A couple weeks ago, in Science Bus- oh, what is Science Bus? It's a program where college students go to elementary schools with a lesson plan and some stuff and teach them about science. Yesterday was owl pellet day.
I have never seen anyone so excited about owl pellets. Everyone wanted to bring the bones home.
Anyway, I was talking to a kid about cladograms and the classifications of animals. They had all sorts of pictures of animals in front of them, and were trying to find characteristics that were similar in the animals. They had a fish, a bird, a monkey, and a human.
"They all have eyes!" one yelled.
"Well, they all have eyes. Is that going to be useful in designing a cladogram? I don't think so, because you want to find characteristics in a group that one has and the others don't," I replied.
"Well, is there an animal that doesn't have eyes?"
And, because I am an idiot who doesn't know which characteristics denote the Animalia kingdom, I said "A cell."
"Whoa, cells are animals?"
"Yup." I really have to apologize to him. Come on, could I have said a jellyfish? A sponge? I did mention worms afterwards. Jeez.
Then, using a spooky Halloween voice, I told him "Cells are in your body. Your whole body is made up of cells. You are not just one living thing, but a large collection of living things."
"Whoaaaaaaa..." he said.
Since I mentioned normal microbiota, I've been more and more aware of how I am not just a single living organism, but a large collection of billions upon billions of living organisms. Everything I know and feel is made possible by the interactions between tiny, tiny little living things which adapted to form the complex functions I have. This is the result of evolution on a time period that my poor brain cannot handle, in numbers my brain cannot envision, and it is less than the number of cells in my body. And here I am, typing at a computer and not letting them sleep.
If you want to accept an award and start your speech with "I'd like to thank my cells..." so be it.
Next to the astonishing number of cells and the interaction they do to keep me alive as a conscious entity, their very life and existence amazes me. It's just that we have no idea what it feels like to be a cell, and may never find out. Do we know that these cells perform functions and nothing else? By labelling what they both do as "life," are we giving the same name to two different functions? Is a life with consciousness worth more than a life with consciousness? Is one possible without another?
And, if you can easily answer that question because you believe in souls, why do we have to define things as having souls and not having souls? Isn't it possible just to appreciate the sanctity of life?
Heck, if attributing a soul to me but not my cells places my "life" at a greater value than theirs, I'd rather not have one. Even if I have consciousness and they don't, that's only a benefit my life has that theirs does not. I respect you, cells.
I just asked like five questions and then said something mildly provocative. Respond.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dissecting an owl pellet in elementary school was great; the bones within the pellet showed how owls and mice are both animals, but one has to eat the other to survive.
ReplyDeleteThere is the (probably false) idea that most of the cells in your body are replaced every 7 years or so. As such, I would credit your genes with providing you with individuality, not your cells; but that's kind of quibbling.
Assuming that you do have a soul, what would it be? Your cells are created gradually; they die and are replaced. "You" are a pattern that's sustained by arbitrary cells, the same way a river is a pattern of arbitrary and ever-changing water molecules, and a beam of light is a pattern of photons. If you have a soul, shouldn't a river and a sunbeam have one too?
If I'm incoherent, I blame the fact that it's 3:30 AM.