Cells dance to become our larger form We are one acting as many
We are many acting as one
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This colony of coral is composed of two species of Acropora coral,
one purplish, the other yellow-brown.
The larvae of the two species settled so close
together they grew into one thicket. The uniform, domed shape of the thicket,
advantageous to both species, is the result of the coordinated growth patterns of the
branches.
But how do the two species communicate to
co-ordinate their growth patterns into one domed shape?
How does even one colony
co-ordinate its growth to create the overall domed shape? The branches are all dead at the
base and so the living tissue from one does not connect to the next. |
 Like the individual fish forming the
communication web above the thicket, each branch is an individual; isolated from its
companions in the sea. Unlike the fish, the living coral leaves a calcium carbonate
skeleton behind it as it grows, crystallizing its communication web.
The still photograph of the coral branch is an accurate
representation of the trajectory of the living branches over many years.
The twisting rods of calcium carbonate are memory
traces of all the intercommunications influencing the life of the coral. They are
solidified behavior zones. |
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Each branch detects changes in water turbulence, nutrient availability, and
illumination to direct its rate and trajectory of growth and maintain its position
relative to other branches.
To achieve this, the branch has an intricate
communications system within the thin, diaphanous flesh covering the hard skeleton.
The domed
shape of the whole coral thicket is the combined
communication web of the branches and is fashioned
by hormonal and electrochemical communications
- the branch's awareness - about differences
from one part of the branch to another in, for
example, the success of the polyps in obtaining
nutrients and sunlight and the impinging communication
webs of adjacent branches and the sea around
it. In the end the pathway of the coral through
the sea is determined by the entire web of communications,
including the fish that fertilize it and the
sun that provides it with energy and the sea
from which it forms itself.
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 On close inspection, the exterior of
each branch is not uniform, but arranged into small sea-anemone shaped creatures, each
with its own mouth, tentacles for grabbing food, reproductive organs, and its own calcium
carbonate skeleton - a crystallized memory - lifting it into the sea in a raised cup.
Each polyp
is a communication web extending into the sea
as far as its tentacles can reach.
The whole
branch is communication web of the polyps in
the same way the whole colony is the communication
web of the branches.
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 Reef
building corals are made of polyps interacting
as individual colonies. Looking closer at the
polyps and then a tentacle reveals the creature
to be the communication web of a community of
two kinds of creatures. The white oblongs are
coral cells. These are tiny polymorphic animals.
They can change their bodies into some 250 different
basic shapes, each with their own special communication
abilities. Their combined network of communications
forms the shape and movement of the coral tentacles,
disk, organs, skin, and nerves.
The tiny
green spheres are dynoflagellates. These can alter their shape to be a free-swimming
protozoan or a small round, green zooxanthellae living in the spaces between the coral
cells. They contain chlorophyll and can change sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into
oxygen and sugars.
The physical
manifestation of the coral polyp is the web
of intercommunication between millions of coral
cells and zooxanthellae, a behavior network
that has existed as it is now for at least 200,000,000
years.
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 A single, small coral cell whose body forms, for
example, a tiny part of the end of one tentacle relies on the communications (nutrients,
hormones, electrochemical discharges, and tactile signals) between itself, adjacent cells
and zooxanthellae to know how to behave to maintain the desired polyp-tentacle shape and
movement.
The cells can exist for a short time
by themselves, alone in the sea. Cells of some creatures, such as sponges, can be broken
free from their association and they will crawl back together and reform into another
sponge. All plants and animals are made up of cells. Although they have separate genetic
memories, the cells are otherwise alike. |
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 Looking
still closer, cells are, themselves, communication
webs of bacteria. The ancestors of these bacteria
once were the most advanced form of life on
Earth and lived in the ancient seas some 3 billion
years ago. Today, these same creatures exist
as cell nuclei, mitochondria, centrioles, cilia,
and chloroplasts. They intercommunicate to create
the web of communications we call cells.
Not one
of the protobacteria in the coral cells has
ever died. They have divided and divided down
through the 200,000,000 years constantly, and
continuously creating themselves from the sea
water and creating, from their behavior, the
coral cells and these creating the coral polyps
and coral colonies.
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 Bacteria are, themselves,
created as information flows through the communication web of millions of large, complex
organic molecules. The largest of these is called DNA. DNA, and their associated organic
molecules, are selves existing through the interchange of information with adjacent
molecules. Their cumulative communication web becomes the form and movement of cell
nuclei, chloroplasts, mitochondria or cilia. Except for the kinds of information recorded
in the organic molecules, and some very specialized compounds, all living creatures share
the same basic set of organic molecules.
DNA molecules are, themselves, communication webs created by the
intercommunication of atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous. The
intercommunication of these elements in highly complex patterns results in molecular
replication (memory).
Atoms are communication webs of electrons, protons,
neutrons and a multitude of other sub-atomic particles. The sub-atomic particles are focal
points of intercommunications of quarks and leptons reacting to forces carried by bosons,
photons and gluons. Physicist Roger Penrose of Oxford suspects that ultimately we
will discover the basic structure of reality is comprised of Twisters. Twisters, he says,
are the intercommunications of concepts and conditions, each existing as different facets
of one process.
To delve further into this process, check out the Torus Concept.
Fishy Communication Webs
Nested Communication Webs
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