Spiritual animals. The evolution of a primitive language marks, therefore, the evolution of a new kind of animal. But it is unique, because, according to this ontological explanation of revolutionary evolution, this stage of evolution has two ontological causes. Like previous stages in the evolution of multicellular animals, one ontological cause is a higher level of neurological organization, because what makes it possible to guide social level animal behavior is the use natural sentences. But since it is also the evolution of an animal at the social level of biological organization, another ontological cause of this revolutionary change is a higher level of biological organization. Being caused by higher levels of part-whole complexity in evolving organisms in two different ways at once is unprecedented in the course of evolution. And it makes what evolves at the first spiritual stage unique is other ways.

Unique kind of essential nature. The use of natural sentences to coordinate behavior in groups of hominids is a new animal behavior guidance system. Indeed, it is the new kind of animal behavior guidance system made possible by the social level of biological organization, just as the nervous system was the new kind of animal behavior guidance system  made possible by the multicellular level. And as we shall see, it is only the first stage in the evolution of that animal behavior guidance system.

What makes animal societies so much less powerful than spiritual animals is that they not no behavior guidance system to guide social level animal behavior. They have only the animal behavior guidance systems built into their multicellular bodies, and their social nature, such as it is, comes from desires built into their brains that make them gregarious and, perhaps, set up a dominance hierarchy among them.

Insect colonies and other multisomatic animals do have behavior at the social level that is generated by a behavior guidance system, but it is a biological behavior guidance system, not an animal behavior guidance system. That is, insect colonies are what we called “anomalous animals,” because the only animal behavior guidance systems involved in generating their behavior exist in the lower level parts, the individual insects. Insect colonies are like sponges, except that being on the social level, they are made up of insects, rather than collar flagellates. Thus, they do not have animal behavior at the social level at all. They do not move around in space as a whole, nor do they act on other objects as a whole. Only the parts have animal behavior. Their social level behavior is like that of a plant, acting on the world as a whole or, at most, orienting behavior in an ambient field. In short, multisomatic animals have only a biological behavior guidance system at the social level of biological organization., and even that is only an extension of the multicellular biological behavior guidance system (or the mechanism of embryological development) to construct a multisomatic body on the social level in addition to the bodies it already constructs on the multicellular level.

Social level biological behavior guidance system. Spiritual animals do have animal behavior on the social level guided by an animal behavior guidance system, as we have seen. But the first indication of their  unique kind of essential nature is that their animal behavior guidance system is not constructed by a social level biological behavior guidance system. At all previous stages in which animals evolved at a higher level of biological organization, their new kind of animal behavior guidance system required a structural cause that was constructed by their biological behavior guidance system, and thus, the biological behavior guidance system had to evolve first.

Multicellular animals had to evolve a mechanism of embryological development before there were animals with nervous systems on the multicellular level, because that is what constructs their nervous systems.

And in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the first behavior guidance system to evolve was a mechanism that could lead them through their reproductive cycles independently of the cycle of night and day. Only later did they evolve the capacity to acquire energy by ingesting other objects in space and the special mechanisms required to choose between incompatible kinds of behavior toward other objects in space, such as whether to ingest them or not. And those animal behavior guidance systems were both constructed and maintained by the capacity of their biological behavior guidance systems to coordinate the behavior of the lower level organisms of which they were composed.

Spiritual animals are, therefore, radically different, because they evolved a behavior guidance system for animal behavior at the social level without first evolving a social level biological behavior guidance system.

The lack of a social level biological behavior guidance system  is not so puzzling when we think about them concretely, because we can understand how the use of a primitive language of natural sentences makes it possible to coordinate the members’ behavior in generating social level behavior. That is why I introduced spiritual animals by explaining the function of language in groups of primates. We can see that its evolution is inevitable, if language is possible. However, an ontological explanation of the stages of evolution cannot afford to overlook the curious nature of spiritual animals. The use of language is clearly a social level behavior guidance system, because it guides animal behavior on the social level in groups of primates. But it would be wrong to conclude that spiritual animals have no social level biological behavior guidance system at all.

The truth is that the use of natural sentences is also a biological behavior guidance system at the social level. Spiritual animals also go through cycles of reproduction in which they use free energy to do both kinds of work, the non-reproductive work of controlling relevant conditions as well as reproduction itself, and since they choose for themselves when to grow and when reproduce, they have their own biological behavior guidance system.

Their non-reproductive work is the social level animal behavior that explains why language evolved. The use of language is an animal behavior guidance system, or the structural cause for social level behavior, and animal behavior is a form of non-reproductive work.

The spiritual animal also reproduces as a whole. Indeed, reproduction is easy for spiritual animals, because it is just a matter of the group dividing into smaller groups which go their separate ways. And reproduction becomes necessary from time to time, because the members continue to reproduce on the individual level and spiritual animals eventually become too large to gather enough food for everyone by hunting and gathering by wandering around.

The division of the group can be generated by the instructions of a leader in the same way as other kinds of behavior, and when they divide, the smaller groups have all the same kinds of powers as they parent group. That is, each takes their primitive language with them, and the instinctive desires that lead to a dominance hierarchy gives each daughter group a leader so that it can do the non-reproductive work of acquiring energy and growing.

A new form of life. Since spiritual animals have all the characteristics that led us to believe that prokaryotes were the first living organisms, it seems that they must be considered a new form of life.

What marked the beginning of life, we decided, was the evolution of the first biological behavior guidance system, for that enabled the cells to go through reproductive cycles on their own, independently of the cycle of night and day. Since each cycle included non-reproductive work as well as reproduction, those cells had the kind of autonomous activity that is ordinarily meant by “living.” And we took this ordinary meaning of life to be ontologically significant, because it indicated a change in the ontological cause of evolution. It meant that natural selection was no longer imposed on them from outside, by the circadian cycle. Reproductive causation takes the cause of natural selection to be reproduction, because population growth leads to a scarcity of free energy that requires some reproductive cycles to come to an end. After the evolution of the first biological behavior guidance system, therefore, organisms imposed natural selection on themselves by their own reproduction.

Spiritual animals clearly have autonomous activity in the ordinary sense, for they generate both growth and reproduction on their own. And it has the same ontological significance as it did in prokaryotes, because their social level reproduction does mean that growth in the population of spiritual animals will eventually make resources scarce. They will eventually impose natural selection on themselves, and thus, like other forms of life, they will make themselves evolve. Their social level reproductive cycles will add up in space over time to a gradual change in the direction of maximum holistic power for organisms of their kind, which is natural perfection for organisms of their kind.

Spiritual animals might even be called the “third origin of life.”

Life first evolved when cell enclosed loops of DNA with a regulatory mechanism evolved into a biological behavior guidance system that led prokaryotes through cycles of reproduction independently of the circadian cycle.

But much the same thing happened again when colonies of prokaryotes that constructed aquatic balloons evolved a nucleus and were also able to go through reproductive cycles independently of the cycle of night and day. In both of these cases, life began with the evolution of a structural cause that could take over responsibility for their entire reproductive cycle.

That is also what happened to nomadic groups of primates when they evolved the capacity to use language to guide their social level animal behavior, for that was the evolution of a structural cause that would generate the reproductive cycles by which they would impose natural selection on themselves. Though in this case, the mold for their reproductive cycles was no the cycle of night and day, it was just as inevitable, because they were imposed by the reproduction (and, hence, population growth) of its members. With the evolution of natural sentences, choices about social level growth and reproduction were made by a behavior guidance system.

There is one aspect of spiritual animals that may make us reluctant to think of them as living organisms, though it does not disqualify them in the end. It comes from how spiritual animals are different from multicellular animals. Individual multicellular animals can have minds, but spiritual animals cannot.

By “mind,” I mean not merely a process of guiding animal behavior, but one with the unity of consciousness as well. We have seen how the behavior guiding process that occurs in brains gives rise to a form of matter whose intrinsic essential nature accounts for phenomenal properties, that is, the appearances that subjective animals have in perceiving the world, thinking about it, and feeling desires. (See Stage 6: Subjective animals: Unity of consciousness.)

Spiritual animals cannot be conscious in that sense, apart from the consciousness of its members. Disjointed, composite organisms cannot have neurons working together as in the thalamic projection to the neocortex like a massive complex antenna generating photons that register activity throughout the brain. Spiritual animals do not have conscious minds. But the assumption that such a subjective aspect to experience is essential to life may explain the reluctance to think of spiritual animals as living organisms.

It is not, however, sufficient reasons to deny that spiritual animals are a new form of life, for if it were, we would have to deny that prokaryotes and eukaryotes, plants and telesensory animals are forms of life. They do not have the unity of consciousness. But they are surely alive. Thus, I see no reason to deny that spiritual animal are a new form of life. The fact that they are made up of parts that are themselves living organisms, indeed organisms with the unity of consciousness, does not mean that they are not alive. It only points up how spiritual animals are unique in the course of evolution.

Lack of a social level material structure. What makes spiritual animals different from the evolution of life in prokaryotes and eukaryotes is that spiritual animals do not have any unchanging structure on their level of biological organization, except the more or less continual linguistic interaction among its members.

The members must continually interact linguistically, for that is what coordinates their behavior as parts of a higher level organism. But since the continual exchange of linguistic representations is the only unchanging geometrical structure that is required at the social level for the use of language to guide the behavior of the spiritual animal, it is provided by their gregariousness, which is due to the biological behavior guidance system of each individual member.

This is the reason for calling the new kind of animal at the social level of biological organization “spiritual” animals. The spiritual animal has no body of its own, except the bodies of all its members, and since a form of life that does not have a physical body is the traditional meaning of “spiritual,” it is appropriate to call these groups of language using primates “spiritual animals.”

Having a spiritual nature gives spiritual animals a great advantage when it comes to the efficiency of reproductive causation, because it means that natural selection is at work simultaneously on two different levels of biological organization. At the same time that the reproduction of spiritual animal at the social level is causing a population growth that imposes natural selection at the social level, the sexual reproduction of its members is causing a population growth within spiritual animals that imposes natural selection at the individual level. Simultaneously on two levels of biological organization, therefore, there is a gradual change in animals in the direction of natural perfection for organisms of their kind. As spiritual animals become as powerful as possible for animals made up of language using multicellular animals as parts, their members become as powerful as possible for animals that exist as parts of spiritual animals.

What makes this two-level gradual evolution possible is having a spiritual nature, because that makes social level reproduction easy. The members of a spiritual animal move around in space separately from one another, and so reproduction at the social level is merely a matter of subgroups separating from one another and going off in different directions, terminating their linguistic interactions with one another. That is what makes it so easy for language  to serve as a biological behavior guidance system, given that it has the capacity to guide social level animal behavior.

The evolution of eukaryotic cells is analogous to the evolution of spiritual animals, except that eukaryotes have a material structure, or physical nature, rather than spiritual nature. The behavior of the lower level organisms is coordinated by enclosing them all within a cell, and thus, reproduction depends on dividing the cell and all reproducing all the lower level organisms of which it is composed. And since there are two lower levels of structural causes contained within the eukaryotic cell (the prokaryote-level chromosomes and the RNA-level genes of which chromosomes are composed), eukaryotes have a very complex structure, which taxes the capacity of reproductive causation to change in the direction of natural perfection. As evolving structures become complex, more random variations are possible, and eventually there is not enough time to try them all out. Their star will die first. Eukaryotes overcome this obstacle, as we have seen, by sexual reproduction. Sexually mixing their lower level structural causes as part of the process of reproduction focuses natural selection on those parts whose contribution to the whole makes the biggest difference to their power to control relevant at that point in their gradual evolution. Thus, instead of evolving by simple branching, like prokaryotes, eukaryotes can evolve as a species with a gene pool. And favorable random variations that occur in different members of previous generations can accumulate in individuals of later generations.

The advantage of having a spiritual nature is that no such special mechanism is required to focus natural selection on the lower level structural causes of which they are composed. Or rather, the way in which members mate outside their own group and migrate from one group to another means that a kind of “sexual mixing” is constantly going on in spiritual animals. Nor does the evolution of the parts depend on group level natural selection. Natural selection works to some extent on individuals within spiritual animal, because there are still conditions to be controlled within spiritual animals that affect their reproduction, and those who are better able to control them tend to leave more offspring.

The way that spiritual animals differ from organisms with a material structure makes them seem like what we called “composite organisms,” but they are something more.

We recognized the existence of composite organisms in discussing what is the “unit of selection” according to reproductive causation. We have seen how mating pairs and families are organisms that impose natural selection on themselves by their own reproduction and make themselves evolve. Even nomadic bands of hominids were composite organisms of a kind, since they were subject to group level selection. We called them composite organisms, because what goes through those reproductive cycles is not a material structure (with an unchanging geometrical structure), but a collection of material organisms.

Individual organisms are different from composite organisms because each originates from a single fertilized egg cell and they cannot be divided up without dying. Composite organisms are “dividual,” rather than individual, organisms. Though they can die, they do not necessarily die when they are divided up.

Spiritual animals are composite organisms by this test. They evolve by going through reproductive cycles and imposing natural selection on themselves at the social level. And they are “dividual,” because they do not necessarily die when they are broken up. Indeed, that is how they reproduce. But they are not merely composite organisms. Even though they do not have a material structure as a whole, they do have a structural cause of their social level animal behavior. It is a spiritual structural cause, and that is what is unique about spiritual animals.

Social and cultural aspects of the spiritual structural cause. Spiritual animals have a unique kind of essential nature, therefore, because the ontological cause of their social level behavior is a spiritual structural cause, rather than a material structural cause (or material structure). The spiritual animal is the new kind of animal that is made possible at the social level of biological organization stands, but it stands in stark contrast to all previous animal. Though it has biological and animal behavior at the social level, it does not have any unchanging geometrical structure at the social level to serve as its structural cause — except for the continual linguistic interaction of its members. That is, the use of language to coordinate the members’ behavior is its structural cause.

The spiritual animal has no body of its own, because with the use of language, it does not need a body to have a structural cause to serve as its behavior guidance system. Its only body is all the bodies of its members, which are in more or less continual linguistic interaction with one another. That is what earns the spiritual animals its name.

Since a form of life without a body is what has traditionally been meant by “spiritual,” “spiritual animal” is the appropriate name for the kind of organism that evolves from manipulative animals, that is, at the eight stage of evolution.

The use of language as a structural cause to guide social level behavior gives spiritual animals an essential nature that includes two kinds of structures, and it should be noticed at the outset, because it will play an important role in explaining the evolution of spiritual animals.

The use of language, as we have seen, is both a biological and an animal behavior guidance system for spiritual animals. It is able to serve both functions, because it generates social level behavior by coordinating the behavior of its individual members. That is, it does not need any material structure at the social level to serve as a structural cause for its social level animal behavior. But it does need the continual linguistic interaction among the members, and in that mechanism, there are two, fundamentally different kinds of structures, involving two fundamentally different kinds of part-whole complexity, which are essential to their spiritual nature.

The evolution of spiritual animals involves, as we have seen, higher levels of part-whole complexity in both ways that have been traced in this ontological derivation of the overall course of evolution in a spatiomaterial world: a higher level of neurological organization as well as a higher level of biological organization. Language has a nature that makes it essential to both.

The capacity to use language is the function of the higher level of neurological organization in the individual members, for, as we shall see, it a new way of manipulating “object images” in the “local image” and constructing “maps” of such “local images.”

But linguistic representations are not just constructs in imagination. They can be generated publicly by speaking, and their public manifestation is what makes it possible for them to coordinate the behavior of many different multicellular animals as parts of a higher level organism. Thus, this other aspect of language, its being public, is also essential to the nature of the spiritual animal.

Language is, therefore, what ties these two higher levels of part-whole complexity together as a single object in space with a new kind of essential nature, and that means that spiritual animals have two fundamentally different kinds of structures as a whole. In other words, the essential nature of the spiritual animal is uniquely twofold.

All the organisms and structures whose evolution we have traced thus far, including not only biological organisms and neurological structures, but also behavioral schemata, have essential natures that are defined by a single, material structure. I have called them “organisms,” or “reproducing organisms,” but they all involve a single way in which material parts are bundled together so that they go through reproductive cycles as a whole and impose natural selection on themselves.

But in the case of case of spiritual animals, two structures define their essential nature: how multicellular animals are combined as parts of a social level organism and how words are combined as parts of the sentences that they can all generate as public behavior. Both are aspects of the “organisms” that go through reproductive cycles and impose natural selection on themselves by their own population growth.

The structure that spiritual animals have because of their higher level of biological organization will be called the “social aspect” of spiritual animals, and the structure that spiritual animals have because of their higher level of neurological organization and the linguistic representations that they exchange will be called the “cultural aspect” of spiritual animals.

Social aspect. The social aspect is a structure of the spiritual animal as a whole in the same way as each higher level of biological organization involves a new structure. Lower level organisms are bundled together as parts of a higher level organism by coordinating their behavior. In the case of spiritual animals, they are bundled together in a way that does not require a specific set of spatial relations among them. But being in continual linguistic interaction is nevertheless a kind of structure, for it makes them all parts of a higher level organism. And as we shall see, that kind of structure is the source of its greater power as an animal and, later, makes it possible to for additional social structures to evolve because they generate social level behavior that controls some condition that affects the reproduction of spiritual animals.

Cultural aspect. The cultural aspect is also a structure of the spiritual animal as a whole, because what makes it possible for linguistic interactions to guide the behavior of the spiritual animal as a whole is that all the members speak the same language. The structure of language is a structure of the whole because it is a structure that is contained in each member of the spiritual animal. Its being located in each member is what makes it possible for one and the same structure to serve as both the biological animal behavior guidance system for the spiritual animal. The spiritual animal does not need a biological behavior guidance system that can set up a complex structure to function as an animal behavior guidance system, because that mechanism is contained in each of the parts and all that is necessary for it to generate group level behavior is that the members continually interact with one another linguistically. The cultural structure is potentially complete in each individual brain, and calling the linguistic structure “culture” anticipates somewhat the significance of this aspect. Not only are the two subsequent stages of evolution caused by higher level of part-whole complexity in linguistic representations exchanged as culture (that is, higher levels of neurological organization), but culture is itself capable of evolving by reproductive causation. That is the main source of increases in the power of spiritual animal to control relevant conditions.