The Mystery of Life, The Science of Self-Organization

Life remains one of the greatest mysteries we face. While biologists have established working definitions, the boundary between living and non-living continues to challenge our understanding. Conventional biological definitions describe life as systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and evolve. Yet these definitions often feel incomplete when confronting edge cases that blur the line between animate and inanimate.

The crystalline world offers a fascinating example of this ambiguity. Crystals demonstrate remarkable self-organizing properties, “healing” themselves when damaged and growing in patterns reminiscent of living systems. As biophysicist Mae-Wan Ho observed, “Crystals, like living organisms, are coherent systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium, capable of responding to environmental changes.” Their ability to replicate structure and maintain order amid entropy presents a humbling challenge to our neat categorizations.

Water itself exhibits behaviors that some researchers describe in terms approaching consciousness. Dr. Masaru Emoto’s controversial work on water crystals suggested that water might respond to human intention, while more mainstream research demonstrates water’s unusual properties—its memory-like capacity to maintain structural patterns, its quantum coherence at biological temperatures, and its essential role in all known life. As Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi stated, “Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.”

Beyond conventional boundaries, extremophiles like tardigrades (water bears) and bacterial spores demonstrate astonishing survival capabilities. Tardigrades can withstand the vacuum of space, radiation levels that would destroy most organisms, temperatures near absolute zero, and can remain in suspended animation for decades. Their resilience raises profound questions about life’s adaptability and the possible transmission of biological material through space—a concept central to panspermia theories, which propose that life might spread throughout the universe via asteroids and other cosmic bodies.

Many indigenous wisdom traditions have long embraced perspectives that modern science is only beginning to approach. The Andean concept of “kawsay pacha” views the cosmos as a living entity where consciousness exists in all things. Similarly, the Japanese Shinto tradition recognizes “kami” or spirit in natural phenomena, while Daoist philosophy speaks of qi energy animating all existence. As biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes, “In indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with all four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit.”

The principles that may underlie existence beyond conventional definitions of life include organization amid chaos, information processing, energetic exchange, and emergent complexity. Systems theorist Stuart Kauffman suggests that life emerges as a fundamental property when sufficient complexity allows for autocatalytic sets—systems that can reproduce themselves. Kauffman proposes that “life exists at the edge of chaos,” in the delicate balance between too much order (rigidity) and too much freedom (dissolution).

Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy offers another framework, suggesting that all reality consists of interconnected events or “actual occasions” with some degree of experience or “prehension.” His perspective challenges the conventional division between animate and inanimate, proposing instead a spectrum of experience throughout nature. As Whitehead wrote, “The misconception which has haunted philosophical literature throughout the centuries is the notion of ‘independent existence.’ There is no such mode of existence; every entity is only to be understood in terms of the way in which it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.”

The intersection of quantum physics and biology introduces further complexity. Quantum coherence has been observed in photosynthesis and possibly in neural processes, suggesting that life may harness quantum effects. Theoretical physicist Jeremy England’s work on dissipative adaptation proposes that matter naturally organizes itself to dissipate energy more efficiently when driven by external energy sources—potentially explaining life’s emergence as a physical necessity rather than a cosmic accident.

As our scientific understanding deepens, we find ourselves approaching perspectives reminiscent of ancient wisdom traditions. Biologist and systems thinker Fritjof Capra notes, “The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.” This echoes the Buddhist concept of dependent origination and indigenous understandings of interrelatedness.

Perhaps the greatest mystery is not what separates life from non-life, but how consciousness emerges within living systems. Neuroscientist Christof Koch suggests that consciousness might be a fundamental property of the universe, similar to space, time, or charge—a perspective aligned with panpsychism. “The entire cosmos is suffused with sentience,” Koch proposes. “We are surrounded and immersed in consciousness; it is in the air we breathe, the soil we tread on, the bacteria that colonize our intestines, and the brain that enables us to think.”

The mystery of life ultimately points beyond mere biological definitions to the deeper question of existence itself. As physicist Werner Heisenberg reflected, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” Science and spirituality may be approaching the same profound truths from different directions, reminding us that the greatest mysteries are those that continue to unfold as we deepen our inquiry.

The Mystery of Life: At the Boundaries of Science and Spirituality