On &quot;meta-organisms,&quot; which several have mentioned...<p>It&#x27;s not a stretch to think of human groups who act in a coordinated way as meta-organisms... In fact, we do it every day. &quot;Google&quot; does not exist -- it&#x27;s a coordinated group of people acting as a corporation.<p>Even though they&#x27;re spatiotemporally discontinuous, these organisms seem to be obviously real, even though this leads to some observations that sound really pagan. These entities (like Google, or governments) exert their own wills and controls over our actions and environments... We&#x27;re basically their subjects.<p>If you&#x27;re right-brained at all, try visualizing these entities. It can make for some interesting impressions :)<p>Oh, and on terminology: I think it&#x27;s fair to refer to ourselves (or any higher-order but spatiotemporally continuous organisms) as &quot;super-organisms.&quot; I think of higher-order, spatiotemporally _discontinous_ organisms &quot;meta-organisms&quot;