Deborah Gordon (ant biologist) makes this argument in her book Ant Encounters. Because the ants in a colony are all sisters, the unit of reproduction is actually the colony rather than the individual ant. Great book!
E.O. Wilson's published work was read by Will Wright, creator of SimCity / The Sims / SimAnt, and the material is what inspired him to create SimAnt :)
Will has also stated that the pheromone system designed for SimAnt was repurposed to be used in The Sims! Very interesting stuff if you ask me :)
Actually yes, its an interesting thought.
Not only are we a cooperative group of independent cells but those cells are fully replaced as we age so not even the original cells we start with. We are essentially walking cities of cells and somehow we gain consciousness. Pretty wild.
Not nerve cells. Our post-childhood adult brains persist until we die, so the city of cells (nice image BTW) has a permanent and persistent ruling council, as it were, even if the citizens come and go.
