Real Species

[pierre deleporte]

A 16:35 23/04/2004 +0200, Zdenek Skala wrote :
>Pierre Deleporte:
> > Hence "contemporaneous" is as important as "spatially connected" for
> > defining an individual, or a looser system. A real, observable one, not a
> > human thought construct. Real things out there are contemporaneous and
> >spatially related
>
>I suspect that going consequently this way, the concept of "individual" 
>will disappear at all. "Spatially connected" is a matter of scale, hence a 
>pretty subjective thing. Is a table individual? And two tables laying one 
>on another?

I should also have specified that "connection" is also a matter relative to 
the question at stake, to the scientific context. Spatial proximity between 
two tables is not biological connection. It may have some meaning in a 
dining room for the hosts and guests.
Anatomical and physiological "connection" between cells of a same living 
individual is quite another matter.

Just to insist that tables are not living individuals.
And that I, to remain an individual, am not a class of animals and cannot 
become one, neither a collection of dead cells (maybe it's better 
understandable this way...)

Pierre


Pierre Deleporte
CNRS UMR 6552 - Station Biologique de Paimpont
F-35380 Paimpont   FRANCE
Téléphone : 02 99 61 81 66
Télécopie : 02 99 61 81 88