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Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

nautil.us

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Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#51

Post by tomrod »

benaadams wrote: post #42
banachtarski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do. If you bothered to read the article, it makes a point that the communication speed between the components would be slow enough (even at light speed signaling) that the age of the universe would not have permitted sufficient time for such an organism to evolve and do anything.

> Given that our brains are composed of neurons, which are themselves, in essence, specialized cooperative single-cell organisms Don't humans to a degree fulfill this role; the mass behavior of the species (recently) acting as form of brain with emerging self-awareness of the galaxy/universe; since we study it, and are also part of it?

I argue against this idea. Part of our sapience is that our neurons can coherently aggregate into specific thoughts leading to choices (and actions performed on those choices). What would the nature of supersapience be? Just sapience, so a single human brain is a holon.

Behavior can be influenced by others, but will isn't superceded by a crowd.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#52

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

It's a different topic, but related. I was marveling at the diversity of life on Earth, which led me wonder: to what extent does sustained life on Earth depend on that diversity? I.e., what would be required or different for a planet to host and sustain a single species of life?

Given the nature of evolution, and that one subscribes to it, life on Earth started with a single organism that replicated. From that point until a replication modified the organism into a different species, there would have been one species. But was it necessary to have multiple species in order to sustain life?

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#53

Post by alexpetralia »

Does a group of people have an emergent consciousness in its own right that no one person can individually experience?

Perhaps certain parts of the brain too "think" they are conscious but can't individually experience the same consciousness we as people experience.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#54

Post by heckerhut »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #52

It's a different topic, but related. I was marveling at the diversity of life on Earth, which led me wonder: to what extent does sustained life on Earth depend on that diversity? I.e., what would be required or different for a planet to host and sustain a single species of life? Given the nature of evolution, and that one subscribes to it, life on Earth started with a single organism that replicated. From that point…

Yes. Evolution is actually its own evidence. Biological evolution evolved out of necessity. Without constantly changing evolutionary pressures exerted by an organism's external environment there would be no need for evolution and it therefore wouldn't have evolved.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#55

Post by benaadams »

tomrod wrote: post #51
benaadams wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that our brains are composed of neurons, which are themselves, in essence, specialized cooperative single-cell organisms Don't humans to a degree fulfill this role; the mass behavior of the species (recently) acting as form of brain with emerging self-awareness of the galaxy/universe; since we study it, and are also part of it?

I argue against this idea. Part of our sapience is that our neurons can coherently aggregate into specific thoughts leading to choices (and actions performed on those choices). What would the nature of supersapience be? Just sapience, so a single human brain is a holon. Behavior can be influenced by others, but will isn't superceded by a crowd.

> Behavior can be influenced by others, but will isn't superceded by a crowd.

It often is by governments though. Also judging by polling on small sample sets, which often match whole population elections they do coherently aggregate; and then those governments make laws which incarcerate or penalize going against them.

Also isn't that the nature of science to provide coherent aggregation of knowledge that is agreed upon (though testable hypothesizes). Which is generally different from government policy, which usually doesn't use evidence based decision making in the scientific sense.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#56

Post by dogma1138 »

samstave wrote: post #24
dwaltrip wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, quantum entanglement doesn't allow for affecting causality faster than the speed of light. So that doesn't solve the problem. Your comment doesn't really give accurate credit to the current state of knowledge.

What if quantum entanglement is simple an indicator that there is another way to send information - but we haven't discovered that function of that mechanism to do so yet?

Possibly, but then it would break relativity and potentially a lot of other things.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#57

Post by adrianratnapala »

tsunamifury wrote: post #39

It's answer of "No" is predicated on two assumptions: that the lifeform is not colonial in nature and that time is not a localized phenomenon. While on the surface that later assumption might sound absurd, our universe could very well be a Local Bubble of time. Time could even be a biological function of a higher dimensional being that is the size of the universe. There is also no way to disprove that without observi…

If time were a different thing somewhere else, then physics in that somewhere else would very different, and our local concept of spatial size and even mass would not be applicable. So you still wouldn't have a life form "the size" of Galaxy.

But you would still have something just as remarkable.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#58

Post by necessity »

tsunamifury wrote: post #39

It's answer of "No" is predicated on two assumptions: that the lifeform is not colonial in nature and that time is not a localized phenomenon. While on the surface that later assumption might sound absurd, our universe could very well be a Local Bubble of time. Time could even be a biological function of a higher dimensional being that is the size of the universe. There is also no way to disprove that without observi…

Given no context I would have guessed that this comment was made on a Star Trek fan forum.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#59

Post by idlewords »

heckerhut wrote: post #54
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #52

It's a different topic, but related. I was marveling at the diversity of life on Earth, which led me wonder: to what extent does sustained life on Earth depend on that diversity? I.e., what would be required or different for a planet to host and sustain a single species of life? Given the nature of evolution, and that one subscribes to it, life on Earth started with a single organism that replicated. From that point…

Yes. Evolution is actually its own evidence. Biological evolution evolved out of necessity. Without constantly changing evolutionary pressures exerted by an organism's external environment there would be no need for evolution and it therefore wouldn't have evolved.

That's the opposite of an evolutionary argument. Evolution is not teleological, it doesn't arise to meet a need.

It's a kind of feedback loop in low-entropy systems that given enough time can produce interesting phenomena, including this message board.

Re: Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?

#60

Post by oblib »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #52

It's a different topic, but related. I was marveling at the diversity of life on Earth, which led me wonder: to what extent does sustained life on Earth depend on that diversity? I.e., what would be required or different for a planet to host and sustain a single species of life? Given the nature of evolution, and that one subscribes to it, life on Earth started with a single organism that replicated. From that point…

"life on Earth started with a single organism that replicated."

I would tend to ponder that life in it's simplest form is not singular and never has been and this is the cause of evolution.

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