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Comment by aimor | Hacker News Reader

I am not familiar with this topic, so of course there is something I don't understand:

I don't understand how the United States is reasonably bounded for this example. I'm bounded by my body, which travels together. I can communicate with others, temporarily, but then we separate and I am again alone to some degree. The United States is always in communication with other countries, it is never alone, so what are its bounds? I like the idea very much (that the Earth is conscious for example, or a classroom of students) but I don't understand how the US makes sense here. Maybe that is the point, it being spatially distributed?

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>I don't understand how the United States is reasonably bounded for this example. I'm bounded by my body, which travels together.

You are also comprised of billions of living cells (not to mention trillions (?) of other organisms like gut bacteria). And you're in constant interaction with your environment (e.g. inhaling more bacteria, oxygen, proteins, and so on). Cells also drop off you all the time.

Plus, doesn't America have borders? So, what if it interacts with other countries? You also interact with other people as you said...

But I am distinct from my dropped cells, and from other people, and from environments when I cease interacting with those things.

America has a physical border, but people within that border are constantly interacting with people outside of it.

>America has a physical border, but people within that border are constantly interacting with people outside of it.

To a much less degree than with those inside it. And they don't decide all together, or act all together to the degree America decides for itself (same with you and e.g. your family: you might make decisions together, but you take 1000x more decisions/actions by yourself every day).

You appear bounded when examined at a macroscopic level but you aren't really. You constantly have skin cells sloughing off into the air (is that you?) and you're filled with bacterial cells that are not genetically related to you (are they you?). Not to mention half-digested food.

Language and culture. The US citizens definitely have the us vs them mentality towards other countries, and so do intelligent beings realize this "me vs not me" concept. Perhaps when many small consciousnesses blend together in a certain way, a bigger consciousness emerges.

Maybe in the sense that an ant colony seems to behave like a single entity extending appendages to find food, do battle, propagate itself, etc

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