Seaweeds (and, soon, the first land plants or protoplants) were the first to begin cellularly cooperating in terms of highly intimate differential-integrity. Well over a hundred million years before the “Cambrian explosion” of the first huge radiation of new multicellular animal species throughout the seas and then onto the land, the algal seaweeds along with the protoplants were psychologically developing both the why and the how of cellularly cohabiting a single biological body through the tightly intimate cooperation of trillions of cellular individuals.

We, the living had already gotten the idea of free cellular cooperation with bacterial and algal mats (as well as more complex ‘organizations’ like stromatalites). But collaborating photosynthetic microbes still had to clear the hurdle of committing to a lifelong association that would become “unbreakable,” in the sense of each cellular individual becoming so sympathetically joined with the others in that body that it could no longer live apart from that much larger social body. It’s hard to see why those cellular individuals would sacrifice so much of their microscopic freedom for membership in a tightly-knit megalopolis of trillions of intensely intimate and ingeniously collaborative cellular teammates coordinated by their own large and co-created body-identity? They must have 1)really loved the experience of creative collaboration, 2)been fulfillingly rewarded through some kind of resonance with the whole multicellular identity, or 3)found a new and more interesting kind of freedom in the immediate “games” of expertly conspiring together as one. Maybe all three.

For these early geniuses it must have been fascinating developing some of the first multicellular body-identities. Having a body-identity was a very new life process for formerly freewheeling microorganisms. And all of the subtle creative details required to form any multicellular organism, including seaweeds, did not happen through a cascade of lucky accidents or through the necessity of a torrent of deterministic causes alone. They were using their minds to develop such amazing cooperative abilities, which life had not focused on so intensely before. Yes, some bacteria had specialized in cooperative endeavors. Cyanobacteria had led the way with the multispecies co-creation of huge stromatolites for which they formed the photosynthesizing canopies. But only when cells became tightly knit as organisms like seaweeds and protoplants was there anything macrocosmic like us in terms of a unified multicellular identity.

So the plants were getting however they did it while the animals were still getting their multicellular organizations going. All of this must have had to do with engendering, deserving and maintaining a new kind of trust between all of the cells co-constructing those new kinds of bodies. This included becoming very specialized as different body-part cells cohering as a single body and also in their diffeently-skilled organs and systems. The structural aspects are, of course, physical, but the procedural processes at the cellular level of interaction must always have been primarily felt processes. And I am convinced that the universal language of feeling-speech is fundamental and continuous from microcosm to macrocosm.

Obviously, life loves creativity, and multicellularity has offered lots of evolving possibilities. But as any good artist of scientist can tell, ingeniousness is not everything. And, though it has taken a long time with a lot of dead ends, life is more than a school of hard knocks. As I tend to repeat for my own consideration, it makes more sense to assume that the experience of being alive was always about the same basic processes that are basic to us, which are emotions, sense-actions and cognitions. And, of these, emotions pack the biggest wallop.

So my theory as to what induced microbial individuals to give up a lot of their personal freedoms for the sake of multicellular unity as macrocosmic organisms is based on the same thing that most consistently motivates humans to sacrifice some freedoms for cooperative coexistence. Though impending danger or the rule of force can bind us with others for a little while, the only thing that successfully connects humans in happily enduring ways is love. For this reason, it makes more sense to me to consider that the photosynthetic microbes and alliances who first got together in the creative ferment resulting in the genesis of the first multicellular organisms probably did it — and kept doing it — because of the huge increase in the intensities of love which their togethering was generating. They deeply committed themselves to one another — and to the evolution of macrocosmic life arising from it — for the sake of more love. They went whole hog for it because it FELT SO GOOD.