Friday, March 28, 2014
Imagine You're a Cell
This is part two in my religion/spirituality series. This topic actually came to me while I was having a friendly drunken debate with a bible thumping friend of mine (that's right, I branch out). He would laugh at the title of this post since I must have asked him to imagine himself as a cell at least several dozen times during the course of the night.
The idea is that you would be able to consider a new perspective on the vastness and complexity of the universe. I was somewhat dismayed that he felt compelled to argue with me, especially since what I was trying to prove was the plausibility of the existence of some sort of "God" (a term I use here somewhat liberally). This idea does fit into a broader context, of course, but for the sake of brevity I will stick somewhat strictly to the thought experiment.
So, I ask you to imagine yourself as a cell within your own body. You go about living out your cell lives, doing everyday cell things. You live in a community of like minded cells going about their own work. Outside of your little community there are other groups of cells that have different jobs and all live together in their own little tight knit neighborhoods. Outside of your home-organ there are other cells that all have jobs and regular cell lives. You don't know too much about them but they work within the same human ecosystem so you interact, albeit mostly indirectly.
The picture I tried to paint is one where cells live suspiciously humanistic lives, and where you (the human) actually resemble a mostly self contained universe. Most of the cells in our body only interact with a handful of cells in their vicinity, they have no real clue what's going on with the rest of the cells in the "universe" (you). Even brilliant cells that knew a great deal about your own body would have a hard time imagining or conceiving of another human that would have its own universe of cells, much less of realizing that the universe itself had consciousness and could act intentionally to affect the landscape of their universe. With that in mind, let's once again re-imagine ourselves as one of our average, workaday cells just doing his job and minding his business.
The word spread quickly across the different cell communities. In an act of unusual solidarity, all the cell groups rallied in opposition to some new cells that had just moved in and were already causing havoc. These so called "cancer" cells had started taking over entire villages and were spreading like wildfire. They seemed unable to live side by side with other kinds of cells and were intent on breaking the harmony that had been achieved. The normal cells sent all the brigades of soldiers they had at the cancer but would eventually succumb to an overwhelming force. Tired and defeated, the normal cells would retreat and wait for their eventually melancholy fate.
Just when it seemed that all hope was lost, something miraculous happened. A force appeared that seemed to cause the cancer cells a great deal of stress. This miraculous force had never before existed within the universe, it appeared to violate all the cells scientific laws and understanding. Sure the force was applied somewhat liberally and there was a great deal of collateral damage, but for the most part it appeared to be targeted at the cancerous cells specifically. Damaged by the miraculous force, the cancer cells were easily defeated by the rejuvenated "normal" cell brigades. Though their lives depended on it, the cells could never comprehend the miraculous strike against the cancer onslaught because they had never considered that the universe had its own consciousness and could act intentionally in its own self preservation.
Zoom back out... now you're a human trying to make sense out of the thought experiment I just asked you to take. If you take this cellular (not the phone) perspective back with you to your human form, it becomes reasonable to imagine that our universe itself has some degree of consciousness. It may be able to act intentionally on our physical laws with forces that originated beyond the edge of our universe. Within this analogy, the chemotherapy might actually be represented by black holes. They say that the two places that our understanding of the laws of physics break down is at the first instant of the big bang and at the center of black holes. Black holes might be sent in to destroy some cancerous cells, indiscriminately sweeping up anything that comes in its way.
If our universe acts intentionally and with powers beyond our comprehension, wouldn't that be kind of like God? Its not the same Judeo-Christian God that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent but it's definitely something. Plus if you believe in a multi-verse (coming soon), they you actually get to call yourself a polytheist. Never be afraid to imagine yourself as a cell, its a whole new world (or universe).
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