[ExI] destroying 3 billion year old lifeforms, was: RE: how mosquitoes fly in the rain

Wed Jun 20 01:02:52 UTC 2012

Spike,
It was me that said I was nostalgic of when I was a unicellular being.
And Natasha replied she was too.

Anyway, why being buried is not recycling? Even in a container eventually
the cell material is being recycled. Missing something?
But we know what is important is the information of a living being not its
material structure and if a cell ends up in a transhumanist, its chances to
live for ever in its information pattern or its contribution to the overall
information pattern would be very enhanced.

Giovanni

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 7:34 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *On Behalf Of *John Grigg
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] how mosquitoes fly in the rain****
>
> ** **
>
> >…Spike, thanks for the cool and informative article!  ****
>
>  ****
>
> My observation of a mosquito in the rain/snow at Mt. Rainier is the only
> time in an entire life of being a bug watcher that I was ever able to
> witness that firsthand.  Seeing a mosquito in the rain is a wonderfully
> rare treat for a bugger.****
>
> ** **
>
>  >…Growing up in Alaska, I was fascinated how there were the bigger and
> slower species of mosquito, and then the smaller and much more evasive kind
> …****
>
> ** **
>
> Ja, I learned on a trip to your beautiful vast state that the mosquito is
> the Alaska state bird.****
>
> ** **
>
> >…I never tired of the feeling of success I got from killing a skeeter
> that had found it's way into my home.  ****
>
>  ****
>
> Ok, but consider the most direct path of continued existence of the
> largest number of your cells is through mosquito bites.  Read on please,
> and check my reasoning.****
>
> ** **
>
> A few days ago someone, perhaps Natasha, made a thought-provoking comment
> about cells “remembering” their past.  Let us go on a flight of fancy and
> imagine that cells, being living things, have some sort of something
> analogous to our memory and consciousness, scaled by size of course, so
> they would have a trillionth as much of these senses as we do.  Play along,
> it’s just a game.****
>
> ** **
>
> So imagine “you” are a cell in a human, and you can remember back to
> before the last time you divided.  From your point of view, half of you
> just blebbed off and went away, and a couple years before that the same
> thing happened, and so on all the way back to when you were an ovum, and
> this little guy came along and joined you and halves of you started coming
> off regularly.  If you prefer to think of yourself as a sperm, that works
> fine too, you went for a delightful swim, joined another really big cell,
> and the whole division thing started up.****
>
> ** **
>
> In any case, assume you can remember before that unification event, and
> there was an entire span of divisions before that, leading back to another
> singular unification event, and so on all the way back to a really boring
> couple billion years of that whole blue-green algal mat phase (nothing much
> was going on back in those days, occasional huge meteorite is all; the
> whole multicellular eon is much more interesting.)  Today you perceive
> yourself as a cell in a human, which is really cool, because this
> particular cluster containing you (and other pieces which were once you)
> goes around and does interesting things, much more fun than those hundreds
> of millions of years where it was all about looking for food and trying to
> not be eaten.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> Of course from your point of view as a cell, your particular organism
> being devoured by some other organism wasn’t the worst thing: you were in a
> sense recycled into a cell of some often more interesting beast, even if
> not directly.  There was the usual disassembly and reassembly, but hey,
> cells having a trillionth the awareness also experience only a trillionth
> the pain, so being devoured was scarcely a bother.****
>
> ** **
>
> >…And as his ashes rose up into the sky, they turned into hordes of
> mosquitoes!  ; )****
>
> ** **
>
> The point of all this is that as humans, the overwhelming majority of our
> cells never get recycled.  After surviving (in a sense) for three billion
> years, nearly all of our cells just get buried in a sealed container where
> they all perish, or are incinerated, where they all perish, for modern
> humans have no real predators; we are seldom devoured by other beasts.  For
> so many cells, the brief existence as part of a human is the end of the
> long three billion year continuous existence.  So tragic!  We don’t perish
> out in the open, where other beasts can devour our cooling flesh, giving
> the cells a chance for continued existence in another beast.  Even if we
> imagine our cells are food for worms in a coffin (which I rather doubt) all
> the worms would necessarily perish right there in that same box, so it is
> merely a delayed terminus of three billion years of life for any worm
> cells.  If our cells could remember their own past, how tragic to become
> part of a human, for that is THE END of a long and glorious journey.****
>
> ** **
>
> With one exception…****
>
> ** **
>
> The only common case in our modern world where our living cells are
> devoured by some living beast is when we are bitten by a mosquito.  That is
> nearly the only path I can think of where a cell with an imaginary memory
> of its past can have continuity through having been part of a human.  I can
> scarcely imagine any other path of continuity, for we wash away nearly all
> other parasites with daily bathing, and defeat by some hygienic or medical
> practice all other examples of some living beast devouring our living
> cells.  But if a mosquito sucks away some of our currently active cells and
> reprocesses those into more mosquitoes, those cells (in a sense) survive a
> desperately dangerous existence, achieving continuity through the (usually
> final) human stage.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> >…I never tired of the feeling of success I got from killing a skeeter…
> John****
>
> Success?  Well how do you feel about killing that skeeter, John, now that
> you realize you swatted into oblivion the very last remote chance for
> continuity after three billion years for those few living cells that noble
> mosquito sucked out of you at enormous risk to its own existence, in the
> wretched beast’s last desperate bid to save as many of the ancient
> lifeforms as possible from a likely terminal plunge into liquid nitrogen,
> or an absolutely certainly terminal burial or incineration?****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
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