> Some fraction may not go through the normal cycle, but it can't be many.
Maybe it is because I just saw an animated video on cancer (I’ll find the link when I get home) on YouTube but then so are we thinking of a bee hive as one individual? Like in the video, they talk about how cancer cells refuse to die when something bad happens like they are supposed to…
So this is going to sound cheesy but now I have to wonder, could you zoom out on humans as well? On earth? Are what we call “living beings” what we would call “malignant cells” or at best mutations?
Certain insect colonies typically make good "individual" analogues due to certain roles being infertile and so the genetic lineage actually working in units that are larger than a single bee.
If you think about it, the way we define an individual is a bit blurry anyway - think of those plants and creatures which produce more "individuals" by letting pieces break off and float down the river to take root elsewhere, or reproduce asexually to produce clones. Aphids, for example, on the same plant are commonly clones.
So you can cling tight to the individual as being the thing that is delineated by a mixing of genes in sexual reproduction and have things still make some sense. But if you let that slide and zoom out then indeed life as we know it is just one branching, breaking, mutating organism.
The Earth ecosystem is made of living beings. Why would they be compared to cancer cells? It sounds more reasonable to me to compare them to worker bees.
Cancer cells are essentially a new parasitic life form living inside of you. It is born from you but it is not you. It decided to play by its own rules and pursue its own goals, ignoring the signals that makes the host body functional. Often, it is attacked by the host body immune system like other intruders and it has to defend itself. Some cancer cell lines HeLa have well outlived their host and are used in scientific research.
Maybe it is because I just saw an animated video on cancer (I’ll find the link when I get home) on YouTube but then so are we thinking of a bee hive as one individual? Like in the video, they talk about how cancer cells refuse to die when something bad happens like they are supposed to…
So this is going to sound cheesy but now I have to wonder, could you zoom out on humans as well? On earth? Are what we call “living beings” what we would call “malignant cells” or at best mutations?
Now that’s a scary thought.
Edit: I think it is this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmpuerlbJu0