WHAT'S THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Specimen #17: On Why a Third Grader Can Instantly Recognize Life While Science Wizards Still Can’t Agree on What the Word “Life” Actually Means
Happy 2024 Friends!
For all you bookworms out there, this edition of The Specimen Monthly gets into a theme from one of our fave books from 2023, Biocivilisations, by Predrag Slijepčević. It offers a refreshing unconventional take on the central question of biology: “What the heck is life anyway?”
It was recommended to us by another author that we love, our friend
who has a great substack called Make Me Good Soil. It’s something special, do yourself a favor and check it out! Also, if you like what we do, become a paid supporter of The Specimen Monthly. It’s because of freaks like you that we’re able to keep this tree growing, so thanks!And welcome back. We’re very glad to see you.
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WHAT’S THE MEANING OF LIFE?
On Why a Third Grader Can Instantly Recognize Life While Science Wizards Still Can’t Agree on What the Word “Life” Actually Means
At our studio in LA, we sometimes have moments when a specific plant among our many thousands attunes us to its weird psychic wavelength, when our sixth sense sharpens, perhaps in the form of worry, and we discover that a seemingly healthy plant has parasitic bugs hiding in its roots. Other times it might feel like a certain plant is grinning at us (for lack of a better description), so we move it out of the greenhouse and into our studio for the day so we can bask in its radiant joy while we work. Does this sound crazy?
You better believe that plants are communicating to us! It’s because of them that we’re even alive. The solar energy that our bodies require to survive, we get from them. The carbon that plants sequester becomes the stuff of our flesh and sinew. Even the breath that we draw to tell our children bedtime stories is plant breath! How strange that we owe our very voices and movements to these silent stationary green beings. We even share a common microbial ancestor, meaning that plants aren’t just plants. They’re our relatives, our elders, the wise ones.
And the Lord Plant formed humans of the dust of the ground, and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life, and humans became living souls.
Genesis 2:7, KJV (moreless)
What is this thread of life that connects us to other beings like plants? It’s true, any third grader can look at a plant and tell you that it’s alive, but the question of what that life actually is has long plagued even the eggiest of eggheads.
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