Biocentrism: Reduction To Idealism

Biocentrism is a term that can refer to anything from an opposition to all speciesism to the idea that life itself is the very foundation of reality.  The former is rendered baseless by the outward differences in accomplishment between humans and non-human animals, while the latter is a far broader set of metaphysical ideas.  The latter may even seem like it is a newly acknowledged or developed ideology, yet it is actually just a resurgence of another philosophical framework in a new guise.

In its most intense forms, biocentrism reduces down to metaphysical idealism, or the idea that life creates and sustains all of reality or at least the external world of matter in particular.  This version of biocentrism goes beyond regarding conscious life or life in general as more central to reality than matter to the point of crediting life with bringing matter into existence and shaping it afterward.  Thus, one can address this form of biocentrism in the same way that idealism needs to be addressed.

Even though basic idealism--the idea that matter only exists because of consciousness--cannot be proven or disproven, any form of idealism holding that every part of reality hinges on mind can be easily falsified.  Not everything can depend on the existence of life because logic itself transcends all other things, existing with or without any minds that grasp it [1]; the laws of logic are the most fundamental part of reality because it is them that even dictate what is true and possible, not consciousness or matter!

Consciousness is inherently necessary in order for either the laws of logic or the physical universe to be perceived.  Without conscious life, there is nothing to do the perceiving even though there would still be truths that can be grasped.  Life is therefore more epistemologically and metaphysically fundamental than matter.  It still does not follow that unperceived matter does not exist, but it is inescapably true that there can be no awareness of the external world without a mind to observe it.

Biocentrism can only be demonstrably true to the extent that it focuses on the necessity of conscious life for the universe to be perceived and to the extent that it does not divide all things in existence into the incomplete categories of mind and matter.  Beyond this, biocentrism is at best a speculative ideology that is not capable of being truly verified.  Life (even life that is not ultimately conscious) does have a place of special philosophical significance, but it is not the supreme aspect of reality.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ramifications-of-axioms.html