Have you ever wondered about the size and role of Red Blood Cells (RBC)? To give you a sense, it would take ~1 quadrillion (10e15) RBCs to make up for the volume of one human-being. There are ~20-30 trillion RBCs in your body doing their task as you read. To put it into perspective, that is 4,000 times more than the human population (~7.5bn). What purpose do RBCs serve in your body? They collect oxygen from pick up points (lungs) and deliver it to the destination (tissues). Now that we know a little about size, number and function of RBCs - lets be clear that the purpose of this article is not to ponder upon the biological role of RBCs. Intriguing question is whether RBCs are cognizant of their role.
Do RBCs know where they are located, what purpose they serve or are they even aware of the things they are doing? But isn't thinking a part of a conscious existence? What do you (conscious being) think about RBC's consciousness? Does it have one? If yes, till what degree is it conscious? Before we attempt to answer these questions (which we won't), let us talk about "Panpsychism". What is Panpsychism? It is one of the oldest philosophical theories and has been attributed to the likes of Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz and many more. It can also be seen in the texts of Stoicism, Taoism, Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. What it states is simple - Panpsychism views consciousness, mind or soul as a universal property. Which is to say that every entity in this universe (living or non-living) has something that we refer to as consciousness/mind. Hence, within the realms of Panpsychism, as I understand, RBCs will have consciousness.
In a thought experiment, if you were a conscious RBC, you would know for certain that you exist. You would probably wish to live long as well (Darwin's evolution?). Experiences of gazillions of your ancestors would have may be led RBC community to believe that to live longer, RBCs need to be exceptionally good at oxygen delivery to specific destinations which they would probably not know the importance of. But would even a single RBC know why delivering oxygen is essential to live longer? More importantly, why does it matter that they live longer? Would there be an RBC who would know of your existence? Can those trillions of RBCs in billions of us, ever figure out who they are serving and why? Stepping out of the RBC role, and becoming human once again - human being's knowledge of RBCs is not only attributed to consciousness but also to extensive scientific experimentation. In that thought experiment, I have an opinion that as of today, our RBCs would not know of us as another human-being might know us. You might be for them their incomprehensible universe interacting with similar other universes; a mystery, that generations and generations of RBCs might have spent lives on decoding.
Continuing the thought experiment - what if all this was for real and we were RBC equivalents in a system of Higher Beings? Can we possibly understand that system of Higher Beings? Does humanity have an equivalent task to RBC's oxygen delivery that would ensure the longevity of our Higher Being so that it can perform its own oxygen delivery equivalent task? Is it longevity built on longevity built on longevity - every level of species working toward an ultimate "end"? If this is the case, then we better hope that humanity is performing the oxygen delivery equivalent task phenomenally well. Furthermore, new questions keep coming to mind as you think more about it -
- What are the most important values that we need to develop to excel in our oxygen delivery task? Is it Scientific curiosity, Art, Love, Trust, Justice, Mercy, etc.?
- Is there a 'beginning' or an 'end' to this? Does 'beginning' or 'end' as a concept make any sense in the grand scheme?
- How can we relate to or potentially understand the system of Higher Beings, and consequently the grand scheme? Is it even necessary?
- Is it like a nested neural network? Are we at each layer, from sub-atomic particles, to atoms, to RBCs, to humans and beyond consistently progressing from narrow meaning of existence to a higher meaning of existence? Are we in the process of finding that ever elusive higher purpose?
1. "every level of species working toward an ultimate "end"?"
ReplyDeleteI have tidbits of The Gita in my own philosophy and the holy book surely says that the world always existed and it shall continue to exist in future as well. So, in my own philosophy, I don't think there is an end. It is, instead, a long, continuous, monotonous process.
2. "Is it like a nested neural network?"
Yes, it surely is. Every thing from the smallest atom to the largest living being (your RBCs come somewhere in between :P) is carrying out a job that it has been assigned. It is a lot like a typical supply chain - where one man's output is another man's raw material - and with that structure it looks like - a neural network.