Our Social Past and Future

 

We are biological- social creatures far more so than we are logical. Like fish that school, we humans (generally speaking) are wired to nest ourselves in the context of a group, either as a well protected internal organ, or as the skin which relates to the outside world, but acts to nourish and-or defend the coherency of the group. Our biological wiring is so dedicated to this grouping task that our perception faculties are heavily biased toward what is useful over what is accurate. Most of us will sacrifice accuracy on the alter of belonging to a group every day of the week without even thinking about or recognizing it for what it is.

If we unpack the behavioral implications of our inborn social traits at a group level, we see the ritual displays we make to demonstrate our affinity to a group need somewhere to go and somewhere to grow. We seek some identification of “group self” as well as some contrasting social ground to define our group self from group other. As a result, many of us search for the boundary between “self” and “other”, probing the social landscape and attempt to “eat” the “other” as food with our superior ideas.

Never mind the ideas we hold are tokens of belonging far more than fact – they are far more holey than they are holy, we simply shrink or expand their value as necessary to fit the narrative that our group is the only true and right one. We even sometimes call the process of ritual selfing “owning” the other side. This illustrates what the actual act is – a symbolic embodiment of our biological nature; that must eat things to live. It is a perfectly normal outcropping of our social nature deeply rooted in the necessities of being in the context of the environment coupled with the current zeitgeist of ideas.

Marketers hijack these innate tendencies toward belonging in an attempt to build emotional connections between us and logos so the goop inside the packaging has more perceived value. And it works.

Thought stopping clichés are one of the benchmarks of ideas being used as social currency, not as agents of expanding our knowledge base. We diminish or increase the value of whatever ideas we encounter so that it is bent into whatever serves the group. This is why bureaucracies or social movements, once established, tend more to their preservation as they age than they do to working out whatever was in their charter. Whether or not the ideas we hold correspond to factual reality or sensible actions devoted to our common wealth or not is secondary to their value as a bonding agent – defending the coherency of the group. We are in effect groupies. If someone comes along behaving with an affinity to accuracy that differs with what serves group affinity, they are not thanked. They are either passively marginalized, or if they become influential, actively marginalized or neutralized by whatever means necessary.

There is no doubt that overcoming the limitations and mindsets of our small tribal roots is of benefit. In fact, it is arguably a necessary component of navigating the future we are unavoidably moving into. This doesn’t mean it is easy. We swim in the same pond and what we do influences our common experience. This fact carries with it an ever greater weight today than compared to the requirements of living within the threshold of uncultivated nature, waiting for her to deliver a capricious bounty. Somewhere in the depths of history we crossed a threshold to a point where we need each other in ways that cross the former boundaries of smallish tribes. Finding our footing on these untrodden grounds may not be easy, but it’s worth it.
I could be missing something(s)

 

Fish Schooling

From Existence To Significance

My guess would be most of us either get swallowed by the circumstances we’re bathed in through the collective effects of our developmental environment, finding some reactive equilibrium with that happenstantial field of influences that define our initial form, or we wake up from that opaque mist to recognize that we also have a voice in the field of influences that defines our experience. We may discover that if we work intentionally, effectively and proportionally, that our voice might cultivate something significant rather than merely reflective – something that does more than reflect the defining qualities of the environment, but also plays a role in defining.

Cultivating something significant often requires disciplined effort and patience to shepherd nascent forms to fruition where they produce emergent properties, but the cost of doing so can render an effective player in the field of relationships that defines what we experience, and perhaps emergent properties that will pay continual constructive dividends. Nature clearly communicates that we can count the seeds in an apple, but not the apples in a seed if that seed is cultivated – nourished and protected through development to its mature state of fruition. This cultivation aspect of being might be the “why” we are here, but it is more certainly the big “if” in terms of whether or not we realize the opportunities that are presented out of the cauldron of relationships that define us.

We can make the transition from that which has been defined by circumstance, to that which also plays a role in defining circumstances, but only if we first recognize, then take the proportional actions to overcome the things that would otherwise turn our presence into a neutral mush carried on the currents of environmental whim, or worse, to become an agent of reflected destruction. Some of the common stories that emerge from the field of defining relationships that we’re both baptized in and have some measure of ability to participate in include environments that falsely convey we have no significance – that our voice is of no effect and that we are solely the victims of an authoritarian fate, or perhaps an environment that has so shocked us with a series of capricious horrors and injustices that it causes us to see reality through a distorted lens which renders an image of tragedy and misfortune that is inevitable and that total occupation with self defense and protection are of paramount importance, or perhaps our social environment coupled with our innate capacity for vision has revealed to us the tragic and arguably insane failure of the collective social economy that powerfully defines our experience to sufficiently recognize, value and express the behaviors that nourish our mature potential – a maturity which is only possible in a climate of sustained mutually nourishing and protective developmental behaviors aimed at serving each other’s common interest. The fields of opportunity that we leave fallow can make us the authors of our poverty, and in that poverty we can get stuck in a vortex of self reinforcing destruction making our circumstance worse by filtering the world through a lens of dominance. One where it appears to make sense to force compliance from each other with the aim of getting the most we can get, rather than searching for and cultivating commitment between each other to gain what is rendered by the emergent fruit of community. We can either be caught spinning in a turbulent eddy of malignant selfishness that takes us in vicious circles that go nowhere, or we can tend to the fruits that are produced through committed cooperation with and cultivation of each other, and the extended body of life we depend on.

In the light of the necessities to effectively steer with intention through the currents that define us – to participate in where the currents carry us – we would do well to search for what it takes to cultivate that which is most significant to that end – that which has the most effect to tame and intentionally direct the environmental waters that define our experience. We can only realize the strength of that steering activity by both finding and actively participating in the relationships that forge meaningful significance while also mitigating the antagonistic forces that could interfere of interrupt that process. Because we so often start with a lens that was forged in a blend of complacency and trauma, we may not be equipped to see clearly what our best way forward is. Once our lens is refined to see with enough depth to understand where our opportunities are sourced, we can then see our progress is built on a complex and nuanced vision where consequences are not immediately connected in time through a linear process, but are displaced in time, and that development to maturity requires sacrifice in order to bear the eventual fruit.

Our best way forward is not visible using a simplistic, linear and narrowly temporal lens. Although simplistic lenses that do not consider, much less prioritize, the necessities of development over time are what we begin with in our ignorance and also what we gravitate to in times of perceived stress, they are not what serves as an accurate map to our most mature state of being. The effects of past traumas etched in our collective psyche can become a self perpetuating eddy that results in why we sometimes operate on a cultural level with a simplistic lens that seems to infer that serving the self to the exclusion of the community is the obvious choice; and it is in the short run, even though it is ultimately self defeating when the more complex tapestry of relationships that develop over time and space is considered. Our traumas and the resulting myopia may also explain why many of the superficial rituals of social recognition we currently chase and build our dedicated behavioral monuments to are also less connected to significance than they are to a self referential service of themselves – to the status quo – of serving our more immediate gratifications in a bonfire of vanities, or, as William Shakespeare’s character Macbeth so eloquently put about the net result of certain lives:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

As a result of recognizing that the road we currently travel most is a recipe for complacency at best and at worst one peppered with self indulgent distractions that lead us in directionless circles, we might be compelled by that dour vision to take the road less traveled. The unbeaten path does require that we brave the dangers of the unknown and or dedicate ourselves to the disciplines that are valuable yet may be unappreciated, or even detested and actively resisted. But this is what we must undertake for the opportunities that are only harvested by way of that path to be rendered. It is only by way of this more difficult organized effort that we can have a chance to realize and get the chance to embody significance – to make our lives meaningfully matter in a sea of what would otherwise be mere existence.

As a result of seeing the stagnating effect of what is rendered by actions taken on the heels of a shallow vision that looks no deeper than serving the brief periods of satisfaction of our baser drives, we might be inclined to focus instead on the things that do not necessarily tilt toward service of these superficial passions alone, but dig deeper to see something more difficult, more significant. With a full spectrum vision we can become like the parent that is compelled by that deeper vision to act with determination on behalf of a child’s development, sometimes in the context of the myopic protests of that same child. This deeper commitment is forged by a deeper vision. A vision that sees our common child as the extended community of relationships we live in and depend on for nourishment and protection, that defines our being and our experience, and that we also derive our significance from by serving something of nourishing and or protective value in the context of that community.

I may be missing something(s)

A Wide Angle Lens on Life & Biology

My guess is the chief inhibitor to unlocking a clear vision of what the multivariate factors are that drive our experience of life is largely due to the linear reductionist lens we tend to apply when looking at relational systems such as ourselves. Linear reductionist lenses are like using a black and white crayon in an attempt to render a full spectrum image. While it gives us information, some of it quite useful, there is a diminishing law of returns which turns to a negative rendering value after a certain point of inflection.

Linear, fixed focal point lenses are not capable of rendering a full understanding of the workings of complex adaptive systems since, for instance, there is no inherent beginning or end to a given system, but diffuse nested fields of interrelated influences. As a consequence of using unifocal lenses, we often become enchanted with the linear images produced through it, albeit we also become blind in a sense, because much of the rendering is a function of the lens and not an accurate representation of the relational landscape it is pointed toward.

If we apply a systemic relationship lens to biology for instance, we then see a porous increasingly diffuse nested set of influences between organisms rather than distinct isolated organisms separated by fixed membranes. There is a porous interdependent set of relational bonds that lead to the same unified whole which we can detect by picking any point in a system. For instance; we can see the connections between the atoms, organelles, cells, and organs inside our body, and this inward coherency then extends outward to the microbiome, the local environment, the larger ecosystem, planet, star system galaxy etc. all the way to the whole of the cosmos. Were we to pick any other point in that nested collection we could also trace it from that focal point to the nested fields of influences which define that point, and extend again to the whole as well. In effect, linear images are useful, but have their limits. Whenever we choose a focal point, we also sacrifice the larger context.

When we use a systemic relationship lens through which to look at the whole biological economy, we can see with greater depth into the larger biological body of life in which we live, and on which we depend. What defines our local experience in terms of stability or instability in the final analysis is more like a cultivated commitment of a parliamentary nature than any kind of sovereign relational theme. Coherency is built on the strength of serving mutual needs of nourishment and defense. Our experience is cultivated on the preponderance of relationships that are sometimes necessary, sometimes laced with compromise, but always that serve purposes in relation to adaptation – that of remaining a coherent by way of sufficient nourishment and defense as an entity over time in the context of the environment. We realize this threshold of “being” by way of finding and maintaining this coherent equilibrium in the context of the larger environment. We see things like our individual identity and group sociality built on this same engine of nested influences. Understanding this is both the key to maximal growth, and a sustainable equilibrium in relationship to the carrying capacity of the environment.

I could be missing something(s)

Here is an example of the diffuse bonds of influence that conspire to shape what we experience as life and being.

Opinion: Microbial Mind Control—Truth or Scare?

Normal brain function may have evolved to depend on gut microbes and their metabolites.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/opinion-microbial-mind-controltruth-or-scare-36352

The Purpose of Life is Written into the Structure of Biology

A skin cell does many vital jobs over the course of it’s life. It is arguably part of the more defensive oriented aspects of our biological economy but it also plays many nourishing roles like producing Vitamin D. Each cell lives and dies, in part, to nourish and protect the whole body that gave birth to it and nourished and protected it to maturity. Skin cells share a common legacy with all cells, to serve nourishing and, or defensive roles in relation to the community, whose integrity depends on enough of that shared value for the interdependent community to survive. T

The whole process for a skin cell takes around 6 weeks, from being “born”, to being pushed up through the layers in about 4 weeks, to dying and serving, even in death, for about two weeks as part of the stratum corneum. (Outer layer of skin) Other cells in our body live much longer, but all that are valuable contributors (not antagonistic to the body) are also oriented toward the purpose of nourishing and defending the community which also nourishes and defends them.

This statement, made through this biological economy, happens on many scales. his is true of cells, organs, an organism, a species and an ecosystem. There is a sufficient commitment to nourish and defend the integrity of the system in order for it to flourish.

Each of us gets to carry the torch of living fire in the community we live in and depend on for life. In fact; the difference between a significant life and a meaningless life depends on whether or not we find and express a constructive role – leaving something more constructive in our wake than the sacrifices required for us to be here. We are an expression of hunger to find our place in the community of relationships and cultivate something fruitful in that context. This act requires sacrifice but also pays dividends greater than the sacrifice. Cultivation is the purpose written into the structure of our being. Every organelle, cell and organ must contribute to the community it lives in and depends on for life; so must our lives be oriented around this natural hunger in order be satisfied.

This understanding and the constructive expression of significance is the key to a satisfied life. We are biologically wired to be satisfied by finding and expressing our nourishing and/or defensive role in the context of the community. This is why we never meet anyone who is both malignantly selfish to the parasitic and predatory exclusion of others, and satisfied at the same time. This move toward constructive significance makes the difference between a frustrated existence, and one more reflective of our role to support the relationship economy on which we all depend for our present and our future. This value system is also the way evolution makes selective decisions about what will continue forward in time, and what will be selected out.

I could be missing something(s)

The Integumentary System, Part 1 – Skin Deep

The Map of the Journey We’re On

The structure of the cosmos seems to clearly communicate that some local relationship economies bear fruit and some do not. In other words; we can count the seeds in an apple, but not the apples in a seed if it is cultivated properly. Of course there are many conditionals in that cultivation, but this is the general theme.

Cultivating opportunity depends on any number of contexts, but is rooted in recognizing and applying that which lends nourishment and protection to that which satisfies first basic needs, then nourishes some expanded potential, this latter aspect requires some abundance to service growth. This means actively cultivating the opportunity in the environment. (which happens to be one of our needs that satisfies us once it is met) Diminishing or destroying potential, or being exposed to antagonistic factors that are beyond our control can thwart or destroy that potential.

This need to cultivate motif sets the tone for the relational economy we must negotiate if we are to realize our full potential: Are we participating, or basking in an environment that nourishes and protects the cultivation of our fullest potential? If not, what, if anything, can we do about it? These are the questions we must ask to have any chance to realize our opportunity.

Some of us are infected with pathogenic structures, and or environments, either physical, mental or both, that prevent us from realizing our potential. Sometimes, even though we have the opportunity to bend our activities more directly toward growth, we are nonetheless inclined us to actively participate in activities that do not nourish and defend that fruitful relational engine that leads to our full potential. Self sabotage is common among us. It comes in many forms such as learned helplessness, or lacking the courage to sever parasitic and predatory relationships and forge new mutually beneficial ones that are more nourishing and protective of not only our potential, but that of the interdependent community that emerges from that fruitful relational soil.

To reorient a self defeated life we must recognize that engaging in parasitic or predatory activities such as developing or maintaining social relationships with persons who do not nourish and defend our potential, but feed on or stagnate it, or failing to cultivate the opportunities within our reach must be replaced. We must find and develop mutually beneficial relationships and activities to the degree we are able to cultivate them. That means we look for valuable things to bring to the table, and we also look to invest that contribution where it has an opportunity to return more value than it consumes. This is the recipe for a reality that is more inclined to work in our favor. Engaging in the pursuit of short term pleasures at the expense of long term satisfaction, or staying in social relationship climates that will never nourish our potential and the like is a recipe for a reality that is more likely to work against our favor.

There are any number of complex variables that can go into the barriers to potential, some of which are outside our local control, but the segment that is within our control is our only opportunity, and it is that climate which we must devote our abilities in order to cultivate our most satisfied potential. This is no different from any other organism, and it is one of the foundational statements made by way of how the cosmos is structured as far as I can tell.

I could be missing something(s)

We’re in this Life Together

Like so much of the choreographed biological relational dance that defines our own being – this place in the cosmos that we have only just begun to capture in our meager abstract net of words – the monarch butterfly lives a life of connectivity to itself and nature that steps far beyond it’s own capacity to grasp. When we witness this spectacle of the monarch life cycles, we can only marvel on the sidelines and partly describe the processes as one of nature’s mundane acts of profound expression unfolds before us. Like us, the monarch butterfly cannot sufficiently explain the intricate depths of its own being, and yet it is somehow aware at some level how to navigate the environment that would swallow it if it did not press back proportionally with an effective strategy to negotiate the perils. The monarch cannot explain why it eats what it eats, why it is equipped the way it is, or breeds successive generations, each with specialized roles and specialized understanding, geared to migrate a partial leg of a journey that spans a number of monarch lifetimes and thousands of miles through a myriad of environmental variables and challenges. It cannot explain the depths of its own genius – to act as a singular cohesive unit in the face of variable challenges with a collective body that spans lifetimes and acts in unison to preserve the species as a whole.

The Monarch butterfly carves out its cycle of life in part through a 2500 mile journey every year over four specialized generations of travelers, each lifespan lasting 2 to 6 weeks, except for those that wait through the winter to make the journey again. Like the monarch, we also temporarily carry the torch for a larger body of life that continues beyond our individual lifespan; we play roles in this larger scheme that we may not completely understand. The degree to which we can make sense of this journey we are on is perhaps rooted in the theme that is expressed through all biological forms; that the mark we make, like ripples in this common pond in which we all swim, get carried forward in time depending on how much value they contribute to this common body of live from which we all spring and the extended journey we’re all on. While the significance of our lives exists mostly beyond our field of vision, we can see that what we are is seated on the continuing nourishment and protection of this delicate economy of mutually nourishing and protective relationships that define us as a coherent and continuing form.

An Incredible Journey: The Monarch Butterfly Migration

https://www.isfoundation.com/news/incredible-journey-monarch-butterfly-migration

Balance is the Key to Sustainable Systems

 

Balance is the key to sustainable systems. Even vital substances like water can become harmful when they are out of balance. Too much, or too little water, T too high or too low a temperature and so on is harmful. The correct range is key, and this range is determined by the environmental context. When it comes to complex biological systems like ourselves, many forms of balance come into play. How many and which type of cells, proteins and so on are part of the biological economy that has different players with different attributes, but all operate under the unified purpose of nourishing and defending the integrity of the whole system. This principle is echoed on many scales, for instance; we must seek our nourishment, but we must also defend against antagonists as a social community, as a species, and we must nourish and defend the planet if we are to continue. The point is, this nourish and defend in the context of the community principle is what defines a stable and sustainable system. But even these “nourish and defend” traits also must be in balance; proportional to the context of the environment, otherwise they too become harmful.

The same way we go into a highly reactive mode when stressed or faced with a perceived mortal threat – this fight or flight mode, where we try out behaviors that we would never consider in any other context goes into effect. It’s part of the innate systems embedded in our biological systems that go into effect as a means of defending against the loss of the integrity we depend on to remain coherent.

Our individual cells are equipped with these same defensive mechanisms on a smaller scale. When our cells are faced with stressors or mortal threats they also try out radical strategies in an attempt to hold on to integrity as well. These radical adaptive expressions that attempt to stem the tide of destruction can sometimes result in cancer, which produces a radical class of “survivalist” cells, highly focused on, and able to rapidly, adapt. Once they gain a foothold of fiercely adaptive cells in the context of our body, which requires a certain cooperative mutually nourishing relationship climate in order to function, it threatens the integrity we depend on at that larger biological community scale.

In other words, the cancer begins to exercise this highly adaptive “try any and everything adaptive strategy” as the cancerous cells begin to multiply. The cells begin operating as an adaptive agent in its own right, with dynamic adaptive aims that separate from the unified purpose of the body which spawned the cells. It is like a speciation within a single body. Rogue maundering raider cells pillaging the body to continue to exist, not recognizing that this tax will destroy the foundation on which they depend.

Because the hyper active highly adaptive capacity operates without regard to the integrity of the larger system in which the cells reside is why cancer cells, once they develop a communal relationship with one another, are so destructive, and why they are so difficult to eradicate once gain enough ground. Their capacity to adapt by developing radical strategies on the fly makes them a particularly foe to eradicate. In this case, lung cancer develops a digestive system.

Scientists Discover a Tiny Stomach Hidden Inside Lung Tumours, Because Cancer Is Changing

Cancer cells will do whatever it takes to survive.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-tiny-stomach-hidden-inside-lung-tumours-because-cancer-is-changing

The Backfire Effect: Plain Truth Sometimes Increases Ignorance

 

The backfire effect is a name for the human social phenomena that exists where when we are given evidence counter to our already established belief, even if that belief is a hope, desire or the like in disguise, we tend to not only reject the conflicting evidence, but believe even more strongly in our original proposition as a result of the encounter.

This makes the many self appointed “rational warriors” in our culture agents of increasing cultural ignorance when tactics of persuasion that include things like ridicule, and loudly speaking what is perceived to be “important science” to what is is perceived as “the unwashed masses” are employed. Rather than agents of increasing rationality, ridicule and brutal honesty are not effective, regardless of whether or not they may be true.

We see this cultural phenomena in the anti vaccine movement, and other beliefs that require a vigorous denial of plain evidence to maintain. My guess is the reasons for this are at least partially rooted in the fact that, generally speaking, we are social-emotional creatures with a small capacity for rational thought. We are not rational creatures who are also social and emotional. When sincere efforts to combat ignorance simply use fact, and do not also accommodate those emotional-social realities, they tend to backfire fortifying ignorance among those of us who perceive we’re under attack.

Our personal identities have their own ideological immune response system and like our biological one, we become more able to fend off “attacks” over time as we’re exposed to them. Additionally, we can develop what amounts to an ideological autoimmune disease in our perception faculties, where we retreat to a belief matrix that is increasingly divorced from pragmatic realities.

The methods by which we communicate, including the social-emotional subtext of those communications, become part of the means by which things are accepted or rejected. This is the reality of the social economy. Genuine persuasion appears to be built on trust, and that trust sometimes must be established over time, especially when in the context of a prior relational strain stemming from perceived disrespect, or a history of prior emotional strain related to the topic on the part of the person(s) being communicated with. The capacity to communicate in the context of ideological differences requires more than an economy of facts. It must also include a baseline of respect at the very least as a starter for any real communication to have a chance to take place.

*France’s fact-based approach to teaching the public about Lyme disease has backfired*

From the article: “Rather than quieting the concerns of Lyme advocates, France’s national plan is further entrenching two extremes.”

https://undark.org/article/france-chronic-lyme-disease/

 

More information on the backfire effect: https://medium.com/homeland-security/the-social-psychology-of-the-backfire-effect-locking-up-the-gears-of-your-mind-a79d4e6e8061

 

There are some who think the backfire effect is not real, or at least exxagerated. Here is an article about this.

http://mashable.com/2017/05/06/oatmeal-backfire-effect-comic/#Py0CmJZf3iqr

In-Groups and Out-Groups: A Biological Perspective

There is a certain fungus that is able to control certain ants to serve as a vehicle to further its own reproductive ends. The ant, in this case, dies in service of reproducing the fungus. There is also the case of the bacterial parasite T. Gondii which edits rodent brains to be attracted to felines so they get eaten, which helps the bacteria to enter its spawning grounds, which is in a feline gut. (it also edits other mammal brains in different ways) There are numerous cases of parasites and viruses that have the capacity to influence other organisms in service of their specific ends. It could be said that this is the norm in nature – competing influences that ultimately result in emergent behaviors that we typically identify as belonging to “an organism” but are in fact based on the collective property of many organisms.

When we consider that we are also a collection of various organisms that are influenced by each other, each with various agendas and various means of carrying that agenda out, we can begin to see that what we call our choices, and what we think of as our identity, may in fact be a byproduct of the parliamentary constellation of influences that rises from the pool of biological organisms that define us. We may be a reflection of the relationship field from which we are composed which extends beyond human genetics.

A recognition of this, at least from the parasitic sense, there is a now “theory” on the block called ; “The parasite-stress theory” which sees our personal and cultural identities through the lens of the parasitic creatures that influence us to service their various needs. In some real respects, it posits that our cultures in large part are an emergent property of the parasitic microbes that influence our behaviors.

The evidence for this idea is the strong correlation between the strength of parasites in the relationship field of the people in a given culture and their relative state of peace or conflict in addition to whether or not the culture is conformist or individualistic etc. In other words, what we see as culture may be a mirror effect of the relationship field between organisms.

According to this video; the parasite-stress theory may be a general theory of culture and sociality. In a nutshell it acknowledges the fact that the various strategies organisms have to influence other organisms to serve its purposes do have a role in defining this thing we call us. My thought is that it would be a more accurate lens if it looked at the full spectrum of organisms, some of which are on the mutually beneficial range of influence – commensal organisms having a stake in the success of the community it depends on – and doing what they can to offer benefits such as stability, defense, long life and so on. In other words, I think this theory is on to something, but is not yet complete. If we factored in the full spectrum of influences, (rather than just the parasitic segment) we would be able to understand that our opportunity for cultivating an intentional experience of life, rather than riding ignorantly on the winds of biological chance, is rooted in whether or not we intentionally tend the biological relationship field of which we are, on which we depend and that defines this thing we call “us” to be inclined toward the commensal, mutually beneficial segment of the spectrum of relationships.

The Battlefront between Order and Chaos

The level of depth perception coupled with the predatory behavioral inclination of cancer produces a number of intricate strategies to advance its agenda to make itself the center and overtake the carrying capacity of the community of cells in which it lives, destroying the community (and itself) in the process. Cancer is like a seditious saboteur bent on destroying a nourishing sustainable system of relationships. This predatory antagonistic bias toward the relational harmony an organism depends on and the concerted effort of that community of harmonic relationships to defend against these destructive agents is a clear illustration of the battlefront between order and chaos we see expressed throughout nature.

One of the more intricate destructive strategies employed by cancer is to cause a kind of black flag type operation, where it tricks healthy cells into producing false viral signals so that they look like they are the problem to the immune system. This diverts the healthy system’s immune response resources toward a false problem redirecting energy that might otherwise be directed at the cancer, enabling it to carry on its work of seizing more resources for itself at the expense of the larger biological community.

Here is an article detailing this process:

Researchers Now Know How Cancers Force Other Cells to Make Fake Viruses

http://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-now-know-how-cancers-force-other-cells-to-make-fake-viruses