What, really, is ecology? At its deepest level, Capra suggests, it's all about relatedness. If you look at an ecosystem, first you just see the individual animals and plants in it. They, along with the nonliving items such as rivers and rocks that surround them, would seem to compose the ecosystem.
In other words, at first glance an ecosystem would seem to be a collection of things, some living and some not.
But that misses something important. Those supposed "things" interrelate. Birds build nests on inanimate cliff outcroppings. Trees provide shelter for squirrels and insects. Birds eat insects. Trees produce seeds and nuts. Birds and squirrels eat seeds. Foxes eat nuts. And so on and on and on ...
Many of the so-called "things" — foxes, squirrels, birds, insects, trees, etc. — are, within themselves, again ecosystems. So, too, are our bodies. In our gut we host a plethora of "good" bacteria, for instance; they help us digest food.
If, as the foxes, squirrels, birds, insects, trees, etc. are, we are living organisms, our cells interrelate as well, making up tissues that make up organs than make up our internal organ systems. For example, our circulatory system includes the heart, the arteries, the veins, the capillaries, etc. At each level of organization, all the supposed "things" are interactive and interdependent.
Another example: our brains are organs made up of cells that are highly interactive and interdependent. That's why we are conscious and have subjective awareness.
The foxes, squirrels, birds, insects, etc. have brains. We usually assume, though, that they have no consciousness, no subjective awareness.
But if consciousness is an emergent property of interrelatedness — which in Capra's view is what it seems to be — who are we to say it's limited to human brains?
Could an ecosystem, with its complex, multi-tiered webs of relationships, be conscious? How would we know if it is? How would we know if it isn't?
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