Hyperscopic life

In my essay before last I wrote about the way people view ownership, the past, and the future. My conclusion was that the structures within which we live tend to determine our worldview. A friend commented that my conclusion about being aware of the structures that shape our worldviews was valid, but didn't point in any particular direction. He used the word “flatulence,” I believe. The question the essay raises is “What do we do, then?”

Part of my intent in writing these essays is offering ideas that help people see the world in new ways. As another friend pointed out (quoting, I think), “You tilt the kaleidescope just a little, and the whole picture changes.” Part of my motivation for this exercise is simply the joy of writing, part is the satisfaction of sharing ideas, and part is the hope that I can make some incremental change in the world. Those of you who have been reading my essays for a while are experiencing a kind of drawn out manifesto, put together almost at random. I'm not promising a well structured book in web-based installments, but I am going to try to be more strategic about the progress of my essays. I'll be circling in on that call to action. The following essay is part of the background theory for my thinking. It may seem less like a slight tilt of the kaleidescope and more like a 180 degree spin. I'd like to point out that you are living within a set of overlapping structures, some at odds with each other, each making a different set of demands on you. I'd also like to propose that these structures are different in their nature than most people suppose.

A fundamental question: what is life, in the biological sense? Life is GRIM. GRIM is a mnemonic device meaning Growth, Reproduction, Irritability, Metabolism. There is still argument in the scientific community about where genetic material leaves off and life begins, but this is a good working definition. Living things grow, have the capability to reproduce others of their own kind, respond to their environment, and extract energy and mass from their environment using chemical reactions. These qualities are common from viruses to whales.

A basic observational dichotomy is between microscopic and macroscopic life. We can see individual whales, ladybugs, moose, mushrooms, buttercups, and maple trees with the unaided eye. Microscopic organisms such as bacteria require magnification to be seen individually. I'd like to propose a third category: Hyperscopic organisms. These are living things so large that they cannot be seen as individuals from an individual perspective.

Consider the E. Coli bacteria in our guts. They actually outnumber the cells in our bodies. Cell for cell, we are walking minorities in our own skins. If we could somehow endow these bacteria with consciousness, how would they view their world? Their universe would be a dark, generally linear, wet place, with nutrients coming from one direction and some members of their species exiting in the other. I would doubt that they would view themselves as part of a bipedal mammal trillions of times their size. We would be hyperscopic to them.

We exist in similar circumstances, yet more complex. We simultaneously occupy multiple hyperscopic life forms. They are human associations. Some are for-profit corporations. Some are political entities such as towns, states, and nations. Some are social organizations, non-profits, and cooperatives. Some are families and tribes. All of them have the capability to reproduce others of their own kind, respond to their environment, and extract energy and mass from their environment using chemical reactions. They do this through the use of our persons, natural resources, and our built infrastructure. Many of the “bodily” functions of human associations are analogous to those of macroscopic and microscopic life.

There is a double relationship between law and human associations. Law is both connective tissue and DNA. Disparate physical structures, people and other living things, land, and materials can be bound together into an active, living entity by law. At the same time, law provides the design of the structure, its patterns of growth, and limits on its behavior. When I use the term law, I mean it in the broadest sense. There is law published in books by political entities, there are customs and traditions passed down by word of mouth, and there are unstated assumptions about behavior that we absorb by observation and imitation.

The physical structure of such an entity is, as I mentioned above, made up of living organisms, land, buildings, machinery, stored materials, underground deposits of resources, and communications networks. Some entities have physical presence stretching across continents. In their complexity, environmental pervasiveness, and fluid boundaries they both match and exceed macroscopic and microscopic life.

Different human associations have different levels of definition and strength. They bind us in various parts of our lives and can be obtrusive or nearly unconscious. Some are almost exclusively economic, some suck up most of our waking hours, and others merit only occasional interaction and have next to no consequences if we withdraw from them.

I belong to a biological family and several groups of friends. I also belong to three cooperatives. I am a board member of an S-type corporation. I am a member of a town, a state, and a nation, several business associations, and a few charitable nonprofits. I am also an ongoing customer of a handful of corporations and an intermittent or single-incident customer of countless more. I have a symbiotic relationship with each of these associations and the other human members of each.

At this point you may be thinking, “Oh, come on! Great metaphor, but you don't expect me to believe...” Yes, I do. To exercise a famous cliché, “If it quacks like a duck...” Scientists who work for NASA have studied the question of defining life so that if they find something strange on another planet they can make a judgment as to whether it is alive. They have come up with formulations analogous to the GRIM mnemonic. The fact is that we have found these overlapping, life form sharing, symbiotic entities on our own planet instead of on the surface of Mars.

It isn't out of character for our planetary ecosystem. Bacteria form biological mats that increase their chances of group survival. Archaic single celled microscopic organisms once joined together and specialized to form more complex organisms that evolved into yet more complex forms. Why shouldn't more complex forms of life such as homo sapiens then join and specialize into the highly complex and interwoven net of human associations that cover the globe? It is our talent as generalists and our external genetics of law and culture that allow each of us to inhabit multiple associative life forms. History and archeology allow us to study the emergence and evolution of new associative species in response to changes in the legal, cultural, and physical environment. Just as in the familiar macroscopic environment, hyperscopic life influences and shapes its environment to enhance its own survival.

This last principle, the drive of hyperscopic life forms to modify their environments, is the crux of the problem we face. I'll discuss this in another essay.

Update: There are essays that follow this one, namely Sharing the Bottle and Breaking the Grip.