Comment by tialaramex

Sure, but it's not clear in this case whether say the human species should also count as a single "organism". We don't understand very much about the octopus, which is a healthy reminder of why I shouldn't even speculate about alien life which would almost unavoidably be much stranger than an octopus - but we feel comfortable asserting that the "semi autonomous" limbs of the octopus are not distinct in the way that say, my friends Chris and Caroline are distinct people. So if this galaxy sized organism consisted of smaller units with similarly distinct properties, I think we'd say that's not a galaxy sized organism that's a culture of individuals.