Another person inside you?!

[Sriram]

 
Hi everyone,

Here is a BBC article about different cells and organisms inside us.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150917-is-another-human-living-inside-you

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Once upon a time, your origins were easy to understand. Your dad met your mum, they had some fun, and from a tiny fertilised egg you emerged kicking and screaming into the world. You are half your mum, half your dad – and 100% yourself.

Except, that simple tale has now become a lot more complicated. Besides your genes from parents, you are a mosaic of viruses, bacteria – and potentially, other humans. Indeed, if you are a twin, you are particularly likely to be carrying bits of your sibling within your body and brain. Stranger still, they may be influencing how you act.

“Humans are not unitary individuals but superorganisms,” says Peter Kramer at the University of Padua. “A very large number of different human and non-human individuals are all incessantly struggling inside us for control.” Together with Paola Bressan, he recently wrote a paper in the journal Perspectives in Psychological Science, calling for psychologists and psychiatrists to appreciate the ways this may influence our behaviour.

Microbes in your gut can produce neurotransmitters that alter your mood; some scientists have even proposed that the microbes may sway your appetite, so that you crave their favourite food.

In this light, it becomes clear that our actions are not entirely our own. It’s enough to make you question your sense of identity, but the idea of infiltration becomes even more eerie when you realise that your brain has not just been invaded by tiny microbes – but also by other human beings.

They are, in other words, a chimera – a fusion of two bodies – and it may occur in many organs, including the brain.

In general, however, we shouldn’t feel hostile towards these invaders – after all, they made you who you are today.

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Cheers.

Sriram

[Nearly Sane]

Hi everyone,

Here is a BBC article about different cells and organisms inside us.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150917-is-another-human-living-inside-you

*****************************************************************************

Once upon a time, your origins were easy to understand. Your dad met your mum, they had some fun, and from a tiny fertilised egg you emerged kicking and screaming into the world. You are half your mum, half your dad – and 100% yourself.

Except, that simple tale has now become a lot more complicated. Besides your genes from parents, you are a mosaic of viruses, bacteria – and potentially, other humans. Indeed, if you are a twin, you are particularly likely to be carrying bits of your sibling within your body and brain. Stranger still, they may be influencing how you act.

“Humans are not unitary individuals but superorganisms,” says Peter Kramer at the University of Padua. “A very large number of different human and non-human individuals are all incessantly struggling inside us for control.” Together with Paola Bressan, he recently wrote a paper in the journal Perspectives in Psychological Science, calling for psychologists and psychiatrists to appreciate the ways this may influence our behaviour.

Microbes in your gut can produce neurotransmitters that alter your mood; some scientists have even proposed that the microbes may sway your appetite, so that you crave their favourite food.

In this light, it becomes clear that our actions are not entirely our own. It’s enough to make you question your sense of identity, but the idea of infiltration becomes even more eerie when you realise that your brain has not just been invaded by tiny microbes – but also by other human beings.

They are, in other words, a chimera – a fusion of two bodies – and it may occur in many organs, including the brain.

In general, however, we shouldn’t feel hostile towards these invaders – after all, they made you who you are today.

*****************************************************************************

Cheers.

Sriram

There's a few interesting, though not that new ideas, dressed up by someone who writes as if they were trying to illustrate the article by inconsistent, contradictory writing.

The problem at base with this sort of position is that it assumes that there is a simple concept of self that is at the base of scientific knowledge. There isn't.

[wigginhall]

The idea of the 'self as group' has been kicking around in therapy for ages.   Another version of it, is to do with sub-personalities, but these are psychological ideas, and I don't know if there are any neurological correlates.  Of course, you can go back to Freud for an idea of internal components to the self, but as NS said, the whole notion of the self is rather frail.

[Nearly Sane]

It's also this whole idea that cells are effectively other human beings. It plays fast and loose with the idea of what a human being might be.

[wigginhall]

Yes, it's trying to be scientificalistic, as some Christians try, with awful results.

Actually, the idea of being invaded by other human beings is positively ancient in psychoanalysis.   It's the whole basis of so-called 'internal objects', which may represent fragments of other people, for example, mum and dad. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

Mind you this particular holding of conflicting views amongst the disbelieving has a track record going back to Freud's ID, EGO and SUPER ID.

[Shaker]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

Didn't know there was evidence for this trinity thing - did I miss that memo?

Mind you this particular holding of conflicting views amongst the disbelieving has a track record going back to Freud's ID, EGO and SUPER ID.

What conflicting views are there in that? And why are you shouting?

[Harrowby Hall]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

Vlad is an angler. He goes fishing down a blind alley and has caught a whole net full of red herrings.

Mind you this particular holding of conflicting views amongst the disbelieving has a track record going back to Freud's ID, EGO and SUPER ID.

You can't even get this bit right.

[Nearly Sane]

Is SUPER ID Clark Kent?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

Vlad is an angler. He goes fishing down a blind alley and has caught a whole net full of red herrings.

Mind you this particular holding of conflicting views amongst the disbelieving has a track record going back to Freud's ID, EGO and SUPER ID.

You can't even get this bit right.

Whoops I mean super ego.

[Shaker]

Don't you mean SUPER EGO, Vlad?

[jeremyp]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

This is a thread on the science and technology board.  If you want to talk about Christian superstitions please use the Christian board.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

This is a thread on the science and technology board.  If you want to talk about Christian superstitions please use the Christian board.

Sorry but when I contributed to this board it was on another board and moved by Gordon.

Since it is now on the science technology I will not include theology and you will no longer give your bigoted patronising shite antitheistic views about religion.

[jeremyp]

What I find laughable is that some antitheists can accept we are a unified community of individual components and yet have trouble with the trinity.

This is a thread on the science and technology board.  If you want to talk about Christian superstitions please use the Christian board.

Sorry but when I contributed to this board it was on another board and moved by Gordon.

I'm sorry.

Since it is now on the science technology I will not include theology and you will no longer give your bigoted patronising shite antitheistic views about religion.

Well, to be honest, whichever  board it was on, it was technically a derail, but so is this little exchange, so I'll stop here.