Actual Biology or Political Biology? Of Gini Dictatorships and Rebel Lifeforms
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          Bypassing how a single-celled organism can form or be created, lets imagine one did on a planet with water, a sun, nutrients enough to prosper and divide. It grows until it covers the whole area of the planet where it can survive, and reaches a balance with its surroundings, living and dying relative to the conditions at the time, feeding off of its own waste recycled with other elements in the water and replenished by the energy of the sun converting its waste back into food. Whether this planet (or universe) dominated by this single-celled organism is a greater multi-cellular consciousness or not is unimportant. It is balanced, all are happy, and all is well in the world. Whatever types of life existed on that planet before it, could not compete with it and were converted into food for it. It is everything and all and each and everyone is exactly the same.

          Now let's imagine two of these cells become stuck together by some freak accident like conjoined twins. They have a greater organizational factor and are more able to survive. When their (as it is still two in a way) offspring are born from this new 2- celled form of life, they have a memory of this combined state as the natural form of existence. The one's born of the left side we will call X and the ones born on the right side, we will call Y. Though not all of this new 2-celled form's offspring necessarily would be any different than any one of the other of ubiquitous cells of that world, lets imagine ones from X now have a tendency and ability to join with others from Y to recreate that 2-celled form which they have a tendency to want to do which others do not, and likewise, ones from Y have the same capacity and recognize the logic in combining with X's.

           In this world of all one-celled creatures, offspring of X recognize offspring of Y and try to get together like the original XY. If they are dominant in that formation, the tendency to want to recombine into that state becomes the point of being X's or Y's. Yet one has separated from the others now (again) and has learned a new trick, getting enough nutrients together, not finding an X or a Y around, divides itself into an XY itself!

          Soon others picked up the trick independently and become 2-celled organisms which perpetuate themselves exclusively singularly the way the one-celled organisms do, but some of the new 2-celled (dividing themselves) organisms still have that proclivity to seek out an X or a Y, depending on which branch it descended from, and try to hook up the way all other X's and Y's do.

          When in the XY state, the functions can be specialized. As a common entity, it is not practical for each cell to do all of the functions that the other can do. Once can process the food and feed it to the other. One can take over the reproductive side of things. This elimination of redundancies makes more efficient XY's and they function better and reproduce more effectively. They also live longer.

          Now we run into problems. We have the original one-celled singularly reproducing cells which we started with, we have "1-cells" which seek to combine with other "1-cells" to act like "2-cells", we have "2-cells" subdividing which don't need others to reproduce themselves as "2-cells", and we have "2-cells" sub-dividers which still see themselves as X's or Y's looking to hook up with others. That original XY combo sure started a mess! No longer is this a planet with only identical one-celled organisms all getting along and knowing their places. Each of these new types recognize others similar to them as being like themselves and want their new pattern to dominate. The more nutrients they can grab for their particular little branch, the more the others die off and their corpses become food or fertilizer for the new models and types coming from these new combinations.

          A single unified happy little planet with all organisms completely alike is no longer possible thanks to two combining into one. Just as the 2-celled joined offspring could survive better and longer (longer means taking away more food from other types which would have arisen making it possible for their offspring to have room (a niche) to grow into over time, the 2-celled X's or two celled Y's that continue hooking up with others creating more complicated structures not reproducing as fast, but are living longer and creating more complicated internal structures of organization of even greater specialization than the "2-cells" could achieve.

          What is perhaps the biggest schism of this now fractured world of competing branches of different types of life competing with each other for dominance and making their new pattern or type of life the new norm, has yet to have occurred. That schism is when the specialization of features, one cell willing to take over certain functions for the benefit of the structure at large, is given over completely to the other X or Y branch, reproduction. In classical XY pairings, if only one side reproduced, it was not of the recombining type but of the self-perpetuating type. As more complicated structures emerge, one of a new XY combination of multi-cellular groups can take over the reproduction of both new X's and new Y's. It is one thing for a cell in a 2-celled structure to specialize within itself, saying to the other, "You digest the food, I will have the babies", yet it is quite another story to give up the ability to make new X's or Y's yourself without another X or Y around.

          Yet this is what the descendants of XY were about. Yes the new XY's which could subdivide themselves into XY's had a new trick, but the XY-ness in later generations later was perpetuated by the seeking out of an external X or Y to adapt to and combine with. Though it could have just stopped there, with 2-celled subdividing XY's becoming the new norm and all that could exist, the potential for different combinations with 2-cells seeking others became too great. When going beyond just two, the more numbers of potential combinations, what we call more complex life forms, occurring at different rates, interacting with each other at different times, and reproducing at different rates, it just exploded into a free-for-all open competition on who could come up with the best design if none was sure to be able once again to dominate all and everything else.

          Multi-cellular things dividing themselves and just attaching to other things outside themselves was no longer enough. With the widespread differentiation, finding similar and equally complex forms, identical in a sense, opposite in another, formed manageable paths of differentiation where all were unique but not so unique as to not find another too dissimilar to not be able to combine with. By having common offspring, both X's and Y's would be needed and instilled into each new generation developing into something common to the experiences of both. Yet why only either X's or Y's? Would not having both XY's and YX's have been more convenient? Both genders in each with the ability to lean in one direction or the other? That way if too many X's existed and not enough Y's, X's could switch to being Y's and it all would equal out. It seems this backup redundancy was not warranted or necessary. As long as the X to Y ratio remained mixed enough, having two separate genders, it seems would be possible.

          Another thing that is notable is that with larger multi-cellular creatures, X and Y hooking up, though a biological imperative and necessary for the continuation of the species, is not really about X or Y, but Z,  or the offspring of X and Y. Unlike in the beginning, X and Y do not change, biologically speaking. X and Y die alone. To sum up life in the first single-cell-only stage: get born, eat, reproduce, and die. In the second stage: get born, eat, find another half, merge with it, reproduce, and die. In the third stage: get born, eat, subdivide, eat more, subdivide more (many times repeated), find another half, combine temporarily and superficially for reproductive purposes and separate, (many times repeated (hopefully, <g>), and eventually die. Spiritually speaking aside, there is no more merger into something new, X remains X, Y remains Y, and the only things created are Z's, new X's and Y's.

          And the focus on (these) events is an important distinction. When talking about biological things, it is easy to forget they are 4 dimensional and treat them as if they were 3 dimensional only. They are not "things", but processes. Processes must have a beginning, go through a series of events, and then reach a conclusion or end state. Though it is not possible to separate one being in this procession from the ones that came before or will come after it as it is a process which unfolds over many generations and has no end while subsequent effects proceed, it is (erroneously) traditional to single out one external feeding cell branch which requires another external one to reproduce into others as being a separate process unto itself, the life of which described in the previous paragraph as a series of events over time. Subdivisions of that cell (we all start as one cell) independent (not requiring merging) of external beings are all considered the same life or within the life of that separate entity. Subdivisions based on a combination event with a separate outside similar being mark the beginning of a new and separate life, by common definition.

          So as the length of time increases for the "life" of the newer, larger, more complex and dynamically changing lifeforms, the number of events increases as well. Whereas before in a single-celled stage, there was little to be concerned about. If one could move, look for food, eat it, reproduce yourself, and die. Not much to put on a résumé, but not needing to worry much about a sense of identity in how you fit into the world either. The second stage was equally simple but goal-oriented. If you were an X or a Y, find a compatible Y or X while still able to reproduce, merge with it to create new X's or Y's. Achieving that event now required and added a bit of searching and luck besides just finding food. Now there were two things to watch for. The third stage, where we are stuck, identity becomes a real issue and deciding or knowing when you are done is equally problematic. While the "lifeform" in the third stage is an ever changing mosaic of a different cells, not any one combination of which at any given time to be all of them or the definitive model, what one is is now fluid and ever changing. Finding a compatible other you identify with as being your species to combine with is still in the mix, but that too can and does change. It is no longer the one event which will define your life but often one of many similar events, potentially creating many new other lives, and with other partners. The endgame is no longer clear cut or always in sight. The merge events may be as fulfilling as ever, but not a resolution, and can lead to a "what now?" Talk, eat some more, take a shower? Events continue on, nothing is resolved yet.

          So as the events multiply over time, the sense of identity multiplies as well. Individuals have memories of the lifeforms they are the direct continuations of, even after 70 years, when none of the cells in their body is older than 7 years. They have genetic predispositions to behave in certain ways, instincts, which are memories in a sense going back thousands or millions of years. They may have no singular definitive X or Y to see in relation to themselves but a number of different X's or Y's of the day, hardly conducive to a definite sense of identity in relation to, since they are compounding and changeable as well.