Superorganism
A superorganism, or supraorganism,[1] is a group of synergetically-interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically-interacting organisms of different species is called a holobiont.
Concept
The term superorganism is used most often to describe a
The term was coined in 1789 by
The concept of a superorganism raises the question of what is to be considered an individual. Toby Tyrrell's critique of the Gaia hypothesis argues that Earth's climate system does not resemble an animal's physiological system. Planetary biospheres are not tightly regulated in the same way that animal bodies are: "planets, unlike animals, are not products of evolution. Therefore we are entitled to be highly skeptical (or even outright dismissive) about whether to expect something akin to a 'superorganism'". He concludes that "the superorganism analogy is unwarranted[9]
Some scientists have suggested that individual human beings can be thought of as "superorganisms";[10] as a typical human digestive system contains 1013 to 1014 microorganisms whose collective genome, the microbiome studied by the Human Microbiome Project, contains at least 100 times as many genes as the human genome itself.[11][12] Salvucci wrote that superorganism is another level of integration that is observed in nature. These levels include the genomic, the organismal and the ecological levels. The genomic structure of organisms reveals the fundamental role of integration and gene shuffling along evolution.[13]
In social theory
The 19th-century thinker Herbert Spencer coined the term super-organic to focus on social organization (the first chapter of his Principles of Sociology is entitled "Super-organic Evolution"[14]), though this was apparently a distinction between the organic and the social, not an identity: Spencer explored the holistic nature of society as a social organism while distinguishing the ways in which society did not behave like an organism.[15] For Spencer, the super-organic was an emergent property of interacting organisms, that is, human beings. And, as has been argued by D. C. Phillips, there is a "difference between emergence and reductionism".[16]
The economist Carl Menger expanded upon the evolutionary nature of much social growth but never abandoned methodological individualism. Many social institutions arose, Menger argued, not as "the result of socially teleological causes, but the unintended result of innumerable efforts of economic subjects pursuing 'individual' interests".[17]
Both Spencer and Menger argued that because individuals choose and act, any social whole should be considered less than an organism, but Menger emphasized that more strongly. Spencer used the organistic idea to engage in extended analysis of social structure and conceded that it was primarily an analogy. For Spencer, the idea of the super-organic best designated a distinct level of social reality above that of biology and psychology, not a one-to-one identity with an organism. Nevertheless, Spencer maintained that "every organism of appreciable size is a society", which has suggested to some that the issue may be terminological.[18]
The term superorganic was adopted by the anthropologist
In cybernetics
Superorganisms are important in cybernetics, particularly biocybernetics, since they are capable of the so-called "distributed intelligence", a system composed of individual agents that have limited intelligence and information.[22] They can pool resources and so can complete goals that are beyond reach of the individuals on their own.[22] Existence of such behavior in organisms has many implications for military and management applications and is being actively researched.[22]
Superorganisms are also considered dependent upon cybernetic governance and processes.[23] This is based on the idea that a biological system – in order to be effective – needs a sub-system of cybernetic communications and control.[24] This is demonstrated in the way a mole rat colony uses functional synergy and cybernetic processes together.[25]
Joël de Rosnay also introduced a concept called "cybionte" to describe cybernetic superorganism.[26] The notion associates superorganism with chaos theory, multimedia technology, and other new developments.
See also
- Collective intelligence
- Group mind (science fiction)
- Holobiont
- Organismic computing
- Quorum sensing, collective behaviour of bacteria
- Stigmergy
- Siphonophorae
- Gaia Hypothesis
References
- ^ Lüttge, Ulrich (ed.); Cánovas, Francisco M. (ed.); Matyssek, Rainer (ed.). Progress in Botany 77. Springer, 2016, p. 223. “Note that etymologically, the Latin word ‘supra’ means ‘higher’ in the sense of ordination, whereas ‘super’ implies a spatial order. Thus, in contrast to the mainly used notion of ‘superorganism’, we prefer to stay with the notion of a ‘supraorganism’.”
- ISBN 978-0-201-48340-6.
- S2CID 18862040.
- PMID 26558385.
- PMID 12079662.
- ^ "The Search for Superorganisms". PBS. 20 April 2016.
- ^ Technium Unbound, SALT The Long Now Foundation
- ^ Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, James Lovelock, Oxford University Press, 1979
- ^ ISBN 9780691121581
- S2CID 12954636.
- PMID 16741115.
- PMID 22919645.
- S2CID 30677140.
- ^ The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Part 1. "The Data of Sociology", Herbert Spencer, 1876
- ^ The Principles of Sociology, Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter II, "A Society Is an Organism" (sections 222 and 223), Herbert Spencer, 1876
- ^ Holistic Thought in Social Science, D. C. Phillips, Stanford University Press, 1976, p. 123
- ^ Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics, Carl Menger, Louis Schneider (translator), New York University Press, 1985
- ^ The Political Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, Tim S. Gray, 1996, p. 211
- ^ Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict, Houghton Mifflin, 1934, p. 231
- ISBN 978-1-86094-330-0.
- ^ Kesebir, Selin. The Superorganism Account of Human Sociality: How and When Human Groups are Like Beehives. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2012, 16, 233-261.
- ^ ] has his way, the four divisions of the US military and hundreds of industrial subcontractors will become a single interconnected superorganism. The immediate step to this world of distributed intelligence is an engineering protocol developed by a consortium of defense simulation centers in Orlando Florida ...
- ISBN 3598116306.
- ISBN 978-9813230934.
- ISBN 978-0226116136.
- ISBN 978-0123694256.
Literature
- Jürgen Tautz, Helga R. Heilmann: The Buzz about Bees – Biology of a Superorganism, Springer-Verlag 2008. ISBN 978-3-540-78727-3
- ISBN 978-0-393-06704-0
- Selin Kesebir (2012). "The Superorganism Account of Human Sociality How and When Human Groups Are Like Beehives". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 16 (3): 233–261. SSRN 1933734.