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.

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.

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.