Contents Where is John?


Hey, Mr. Brain Cell, do you believe in John?

No Mr. Lung Cell, I only believe in real things that I can see. How about you? Are you a believer?

Yes, I think so, Mr. Brain Cell. Every time I cry out for air it just appears. My brothers and sisters have the same experience. We think someone hears our cries and feels our need. I think He loves all of us.

No Mr. Lung Cell - That's just the way the universe works. Sometimes air comes your way and you think it's because of your prayers. You overestimate your importance. Anyway, if John exists, then show me where he is.

Well I don't know where he is but he always gives me air and glucose - sometimes even before I ask.

You see Mr. Lung Cell, that's because the universe is like a big clock. You have evolved to consume air at the same rate as the air comes. There is no John controlling this.

Yes, Mr Brain Cell, but sometimes I need a lot of air and sometimes not so much. It's not a regular thing like a clock. I don't think the universe is a clock - I think the universe (John) is a living being like us. I think He is a person. I think He needs to eat and breathe like we do. I think He needs to find a way to warm up when it's cold and cool down when it's warm just like us. I think he needs to fight his enemies (other kinds of universes) just as we need to defend ourselves against the bacteria which attack us. I think he needs to grow, and he needs to make more like himself just as we do. And just as we need to work together, I think He needs to work with his brothers and sisters (other universes like himself) to accomplish all this. Most of all Mr. Brain Cell, while we live inside John who loves and cares for us, I imagine that John lives inside of a bigger universe (a much bigger living being) who faces the same kinds of challenges He does and who loves and cares for John the way John loves and cares for us. I think this continues up without end. Perhaps that's what it means when the Bible says we are made in his image.


Tell me Mr. Lung Cell, do you think this all starts with us?

Perhaps Mr. Brain Cell, it continues down as well. What about all the tiny worlds inside of us, like the millions of ribosome protein factories inside our nucleus, or the many hundreds of thousands mitochondrion energy factories floating around inside of us which convert the materials given to us by John into the energy which gives us life. By caring for themselves and for their neighbors, the inhabitants of those tiny places love us into being. And we care for them too by making good decisions about our own health and safety. I wonder, do they even know we exist? They live their whole lives so quickly on their tiny little worlds. Wouldn't they just experience us as an ever so slowly moving universe. And what simple interests they must have compared to ours. And what simple interests we must have compared to John. And what simple ...

Yes, Ok Mr. Lung Cell - I get the idea, but you haven't answered my question. If John exists then where is he?

He is in Heaven of course Mr. Brain Cell. But Heaven is not a place.

Not a place?

Please let me explain. Your question assumes that in order for something to exist it must have a location. I think it may be possible for things to exist even if they have no specific location. Consider the wind. When the wind blows it's somewhere between here and there. But you can't say exactly where because it's moving all the time. The only way to give the wind a precise location would be to stop it from moving. But then there would be no wind. The wind is not the same as air - the wind is what you get when air moves. It has no location, but still the wind exists at times when air is moving. I could ask you the very same question Mr. Brain Cell - Where are you? We can pinpoint the location of your body in the brain, but where exactly in your body are you? Your conscious self comes from thought which arises from chemicals being exchanged by trillions of tiny living things inside you as they go about their own personal business. Like the wind, your conscious self has no precise location because these chemicals must always be moving in order to produce thought. And when the chemicals stop moving, like when you go to sleep, then you become unconscious and cease to exist for a time until the chemicals in your body start moving again causing you to wake up. So in the same way that wind is not air, you are not matter either but rather what you get when the matter in your body is exchanged between its parts. It must also be like that with John. He arises from all the chemicals that we cells exchange with each other as we go about our own personal business. And so, like us, He is not made of matter, but rather arises from the trillions of constant transactions between His cells. The reason we can't see Him is because (as with our own consciousness) He doesn't exist so much as happens, unfolding more with each moment. So if John is in Heaven, then Heaven is not a place but rather the process from which John's thoughts are created. This process is happening constantly everywhere all around us where information is exchanged. So if you forced me to tell you where John is then the closest approximation that I could give you is everywhere and everywhen.

Yes, Mr. Lung Cell, I am starting to see.
Your explanation reminds me of a poem that our sister, Christina Rossetti, wrote. It goes like this:
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

I think I understand it now. It's about John and beyond.

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Formative Resources

Michael Levin: May Levin's Poem Be Viewed As Scaling Of Collective Intelligence From The Cellular Level All The Way To God Level?

Michael Levin: Collective Cellular Memories - A Function Of The Starting State And The Rules In A Cellular Automata
The video makes me wonder if what looks like intelligent goal oriented behavior in cell collectives such as regenerating a limb or morphogenesis is just a large basin of attraction to a steady state.
If so, then under what conditions does evolution select for a large basin of attraction toward a steady state in the cellular automata process of morphogenesis?
Is evolution intelligent? By what mechanism does evolution act intelligently?
I think preference is involved.
If I like hanging out in trees to avoid lions, then only my offspring with better adaptations for living in trees and a preference of trees will survive.
If I like being on the ground and fighting lions with a spear then only my offspring with better adaptations for lion fighting and a preference for it will survive.
So how far down does preference extend? To the cellular level? To the molecular level? Lower?

Fractal consciousness

Universe as Fractal

A day in the life of a motor protein

Scaling Intelligence Infographic


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