A Relatively Logical Argument for God
from an Evolutionary, Biological & Philosophical Point of View.
Cells within a Body..…Bodies within a Species.….Species within a Biosphere..…Biospheres within a Cosmos….. All Organized by Consciousness
Summary Overview
Organisms are comprised of living cells, specialized for various functions within the organs and tissues of the body. Each cell is a living entity capable of sense and response.
The earth's biosphere can similarly be viewed as a living entity (“Gaia”) comprised of species which are analogous to organ and tissue cells. They are specialized for various functions within the biological network.
Species are comprised of individual members just as an organism’s organs are comprised of individual member cells.
Organisms are cell collectives managed by a neural communication network. Similarly, each species is managed by various types of communication methods (sound, chemical, electronic, etc.). Organelles within each living cell are coordinated by a molecular communication method.
Unless life is unique to planet Earth1 the universe is populated with an unknown number of other living worlds. If the reasonable hypothesis that life will be found throughout the universe turns out to be true, each living world might be seen as a cell within the living body of the cosmos.
Just as a living body of cells has a unifying resident consciousness, it’s entirely plausible for a living cosmos to likewise have a unifying organizing consciousness. When we look at the structure of the galaxies which make up the universe we see a cosmos characterized by an unmistakable degree of order.2
This cosmic unifying consciousness has been given many names — in the English language “God” is the word reserved for this supreme being.3
Note on semantics: The word “conscious” in common usage has a number of meanings including “the capacity to sense and respond”. But it can also mean “deliberate and intentional” or “having knowledge of something” often with an implication of self-awareness. The spelling modification “cønscious” is here used to refer exclusively to the sentient abilities of sense and response. The normal spelling allows for all associated meanings.
Key to the following discussion is a clear distinction between these different meanings of “consciousness”. An entity that’s capable of sensing and responding may not have knowledge of what it’s doing. It may not be deliberate or self-aware. Self-awareness and deliberateness can be difficult to ascertain when cønscious “sensing and responding” is observed — so it’s important not to mistakenly infer their presence.
For instance — we have an autonomic nervous system that senses and responds. But who can say whether or not the autonomic nervous system “knows what it’s doing”, is acting “deliberately or intentionally” or is in any way self-aware? All biological organisms are capable of sensing and responding but it’s a matter of contested opinion the extent to which their responses are consciously deliberate or signify self-awareness.4
The ability to sense and respond does not necessarily imply an experience of being. For instance, a computer program tied to a physical interface can sense conditions and respond to them but is assumed to do so without conscious experience. This is an assumption which might reasonably be questioned (particularly in the age of AI development).
In natural living systems the most elegant and likely agent for sense and response is a conscious “experiencer”, much like the one reading this text now (that's you, btw).
The modified spelling “Cønscious” and “cønsciousness” is here used to signify an experiential (not mechanical) sensing and responding free from any necessary implication of intention (sense of future directionality), knowledge (understanding of past events) or self-awareness (consciousness of self).
It's worth keeping in mind however that the additional attributes of “full” consciousness (sense of self, intentionality, knowledge) may be present even in cases where they cannot be proven.
Details to this mode are fleshed out in the following sections:
Cells within a Body
Bodies within a Species
Cønsciousness and Order
Species within a Biosphere
Microcosmic Speculation
Cells within a Body
Consider your physical body with its billions of cells. Some of these cells are “yours” and share the same genetic code. But your body also hosts many other microscopic inhabitants (some beneficial, others potentially harmful). Your body is the world within which all these cells live.
Every cell senses and responds to fulfill its function within your body’s ecosystem. We can rightly say that each cell is cønscious because it’s able to experientially sense conditions and respond accordingly.
Your body’s cells may be somewhat limited in their ability to sense and respond. Nevertheless, each cell has a real and undeniable cønsciousness. If you dismiss a cell's cønsciousness as insignificant, consider this: without your body’s cells and their biological functionality your present consciousness could not exist.
You can’t directly experience what it’s like to be a cell in your body. But you do experience what happens when your cells feel good (health) or bad (sickness). Likewise, your cells cannot directly experience your consciousness and may be only dimly aware of your existence — if at all.5 Nevertheless, your feelings, thoughts, decisions and actions can have a dramatic impact on the experience of your cells.
You and your cells experience different realities yet at the same time you and your cells live integrally as the same being.
Your cells are continually dying off and being replaced. As noted by Tor Nørretranders in his wonderfully concise online essay Permanent Reincarnation: “My body is not like a typical material object, a stable thing. It is more like a flame, a river or an eddie. Matter is flowing through it all the time. The constituents are being replaced over and over again”.
Every few years almost all your body’s cells are regenerated and replaced by an entirely new set of cells.6 But no matter the extent to which your body changes, you still identify as the same self. You feel now and have always felt a continuity of experience, believing yourself to be the same one experiencing all your life’s events.7
Your cønscious ability to sense and respond also includes the capacity of your autonomic nervous system to perform the functions necessary to keep your body parts working together. You are not normally aware of this capacity and (unless you’ve trained in yogic or other ascetic arts) you are probably somewhat limited in your ability to influence your autonomic processes. Nevertheless, these processes are deeply integrated into your body's cønsciousness, providing the mechanism to keep billions of cønscious cells coordinated in your communal life together.
Conscious and autonomic functions are inextricably linked, for when consciousness perishes the organization of the body’s cell collective quickly unravels.
Here are the three main points to keep in mind throughout the rest of this rather long article:
• Living bodies are made of cønscious living beings (cells) organized by a unified cønscious network manifest in the nervous system (what we call "self”).
• The self’s cønsciousness persists, while the constituent cells of the body come and go.
• Neither the self’s cønsciousness nor cell cønsciousness can persist for any significant period without each other.
Bodies within a Species
Consider the human species. Humanity is comprised of individuals, each with our own separate cønsciousness.8 Individual human beings are analogous to the cells within the organs of the body. The species continues on while a stream of new individuals replace those who have passed away.
Every individual member of a species has their own experience, separate from (yet simultaneously integrated into) the identity of the species — just as your cells have their own experience within the context of “you”. Your body outlasts the cells of which it’s made and likewise, each species lives long beyond the life of any individual member. A species cannot exist without its members and no individual can exist without a species to which it belongs.
Does each species have some organizing central cønsciousness tying all its individual members together? This idea has been circulating for a very long time (e.g. Hegel's Geist or Jung's Collective Unconscious). Consider the following data points suggesting some collective cønsciousness guiding species.
• The primary characteristic of cønsciousness is its ability to communicate with the cells of its body. Similarly, species develop communication methods to facilitate coordination between their individual members.
• Observe a large school of fish, flock of birds or crowd of people. They consist of many individuals — yet they can move as one. Is such tightly coordinated movement possible when each member is solely sensing and responding on the basis of their own individual cønsciousness? Is it unreasonable to suggest that cønscious groupings have the capacity to form networks which are capable of functioning as a meta-cønsciousness, coordinating the group?
• Those who have been members of organizations requiring precise coordination (military, industrial, political, financial, performing arts, etc.) know that functional organizations require the integration and management of each member’s individual actions.
• Those who effectively manage an organization recognize that the demands of the group take precedence over their own individual preferences. The best leaders in a very real sense are not actually doing the leading. They follow (and thereby embody) the essential spirit of the organization.9
• Being a member of a large audience gives many of us a feeling of being integrated into the crowd’s collective experience. A large mass of people is often described as having a “mind of its own” and organizations of all sizes are said to exhibit “group-think”. We speak of the “madness of crowds” because their behavior can be so radically different from what we might expect from each individual when left to their own devices. Are these just poetic phrases or do they refer to an actual tendency towards the formation of meta-cønsciousness in large gatherings?
• The character of a species can be quite different from that of its individual members; just as you are of a different character than the cell collectives of which you’re made. A species may be rapacious and destructive while many (even a majority) of its members may be friendly, considerate and generous towards each other.
• Consider the old wisdom phrases “no man is an island” and “a house divided cannot stand”. The former suggests that no one is truly an individual suggesting that we are dependent on our social network. The latter suggests that group cohesion is necessary for any collective venture to succeed. Does cohesion arise from the members of a group or is there some meta-cønsciousness arising from the network within the group? In any organization or organism is there always some cønsciousness present connecting all subordinate cønsciousness?
• The ever controversial Rupert Sheldrake has long pointed to evidence for non-local connectivity within and between species (“morphogenetic fields”). His studies suggest that novel behavior in a species observed at one location may appear elsewhere without a direct physical connection to materially account for the spread of the behavior. Many within the scientific community reject such claims out of hand but Sheldrake makes a convincing argument for a transpersonal interconnectedness.
Sheldrake has also speculated on the possibility that the Sun is cønscious (which would suggest the same for all other stars). Keep this argument in mind!
• All species know how to accomplish certain activities without having to explicitly learn them. Spiders know how to spin webs, chickens know how to brood, mammals know how to suckle, etc. Similarly, the cells of the body inherently know what to do within their organ and tissue collectives. The same can be said of the cell’s organelles and protein assembly functions. Where does the memory of this knowledge reside?
Inherent knowledge is popularly attributed to genetics. On a technical level the only function of a gene is to provide the code for cell protein expression. This is assumed to account for all behaviors within the organism — and some behaviors have been linked to specific genes. But where is the evidence that genes are the purely mechanistic agents of all behavior? Might they merely a blueprint for protein construction referred to by the cell’s cønsciousness?
When considering a sensing and responding biological entity there is no more elegant agent than cønsciousness. One of the very few things that can be proven with certainty is that an experience is happening and the experiencer (Self) is the agent responding to experience. We each know this to be true within ourselves. We cannot prove it to be the case with others, but the inference is strong. Therefore, why not ascribe the agent of action to what we each know to be the case within us?
• Consider the mainstream genetic perspective and you'll find yet another suggestion of collective cønsciousness. The selfish-gene hypothesis suggests that all individual members within a species are merely vehicles for the propagation of their genes. Proponents of this theory view individual behavior as invariably serving the survival strategies of the genes. From this popular point of view, individual organisms are merely tools that are created, utilized and cast aside by the gene (much as individual cells are created, utilized and cast aside by the body). The gene has it’s own logic and goals that supersede the conscious concerns of the individual (which become vain and irrelevant illusions from the gene’s eye view). Is the genome an expression of our species-wide collective cønsciousness?
It’s not difficult to imagine each species (and each taxon up the taxonomic chain) tied together by some unifying cønsciousness — similar to the way your personal cønsciousness ties together all the cells of your body.
True, your body is clearly defined in space whereas with a species, much less so. But is this a significant difference? If morphogentic fields are real then species are tied together by cønsciousness over long distances.
The power and quality of cønsciousness may vary significantly over time depending upon conditions. For instance — a network cønsciousness may arise initially to manage loosely defined relationships within a collective. At this point it may not have a powerful role and may be only dimly aware of itself (if at all). If the collective proves to be successful the nature of the relationship may become more essential — particularly if severe environmental pressures are brought to bear. In this case the network cønsciousness may become the most important member of the collective as it’s increasingly relied upon to produce greater efficiencies. Does this explain why a severely injured body will spend its energy resources to save the brain first (network CPU) before any other bodily organ?
As a consequence of these observations it's easy to reimagine the story of evolution as follows: symbiotic relationships between specialized cell collectives are initiated during periods of relative energy abundance (the beginning of a particular resource epoch). In this phase some lifeforms have surplus of energy that can be shared with (exploited by) others. If these relationships prove mutually beneficial the communication between these separate entities gradually forms a neural network. As the participants become more dependent the network is strengthened, becoming more essential to maintaining the dynamic equilibrium each entity has become accustomed to.
However, when resources have been tapped to the point of scarcity, symbiotic relationships become stressed. Some symbiotic networks will collapse under pressure whereas others will strengthen as the network takes dominance over the collectives. For those that survive, it comes at a cost: diminishing autonomy for those participating in the symbiotic system. This is accompanied by a strengthening of the cønsciousness managing the network of the collective. A unified center of cønscious control is necessary to keep all essential members integrated and functioning with maximum efficiency.
Could it be that the evolutionary formation of the organs within so-called “higher” organisms started as symbiotic relationships between what were previously separate organisms (in the same way that primitive organisms were formed through the symbiotic relationships between various cell collectives)?
Social animals can be seen in these same terms (absent the inter-species symbioticism). A bee or ant colony is often described as a single “super-organism” comprised of its many members. In this case the constituent members are far less circumscribed than in the case of a body and its organs, or the organs and their cells. Yet the notion of a unified entity still persists within the bees ("hive mind") and ants — despite the fact that individuals may disperse widely throughout their environment.
Is it unreasonable to view all species within this same framework — at least to some extent?
The social insects demonstrate that the idea of a loosely aggregated organism is already an accepted scientific concept. Indeed, bees have been shown to exhibit a collective intelligence similar to the processes within our own brains.10
Is the hive mind a real mind? Does it have its own cønsciousness and perhaps even a sense of self? If there is a unified cønsciousness for each individual hive — is there another for all bee hives — one that manages the species in its totality?
It’s probably impossible to know for certain whether such an organizing cønsciousness exists within all networks of organisms. Imagine how difficult it would be for one of your body’s cells to prove that you exist. We are confronted with a similar challenge if our standard is absolute proof. And in more loosely integrated networks a unifying cønsciousness is less well defined and consequently probably more difficult to detect.
Science has thus far not been able to definitively identify a physical seat of consciousness. Materialists insist consciousness is merely an artifact of the physical brain. But a growing chorus of articulate voices are suggesting there’s nothing to favor a conceptualization of the brain as a generator of consciousness to that of the brain (or more accurately: the entire nervous system) as a receiver of consciousness. When consciousness is seen as a signal received by the senses it easily and handily explains the abundant circumstantial evidence for a cønscious connectivity beyond direct physical interaction. If the source of cønsciousness is “elsewhere” (avoiding speculation on its location for now) and cønscious beings are simply receivers of this source — then all cønscious beings are indeed manifestations of the same cønscious meta-being.
Why should we not call this singular being “Creator”? If there were no cønscious life on earth it would be comparatively uninteresting place with not much happening. Cønsciousness is fundamentally creative, so when confronted with creative abundance (which is a pretty decent way to describe life on this planet) we might reasonably suspect some form of cønsciousness at play.
The image of a pattern emerges wherein every living cønscious being is but a tiny part of God’s unified cosmic cønsciousness. God manifests as a cascade of nested cønscious beings — both enclosing and constituent; coming together and falling apart; dying and regenerating like a flickering flame; water running within the river of life.
Cønsciousness and Order
Your body’s functionality depends on the autonomic ability of your cønsciousness. Any kind of order (especially a functional order) inherently suggests the presence of cønsciousness. If not via some unifying cønscious agency then by what agency do groups maintain order and cohesion? Mechanistic explanations for order fall short as they rely upon some prior ordered state to account for the phenomena in question. At the beginning of this regressive chain is some inexplicable origin of order.
Yet a known agent of order is staring out through your eyes right now. Cønsciousness is obviously an agent of order (perhaps the only agent of order?). Wherever order is observed, some form of cønsciousness has likely been at work. All creatures attempt to organize their surroundings to their liking, making their holes, beds, nests, dens, dams, colonies, cities and other artifacts. Of course one species’ idea of order may look like complete chaos to another — a perennial source of conflict between different lifeforms. Nevertheless, it’s easy to see that a spiderweb is the spider’s idea of order — even if we humans see spiderwebs as a nuisance and symbol of chaos.
Things don’t get organized by themselves. Chaos results from a lack of cønscious attention but is also a matter of perspective. Spiders, termites and mice all have their sense of order. Left to run loose in a barn they will make a mess of the place from a human point of view. When we attend to the barn, the mice and spiders may still have some place in it — but within the terms that allow us to maintain our overall sense of barn order. But it’s a completely different story if there’s no consciousness attending anything. Such a place is like a dead husk.
If an ordered system is exposed to very little interaction it may maintain its order for some significant period of time without any cønsciousness attending. But most exposed orders (not hermetically sealed) will quickly deteriorate without an attendant cønsciousness.
Genetic functionality requires that order be strictly maintained to ensure the quality of protein synthesis. How are we to believe that such an intricate method of coding and error correction was produced randomly? If the gene is just a product of mechanistic processes — then why is it called “selfish”?
The concept “selfish” implies not only the cønscious capacity to sense and respond but also conscious self-awareness. What would a selfish thing seek to preserve if it had no inherent sense of self? We should reasonably expect scientists to choose the terms which best describe the phenomena being studied. Whether or not it’s intended, the word “selfish” explicitly suggests that genes are cønscious entites. Why should there be any difficulty in seeing cells and species as cønscious too?
Species, organisms and cells are all able to determine what to bring in, what to keep out, what to retain and what to expel. There is tremendous variety in the manner in which these basic functions are accomplished — and in the circumstances and materials involved. But the basic pattern appears to hold true everywhere we look…
Cønsciousness enclosed within Cønsciousness, enclosed within Cønsciousness, enclosed within…
Species within a Biosphere
Palaeontologists’ examination of the fossil record have demonstrated that (like individuals and cells) species too have lifespans. From the point of view of geological time all species come and go within the story of earth-life. Cells fleet faster than individuals, who in turn are fleeting faster than species (suggesting a fascinating relationship between scale and time).
Species come and go but the Earth’s biosphere lives on. The Earth is like a single cønscious entity containing trillions of subordinate cønscious beings, each playing their role within the planetary meta-cell.
Proponents of Gaia theory11 have long argued that the Earth has the capacity to regulate itself much as a cell does. “Gaia”is the term coined for the biosphere’s cønscious entity. The Gaia hypothesis cites evidence suggesting that the planet Earth actually manages favorable conditions for life — as if it were cønsciously doing so.
Earth can be seen as embodying the same basic activity as a cell within a body — having a membrane able to detect conditions and accordingly determine what is permitted to enter, what is prevented from entering, what is to be retained within the membrane as well as what is to be removed.
All species accept some material from the environment and reject the rest. The chosen material is put through some particular metabolic process to derive energy and some effluent byproduct (waste) is produced. This effluence is oftentimes put to use by some other species. Your body’s tissues and organs do much the same thing: they transform and exchange the fluids and neural messages of use to each other which keeps the whole system functioning.
But of course all biological systems have their vulnerabilities. If a living entity becomes infected with a pathogen that threatens the host’s survival — it’s a serious problem for them both. The relevance of this fact cannot be overstated but is probably best left understated.
Biospheres within the Cosmos
Thus far we’ve explored Earthlife's ladder of nested cønsciousness, comprising at least 4 levels: the cell, the organism, the species, and Gaia/biosphere.12 Cønsciousness manifests in a great variety of physical forms but all up and down the chain it’s a fantastically interconnected common thread of a single cønsciousness resident within a neural network managing collectives of cønscious beings. Why would this nested pattern not continue outwards within the macrocosm and inwards towards the microcosm?
Human beings have long speculated that life is present elsewhere throughout the cosmos. And while this has yet to be definitively proven it’s reasonable to consider it likely. Astrophysicists now believe that most stars feature planets in orbit around them. It's reasonable to speculate that some of these systems support life of some kind. These countlessly abundant islands of cønsciousness (in whatever form they may take) can plausibly be seen as cells within the cosmic body — cønscious members of the universal specie.
All stellar objects are believed to have lifespans. Galaxies are therefore comprised of a flow of individual stars, living and dying like the cells within a body. Individual stellar “cells” come and go but the body of the galaxy remains essentially intact. The fact that the night’s sky has kept a configuration almost exactly as it was thousands of years ago suggests an ordered stability within the galactic body. As noted earlier, the maintenance of order within a complex interacting system may signify the presence of cønsciousness.
Some stellar worlds may not contain cønscious life. But even if we only assume some worlds to be alive, it’s still entirely reasonable to compare the universe to a body. Bodies contain many cønscious cells (those active in the metabolic or neural processes) and also many “dead” cells (such as those in hair, nails, and dry skin). The material of the cosmos is like a river flowing over the aeons. The universal fabric of stellar tissues and galactic organs may rightfully be seen as comprising the body of a universal divine cønsciousness. The identity of the universal cønsciousness is what is signified by terms such as “God”, but we each can call it by whatever we will. It wants our love13 and does not care about labels.14
However, it's interesting to note that the tetragrammaton (יהוה) is sometimes said to be a play on the Hebrew verb “to be” that implies all three tenses: past, present and future: what was, what is, what will be; something eternal. The everpresent “I Am”.
We (all the residents on this planet) are now suffering from the consequences of Homo sapien’s unwillingness to honor the interconnectedness of all living beings. How can we truly repair the damage done while we still believe ourselves to be the only truly conscious beings within the universe? Can we afford to continue to see our species as the pinnacle of conscious being when in reality we occupy a profoundly humble place in the hierarchy of cønsciousness?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Æinstein.
Let us recognize the very real possibility that this Universe is held together by a singular root cønsciousness, experiencing a universal totality and possessing some autonomic system to maintain this magnificent and incomprehensible cosmos. And just as you have been the same You experiencing a lifetime within your body, this Universal Cønsciousness is likely the same experiencer for the lifetime of this Universe.
Microcosmic Speculation
An admittedly far more provisional argument.
It may not be possible to prove that atoms and molecules are held together by some form of cønsciousness — but can we be so sure they are not? After all — molecules and atoms do sense and respond! They change their behavior depending upon conditions. They are separate entities yet their identities are inextricably linked. As with the different levels of species, organism and cell, the character of the atoms which make up a molecule are different from the character of the molecule.
Chemists will often describe the behavior of atoms and molecules as if they possess some intention — that “they want” to do this or that depending upon conditions. If we consider electromagnetic interactions as potentially some form of cønscious activity it suggests a very circumscribed cønsciousness fanatically dedicated to very specific actions. But since when has fanatical devotion to a particular way of doing things signified an absence of cønsciousness? Is a primeval form of awareness truly less plausible than a mechanistic model?
It's also worth noting that atoms are said to interact on the basis of their electron configuration; biological neural networks also interact using electrons as indeed do electronic neural networks!
The reality of cønsciousness is far easier to prove than any particular theory of matter. The phenomena of our own consciousness is rock-solid evidence of the reality of consciousness. Viewing phenomena as consisting of a variety of cønsciousness is far more interesting (and respectful) than the inert matter of materialist reductionism.
In contrast to the certain reality of cønsciousness, phenomena of which we are cønscious (the apparent world of material objects) is elusive. The history of science has made this quite clear: our perceptions regarding the phenomenal world are quite often wrong and our senses entirely inadequate to answer the ever-present nagging question “what’s the matter?”.
The atom has been found to consist of mostly nothing. The quantum nature of the microcosm and its implications for our understanding of the universe are still debated nearly 100 years after the idea was born. From a quantum point of view, matter is not made of definite objects but instead something more like fields of probabilities. Are quantum fluctuations akin to the flickering flame, the flowing river of constituent cønscious beings — popping in and out of existence?
In an effort to overcome our own sensory shortcomings and penetrate to the core of matter we have built amazingly elaborate instrumentation and machines of tremendous power. Yet we have embedded within each of us our own direct experience which clearly illustrates that from an existential point of view, cønsciousness is less at question than matter. Therefore, why would we in any way diminish the immanently real possibility that cønsciousness is resident at all levels within the fabric of this cosmos?
“The first effect of not believing in God is that you lose your common sense.”
G. K. Chesterton
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Footnotes:
Can anyone say with legitimate certainty?
The word “cosmos” comes from the Greek, meaning “order”.
For the term “God” please feel free to substitute whatever designation you prefer as the name for The singular conscious Being at the core of the cosmos: “Great Spirit”, ׳יהוה׳, “Allah”, “Dao”, “Atman”, “Valis” etc.
If an organism is entirely unaware of itself — does this somehow diminish its experience of being? Human peak experiences are often described as coming about after one “forgets the self”, self-awareness being transcended (if only temporarily) by an awareness of something far greater. This suggests the possibility that self-consciousness is actually a lower state of being when compared to any “selfless” state of being. This idea is explicit in many of the world’s great spiritual & religious practices.
Imagine a cell trying to understand who you are from its position within your body.
The cerebral cortex and lens of the eye are said to be exceptions.
In some cases of extreme trauma the sense of identity as a continuous self may be interrupted or obliterated.
As humans we tend to be keenly aware of our intention, memory and self-awareness. We believe ourselves to be “conscious” in the full normal-usage sense of the word. We can have some confidence about this thanks to our ability to communicate our experiences with each other. Were we to use the same communication methods as other cønscious beings we might be more inclined to see them as we see ourselves: fully conscious. Human efforts to communicate directly with primates and other animals has convinced many of their self-awareness, intentionality and capacity for knowledge. See G.A. Bradshaw’s Minding the Animal Psyche
Self-absorbed leadership can easily ruin an organization. When a leader believes the organization should accommodate their personal vision, they are oftentimes out of step with the needs of the organization.
“…studies of individual neuron activity associated with the eye-movement decisions in monkey brains and the studies of individual bee activity associated with nest-site decisions in honeybee swarms have both found that the decision-making process is essentially a competition between alternatives to accumulate support” Honeybee Democracy, Thomas Seeley. https://www.wired.com/2011/12/the-true-hive-mind-how-honeybee-colonies-think/
Lovelock, Margulis et. al.
It might be argued that meta-cønsciousness is also a property of genus, class or phyla etc. The purpose here is to paint an overall picture — not to work out all the details. The organelles within a cell might likewise be considered cønscious beings. Lynn Margulis points out that eukaryotes likely derived from archaea (ancient bacteria) who burrowed into each other (in the face of an inhospitable environment produced by their own effluence). Her theory states that the descendants of these ancient cellular hijackers are what we now call mitochondria. It might also be reasonable to speculate on a number of intermediate steps in the next section discussing the cosmos. There’s a lot of room for expansion and detail within this narrative framework.
When an individual (cell) loses the love necessary to continue being a productive member of the collective (body/organ) it becomes cancerous.
A Taoist saying: "when the dao is lost then there is harmony, when harmony is lost then there is love, when love is lost then there is justice and when justice is lost then there is ritual." This describes the 5 stages of how things can be held together.
Under the Tao things hold together naturally because no distinctions are made (in Taoism they call this WuJi). When the first distinctions occur (called TaiJi "great distinction") everything still has a common sense of purpose so harmony is maintained (the yin/yang symbol "TaiJiTsu" is a symbol of dynamic harmony). But then when harmony is lost things hold together on the basis of a desire to make them work despite often profound differences. We call this "love".
And it just gets worse from there: when love is lost it becomes necessary to institute a system of rules and punishments to hold things together (justice). With the corruption of justice things are only held together by paper-thin rituals which no one understands or believes in but are performed in the vain hope to avoid punishment. When things actually fall apart (soon after the ritual phase) punishment is unavoidable.
Even within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity is referred to by many names: יהוה , Jehovah, Eloheim, Lord, Heavenly Father, Hashem “The Name”