:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Human society as organism

“ “We are evolution’s newest transition from groups of organisms to groups as organisms. Our social groups are the primate equivalent of bodies and beehives.”. ” — David Sloan Wilson, Evolution for Everyone

“ “Many problems that challenge us today can be traced back to a profound tension between what is good and desirable for society as a whole and what is good and desirable for an individual. That conflict can be found in global problems such as climate change, pollution, resource depletion, poverty, hunger, and overpopulation.”. ” — Nowak & Highfield, SuperCooperators

Quote Bank

Eisenstein (2005):

"A key characteristic of healthy body cells is that, like human hunter-gatherers, they completely trust in their environment to provide. Each cell typically sequesters only a tiny amount of glucose within its boundaries, enough for only a few seconds of operation. It trusts in the constant, ongoing supply of food and oxygen from the blood, much as hunter-gatherers eschewed food storage and trusted in the forest (bush, savannah) to provide ongoingly."

"Another key characteristic of a body cell is that it exists by and for cooperation with other cells, and not in competition. No cell campaigns to capture more and more of the body’s resources in pursuit of its own “self-interest”. Instead, a successful cell is one that fulfills its role and function in relation to the whole. Yet, more than a passive executor of a role, each cell also participates in the creation of the whole. Through its biochemical, bioelectric, and other as yet unknown signals, it orchestrates near and distant cells into aiding its own functioning, just as others call upon it to aid them."

“If we imagine a society based on these characteristics, we come up with something very different than that which we know today. In the present society, personal security is perceived to arise from the accumulation of wealth; in a cellular society, it would arise from a strong local community (tissue), a healthy professional community (organ), and a healthy planetary society (body). Such a society would have a money system that discourages hoarding and promotes the flow of resources toward where they are most urgently needed. ... Success in a multicellular society would lie in the perfection of each person’s role and function in the world. The purpose of education would be to create a space for each child to find his passion or her calling, akin perhaps to the mysterious manner in which stem cells differentiate into the 200 or so cell types in the human body. No more would we try to force a child into an occupation other than her calling, than we would attempt to force a liver cell to exercise a stomach cell’s functions.”

Heylighen (2000):

“It is an old idea, dating back at least to the ancient Greeks, that the whole of human society can be viewed as a single organism. Many thinkers have noticed the similarity between the roles played by different organizations in society and the functions of organs, systems and circuits in the body. For example, industrial plants extract energy and building blocks from raw materials, just like the digestive system. Roads, railways and waterways transport these products from one part of the system to another one, just like the arteries and veins. Garbage dumps and sewage systems collect waste products, just like the colon and the bladder. The army and police protect the society against invaders and rogue elements, just like the immune system. ... Individual humans may seem similar to the cells of a social superorganism, but they are still much more independent than ants or cells … This is especially clear if we look at the remaining competition, conflicts and misunderstandings between individuals and groups. Thus human society is still an ambivalent system, balancing between individual selfishness and collective responsibility. In that sense it may be more similar to organisms like slime molds or sponges, whose cells can live individually as well as collectively, than to true multicellular organisms. However, there seems to be a continuing trend towards global integration.”

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (2014):

“All multicellular creatures are descended from single-celled organisms. The leap from unicellularity to multicellularity is possible only if the originally independent cells collaborate. So-called cheating cells that exploit the cooperation of others are considered a major obstacle. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, together with researchers from New Zealand and the USA, have observed in real time the evolution of simple self-reproducing groups of cells from previously individual cells. The nascent organisms are comprised of a single tissue dedicated to acquiring oxygen, but this tissue also generates cells that are the seeds of future generations: a reproductive division of labour. Intriguingly, the cells that serve as a germ line were derived from cheating cells whose destructive effects were tamed by integration into a life cycle that allowed groups to reproduce. The life cycle turned out to be a spectacular gift to evolution. Rather than working directly on cells, evolution was able to work on a developmental programme that eventually merged cells into a single organism. When this happened groups began to prosper with the once free-living cells coming to work for the good of the whole.”

References

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Analogies for Sustainable Development

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