A nuclear cell constitutes a stable structure within the instability of a biosphere without a nucleus. According to Lynn Margulis, the nuclear cell originates with a union of two independent cells, a spirochete and a protist. Jonah enters the whale and stays there till death do them part. From the material of independence is contructed a structure of interdependence, a symbiotic organization, a marriage, and in time, a family.

Human experience is not fully confined to symbiotic organization. It is not just ego -super-ego, but rather, id - ego - super-ego. There is a portion of human experience that escapes the organization and that moreover seems to undermine, or unorganize that organization. Eros is the god of symbiotic organization, while the god of of the underground is Thanatos. The erotic union of the nucleus and the cell arises like an island from the sea of manyness. The human experience does not orginate with the division of some primordial one, but rather in the union of two in the midst of the many.

On the final page of Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud refers to the relationship of Eros/Thanatos as a struggle between immortal adversaries. It is not clear to me that, except from within the confines of the symbiotic stucture, or, from some point-of-view, that the relationship is a struggle. The struggle seems confined to the organization. The erotic union is the union of opposites; a polar relationship. There is no polartiy in that portion of the human body that remains ununionized. Waking human consciousness is a struggle; maintaining a nuclear identity is a struggle. The tendency is toward the many, toward the unconscious.