I started at Colby studying physics, but I’m a biologist at heart. Thanks to this course, I can now say I generally understand the inner workings of nearly every biological system of the human body. But thanks to my prior experience, I can say I understand nearly every physical system of it as well. When you study nature with such a breadth of scope, from sub-atomic particles up to social interactions, peculiar patterns precipitate. Humans are good at finding patterns when there are none, so it’s easy to dismiss them when they first manifest. But, when you see the same patterns again and again, they become difficult to ignore.<\/p>\n
I suspect the universe is fractal in nature, with no upper or lower bound to its complexity. The human body exists at a level of complexity which highlights this notion. Our muscles and nerves form like ropes. Beginning with single cells, they bundle together as fibers glued together with connective tissue. The bundles then form glued bundles of their own, continuing to aggregate until a complete muscle or nerve is formed with all of the associated features. Each level constructs the next; each successive level not much different from the previous, yet jumping from level 1 to level 10 feels like a totally new universe. If you look at the whole picture though, peering cross-eyed through every layer at once, you start to see them as the same. The layers, just an illusion.<\/p>\n
Halfway through this course I encountered a pattern. I suspect it’d been following me a long time, nearly a decade. Society is like a cell. A simple thought, but one with heavy implications. Society is like a lot of things though: A body, a bee hive, an ant colony, a fungus. But all of those examples I just gave, are themselves, composed of cells. You see, each level of complexity above ‘cell’: tissue, organ, organ system, just allows organisms to eat, drink, sleep, defecate, and reproduce in more complicated ways. None of them are necessary for life or homeostasis. The simplest organisms are unicellular. That fact, that a single cell can maintain all necessary processes for life to flourish, made me see them as perhaps the most apt models of society imaginable. Simply start by swapping proteins for people and you’re on your way.<\/p>\n
I won’t use this blog post as my grand thesis of a cellular society, I’m now writing an essay for that purpose. But I want to give credit to professor Klepach for approaching the material of this course with the sense of wonder and curiosity that it deserves. Paying close attention to the structural and functional hierarchies in nature can illuminate issues with the hierarchies we’ve created for ourselves. Understanding our society starts with understanding our own minds and the bodies that house them. Understanding those starts with anatomy and physiology.<\/p>\n
~Miles Crockett<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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