metaphysics are us

Where does life come from? What does it take to turn the components of life, that cluster of proteins and amino acids, into life? I don't know, but it seems to point to some non-physical component of existence, otherwise we could dissect for it. So I guess I do believe in a spiritual component to existence, just not the religious/occult/visions-from-beyond kind. Does that make it metaphysical?

Everything I know and can surmise tells me that metaphysics is the great delusion - a lie perpetrated and perpetuated in order to control and manipulate the multitudes. Initially our ancestors must have turned to the supernatural to explain the inexplicable but, as more and more was dragged hunchbacklike into the light, it must have become apparent to some that, by extrapolation, all mysteries would eventually fall to human inquiry. And all, it seems, that's left is life and the concepts of eternity and infinity.

And if life is found, as it may be, no more than an evolutionary progression of complex amino acids then Nietzshe's claim will be unequivocal and metaphysics will be relegated for once and for all to an inferior paradigm for the misguided and the credulous.

But if 'life-stuff' derives from processes and components we have yet to discover, in the same way that we speak of multiverses and other dimensions, then rather than dealing with metaphysics we will be dealing with a new physics with its own attendant laws and limits. After all, how much our view of the atom has changed, even in the last decade. How much our understanding of subatomics and a whole new language of muons and such has evolved.

And what of religion in a world without mysteries? If spirituality is laid open as an attribute of all living things then what happens to the huge ecclesiastic ego trip of heaven and life after death and redemption and all the stock in trade of shamans and clergy everywhere? Even in our present unenlightened state it is all but impossible to reconcile a primitive, patriarcal, god-centered religion with what we see when we open our minds. God is not only illogical in a physical sense but unbelievable in a spiritual system that recognizes the wonder of life divorced from the ego-driven existential fear that we, as individuals, are not immortal. We can stand gazing slack-jawed at creation without recourse to a creator; we can be thankful for our existence without supposing a benefactor.

As a poet, I am glad that some mystery remains because poetry describes the indescribable. As for the brain holding those mysteries of life, which a good friend of mine believes, I would be tempted to look into the limbic system if I looked at the brain at all. The greeks thought that the brain, with its convoluted shape, was the cooling system for the body. I look around at a number of people and I think they were right.