Pt 4 I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU
The general consensus seems to be that an individual is
both a single human body and the mind linked with it.[i]
Clearly both of these exist in a way, but they cannot be removed from the dynamic
network they are part of. Thus the idea that somewhere deep inside the
individual that there is a free will that by its very nature is able to operate
free from the chains of cause and is without influence from the world is a
dangerous misunderstanding.[ii]
To begin, let’s examine how the concept of the body as
an individual is flawed. From the time I have spent learning about the nature
of what food is as well as the environment and the systems within it that make
human life possible it seems to me there are many obvious contradictions in
traditional concepts of the individual as a physical entity that is separate
from other physical entities. For starters, the body is totally dependent on things
otherwise considered separate from it. The obvious example is water and food;
minerals, vitamins, calories that form the building blocks of a living human.
Less so are the many single celled organisms on our skin or in our stomachs
that the body is as equally dependant upon.[iii]
Much less intimate, but still valid is the entire biosphere – can’t very well
live without atmosphere, and that food “stuff,” i.e. plants and animals.
Therefore if one is to consider the body in terms of either its construction or
its function, it is only an individual as far as a “body count.” Beyond that,
since the body cannot survive without all of these external inputs and
assistances how is it constructively or functionally separate from them? Quite
simply, it’s not.
This discourse between what is commonly perceived and
how integrated life systems are partially stems from the misconception that
both the mind and its body are somehow separate from the rest of existence. But
in the past few decades humans have begun to discover that the body is
fundamentally just a tiny organ in planet sized living creature that we can
both illustrate and prove.[iv] One of my
favorite processes that reinforce this idea is that of biomagnification.
Biomagnification
is the process of and element or compound (e.g., Mercury in building up in Tuna)
working its way up the food chain while increase in toxicity.[v]
Energy and materials circulate through the entire biosphere in ways remarkably
similar to those of the human body. It would behoove the human race as well as
the rest of the biosphere if we would start to see bodies not as individual and
separate from the environment, rather as a nub or a capillary on a much larger
fractal that is all life on this planet.
[i] Howard Robinson, "Dualism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
(accessed April
16, 2013).
[iii] American Society for Microbiology, “Humans Have Ten Times More Bacteria
Than Human Cells: How Do Microbial Communities Affect Human Health?.” ScienceDaily,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm
(accessed
April 16, 2013).
[iv] Mathis
Wackernagel, and William E. Rees, Our
Ecological Footprint (Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 1996), 4.
[v] “Toxic
Substances Hydrology Program,” USGS, http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/biomagnification.html
(accessed
April 16, 2013).
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