Metacellular Organism

Organisms composed of MulticellularOrganisms. Examples:

• Social insect colonies
• Large scale memeplexes
  • Religions
  • Nations
  • Movements
  • Unions
  • Guilds
  • Professions
  • Wall Street
  • Wikis
  • Corporations
  • Governments
  • Marching bands

-- EricHodges

But see MemesShmemes if the word "memeplex" bugs you.

What is the difference, if any, between cooperating organisms and MetacellularOrganism ? If I plunk a fish and a snail into an aquarium, do the fish and the snail together make up a MetacellularOrganism ? Is an entire school of fish a MetacellularOrganism ? A pack of wolves ? A man, a horse, and a pack of dogs when they are out hunting for fox ? -- DavidCary

As I understand it (from reading RichardDawkins), MetacellularOrganisms can be considered as a single entity when they all have the same genes -- bee, insect and termite colonies consist of identical siblings. The forces which drive them to cooperate very closely together are the same as those that drive cooperation amongst the individual cells in a MulticellularOrganism. When there is less complete alignment of common goals, cooperation is prone to breaking up when a change of circumstances leads to one organism's advantage being to the detriment of others, and the break up of the 'organism'.

I'm not sure if the memeplexes listed at the top of the page can be considered MetacellularOrganisms; don't organisms have to be able to reproduce? Have more coherence than a bunch of people doing something together? Does it still count if an individual is in more than one group at the same time? -- IainBuckingham

Survival doesn't depend on reproduction. Consider Armillaria ostoyae, aka "honey mushroom". The biggest one we know of covers 2,200 acres and is probably older than 2,400 years. It reproduces at the cellular level, but not at the multicellular level.