Why there is something instead of nothing continues to be a subject of debate. Although visible matter, the matter we can see and detect with our instruments comprises only 5% of the observable universe, it occupies nearly all of our attention.
It appears that most of the universe is comprised of dark energy and dark matter, invisible things we cannot directly observe, but we can observe and measure their effects. Visible matter – the stars, planets, galaxies, nebula, and us, of course – gives us plenty to play with.
Underlying visible matter is the force of being. Philosopher Henri Bergson called it Élan Vital. That force, perhaps the ripple effect of an originating impulse, invests visible matter with coherence and the inclination to combine, gather, interact with, and even join together to accomplish a purpose. And that purpose, at minimum, is about being.
Were it not for the force of being, elements remaining themselves plus their ability to gather together and interact wouldn’t happen. If in fact, our universe began in a big bang of super-heated plasma that slowly cooled and coalesced into the visible structures we observe today, the force of being was part of that initial process. It’s entirely possible, if other universes exist, that they may not include any visible matter at all. No galaxies, no suns, no planets, no life. It appears we are in a very privileged and quite precious situation: existing as living matter in a universe in which visible matter itself is exceedingly rare.
Have you ever wondered why it is that certain types of matter seem so stable? Granite rock, for example, lasts for billions of years. It can slowly be eroded by wind and rain and even human hands, but if undisturbed it unambiguously remains granite. In this way granite expresses an agency of its own; it has no language, but what it declares through its very being is: “I Am Granite.”
We generally don’t invest nonliving matter with anything resembling will or intention. The evidence of what we see around us, however, argues otherwise. The force of being is strong and permeates all matter. Not just us.
Oxygen for example. The agency of oxygen exerts its own powerful role in our living system. One could say the living world belongs and owes its existence to oxygen. Oxygen is not a living thing but is essential to the survival of virtually all living things on earth. Who’s to say how that happened? It’s almost as if oxygen has imposed its will.
We regard the world of nonliving matter in predictably human ways: we manipulate it, we ignore it, or we classify it. Our classifications are evaluations, so that at some point nonliving matter gets classified as garbage, irrelevant, useful, or treasure. The force of being, however, is equal in all classifications, equity we don’t customarily recognize.
In the past, I have referred to the Thingdom of Man, the ways in which we have named and organized the material world to our liking. The irony is that by conferring Thingdom upon an object, it then becomes a subject and sometimes a subject of great agency and influence. Political theorist Jane Bennett calls it “Thing Power.” The power of gold over human beings, for instance, is indisputable.
This prompts a moral lesson. If we can afford the nonliving world with the respect that we afford the living, we might just survive.
