It's a very different perspective when we realize that our bodies consist of an entire ecology of bacteria and viruses that are also passed to our ancestors. Mammals rear their young and as a consequence transfer the microbiome and virome to their offspring.

What does it mean to treat our individuality as ecologies? We are all ecologies existing in other ecologies. Nature is constantly performing a balancing act across multiple scales of existence.
There are bacteria and viruses that are unique to your ancestry as that of your own DNA. They have lived in symbiosis with your ancestor and will do so for your descendants.
It is an empirical fact that the microbiome in our stomach can influence not only our own moods but also our metabolism and thus our weight and health.
It is also intriguing to know that brains evolved out of stomachs and that our stomachs contain hundreds of millions of neurons. Humans can literally think with their gut.
But when we think with our gut or if our gut is influenced by the microbiome and virome, then we can't really claim that we act completely independently of the ecology we carry.
When we claim that the mind is inextricably connected to the body, do we also mean that it is also connected to the microbiome and the virome. That is organisms that have evolved independently of our DNA?
When we speak of the epigenome that expresses traits based on its environment, are we not also talking about the environment that also includes the microbiome and virome?
This also places in question the tired debate of nature vs nurture. Can we truly create a crisp boundary between the two ideas. Is there really such a thing as a core nature now that we realize that it's more than our DNA that generates who we are?
We are the holistic sum of a milieu of processes, processes that our epigenome is in constant interaction with. These processes include our local ecology and the much wider culture that we live in. This happens at a multitude of scales and thus under an unimaginable complexity.
The discovery of quantum mechanics revealed the fuzziness of the most elementary of things. It also revealed the inescapable subjectivity of reality. The discovery of the complexity of biology also has revealed both but at the scale of our individuality.
We are walking ecologies analogous to the fuzziness and subjectivity intrinsic in every atom that we consist of. It is irreducible complexity and subjectivity all the way down.
@threadreaderapp unroll

More from Carlos E. Perez

More from Health

🚨Important changes to lockdown/self-isolation regulations from 5pm

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (All Tiers and Self-Isolation) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

£800 'house party' FPN & police can now access track & trace data

https://t.co/k9XCpVsXhC


“Large gathering offence”

As trailed by Home Secretary last week there is now a fixed penalty notice of £800 (or £400 if you pay within 14 days) for participating in an gathering of over 15 people in a private residence


Fixed Penalty Notices double for each subsequent “large gathering offence” up to £6,400

Compare:
- Ordinary fixed penalty notice is £200 or £100 if paid in 14 days
- Holding or being involved in the holding of a gathering of over 30 people is £10,000


Second big change:

Since September has been a legal requirement to sell-isolate if you test positive/notified by Track & Trace of exposure to someone else who tested positive

Police can now be given access to NHS Track & Trace data if for the purpose of enforcement/prosecution


This will make it easier for police to enforce people breaking self-isolation rules. Currently there has been practically no enforcement.

Data says only a small proportion of people meant to be self-isolating are fully doing so.

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I think a plausible explanation is that whatever Corbyn says or does, his critics will denounce - no matter how much hypocrisy it necessitates.


Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel

He speaks up in defence of migrants - Labour MPs whinge that he's not listening to the public's very real concerns about immigration:

He's wrong to prioritise Labour Party members over the public:

He's wrong to prioritise the public over Labour Party
I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991."
https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.