish ourselves from each other by names and birth certificates and so on, are we really separable from the biological, social, and cultural matrices in which we exist? Aren’t we inextricably a part of the whole? And if so what does this mean for our lives, our inventions and creations, our conversations and our meanings?
It seems to me that if we take any of this seriously, we are obliged to conclude that we are part of, embedded in, a vast ocean of being and of meaning, and everything that we do or say is a part of this extraordinary saga that is life itself in this far-flung corner of the universe — a universe that is itself expanding, accelerating, evolving and mysteriously composed of both light and “dark energy” and both visible and invisible “dark matter.”
So what does this have to do with the topic we started with, “visions of what’s possible”? What I think it says is that these visions, however seemingly diverse and even divergent, do not exist in a vacuum any more than we do. To the extent to which they are “original,” created in our minds and shared with others, they are extensions of what is known, expansions of what is knowable.
Of course, many if not most of our products, including what we think of as our “creations or inventions,” are just repetitions of what we already know or have said or thought in the past — leading some folks to believe “there’s nothing new under the sun.” Which in one sense is absurd, because every single day is new under the sun.
1 See the latest series of references at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiota.
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