Another important question is whether (or under what conditions) it’s nice to be part of a greater whole. The kinds of primitive (?) greater wholes that humans currently get themselves into seem to vary in that regard, and one could imagine far greater variety there. Would it be nice to be a mitochondria-ish or gene-ish component of a larger being?
And one should note that, in the examples you’re giving, and perhaps in your described (if not conceived) vision, these are exclusive, hierarchical aggregations. (After all, my cells are part, exclusively, of me, and my mitochondria are part, exclusively, of a given cell, etc.)
In sharp contrast, contemporary human super-entities are very overlapping, as well as being porous, in ways which I think are very important and valuable (we often consider it a malaise if an aggregate is totalising and exclusionary, perhaps one of the bad markers of a cult—that fuzzy term).
Another important question is whether (or under what conditions) it’s nice to be part of a greater whole. The kinds of primitive (?) greater wholes that humans currently get themselves into seem to vary in that regard, and one could imagine far greater variety there. Would it be nice to be a mitochondria-ish or gene-ish component of a larger being?
And one should note that, in the examples you’re giving, and perhaps in your described (if not conceived) vision, these are exclusive, hierarchical aggregations. (After all, my cells are part, exclusively, of me, and my mitochondria are part, exclusively, of a given cell, etc.)
In sharp contrast, contemporary human super-entities are very overlapping, as well as being porous, in ways which I think are very important and valuable (we often consider it a malaise if an aggregate is totalising and exclusionary, perhaps one of the bad markers of a cult—that fuzzy term).