Superorganism

A superorganism is an ensemble of living and non-living matter, which acts as a single self-regulating system. […] Gaia is the largest and most complex superorganism we know.

To grasp why Metaman—our strange amalgam of concrete, humans, computer chips, and various plants and animals—is a superorganism rather than merely an elaborate “social grouping” of humans, look at another, far simpler grouping of organisms—a termite colony.