What is life?

The phenomenon of life has puzzled and inspired artists, scientists and philosophers for centuries. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in the early 19th century in the romantic sphere of influence (of which her husband, the poet Shelley, was also a part), is but one of many texts that displays a fascination with life, and its creation. The fictional Dr Frankenstein, who “creates” a living being with the technological and medical means at his disposal, is a God-like character who commits hubris by imitating the life-giving act of God, and pays a high price for it. Some centuries earlier, Leonardo da Vinci and Goethe already displayed an abiding interest, (albeit a scientific one) in the question of life. More recently Ridley Scott’s film, Blade Runner (itself based on a science-fiction short story), resurrected the theme of creating life — here, the replicants — and terminating it again when it has served its purpose.

The fascination with life should not surprise anyone. Ordinarily one tends to take it for granted, but intermittently, at odd times when one is caught off-guard (by one’s own image in a mirror, for instance), the sheer, astonishing “givenness” of life induces a strange kind of psychic dislocation, where you are seized by wonderment at the inexplicable being-there of yourself as a living being.

That we endow life with supreme value is beyond doubt. Freud talked about the “life preserving instincts” as being fundamental in human lives, and given the ferociousness with which an animal — even a small one — defends itself when threatened or attacked by another living creature, it seems clear that all living beings share these instincts. Moreover, the way in which a parent animal would defend its own young — to the point of sacrificing its own life for theirs — confirms, rather than contradicts the powerful functioning of these instincts. It is precisely to preserve life (that of the species) that such sacrifices of individual lives occur.

But what is life, that it should elicit such strong “instinctual” behaviour on the part of living creatures? Just how much life is valued even at a reflective level (at least by some individuals), is apparent from the following statement by the artist, Othello Anderson:

“Carbon and other pollutants are emitted into the air in such massive quantities that large areas of forest landscapes are dying from the effects of acid rain. Millions of tonnes of toxic waste are being poured into our lakes, rivers and oceans, contaminating drinking water and killing off aquatic life. Slash-and-burn forest clearing and forest fires are depleting the forests worldwide. Recognizing this crisis, as an artist I can no longer consider making art that is void of moral consciousness, art that carries no responsibility, art without spiritual content, or art that ignores the state of the world in which it exists.”

Would that more human beings were conscientised to the point of sharing these strong sentiments. Indications are, however, that (although there is no reason to doubt that their own survival instincts are still intact) the vast majority of people on the planet have not reflectively come to the conclusion that life is threatened by the industrial and agricultural activities of humans. It is astonishing to hear marine scientists point out that 90% of the big fishes in the world’s oceans have been wiped out through overfishing, and that more and more species are facing extinction because of this. Tuna is the latest species to be threatened in this way, and still the decimating fishing activities go on. (A zoologist friend has observed that the world’s need for fish could easily be met by establishing more fish-farms, instead of depleting the seas’ fish populations.)

Perhaps a sober reflection on the phenomenon of life might convince at least some readers that it would be worthwhile changing one’s attitude from one of indifference to an active promotion of the interests of all living creatures. Joel Kovel (in The Enemy of Nature) has this to say about it: “Nature as such vastly exceeds the phenomena of life; yet life may be justly regarded as being at the same time both a special case of nature, and, in a way we only dimly surmise, as a potential of nature — something that nature generates under specific circumstances. Life is unitary, in the sense that the basic molecular architecture of humans, redwoods and slime molds all indicate a common ancestor. Yet life is also inconceivably — to our dim awareness — multiform, in a profusion that has arisen over 3,5-billion years through ceaseless interactions between living creatures, and with their non-living surroundings … Each creature in nature has its ‘nature’, its way of being, its point of insertion into the ecosystemic manifold, its peculiar mode of struggling.”

What Kovel manages to conjure up here, by means of words, is a picture of a vast family of living beings — all related to one another at a molecular level — that has developed over an unimaginable stretch of time. It reminds me of what astronomer Carl Sagan said at the beginning of one of the chapters of his television series, Cosmos, where he was standing next to a huge tree, and observed that, given the similarity between its genetic profile and that of humans, it was a distant “cousin” of ours.

In the simplest of terms, therefore, all living beings are our relatives — some closer than others, but relatives all. In light of this, and keeping firmly in mind how long it has taken for all the living species on earth to evolve (even if we set aside those species that have already become extinct), does it not seem imperative to do everything in our power as humans to preserve this vast panoply of variegated life-forms? If we don’t, we could be indicted by future generations as our own relatives’ murderers.