Mayr

... is it possible then, that multi-cellular life is
an illusion and we are really highly dependent colony organisms?I mean different tissues die at different rates when an
animal 'dies', and most tissues can be kept alive outside of
a body.

So are you saying that it is unlikely since you don't get
mutations within a tissue?

In the 'Nature of Mutations II' thread a link was posted to
a report on epigentic effects. There is a suggestion there
that any multi-celled organism would tend to evolve a
soma-germ-line distinction over time ... surely this would
also cover other differentitions of cell-type.Perhaps a step-back would be a slime-mould-like collective.