Forget life after death – the bigger question is: do you believe in life before death?  As absurd as the question seems, the evidence would suggest that most of us don't, at least not fully.  And that may be the root cause of the most pressing challenges humanity faces.

The question first came to me about a year ago when I was working with a coalition of nature museums, helping them craft a powerful manifesto about the contribution they wanted to make to the world.  In our discussions, it became clear that the scientists and administrators were uncomfortable talking about the concept of “life,” preferring to refer exclusively to the tangible aspects of “nature.”  As I understood the issue, the concept of “life” fell into the realm of religion, not science.  We could talk about characteristics of “aliveness,” but not about an animating and integrative essence that made them possible.

This took me by surprise.  These were biologists, after all, engaged in “the study of life.”  And yet the concept of “life” was off-limits.

As I reflected on their reasoning, it occurred to me that, in our collective rejection of the often implausible explanations offered by religion, we have inadvertently rejected the concept of “life” itself.  The mechanistic worldview of our day teaches us that being alive means going through the physical motions of consumption, competition and reproduction.  And life – distinct from these physical characteristics of aliveness – does not really feature in the guiding story of our times.

Maybe there's a good reason for this.  After all, if it's not physical then it's just debatable philosophy, right?

Possibly.  But what if there's a connection between our rejection of the concept of life and our diminishing ability to support life sustainably?  What if there's a link between viewing ourselves as isolated, competing metabolism machines and our growing discontent – “the disenchantment of the world,” as sociologist Max Weber called it?  And would we live our lives differently if we re-embraced the idea that all living beings are animated by something that could be called life?

To answer these questions, we first need a working definition of “life” – one that even biologists can comfortably embrace.

And to get to that, we'll need a more complete understanding of “aliveness.”  In recent years, science has discovered that it's more than just competition, consumption and reproduction.  In reviewing the literature on biology – specifically, that of complex adaptive living systems – I found that there are five defining characteristics of all living systems:

1.  They consist of parts – for example, the cells in your body, ants in an ant colony, the vast array of species in an ecosystem.  The more diverse the better (at least if you want adaptability, resilience and creativity).  Variety is the spice of life, right?  And as it happens, the diversity of life is staggering.

2.  Yet somehow, all those diverse parts come together to form an emergent series of convergent wholes – cells form organs, which form bodies, which form communities and ecosystems.  The pattern continues until we find one unbroken whole that is the living Earth.  As naturalist John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”  What is more, each emergent whole demonstrates new characteristics that can't be understood by looking at the behavior of its parts.  For example, we can't understand you in all your volition and intellect by looking only at the behavior of your cells.  And with each emergent level of life, there is a higher level of intelligence and intention as a result of the combined capabilities of the component parts.  You are more intelligent and intentional than your organs or cells, for example.  There is even evidence that this pattern applies to the levels of life of which we are parts, such as organizations, ecosystems and the whole living Earth.

3.  Every “whole” is held together by a web of relationships.  The more interconnected and intertwined that web – the more that life is connected to itself – the more resilient, adaptive and creative any living system will be.

4.  All of it – parts, wholes and relationships – is self-creating.  In other words, it does its thing by itself, integrating all that fabulous diversity into larger, emergent forms of life through ongoing dynamic relationship.

5.  Finally, the more resilient, adaptive and creative the thriving living system, the more it will be a learning system, adapting to changes in its environment and in turn introducing changes to its environment, in an ongoing feedback loop that makes the living system ever more integrated with its context.

The most important of these five characteristics is the one about self-creation (or autopoiesis, as it's called in scientific circles). The fact that you are alive is a function of a continuous interplay of the five defining characteristics of living systems in the ongoing process self-creation and re-creation.  In this way, we see that being alive is a process not a state.

And in all, these defining characteristics help us see that there are mechanistic aspects of nature; they're just not the most interesting or important aspects.  Indeed, living systems are inherently active, adaptive, creative and self-directed – decidedly non-mechanistic traits.

With this expanded definition of aliveness, we can then move on to explore the concept of life – of whatever it is that sets and keeps that process of self-creation in motion. Though I don't claim full knowledge, I'll offer the four points that make up my own working definition of life:

Life is more than energy.  When my husband asked, “What's the difference between energy and life?” I gave him a playful punch in the arm and said, “That's energy.”  There's energy everywhere in the universe – in waterfalls, in wind -- but energy alone doesn't animate.  It doesn't enable the pattern of self-creation that defines aliveness.  For that, you need life.

Life is intangible.  Quantum physics has established that there is an underlying, generative realm of existence that is non-physical.  Perhaps that is life or at least where it resides; I'm not sure.  But when science conclusively proved the existence of this non-physical realm, it opened the door to acknowledging life as an intangible – yet still scientifically valid – aspect of our reality.

There is only one life.  And it runs through every living thing on Earth.  About 13 billion years ago, life became manifest in the first living cell (what caused that is a mystery beyond me or the scope of this article).  That cell then divided into two.  The life that animated each cell was not different.  It was the same life, just divided into two locations.  I think of it as fire lighting a torch.  If I tip my burning torch toward yours to light it, we then share different manifestations of the same fire.  From the first cell, this process of division continued to this day, as all the species on Earth developed and evolved from that original manifestation.

Life is integral.  This means that, though there are parts, they are all indivisible components in an unbroken whole.  If it's all one life, and life is intangible, then it may be that it's all connected in -- and emanating from -- that non-physical realm.  In that case, in my “burning torch” metaphor it may be more appropriate to say that life is not the flame but the surrounding oxygen that makes the fire possible, with all of the individual torches burning from a single source.

This all sounds very much like Eastern philosophical concepts of chi, tao and prana.  But there is one key difference.  According to my limited understanding, Eastern philosophies implore us to deny our individuality so that we may experience oneness with all that is.  In contrast, our expanded scientific definition of aliveness would suggest that no choice is necessary between our “part-ness” and our “whole-ness.”  Both are important aspects of the natural process of living systems within the manifest world.  In this view, we may find full awareness of the unity of all life (what Eastern traditions call enlightenment) not solely by removing ourselves in meditation, for example, but also by making our individual and collaborative contributions to the ongoing evolution of our manifest reality.  This is actively and mindfully participating in the game of life.  This is enlightenment in action.  

So what would it mean if we truly believed in an intangible, integrative and creative essence that might be called “life”? What would be the significance for us as we go about our days?

At a general level, I believe that we would open ourselves to what author Thomas Moore calls “The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life.”  We've been trained to view life's characteristic patterns as if they are the basic workings of a machine.  But even viewed through the skeptical lens of a scientist, those patterns are amazing.  Life has manifested in nearly infinitely diverse forms: that's incredible!  From that diversity, it creates new, emergent forms of life, like you and me and coral reefs and rainforests: unbelievable!  It knits everything together in dynamic, continuously responsive relationship: how beautiful!  We are integral, inseparable parts of this unfolding, creative process, as our bodies create themselves out of elements from the living Earth: wow!

If more of us really, truly got this – if we grasped the full implications of what it means to be alive, animated moment-to-moment by creative, adaptive, self-directed life – here's what I think we would do differently:  

• We would spend more time being grateful and amazed at the infinite majesty of all life.  Every day. I mean, really see the glory of life all around us in all its elegant complexity, and be joyfully reverent.

• We would spend more time in wonder and awe that we're inseparable from that infinite majesty.  We would look in the mirror and be reverent and amazed.

• We would look at everyone around us – even an annoying co-worker, even a sworn enemy – and be reverent, grateful and amazed.  Each of us is no less complex, valuable and miraculous than the rainforest and the coral reef.  And though we are distinct, we cannot truly be considered separate.

• We would take better care of our bodies.  They consist of common chemical elements that would cost only a few dollars at a hardware store, and yet they move!  They think!  They feel!  And they are the vessels for our best contributions to the whole of life.

• We would act more consistently as caring stewards of our larger body -- the Earth and all its inhabitants.  We would care for every aspect of it as we would a beloved elderly relative – with gentle respect and accommodation.

• As we recognize that aliveness is a journey of connection, learning, adaptation and emergence, we would replace fear with fascination, judgment with compassion.  We would recognize how much is beyond our control.  But we would also recognize our active and intentional participation in the grand creative dance of life.

• We would play more, especially at work.  Play is a defining characteristic of mammals.  It's how we learn and innovate.  It is our nature and our joy.  And it is a sign of our coherence with all of life.

• We would spend less time competing and comparing ourselves with others and more time exploring and honoring our unique gifts and contributions to the whole of life.

• As we recognize that we exist and evolve only in relationship, we would spend more time learning ways to be in positive relationship with others, starting by understanding our own needs and emotions.

• We would approach work as a means to honor life, ever seeking ways to make life-enabling contributions.  As Khalil Gibran said, “Work is love made visible” – love for self and for the whole of life.

• We would stand for something larger than ourselves and dedicate our lives to it relentlessly, refusing to waste our aliveness on anything less than heroic.

• We would craft our organizations as the fertile ground for our rich collaboration, for our highest contributions, and for the life within us to flourish.

• We would spend more time in nature – not blasting across a lake mindlessly on a jet-ski, but in calm communion with all life.  We would practice quieting our minds and listening for what is needed, what is ours to contribute.  We would know that the collective intelligence of the whole of life is available to us if we seek it, because we are each part of that unbroken whole.

In the movie Avatar, the extraterrestrial Nav'i princess disparagingly says that the visiting humans “see nothing” within the lush ecosystem of her planet.  It seems that this is too often true in our own world, as we refuse to see the wonder of life that resides in and around us.  In failing to recognize, honor and steward life, we also fail to create the fertile conditions for it to flourish.  Environmental and social crisis is forcing us to change our ways, but I believe that we must also truly “see” life if we hope to create the full set of conditions necessary to sustain it.  Fortunately, the more science discovers about life, the harder it becomes to overlook the marvel that life is.

Let the re-enchantment begin!