Hi Lonnie, your comment about the intimate role of food in our 'being' is
interesting. Certainly the bacteria are emerging as being of great
importance in our microbiomes, but I think your talking about more than
just that. And in this context I am greatly concerned about GMOs because
their constituents will be 'seen' as foreign if they cannot be digested
consistently with the genomics/proteomics of the organism. The consequences
of that may not be seen for decades, making cause-effect relationships
difficult if not impossible to show. There are a couple of studies in pigs
showing the effects of GMOs.

As for your comment about the controversy regarding 'self' I am familiar
with recent evidence for epigenetic differences between otherwise identical
twins that would explain phenotypic differences we recognize. As for how
my/our cellular-molecular perspective on evolution and its potential impact
on theories of self, I have attached a manuscript by Bill Miller and me
under Review that you may find of interest.....Best, John

BTW, Alfred Tauber is the son of an old family friend......I attended his
Bar Mitzvah circa 1959....small world.

On Wed, Jul 4, 2018 at 4:24 PM, Lonny Meinecke <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hi John,
> Thank you so much for taking time to answer my odd questions :)
> Especially thank you for sending the copy of your book! This is so timely.
> And yes, your answers are super helpful and that was what I was hoping to
> understand better.
> Sorry if some parts were wordy, there are concepts I like to look into but
> don't yet know the proper terminology, so my phrasing gets sort of clunky.
>
> Lynn Margulis was your instructor? How amazing is that! (for those of us
> who only read about these folks). It is so neat to be part of this division
> and this group of TOKers too. You all never cease to amaze me.
>
> About Margulis' work, in addition to symbiogenesis and endosymbiosis, I
> really like the idea of challenging the notion that life is food, and
> questioning whether, once you ingest something, it is magically transformed
> into energy for mentally directed tasks (that biological matter is here for
> mental agents' benefit). We do have evidence that what we consume often
> takes up some form of residence in us if it is not completely "digested"
> and broken down into less threatening elements (i.e. food preservatives are
> starting to gain a bad reputation - maybe our food is not the only thing
> being affected by our convenience chemicals...). We seem more like little
> ecosystems with legs that redistribute ecological affordances in amensal
> ways.
>
> Just one additional thing... some have challenged the self concept
> itself... and this too is in keeping with a more symbiotic view of the
> amazing human body and its mind. It seems to go hand in hand with your view
> of cells:
>
> Gilbert, S. F., Sapp, J., & Tauber, A. I. (2012). A symbiotic view of
> life: we have never been individuals. The Quarterly Review of Biology,
> 87(4), 325-341.
>
> What do you think? Rather than rob us of our worth, my sense is that it
> opens up a whole new era of thinking about how wonderful nature is and how
> lucky we are to be a part of it.
>
> Thank you again
> Lonny
>
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