The Presence of Living Organisms

42 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 SCIENCE&SPIRIT R ay Barglow criticizes my attribution of an in-dwelling presence to plant life by saying, essentially , that my attribution is wrong because science has demonstrated that the movement of plants canbeexplainedbypurelymaterialfactors.Hecites apassageinwhichIappealtothereadertoagreethatwhenplants turn toward the light, we sense their presence as living beings. Barglow rejects my appeal, saying that scientists have shown that “hormones” called “auxins” cause this turning, by stimulating cell division on the shady side of the plant, causing the plant to bend awayfromtheshadysectionandtowardthelight. But if we look more carefully at the way the scientist develops his or her knowledge about auxins, we can see that the scientist has simply redescribed the plant’s behavior solely in terms of the plant’s material elements. The scientist first looks at the plant as an “object,” then takes note of the behavioral fact that the plant bendstowardthelight,thenexaminesbiochemicalprocessesthat are visible under a microscope that accompany this bending, and then invents certain concepts to name the biochemical elements in the plant that make the bending possible (in this case, the scientist uses the Greek-derived concept “hormone,” meaning “stimulate,” and the similarly Greek-derived concept “auxin,” meaning “grow,” to describe the empirically observed gooey stuff that appears to be associated with increased cell division in the plant).Thescientisthasnotbythisprocessexplainedwhatcauses the plant perceived as an “object” to bend; he or she has simply redescribed the bending process itself in terms of the visible, material processes that are associated with the bending. The great error of “scientism,” as we refer to it in Tikkun, is to mistake this material redescription for an explanation. Since the scientistmaybelieve,asamatterofconviction,thatallthatcanbe saidtobe“real”iswhatisvisibletotheobjectifying,detachedgaze, thescientistmaya)noticetheplant’sbendingbehaviorinthepresenceofsunlight ;b)inventcertainconceptslikeauxinstodescribe the biochemical correlates of the behavior; c) “reify” the concepts, meaning treat the gooey stuff he or she has named “auxin” as if it werearealthingcalledauxin;andd)assumethatthisproduction of auxin is the “true cause” that explains the bending behavior. He or she may assume—“Well, there’s nothing else going on that we can see.” I acknowledge that it is possible that there is “nothing going on” except a mere physical process—that sunlight stimulates the tip of a plant to spur the production of auxins that cause the plant to bend. But it is also possible that the plant as a living and vital presence responds to the warmth and radiance of the sunlight and turns toward it responsively, with the production of auxins being merely the biochemical, material correlate of that turning process. This latter interpretation, which I favor, understandstheplantasaspiritual -materialunityratherthanreducing the plant to the materialist dimension that is visible to the detached , scientific eye. To see the spiritual element requires that we trust our intuitive response to the plant’s outreaching tendrils , that we “let ourselves go toward the plant” rather than “standing back” and looking “at” it. I say to the scientist: “If you let go of your standing back and if you instead ‘go forward,’ and if you then spontaneously sense the plant’s responsiveness to the sun, you will see it is reaching toward the sunlight, and you have helpfully showed the material means, the biochemical correlative process, by which it has enabled itself to do this. Amazing!” By “standing back” I do not mean that biologists are detached people or that they don’t greatly appreciate nature. I know lots of them do and that’s why they become interested in the natural world. By “detachment” or “standing back” I’m referring to the epistemological stance of empiricism itself, a detachment that is the very basis of its claim to objectivity and neutrality as regards its own conception of “validity.” I’m saying as long as you take that stance, you can’t perceive the spiritual/invisible dimension of the world. On the other hand, when you “go forward” or let go of that neutral di-stance, you become one with the spiritual dimension, a spiritual dimension that is actually self-evident to the engaged intuition that comprehends life...