BBC Focus Magazine

[Lateralman]

Is this the big picture? We now have the ability to track our roots way back in time. To simple organic molecules arising from a primordial soup chemical reaction. With spontaneous generation, replication, genetic diversity and genetic mutation, accounting for all the many changes in all of life’s complex living organisms over millions of years.

Some scientists believe that a virus is a life form, which makes sense if you think how it can also mutate, adapt and carry on living when repeatedly under attack from modern antibiotics.

Does a tree scream when cut down? All organic and inorganic life forms are all forms of life.

Therefore, if we are getting close to proving that every living thing is in some way connected and that every living thing came from amino acids brewing the building blocks of life in a past chemical soup.

Then has every living thing started from one! Coming from one ancient initial chemical reaction! Dividing and conquering by cell division. Creating offspring with the unique ability to think independently, when separated from its parent or parents.

If this is correct, then all forms of life on Earth, including ourselves, can only actually be one self-cannibalistic spreading virus organism that is capable of mutating into many different life forms, which survives by predating and cannibalising upon itself in order to grow independently and reproduce?

I think. Let’s discuss.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I think you have been beaten to it Lateralman, in the form of J.E. Lovelock's 'Gaia Hypothesis' ?

biological responses tend to regulate the state of the Earth's environment in their favor

Read more
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/5d.html

[Shadowwolf]

Some scientists believe that a virus is a life form,

As far as I know the issue was more towards them actually not being alive but merely information replicators.

Does a tree scream when cut down?

Nah, no vocal cords but heavens, don't suggest that anyway else what will the veg folks eat

Therefore, if we are getting close to proving that every living thing is in some way connected

Many are connected in some way, don't confer a system akin to a complex organic creature or a single great entity though.

[Lateralman]

Thanks chaps. I have never heard of the “Gaia Hypothesis” very interesting, it appears to cover everything.

However, I could not find anything specific on the main thought I put down. “Everything living is one organism that grows and reproduces by self-cannibalism.”

I find this to be an odd and slightly strange idea to live by feeding upon your dead genetic relations if everything living really is connected.

Has any one tried to join all the dots to see if there is a system for there being a single great entity?

What will the veg folks eat! Yeah right! Does a lettuce feel pain! Could a turnip be a long lost cousin of mine? Perhaps!!

[Shadowwolf]

I find this to be an odd and slightly strange idea to live by feeding upon your dead genetic relations if everything living really is connected.

However the connection and the cannibalism as you put it, these are only in the most generalised sense and so ephemeral as to be of no genuine meaning. Cannibalism is generally understood as eating the same species and there it has an easily understood meaning, to apply that to the fact that all life stemmed from the first simple, single celled organisms is abstracting the concept to a point where it says nothing at all. It would be like thinking that we are all murderers because we kill bacterium.

Has any one tried to join all the dots to see if there is a system for there being a single great entity?

Is that not the previously mentioned Gaia? Don't buy it myself, there are a lot of interconnections and in the mists of prehistory there was less diversity and more commonality, nothing to suggest one large entity though. I find that such ideas appear to be bound up in a quasi spiritual theme of a benevolent entity that is Mother Earth to whom all is a part and it almost functions as some alternate deity figure. It knows what is best, it seeks to keep itself and all within in harmony and it would were it not for its errant organ humanity. Humanity which is often treated as some evil blight destroying the benevolent world spirit with its foul technology etc.

[Lateralman]

No, Mr Wolf. I do not believe in Mother Earth and I do not believe in anything quasi spiritual. I was only trying to think this through objectively. Based in bulk on what we all already know.

If everything can be traced back to the start of one, including bacteria and if we and every other living thing on the planet has spread by self-predation. That alone is an odd enough thought to grow by consuming links to one’s self. Yet nevertheless, we are still all one and yet all still strive to be individual? To stand-alone or be a part of a species team.

The question I avoided was, if everything was meant to come from some primordial soup. Then who or what was the chef?

A grand designer? A rock from mars? The sun? Aliens? It is difficult for me to buy into the idea that it all just happened because the Goldilocks conditions at the time where just right.

We speak of having intelligence but as far as I am aware, all life on this planet has intelligence, which is in the main intelligence for reproduction and survival.

This is understandable if bizarre if we are all connected and growing as one single organism. Our recent DNA comparisons with other life forms have concluded that we are nothing special. In fact, some cases are revealing that we are further down the scale than the simplest life forms.

So if it is that ‘intelligence’ that is the common denominator for all life on earth. Than it only stands to reason that, something with a greater intelligence than our own kicked all this off. What was the spark that created one species that became many individual species?

[Lateralman]

We are beginning to search the universe for Alien life. Fourteen billion years is a long time for it to be out there and yet only man has developed a level of intelligence to consider searching for Alien life.

Why is that? Why haven’t any earlier Earth life forms searched for Alien life in that vast time span? For they too have been many and varied.

If we are surrounded by many different life forms here, on Earth, some of which we still have to discover and yet we are all connected, then what is Alien life? What is it we are searching for?

Perhaps humans really are a one off part of the single organism. If we really are a part of such a thing. Then perhaps there are other life forms out there but nothing to match our own or our counterparts here on Earth. Otherwise, we would have met them.

Perhaps because like all the other non-human life forms on Earth such as ants and crocodiles ect, who have been around for much longer than humans they have never had any need or necessity too.

[Shadowwolf]

No, Mr Wolf. I do not believe in Mother Earth and I do not believe in anything quasi spiritual.

Oh I was referring to the Gaia folk, that seems to be caught up with all that.

It is difficult for me to buy into the idea that it all just happened because the Goldilocks conditions at the time where just right.

I believe a partial quote - he was making another point in the full - from Douglas Adams describes this best, "Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"" We are here therefore the conditions were right for life, it requires no special tuning, we just happen to be in the right spot for life to form because it is the right spot for life to form.

This is understandable if bizarre if we are all connected and growing as one single organism.

But we are not one single global / planetary organism.

In fact, some cases are revealing that we are further down the scale than the simplest life forms.

Such as?

So if it is that ‘intelligence’ that is the common denominator for all life on earth.

But it is not and really, what are we defining as intelligence because our sentience is a world apart from what your dog is capable of. Also bacterium and insects for example are not what one would call intelligent, they're practically organic robots operating on rudimentary switches for actions.

Than it only stands to reason that, something with a greater intelligence than our own kicked all this off.

No it does not, that's just the empty explanation of intelligent design that doesn't really explain anything at all. It's an argument from incredulity, I cannot conceive of how anything other than an intelligence could have started it all off therefore there must be an intelligence starting it all off. Which of course just leaves us with explaining what that intelligence is and where it came from.

What was the spark that created one species that became many individual species?

We don't yet know, but that gap does not mean anyone gets to insert whatever fantasy pleases them into the gap. It is not we don't know therefore god did it.

Why is that? Why haven’t any earlier Earth life forms searched for Alien life in that vast time span?

Because none of them developed sentience, an ability to appreciate their position in the world, to think about who and what they are and where they are, to think about the fact that they can think. The simpler intelligences cannot move beyond their immediate existence so don't spend time pondering existence and the vastness of the cosmos.

If we are surrounded by many different life forms here, on Earth, some of which we still have to discover and yet we are all connected, then what is Alien life? What is it we are searching for?

I'm sorry, what? We, or at least some of us search for ET to see if there is life beyond our own world or if we are it, they search so as to attempt to know.

Perhaps humans really are a one off part of the single organism. If we really are a part of such a thing. Then perhaps there are other life forms out there but nothing to match our own or our counterparts here on Earth. Otherwise, we would have met them.

I'm sorry but that makes no sense.

Perhaps because like all the other non-human life forms on Earth such as ants and crocodiles ect, who have been around for much longer than humans they have never had any need or necessity too.

Well if you're suggesting that alien life was somehow limited to animals and no higher intelligences, then they would never have the cognitive capacity to consider their wider world never mind beyond. Not sure what the point of that is though.

[Hyrulian Outlaw]

"In fact, some cases are revealing that we are further down the scale than the simplest life forms.

Such as?"

I believe he is referring to the fact that some species have more chromosomes than us and that others have more complex DNA.

"What was the spark that created one species that became many individual species?

We don't yet know, but that gap does not mean anyone gets to insert whatever fantasy pleases them into the gap. It is not we don't know therefore god did it."

We don't yet know but I think weve made a good start. There have been experiments that show the pre cursor to life, amino acids, form spontaneously in certain conditions. These conditions exist naturally in certain places such as stellar clouds.

[Lateralman]

I try to avoid killing any living thing unfortunately; I am not a Buddhist and have to eat.

I too thought that ants where simply mindless workers controlled by a queen. Recently I have been having trouble with them invading my kitchen worktop. Every time I saw them, I would kill them with a rolled up newspaper.

This went on for a week or more. It did not matter how many I killed they kept on coming back. Until one night when I went into the kitchen, I noticed the ants running and hiding after I switched on the light.

I also noticed the same event happening during the day when I walked anywhere near the worktop. With the ants now doing their level best to get out of sight before they were in the news.

Organic robots?

[Lateralman]

Mr Wolf, I have tried to tackle your questions in part below whilst expanding on this thought with hopefully a little more clarity.

Are we all one single living organism?

This may or may not be sci-fi and I am aware it has been suggested that Mars may have seeded the Earth and we may be the Aliens.

However, imagine this idea and try to forget about any names or labels that we have placed on anything that lives be it organic or inorganic.

That everything alive on this planet today is only one species taking on many different life forms, that all are connected biochemically and genetically but separately to the original source of one.

That this organism (meaning us and everything else that lives,) is designed to exploit any planets resources and to go as far as self sacrificing parts of itself in order to benefit the survival of the whole.

This means that it consumes parts of itself to gain the energy for the stronger part to carry on reproducing and surviving. It is some sort of highly intelligent genetic parasite.

That it originally arrived here by accident on a rock in the form of bacteria perhaps from another dying world and managed to split and divide itself into many different life forms that are all connected in one form or another from its very beginning as one.

The current dominant form being the human part for this single living organism’s survival goal was to have one part of it to develop enough intelligence in order for it to find a way of leaving this planet and to continue its spread to other worlds.

Now that it is close to achieving that goal with us, its human part venturing into space, the cycle will start again beginning with the colonisation of another world, instead of relying on chance like the original simple bacteria form that landed on the early Earth.

Once colonisation begins, it or we will have to adapt again into many new species because of the new alien environment. In order, that it or we can still survive and carry on being part of the original single organism.

If disaster should strike and the world it inhabits ceases to exist making much of it extinct, a part will always survive embedded as bacteria in rock with no memory of the past. It can do this because it has adapted too many forms that are capable of coping with many environments, which this or any otherworld can present.

Chance will help it to find its way to a new world to start all over again.
It has replicated itself this way many times on many worlds since the birth of the universe in many guises. It carries on surviving for it is all one.

[Lateralman]

The logic behind the thinking for us being one single organism is very simple. It is looking likely that we began as one that has become many via different forms of reproduction. Meaning our children, our seed, this is applicable to all organic and inorganic material.

As for checking out what has more DNA than humans. Giant bacteria living in the gut of the surgeonfish has 300 times more DNA than humans. A Christmas tree has seven times more. In addition, if what I have read is correct, even an ‘onion’ Mr Wolf has twelve times more!

[Lateralman]

Okay Mr Wolf. I have looked up Gaia and read about the hypothesis in more detail. Only wish I had known about this idea beforehand as I really did not know it existed. They also talk about all organisms on Earth being a self-regulating complex system maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. I think in bulk that what I suggest is similar but slightly different in a number of ways.

One being the thought of self-predation in order that the stronger part may survive to leave only one.

Two being how this may have all begun if linked to the arrival of a meteorite.

Three being that we might all be under the control of some sort of highly intelligent genetic parasite.

Which has nothing to do with maintaining life on the planet but more to do with exploiting its own many varied life forms in order to grow and survive?

This goes against the grain of the theory of a happy balanced world. Unless I missed it?

I was truly amazed at how they even went on to relate how colonisation of other planets may take place. I feel a bit dumb. Ignorance is not bliss.

[Shadowwolf]

Organic robots?

I always am reminded of this type of wasp - whose name I forget but if anyone recognises feel free to fill in - that lays its eggs in a burrow. It then goes off and finds some prey - like a caterpillar - and paralyses it then returns to the burrow where it leaves the food supply outside whilst it goes in to check on the burrow. Normally it would come back out, get the caterpillar and leave it within for an unpleasant time. However if you move the caterpillar whilst the wasp is below something odd occurs, the wasp will search out the prey, bring it back, leave it outside and patrol the burrow again. It will keep doing this routine each time you move the caterpillar locked in a bio-software loop.

As for the rest, the sense that much might be sci-fi seems close to the mark with talk of controlling parasites and super organisms intent on colonising other worlds.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I always am reminded of this type of wasp - whose name I forget but if anyone recognises feel free to fill in - that lays its eggs in a burrow.

Would you be thinking of one of these wee beasties Mr.S?

http://chrisraper.org.uk/Html/parasitica.htm

[Shadowwolf]

Uuhh, might be

[M Paul Lloyd]

Technically speaking, 'Parasitic Wasps' are not actually parasites - they are parasitoids. This is because a true parasite is something that lives at the expense of its host but doesn't actually kill it, whereas parasitoids nearly always kill their host. In general though most people still use the term 'Parasitic Wasps'.
Parasitoid larvae usually develop by feeding on a single host - different species develop on anything from tiny aphids and insect eggs right up to large butterfly and moth larvae. They can live and feed inside the host's body cavity (endoparasitoids) or outside the host's body (ectoparasitoids). They can be solitary or gregarious - with anything from 1 to many 1000's of larvae consuming the same host.

Gruesome eh?

[Nails]

Technically speaking, 'Parasitic Wasps' are not actually parasites - they are parasitoids. This is because a true parasite is something that lives at the expense of its host but doesn't actually kill it, whereas parasitoids nearly always kill their host. In general though most people still use the term 'Parasitic Wasps'.
Parasitoid larvae usually develop by feeding on a single host - different species develop on anything from tiny aphids and insect eggs right up to large butterfly and moth larvae. They can live and feed inside the host's body cavity (endoparasitoids) or outside the host's body (ectoparasitoids). They can be solitary or gregarious - with anything from 1 to many 1000's of larvae consuming the same host.

Gruesome eh?

Evidence of intelligent design perhaps?

[Willxx]

I'd say we are more of a virus than a parasite, mutated genetic material which will strangle and kill its host

[M Paul Lloyd]

And thus we will expand out into the cosmos infecting every world we encounter.