Name: Michael Gabriel S.

Talonding Subject: ENGL5

Topic: Analysis of the Excerpts of the “The Lives of a Cell” by Lewis Thomas

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher is a 1974 collection of essays by Lewis
Thomas. Comprising twenty-nine essays, each written between 1971 and 1973, the
collection casts a wide net over Thomas’s intellectual interests, from computer science,
to Bach, to biology, and mass media. Thomas makes an analogy between the
interconnectedness of our lines of scientific inquiry and the interconnectedness of life on
Earth. The subjects of his essays exist on scales both small and large, and move between
remote past and distant future, demonstrating that we have much more to learn about
reality than we currently know.

The collection’s titular essay, “The Lives of a Cell,” challenges the conception of the
human as an individual organism. In fact, Thomas explains, our own bodies do not fully
belong to us, but rather to trillions of cells that work tirelessly and in harmony to produce
our consciousness. Expanding this metaphor to a planetary scale, he suggests that we
might see the Earth as a single cell and the human species as a tiny organelle that
accomplishes only a few relatively insignificant functions. In another essay, “On Societies
as Organisms,” Thomas employs another metaphor: that of humans as ants. Both
species, when observed at the scale of population, exhibit group behaviors that cause
some scientists to ask whether these groups are equivalent to organisms. Thomas argues
that the transmission of knowledge between individual humans through the medium of
language qualifies human populations as organisms. Many other species, such as
termites, mold, and fish, synchronize their behaviors as well.

In the essay, “The Music of This Sphere,” Thomas shows that music is not only created
by the human species, provoking his readers to develop a more inclusive definition. Some
animals can create and interpret rhythms, notes, and sometimes even harmonies. Some
advanced species, such as gorillas, even extract aesthetic pleasure and feelings of
community from music. Simpler species utilize simpler components of music, such as
rhythm, to survive. For example, earthworms can analyze properties of the surrounding
soil, like its density and closeness to the surface, through minuscule vibrations. Thomas
challenges readers to think of music outside of a species context and to understand that
it transcends individual lives and arguments about its meaning. Moreover, music connects
all species to an unfinished evolutionary legacy.

Many of Thomas’s essays are concerned with human technological evolution and its
effects on the planet. He criticizes the idea that technological evolution is necessarily
good, arguing that the idea assumes that we know exactly how new technologies will
affect most, if not every, aspect of our planet. In fact, we know only the tiniest amount
about how our advanced technologies influence other species and systems. He uses this
fact to propose a moral thought experiment, in which we prohibit ourselves from launching
a nuclear weapon until we fully explain a single living organism. He selects as a candidate
a tiny microbe called Myxotricha paradoxa that lives in the digestive system of some
termite species. A full understanding of just this one organism, a distant ancestor of
humans, might unlock a much deeper understanding of how human cells evolved. Its
study would certainly help illuminate our interconnectedness with the millions of other
species on Earth.

Thomas also looks at technology through a human rights lens. In “The Technology of
Medicine,” he develops a three-tiered model of technology-based medical care. Two of
the three tiers – “nontechnology,” or pseudoscience-based care, and “halfway
technology,” or care that temporarily soothes suffering – are highly funded, but
disproportionately served to the wealthy. The third tier, “high technology,” focuses on
solving common medical ailments through understanding their fundamental mechanisms.
Thomas argues that high technology is the most helpful for humankind because the
solutions it obtains can be rapidly shared and reproduced, tending to be cheaper and
more effective than the solutions implemented by other tiers.

Thomas’s book shifts continuously between the microscopic and the global, the human-
centric and the ecological, and the past to the future. In doing so, he demonstrates,
paradoxically, that the earth and its inhabitants are more glued-together and relevant to
each other than we assume.
Name: Michael Gabriel S. Talonding Subject: ENGL5

Topic: Analysis of the Excerpts of the “Army Ants” by Tom Waits

I thought it was a song when I searched the title of this reading, and I was shocked
because the essay talks about the insects. The title “Army Ants” by Tom Waits is not only
talking to the ants that we usually encounter, but it talks about all the insects on how they
live according to their behavior.

This reading is not only talking about how insects live, but for me the deeper meaning of
the essay is that we humans have this kind of attributes, not literally but in personality.
We are like these insects injecting poisons to other minds of people to get out wants,
paralyzing them with our lies, sting like a scorpion with our bad intentions towards others,
and we are just like Sanguinary Ants that will raid the possessions of and kill the owner;
by kidnapping someone to become slave or getting ramson that will think they are getting
the life they want quickly.

But on the other hand, it has a positive side that will also identify a human. We are hard-
working, just like the ants did. We are ready to be slave and also being kidnapped by
others for the sake of our survival. We have to find a job to have food on our table, injecting
positive thought to our minds when we are down or stressed not to give up, paralyzing
the rumors so that we can go forward to our goals, displaying our predatory and defense
characteristics.

We are the Queen of Ants of our life. Those characteristics described in the reading are
suited to our personality. We have the full authority to decide what we need, what we
want to reach our achievements and goals that we wish.

These lyrics may be unaffected by others, but if you dig deeper into this, you will find the
true meaning of this lyrics.
Name: Michael Gabriel S. Talonding Subject: ENGL5

Topic: Analysis of “Some Questions You Might Ask” by Mary Oliver

Questions that humans will do on their own. This poem talks about issues in life. In the
bible, humans have a soul. So the author asks if other living creatures have a soul.

The poem is more about reflecting a person's identity. I like line, “One question leads to
another” because I also can reflect. Every day, we keep on asking ourselves questions,
“why.”

In this poem, it is thought-provoking I find soul in your lovely photo; I think that the soul
has myriad attributes, too many to understand or describe; and I think that it's possible
that there are not individual souls for every creature and thing, but rather one soul to
which we all belong. Maybe the journey calls upon us to see our own souls in the maple
tree, the blue iris, the stones, the moonlight, the roses and lemons — and, most
importantly, in the eyes and souls of each other. It has the arbitrary specificity of this
poem, the naming of all those little things which might have a soul.

I find it so interesting because questions just might be the mark of us being humans, in
contemplations of the incomprehensible and sometimes, the unanswerable.
Name: Michael Gabriel S. Talonding Subject: ENGL5