I listened to Michael Levin on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast today. One of the things he was talking about was directly relevant to my theory of consciousness. He said that two cells, which are different individuals, my transmit chemicals or information between themselves but know that what they receive is from the other. When cells are part of a multicellular organism, there is a change in the electrical flow between them which means that effectively the metadata is erased - so that what is received is 'me' and no longer 'from the other'. What that means is that information about pain in the other is not 'the other's pain' but 'my pain'.
So you 'scale up' the information because it's not just an aggregation of different bits of information but all the same information.
I'm explaining badly.
What cancer cells do is cut off this erasure so that instead of being part of the collective they are autonomous, self-interested units. They do not need to care about harm to their neighbours.
Anyway, this idea could offer interesting ways to think about empathy, society, family and so on.
On the same day that I was back in the fungal-mind mode of feeling connections, I made connections.
Part of my way through my run I stopped to talk with two men - it started about birds (merlins and raptors) then moved on to animals (animal consciousness and anthropocentrism) then history and anti-monarchism. I liked them a lot. I would have loved to have had a few glasses with them in a pub after a long walk. They'd worked together for many years and, upon retirement, promised to meet up regularly to maintain their friendship.
Later, I met two council workers looking for a dropped needle, both were friendly and funny, and two different groups of men working for the water board. One of them had tried to be a footballer and knew a few former professionals. His colleague loved boxing. All were charming, cheerful and helpful. I felt truly connected to the community by these random meetings with strangers.
My friend says that every day he hopes to make at least one person feel a little bit happier. These meetings to me are like win-wins: I think we make each other happier.
The happiness that flows between is not 'mine' or 'theirs' but 'ours'.
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