Here is an idea that I’ve been swirling around in my head for awhile. I feel that it isn’t quite cooked up yet, but has great potential. But let me know what you think! And be brutal, but don’t be dumb (unless you are dumb, in which case you can’t help it and I’ll allow it).
Spinoza layed outa quasi-religious, yet non-supernatural (one could say, Atheistic) system called naturalistic pantheism. Naturalistic pantheism approaches spirituality through nature from a Judeo-Christian starting point (the way I see it; his audience was Christian). Spinoza begins with the all-powerful God of the Hebrews and ends with an all-powerful, consisting of all things, logical, unthinking “God” (you can just call “him” the universe if you want).
Spinoza’s views have been very influential. Albert Einstein, Arne Næss (founder of the deep ecology movement), Steven Hawkings and countless philosophers have been influenced by Spinoza’s naturalistic pantheism. It has been used as a way to understand human behavior and the universe. Our brains aren’t general-purpose calculators, so there is power in phrases such as “I want to read God’s thoughts.”
I propose a biocentric spirituality that is to animism what Spinoza’s views are to pantheism and deism.
The way is to look at the nature of life itself, which leads us to realize that more things are living than those that have DNA, are carbon-based or eat and shit. I do not speak of extraterrestrials (though I do hope I can meet an alien, even if it’s single-celled, in my lifetime, so long as it’s not murderous), but to a wall that astrobiologists constantly run into.
How do we define life? When going to other planets in search for life (what life chauvanists we are), all we know to look for is something carbon-based (since carbon bonds with, like, everything) and that’s based on water (high specific heat capacity, low freezing point, high melting point, our understanding of pH is based on it, hydrogen stops oxygenation, etc…). However, the truly fascinating thing about astrobiology is that distant lifeforms can be stranger than we ever imagined. That leads us to propose more generic ideas of what life is, but depeding on how we word it, we can exclude things like virii and prions or include things like entire ecosystems or social movements (in extremely broad cases).
I would say something is living if it has an ability to maintain homeostasis in a chaotic environment and adapt (even if the individual can’t, if it can reproduce, then that counts as adapting since even simple asexual reproduction allows a slow sort of evolution). But just as a multicellular organism is made up not only of countless cells, but also a symbiosis of bacterium in the case of animals (you’ve probably heard this before, but bacterial cells outnumber human cells in your body 10 to 1 – that’s probably the main way you keep bad guys out most of the time), an ecosystem containing individual species can itself be a lifeform (please see Lovelock’s work.. this idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds). When we get broad like this, it might seem silly, but it’s just because of what you’ve been taught.
I would accept a broad definition of life, but then lay down an important dividing line – if the lifeform exists within a specific substance and has a clear boundary, within which only it maintains homeostatis, then I say it is a true lifeform (examples: ladybugs, whales, acetobacter). If it exists throughout time and place and has no definite boundary, then it is a spirit (examples: the Earth’s ecosphere, various ecosystems, religious movements).
What Hegel calls a gheist, what Smith calls the invisible hand, what Lovelock calls Gaia, what Jung calls an archetype, these are all spirits. ‘Wait’, you might say, ‘these are radically different concepts, you nit-wit!’ Ah, but cyanobacteria is a very different concept from a flying snake. So there. I know there are holes in this idea and maybe something essential is missing that would improve it greatly. So, have at it, folks!
Just two or three quick comments –
1) Just a factual correction – Herder first coined the term Geist (in the sense you’re using it, obviously). Hegel adopted his usage.
2) You may be simply articulating one of the popular philosophies/theologies that is really only “felt” by most people at this point.
3) So, Mr. Consequentialist, what implications does this have for ethics? For example, if life is anything in a state of homeostasis, couldn’t it well be argued that an unborn fetus is a life (being as they’re in as complete a state of homeostasis as I can imagine)? I’m sure there are other issues this raises. Makes sense (see point 2) – as most wannabe-hippie liberal So-Cal Christians I know (which is most the Christians I know) are all for environmentalism, gay rights, animal rights and all that fun stuff, but are adamantly opposed to abortion.
4) OK, 4 points. Could it be said the contrary is true? Something not in a state of homeostasis (and not in the state of a spirit either) is then not living (which, I suppose, is not quite the same thing as being dead)? And for that matter, what does homeostasis mean? Certainly there are degrees – somethings are more homeostatic than other things, does that have any bearing on their claim to life? Not really criticism, but just offering a suggestion of where to go from here. One thing a lot of modern, uninformed intellectuals (which is all of us) fail to do is be specific, to actually define the terms they use in very clear ways, spell out their arguments in logical, easy to follow steps and address and refute whatever objections arise – things which were the bread & butter of the great thinkers of the past but seem to be long since forgotten.
I think you are right about point 2. Most of my “original” ideas, like the scent camera area really ideas that either are floating around in the air or appeared in a cartoon first. But for me to really take credit, my job is to properly articulate it, then see if it’s right.
Of course an unborn fetus is life. If we found one dying on Mars, that would be quite exciting. The political debate on that issue is about its personhood. I suppose as long as the aborted fetus is harvested for stem cells for therapeutic purposes, it should be okay if we are to fashion a new type of utilitarianism that sees life as the ultimate goal. If non-human life isn’t any less valuable, then I suppose there’s no issue since the fetus’ death is the beginning of blooms of bacterium and such. We could always feed it to wolves. If human life is deemed to be of higher value (perhaps since we can willfully create and protect life? hedonistic utilitarianism does deem human happiness more important than non-human…), then abortion would only be allowed if it threatened lives of perhaps the mother or was used for precious stem cells.
My “theory of spirits” could be considered false if a separate category for self-regulating, cybernetic systems that are _not_ life in the ordinary sense is of no use. It could also be considered false if we fail to find non-life entities that are usefully homeostatic on their own. It would be a serious, perhaps fatal, blow to my idea if Lovelock’s Gaea hypothesis was deemed false or useless. By the way, I use his definition of homeostasis and you can thumb through Gaea if you’re interested. It’s pretty quick read. There have been important verifications of many of his predictions. Finding current life on Mars might, depending on the circumstances, falsify the Gaea hypothesis (since there would presumably be very little life and therefore no Gaea to keep atmospheric homeostasis). My idea would apply to many entities and falsifying it as applying to one doesn’t necessarily for others. I think I may well be stretching to say that religions are spirits, but not stretching to say ecosystems and economies are.
Ah, and the most important point of all – being specific. I reckon I need to lay down specifically what I see as life (I’ll probably adopt some well-known biologist’s view), then what I see as spirit (the life in non-living things, the very definition of animism) then proceed to study diverse fields and see what basically qualifies as spirit or not and make some predictions, based on the nature of spirits of what might happen. If my predictions are fruitful, then I may be on to something. But make no mistake – I intend on this being a way of viewing the world (a spirituality if you will) that enhances understanding of the world, and not accepted seriously as a theory even as I hope to bring it through the wringers scientific theories are strung through. No bad idea deserves to live, even if it doesn’t have its sights set on scientific theory.
In alchemy and in many religions around the world including ancient Egypt there has been a long held idea about the “Stone that has a spirit.” It has also been called a “Living stone.” This stone while on the physical plane seems like dead matter is capable of life when one makes themselves the “living Stone” within. The Budhists call this Living Stone the Diamond Body.
The alchemists also called this Living Stone that can be made by those whos attitude is “right” Mercurious, the double minded god, or said a different way a “complexio oppositorum” a union of opposites. When one has sufficently united the opposites within they then have the unique chance to become a “Living Stone.” They also have the unique chance of an immediate religious experience. This religious experience cannot be found within organized religions, for here their knowledge can prevent them for realizing and experiencing the reality of the Stone that has a spirit.
In Death Valley there are the stones that move in a place called the race track. There are scientific reasons given for their movement. No one has seen them move, but they leave evidence. I think you know these stones. I attended a lecture to hear of a young man’s hike through Death Valley. He came upon the race track. he asked the stones why they move. In his imagination the stones said, “Because we want to.” I supect this is the case. The inner voice is just as “real” as the outer voice. This is the irrational knowledge which western culture does not like very much. Irrational knowledge is the other half of rational knowledge. Both are needed. This is the Living Stone, Murcurious, the union of opposites.
I’ve always felt that we, as humans, try too hard to put definitions and classifications on everything around us. I understand that it is part of our nature to fully understand our encompassing and ever changing habitat, but in a lot of cases, it’s really pointless for us to do so. I have always felt that life should not be classified by the rules and guidelines that we have decided. There is so much around us that we are completely oblivious to, and we rush judgment just because we would rather feel secure in lying about our understanding than to just accept it as an unknown.