This world, the same for all things, did none of the gods or men make, but it always was, is, and shall be an ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures
Heraclitus, Fr. 30
They (Empedocles and Anaxagoras) assert that everything is mixed in everything, because they saw everything arises out of everything
Aristotle, Phys. A4, 187a23
Autopoietics
As we saw elsewhere, the Christian god creates everything from without. Produced and organised by this god—who is separate from his creation—things, therefore, have no life force in themselves. This is what the story of Genesis implies… However, contemporary biology—like much of ancient, pre-Christian thought—views the world as autopoietic—from Greek αὐτo- (auto-), meaning “self,” and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning “production,” “creation.” This is to say, the world is self-creative, it needs of no god to be produced—life is self-productive and self-organising, it creates itself in all its variations and differences, and it is justified by its own existence; in short, it does not need of a Watchmaker.
Some people ask, “But what is the purpose of life, if there is no God?” The answer is easy—the question is wrong. It is a mistake to think that life needs any external justification, that it needs God to justify it. The purpose of life is life—alone. Life is because it is not non-life. And the essence of life is its own spontaneous affirmation. If you are alive, the proper thing to do is to affirm yourself, as you are alive. When you die, you become a non-life, you are no longer able to affirm anything.
Sympoietics
But life is not a closed circuit, an autopoietic unit renewing itself. Life (with an upper-case”L”) is autopoietic, as it embraces everything that comes into being, is, and becomes: everything that is alive. However, its multiple lives (with a lower-case “l”) are sympoietic—from Greek σύν (sym-), meaning “together” or “with,” and ποίησις (poiesis). This is to say, lives are-with and become-with others. No life is ever alone, separated from others: they are Open Wholes expanding through the cosmos. One cell connects with others creating something bigger, connecting with something greater, and this beautiful process takes place once and again… ad infinitum.
Further reading: Donna J. Haraway, When Species Meet
Ernst Haeckel, Kunstformen der Natur (1904), detail