The Highest Life Form on Earth

While reading the news on economic protests yesterday and pondering the entities being protested, it suddenly occurred to me that I cannot think of a suitable test to distinguish corporations from living beings.

Not in a biological sense, of course, but in the gritty sense of defining life--carrying on metabolism, reproduction, internal repairs, responses to external stimuli--I cannot think of a useful tool that excludes a corporate "life form" from a biological or cellular life form.  In fact, the more I examine this concept, the more I perceive that humans are to corporations what cells are to humans: and in the sense that we cannot share any intelligent communication with our cells (or the reverse), so we also cannot communicate with corporations (or the reverse).  The degree of separation between these life forms is too great to allow any appreciable exchange.  To finish my thoughts about the protesters, I realized that the impetus behind their protests came from this inability to communicate.  Invisible and silent as individuals, they formed together to create a corporate body--a protest, in America; revolutions in the Arab world this spring--because these bodies were capable of speaking to, and acting upon, other corporate bodies.

Almost before finishing this thought, I realized that the concept had to be expanded past corporations, of course: what I am truly identifying is an Organization.  Corporations in the American sense of the word are economic Organizations, but all Organizations bear the same lifelike characteristics, from governments to religions to school yard gossip circles to barbershop quartets.  Similarly, we cannot limit the scope of our view to human participants: herds of cattle are as much an Organization as a school board.  The two differ wildly in terms of coordination and capabilities, of course (one hopes), but they are Organizations nonetheless that bear "life," in the truest sense of the word.  In general, it appears that the complexity of an Organization reflects the relative intelligence or complexity of its "cells," but I wouldn't hang my hat on that rule.

The reach of this idea is too much for a hastily scrawled blog note, but I thought it bore mentioning, at least in passing.  I may tease out some of its implications in later posts.  In the mean time, I'm curious--what reaction do you feel, in response to the idea that, in every way we know to define a "living being," humanity is not truly the most advanced life form on Earth?

not one word

not one word is left untouched; not today.
we brought the biggest minds together--
and spoke at once all our many words! which,
when done, meant nothing.
all's left now is silence, and its comfort.



and from this daydream, i came to wish that i could read
silence.




October '11