Where exactly are you within your body? How would you define you? What makes you, you? What makes me, me? Where exactly am I within my body? Who am I? What type of being am I?
There are of course all sorts of ways to answer these questions, but for now I am most interested in answering the question from a biological/emergent perspective. An emergent perspective would note that I am a real living being made up of trillions upon trillions of atoms. These atoms come and go and yet I continue. It is likely that I am at this moment composed of completely different atoms than I was only seven years ago, and yet I still recognize myself, and I am completely recognizable to all my friends and family.
Of the atoms that make up my body exactly none of them are alive. These not alive atoms in certain combinations become proteins which are also not alive. The proteins can form together and become a part of a cell that is alive. These cells die and are shed from my body all the time, by the millions, and yet I remain myself.
These cells make up different organs, and the different organs make up the different systems of my body. My respiratory system, circulatory, digestive, endocrine … I wouldn’t be me without these systems, and the function of these systems affects how I am, I think especially of how the malfunctioning of my digestive system can ruin my day. So I am profoundly affected by the functioning of my various systems, and yet, I am not any one of these systems.
I emerge from these systems. My systems emerge from my organs. My organs emerge from my cells. My cells emerge from proteins. Proteins emerge from atoms. Atoms emerge from elementary particles. Elementary particles apparently just are. Something new emerges at each level that is more complex than the mere sum of its constituent parts. The new level has an existence of its own, and at the level of the cell on up, we would say that it has a life of its own.
Emergence happens when the interactions between the parts (particles, atoms, proteins, cells etc…) increase in complexity enough that something entirely new emerges. If the something entirely new is composed of living parts (cells, organs,…) the system will have a surprising new self organizing ability that will seem to defy the second law of thermal dynamics (entropy increases in a system). Emergence Biologist Ursula Goodenough, summarizes emergence this way: “Something else emerges from nothing but…” From nothing but particles - atoms emerge. From nothing but atoms -chemicals emerge. From nothing but chemicals proteins emerge. From nothing but proteins - cells emerge. …
So biologically speaking it is entirely correct to say that I am an emergent being that has emerged from the “nothing but…” on down through the various levels. For today there are a couple of things that are especially interesting to me. It seems like I (maybe particularly if I am defining I as my consciousness) as an emergent being relate to the systems that interact to form me, and perhaps visa versa. Here is what I am getting at; different systems at different times emerge in my consciousness. I get hungry – this seems like communication from my digestive system. I am getting almost constant information from my sensory processing systems, particularly the optical and auditory systems. And it seems like I can consciously communicate some things with some of these systems – (I know this is getting a little out there, but I at least think there is something here) – for example I can communicate intentionally with my respiratory system to hold my breath, or I can direct my eyes, or i can start paying particular attention to what I am hearing. With the mutual communication I would say there are mutually beneficial relationships between me and the systems from which I emerge – well, mostly. It seems to me that I have the possibility of preferring one system over another, and possibly mistreating one our more systems for only what I perceive as the benefit of the emergent me. For example when I overeat, most especially when I binge on sugars/carbs, I am, preferring the emergent me (that demands some immediate gratification) to my pancreas and my circulatory system. Or, I am giving preferential treatment to emotional circuitry within in my brain that would serve the emergent me well in the case of famine by prompting me to gorge when there is a ready supply of energy rich calories. Or, of course it could be both/and – with the emergent me that I perceive as my consciousness, being much more influenced by unconscious systems than I care to admit. Either way if this becomes a repeated pattern, it will be possible for me to cause long-term damage to my pancreas and my insulin/blood sugar systems.
This is where I will leave it off for today. I (my consciousness), emerges from the complexity of the interactions of systems. I may live in harmony with the systems that make up me, so that I benefit them and they benefit me, but it is also possible for me to live in a such a way that I abuse or mistreat on or more systems.
I’m in general fascinated by all of this, but what is particularly fascinating to me is the question: What emerges from the interactions of many humans? I want to make the case that just as I am very much a real, living being that has emerged from the complex interactions of less complex systems, that real – and I would want to say – living beings emerge that are more complex than humans from the complexity of human interactions. Here are a few examples to think about – markets – cultures-organizations – churches – schools – I would make the case that these real things are emergent entities that have emerged from the complexity of human interactions.
The question then becomes how do these emergent entities relate to the humans from which they emerge? That is the question that fascinates and haunts me, and that I want to continue to explore into the future.
Woah, bruh. My head is spinning...
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