Is There a Life Force?
Imagine a seed.
A tiny seed. You have a spoonful of tiny seeds. You look at them, then you pick one and place it on a white sheet of paper. You look at it through a magnifying glass. You are absorbed, for some reason, in looking at a tiny seed through a magnifying glass. You can see its shape. A ridge maybe. Ovoid, flattened, brown, maybe speckled. Stained. You know that it contains the blueprint for something else, much bigger. Your human mind does the maths. Ratios, work, inputs and outcomes. And then back to the seed. At this moment in time it is a seed. A seed with promise.
Next you are creating an environment. A bed for the seed to lie in and germinate. You are provoking a transformation, understanding that certain conditions need to be met for the seed to start metabolising in a certain way to express genes that will ultimately lead to cell division and morphological change. Morphology. Its shape and appearance. A bit later you see a little bit of green poking out of the soil, a thin stalk, then a couple of leaves. At this point you also know the seed has produced roots, going down into the soil that you can't see. You know this from experience. The roots are drawing up water and minerals, water which is being breathed out through the leaves by the process of transpiration, whilst the leaves are drawing in energy from sunlight, converting this via photosynthesis into glucose, which the plant uses, as you do, to feed the electron transport chain and the process of cellular respiration. This is where the energy comes from to keep metabolising, to keep the process of continual change happening. Sunlight, water, minerals, carbon dioxide. The carbon comes from the air.
And then there is the branching stem, more leaves, strength enough for you to take the plant out of the pot and put it in the ground. By late Summer it is four feet tall and covered in yellow flowers, big green leaves. Then sometime in November it keels over onto the ground and starts to disintegrate. By February there's nothing left to look at, all gone. What was that about?
What was that thing?
It came and went. Its clear enough isn't it? It was a plant of course, grown from a seed. Now dead, having completed its lifecycle. You knew it was going to do that when you looked at the seed. If only you could get it to germinate and manage to keep the slugs away at that early vulnerable stage. You knew, when you looked at that seed, the plant was already keeling over and disintegrating, and yet both you and the plant persisted, you carried on and made the whole drama take place. You directed this plant to perform its life right there in front of you, and you observed all the key stages of its development. You marvelled at it from time to time, and you also ignored it and found it quite dull at other times. You can't marvel at something the whole time. You've got to have a bit of a break. But when you did marvel, you marvelled like this (imagine):
Plant looks pretty good today. Slightly different from yesterday, but I can't tell how exactly. Is that a new leaf there? Getting enough water? Enough sunlight? Oh look, you're just a thing aren't you, like an energy. You just convert sunlight air and water into whatever it is that you are. I'm just seeing you now, but you're moving at a different rate to me. Are we part of the same thing? What would that be. What's driving you, plant? Is it me. I decided to germinate you. Am I playing your God. Who am I? What drove me to plant your seed? Am I just passing through? Yes I am. Am I the same now as I was yesterday? Probably not, but not much difference. What's the point in all this? This is the point:
Is there a life force? If I ignore your form and just think about the activity, what do I perceive then? A continuous vibration of energy. A massive, unmeasurable amount of single events, all combining together to create a sustaining, living unit. Like me. Same phenomenon. An organising principle. Some sort of system. Out of which there emerges this observation.