Look at this seed. I love how it’s heart shaped which immediately makes me think of my own beating heart.
It’s not a big leap from there to thinking about the whole phenomenon of Life. I mean, what exactly is it and how do we know when it’s there? Do those seem strange questions to you?
What is Life? I remember looking at the index in my main textbook of Medicine which I used during my university years. I was surprised there was no entry for “health”. Doesn’t that seem odd? You’d think if the goal was to train doctors how to help sick people become well, or how to heal the sick, then there might be a clear description at least, of health. After all how does a doctor know they are achieving their goal of health without a clear understanding of what health looks like?
That line of thought stayed with me throughout my working life, leading me to explore the philosophy of Medicine, philosophy of Science, the History of Medicine and Complexity Science.
It’s still not easy to say exactly what health is, but I’m sure it’s a phenomenon which is both objective and subjective.
However, that’s a digression, because what I encountered when exploring the absence of much consideration of health in Medicine, I came across a parallel issue in Biology. Try finding an entry for “life” in a biology textbook. Seriously – if you find one, let me know! Despite biology being pretty much a science of life, it seems science doesn’t find it that easy to say what life is. Or even when it’s there.
Which brings me back to this seed.
Is this seed alive?
Do you know that nobody can tell you the answer to that. There is no way to know by just looking at this seed – at any level – or by doing any measurements. The best science can do is to take a whole bunch of seeds and predict what percentage of them will turn into plants if nurtured. It can’t tell which particular seeds are “viable” or “alive” and which are as dead as a grain of sand.
There is only one way to find out – plant it, care for it, nurture it, and see if it grows.
Life, it turns out, reveals itself only in the experience of living.
Isn’t that amazing?
What a beautiful lesson about life. I think maybe that is the definition of life. To live it and experience it fully. At least for me I like that definition.
Thank you Donna. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot and it does seem to me that both life and health cannot be fully understood or described without including the experiencing dimension