White blood cell chasing bacteria

[Simon Adams]

Well said. Also endogastric bacteria, etc members of an organism which don't share same exact DNA, can function in symbiotic harmony with an organic whole, as well as manifest various levels of disagreement and autonomy.

Yes I’m not sure what endogastric bacteria is, maybe the ‘probiotics’ that our systems rely on? But even if you look at the mitochondria in each cell that has it’s own DNA and yet functions completely holistically as an intrinsic part of the overall ‘creature’...

[SanteriSatama]

Yes I’m not sure what endogastric bacteria is, maybe the ‘probiotics’ that our systems rely on?

I've often amused myself thinking that we are just biotic space suits that our bacterial overlords build to protect themselves, after nasty plants poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen.

[Simon Adams]

I've often amused myself thinking that we are just biotic space suits that our bacterial overlords build to protect themselves, after nasty plants poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen.

All those anaerobic creatures waiting in the background, running health magazines advising us to consume antioxidants

I personally think it’s the fungi lords-of-decay waiting to take over. That Penicillin trojan horse was the first salvo, clearing our digestive system of all defences. Just wait until they’ve finished their revenge on the trees...

[SanteriSatama]

I personally think it’s the fungi lords-of-decay waiting to take over. That Penicillin trojan horse was the first salvo, clearing our digestive system of all defences. Just wait until they’ve finished their revenge on the trees...

That battlefront sounds like more of a mixed bag. Trees feed mycorriza fungi with sugar, and fungi likes sugar. I'm not sober enough to have a good grasp of all the stuff that goes on in the soil, but the yeast and sugar business suggests it's quite a drunken feast.

[AshvinP]

I also think you have to have something at the level of the cell. For it to work each cell needs some kind of sub-telos, as the alternative is the subconscious is in some ways co-ordinating the cells in the body, which doesn’t seem right from an idealism or biology perspective. What are the autonomous functions in idealism? I can think of multiple thoughts at the same time, but this is not like that.

There is then the sense in which the whole is brought together as one body under the ‘soul’, like an army with a general, a hunting pack with an alpha, an orchestra with a conductor etc. The soul is the higher level unity, but the heart is not aware of the same things the kidney is etc, all the way down the hierarchy.

In fact if you look inside the cell, you have something similar. The cell walls actively control access, the mitochondria produces the right right amount of energy consistently, the proteins move about to get to where they’re needed. This too is like parts with their own sub telos.

With cancel of course the problem is that the cells forget about sacrifice, their sub-telos is stuck on survival, and aligned to the telos of the wider body.

Cancer happens when the sub-telos doesn’t switch to

Well said. Also endogastric bacteria, etc members of an organism which don't share same exact DNA, can function in symbiotic harmony with an organic whole, as well as manifest various levels of disagreement and autonomy.

BK's latest interview is relevant here. Early on he discusses the notion that "structure and function by themselves suggest nothing about what it is like 'to be' something". He frequently raises this point in the context of AI - "we should not expect a perfect computer simulation of kidney function to start peeing on our desks". I think it's also relevant to this question of which cells correspond to alter subject perspective and which do not. Perhaps it is a meaningless question from idealist perspective, because it assumes we can deduce the precise nature of interiority from outer appearances. Perhaps the only way to discern that is to actually experience the relations between alters.

[Lou Gold]

There are some pretty interesting representations and speculations here >>>

[Simon Adams]

There are some pretty interesting representations and speculations here >>>

Yes viruses are a different level altogether. Is there something it feels like to be a virus?? It’s an interesting question that bizarrely (ultra speculation alert!), you could argue supports Bernardo’s position. You could think of a virus as a single, simple, distributed entity. It only really has any biological representation in combination with another creature. It hijacks it’s hosts in a way that optimises it’s telos to survive, but always remain separate from the hosts.

I’m not sure that this is feasible, but you certainly have different ways that you can look at things like this from an idealism perspective.

One thing that’s interesting with viruses is that whether or not you get infected is not just related to your immunity. We do have an innate immune system that can respond to any pathogen (as opposed to the adaptive that specialises on each pathogen), but there is another factor that no one really understands. There is speculation that it’s related to something more like the psychology of the person than any innate immune response. Together with the likes of the placebo effect, there are a few areas of medicine where idealism gives you grounds for medical theories that would just not be credible under physicalism.