lawpoop

I'm mulling this over... It's an interesting idea for sure. I'm not sure that it can't be reduced to human populations in general, which makes it more like the super-organism Wilson describes.

OTOH, not all human populations are states, as in countries, and arguable that is the "organism" said to be reproducing itself....

Viruses rely entirely on the host cell's proteins for all of their replication. They don't metabolize anything themselves, nor do they create their own copies of themselves. The host cell creates copies of the virus.

> viruses are debatable under this definition

I think it's a thin pro-argument. Viruses are completely dependant on the host cell and the host cell's metabolism. The host cell's protein unwraps the jacket, and the host cells' proteins replicate the viral DNA/RNA payload. The virus does not reproduce itself, and it does not metabolize anything. There are no inputs to a virus.

Whereas living cells, give them the proper inputs, and they metabolize energy, catalyze reactions, and create copies of themselves.

Well EO Wilson posited certain eusocial insect colonies, including bees, as a super-organism. I think the idea has some currency in biology. The idea is that Darwinian selection is acting upon the colony, so it is the unit of evolution. Remember that eukaryotic cells are a symbosis of two prokaryotic cells.

Not sure how often or even if countries self-reproduce.

You mentioned "any time in history", and for most of its history, the US was explicitly a white supremacist state. Legal segregation only ended in the 1960s.

Yes, other places in the world were like this, but that's irrelevant, isn't it?

There was a definition I encountered in high school, which I never found a source for, but seems to be pretty robust and address many of the non-living things other definitions include.

This definition is a rubric of several qualities:

1. Metabolizes energy

2. Stores Information

3. Self-replicates

#1 rules out crystals; they are formed by outside forces, they don't metabolize themselves. It also rules out viruses and prions; they don't ingest any "food" to perform metabolic activity. #2 rules out fire; it doesn't store information in a DNA-like molecule or anything simliar. It's purely a chemical reaction. #3 is the obvious thing that differentiates non-living things like rocks from plants and animals.

Even during times of black chattel slavery, when native Americans were forcibly removed from their lands, and Asians and Middle Easterners were suing in court to be recognized as white, so they could enjoy the benefits of first class citizenship?

The point of Elite colleges are the networking, not the education you get.

> looking back, I feel quite foolish to ask too much information in one go

To the contrary -- you are wise to learn from your mistakes : )

Is the amount of chemistry, then, or length of signal transmission, the measure of consciousness?

What is the implication for the conscious experience of the camera?

> While I am as baffled as any/many at having subjective qualia appear so "real"

Appear so real compared to what?

Are you claiming that your experience of your own thoughts are subjectively more real than your experience of your sensory perceptions?

If you don't think it's a problem, then it's not. There's no real way, presently, to prove there isn't a difference.

Likewise, I could say there is no difference between my experience of satiation after eating, and the experience of a garbage can being filled full. If you don't think there's a problem with that, fine. No way to show there isn't. However, people inclined to agree with your film example might not be inclined to agree with my satiation example.

Is there any difference between light falling in your eyes and your experience of vision, and light falling in a corpses eyes, and its experience of vision? Does a corpse experience vision as much as you do?

"Tweatrise"? "Twitter" + "treatise".

Just spitballing here.