Immunity; controls over socializing? (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, July 14, 2016, 12:25 (3055 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Immunity chemical controls may encourage social cooperation:-http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-07-role-immune-social-interaction.html-"In a startling discovery that raises fundamental questions about human behavior, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the immune system directly affects - and even controls - creatures' social behavior, such as their desire to interact with others".-Quite separately from all the medical implications of this article, what fascinates me is the way in which microcosms and macrocosms reflect one another. The “desire to interact with others” is a driving force of evolution: single cells join to form cellular communities (even bacteria do it), cellular communities join to form bodies, bodies join to form social communities (tribes), social communities join to form even bigger communities (nations). And alongside this cooperation we have competition: cells wage war on one another just as communities do. It may be said to go all the way through to the universe itself, in which matter cooperates with matter (we would not have life without the positive interaction of countless celestial “bodies”) as well as waging war on itself (the break-up of solar systems). We can also regard the universe as one gigantic “body” (which perhaps might fit in with BBella's concept of a unified All That Is), though whether it has a single mind, a zillion minds, or no mind at all (apart from earthly minds) is the big question that fuels so many of our discussions.