Animism, the Supernatural, and Occam’s Razor

Parallels are often made between animism (the belief that spirits are everywhere) and panpsychism (the belief that consciousness/mind is everywhere). Indeed, under an animistic belief system, it is possible to think of the term ‘spirit’ as equivalent to ‘mind’, although for the sake of clarity, we can treat the belief in discrete spirits existing in some or all natural things as distinct from the panpsychist worldview. And it is this distinction that might make panpsychism more defensible than animism.

Panpsychism and animism do share many similarities, but there are some key differences between the two worldviews. Panpsychism focuses on consciousness, and the smallest constituents of consciousness are seen to be similar and non-unique. In animism, conversely, tiny spirits do not aggregate to create a more complex spirit; rather, each natural entity is seen to have a unique, intelligent, and purposeful spirit. Animism places great attention on the purposefulness of natural objects. Trees, rivers, and mountains are persons with agency, able to speak to us when in their presence. In this way, animism is more closely linked to a belief in ‘plant teachers’, although a panpsychist could easily be an animist as well or view nature as purposeful even without invoking the existence of spirits.

A potential metaphysical distinction between panpsychism and animistic worldviews is that the latter often postulate the existence of supernatural, immaterial spirits or souls. There are disagreements among both scientists and philosophers about whether supernatural beliefs are testable; if they are not testable, then the notion of nature spirits cannot gain robust evidential grounding. But if the existence of nature spirits is testable, what convincing evidence would point to their existence? One possible way to test the existence of these spirits may be to find out whether, for example, a psychedelic user in contact with a ‘plant spirit’ gains knowledge they otherwise could not possibly have known. I have not personally come across a persuasive, corroborated account of some idea or piece of knowledge that could only have come from this kind of supernatural source.

From a sceptical perspective, the supernatural component of some forms of animism can be difficult to accept. The supposition of supernatural entities or immaterial souls in objects adds realms and entities to reality that do not necessarily need to be supposed in order to account for what we observe in reality. In this way, the animistic perspective may be the less parsimonious worldview. This would mean it violates Occam’s razor, a principle that recommends we should not make more assumptions than we need to. Ultimately, it is a principle that draws a relationship between simplicity and truth, positing that metaphysical theories that multiply entities beyond necessity are less likely to be true. As Isaac Newton prescribes in his Principia Mathematica (1687):

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

Galileo Galilei also propounds this principle in his book Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632): “Nature does not multiply things unnecessarily; that she makes use of the easiest and simplest means for producing her effects; that she does nothing in vain, and the like.” To ground Occam’s razor, we might draw upon relevant examples in the history of science. For example, when Albert Einstein was trying to incorporate gravity and acceleration into his relativity theory, he eschewed considerations of “beauty and simplicity”19 and instead favoured completeness, which the science author Johnjoe McFadden defines as “the incorporation of the maximum amount of available information into a model”. But after a decade of wrestling with complex equations and subsequent failures based on this way of thinking, Einstein returned to the principle of Occam’s razor, accepting only the most simple and elegant equations. This led to the formulation of his general theory of relativity in 1915. Thereafter, he became a devout follower of simplicity. As he argued in 1933: “Nature is the realisation of the simplest conceivable mathematical ideas.”

However, it is questionable whether any clear connection exists between truth and the elegance of a theory, a point raised by the science writer Philip Ball:

[A]s a tool for distinguishing between rival theories, Occam’s razor is only relevant if the two theories predict identical results but one is simpler than the other – which is to say, it makes fewer assumptions. This is a situation rarely if ever encountered in science. Much more often, theories are distinguished not by making fewer assumptions but different ones. It’s then not obvious how to weigh them up.

Perhaps an important clarification to make here, though, is that Ball is referring to scientific theories. Therefore, if animism and the concept of spirits fall outside the purview of science, then perhaps these ideas should not even be counted alongside competing scientific theories that try to explain, for example, how plant spirits supposedly impart wisdom to us.

Yet Occam’s razor can apply to non-scientific theories, too, such as philosophical ones, including the aforementioned propositions about plant spirits. For example, the philosopher Darren Bradley has argued that the arguments Michael Huemer marshals “for preferring simpler theories in science can also be applied in philosophy,” adding that:

there are no principled reasons to think that appealing to simplicity in philosophy is any more problematic than appealing to simplicity in science; there are only practical differences that make it difficult to apply simplicity-based arguments in philosophy. These practical issues differ from one case to another.

The justifications for adopting Occam’s razor are manifold. There are a priori justifications. The philosopher of religion Richard Swinburne, for instance, contends that:

other things being equal – the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis, that its predictions are more likely to be true than those of any other available hypothesis, and that it is an ultimate a priori epistemic principle that simplicity is evidence for truth.

A theological slant on such an a priori justification comes from J.J.C. Smart, who points to the theological notion that “we expect God to have created a beautiful universe,” to which a beautiful (i.e. simple) theory should correspond. The philosopher David Lewis justifies the simplicity principle – with respect to qualitative parsimony (the number of types of a thing postulated) rather than quantitative parsimony (the number of individual things postulated) – on the grounds that it is prima facie a theoretical virtue.29 One could view it as having intrinsic value as a theoretical goal. Others may see simplicity as valuable for aesthetic reasons, which would make Occam’s razor preferable in a methodological rather than epistemic sense. It is also possible to defend Occam’s razor on the basis that it follows principles of rationality: by minimising the number of entities and mechanisms postulated, Occam’s razor can be seen as a form of general epistemic caution, which some might view as characteristic of rational inquiry.

One glaring issue with these a priori justifications is that it can be difficult to know if they present an a priori defence or no defence at all. The virtue of simplicity may be invoked as self-evident, without any further justifications or elaborations. Can Occam’s razor only be justified by the claim that it is intrinsically valuable? Due to this concern, a posteriori justifications for simplicity have been proposed.

Rather than supposing that God created an elegant and simple universe, we might argue that the success of relatively simple theories allows us to infer that nature is therefore simple. Einstein used this form of reasoning: he argued that the history of physics justifies the belief that nature is the manifestation of the simplest mathematical ideas. Conversely, many philosophers and scientists resist the idea that nature is simple. As a group of Earth scientists wrote in Science in 1994:

Many scientists accept and apply [Occam’s Razor] in their work, even though it is an entirely metaphysical assumption. There is scant empirical evidence that the world is actually simple or that simple accounts are more likely than complex ones to be true. Our commitment to simplicity is largely an inheritance of 17th-century theology.

We do not know if simpler theories are more likely to be true, nor if simpler theories are better confirmed by data than more complex rival theories. Hence, even if animism is a more complex worldview (which is debatable), this may not give us reason to reject it. However, Occam’s razor applies to competing theories that explain phenomena equally well, and with these theories in mind, it recommends we choose the one that invokes the fewest assumptions or entities. If, by definition, animism is less qualitatively and quantitatively parsimonious than, say, panpsychism – since it proposes the existence of more types and numbers of entities (i.e. a multitude of spirits) – then we may have grounds to doubt it. These extra assumptions could be unnecessary if we do not need to invoke them to explain plant behaviour, for instance, or human experiences that we deem ‘animistic’ (e.g. the perception of nature as alive, agentic, and worthy of respect). In contrast, the extra assumptions of panpsychism – that consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous – may be necessary to solve the hard problem of consciousness.

Another potential problem with some animistic views is that, by virtue of their supernatural claims, they are incompatible with physicalism (the belief that everything is ultimately physical) and naturalism (the belief that all laws, forces, objects, and events are natural). Nonetheless, it is worth bearing in mind the following statement from the philosopher Galen Strawson: “You can’t classify anything as supernatural or non-natural until you have a substantive conception of the natural in relation to which something can be classified as non-natural.” He goes on to clarify that he believes concrete reality is entirely physical.

This view is known as physicalist naturalism. On the other hand, the potential incompatibility of animism with physicalism may not be a problem if we have reasons to reject physicalism – and we may do so on the grounds that it is unable to resolve the hard problem of consciousness. In other words, physicalism cannot account for the (self-evident and undeniable) fact of subjective experience: the fact that there is ‘something it is like’ to be conscious.

Panpsychism, in contrast to supernatural animistic beliefs, is fully compatible with physicalism and naturalism, at least according to philosophers like Strawson. In fact, Strawson has gone so far as to argue that physicalism entails panpsychism (an argument that would deserve a separate, more in-depth discussion). Panpsychism may be metaphysically easier to digest for many people compared to animism, even though the latter is ostensibly in our nature to believe.

Here, it is worth noting that we also do not necessarily have to equate animism with supernatural beliefs. Graham Harvey, a religious studies scholar, points out in his book Animism: Respecting the Living World (2005) that animistic cultures differ in their beliefs. These cultures vary in terms of whether particular entities are seen as persons or inanimate objects. Additionally, the belief in disembodied persons is not universal. For this reason, Harvey uses the term “animisms” to properly reflect the plurality of animistic beliefs. Moreover, animism need not assume the existence of supernatural spirits. As Harvey states:

It may be necessary to note, forcefully, that in the following discussion the terms ‘person’ and ‘other-than-human person’ are not intended to replace words like ‘spirit’ or ‘deity’. They are not references to any putative ‘greater than human’ or ‘supernatural’ beings unless this is specified in some other way. Animists may acknowledge the existence and even presence of deities or discarnate persons (if that is what ‘spirit’ means), but their personhood is a more general fact.

Animism could be consonant with a naturalistic worldview, depending on how it is formulated. Western anthropologists have sometimes narrowly defined animism as merely the belief that souls, or supernatural beings, inhabit all natural entities and phenomena. (It is important to acknowledge that this definition of animism, now known as ‘old animism’, has colonial baggage. The Victorian anthropologist E.B. Tylor formulated animism in this way with an attitude of condescension – he wanted to cast indigenous cultures as ‘primitive’, ‘childish’, and ‘uncivilised’.) We can juxtapose this conception with a form of animism that takes a particular stance towards the natural world and our relationship to it. This is more about a worldview that encourages a certain ethic. As the Australian philosopher Val Plumwood asks in Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reasons (2002), “[I]s it to be a posture of openness, of welcoming, of invitation, towards earth others, or is it to be a stance of prejudged superiority, of deafness, of closure?”

In her 2009 essay ‘Nature in the Active Voice’, Plumwood says she is “not talking about inventing fairies at the bottom of the garden. It’s a matter of being open to experiences of nature as powerful, agentic and creative, making space in our culture for an animating sensibility and vocabulary”. The anthropologist Richard Nelson makes a similar point in The Island Within (1989), which details what he learnt from spending time with the Koyukon Indians on an unnamed island in Alaska:

Living with the Koyukon people, I was constantly struck by the wisdom and sensibility of their ways, and I tried – within the limits of my knowledge – to follow their teachings. Of course, their culture is not my own, nor is their way of seeing nature a part of my inheritance. I will never know if animals and plants have spirits, if the tree I stand beside is aware of my presence, if respectful gestures bring hunting luck and protect my well-being. But I am absolutely certain it is wise and responsible to behave as if these things were true.

But again, we should remember that animism – even if it includes mentions of ‘spirits’ – does not have to conflict with naturalism. Animistic notions of spirits and souls do not always align with Western ideas about these terms. These notions and terms, therefore, may not necessarily presuppose a supernatural category of entities. To better illustrate the animistic worldview, Harvey quotes the Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “Body and soul, just like nature and culture, do not correspond to substantives, self-subsistent entities or ontological provinces, but rather to pronouns or phenomenological perspectives.”

Animism is even opposed to the ontological category of ‘supernatural’ since this, by definition, creates a realm that is separate from the ‘natural’. Harvey draws attention to:

animists’ resistance to the notion of ‘the supernatural’, a domain that appears to transcend everyday reality and hereby dialectically to form another domain called ‘nature’. Neither ‘nature’ nor ‘supernature’ are necessary in the thinking of animists who understand that many and various persons co-exist and are jointly responsible for the ways the world will evolve next.

(The idea that animists view the natural world as a community of persons is known as ‘new animism’. It contrasts with the ‘old animism’ that focuses on the notion of nature as ensouled.) If a genuine belief in souls and spirits as supernatural entities is not required for an animistic worldview, which we could instead interpret as a normative outlook, can we not then reframe the belief in animism in a way that resists appeals to supernaturalism? Undoubtedly we can. However, the belief that one meets or interacts with a ‘spirit’ in psychedelic states, for example, relies on either supernatural claims or esoteric forms of interspecies communication. Shamanism, for Harvey, involves mediating with other-than-human persons. This view contrasts with two other conceptions: (1) the idea that shamans journey beyond physical embodiment to a non-material realm and (2) the idea that shamans journey to inner worlds rather than outer ones (Mircea Eliade espoused this latter view, which Harvey calls the “psychologisation” of shamanism).

Consequently, if we think about the ingestion of natural psychedelics within a non-supernatural animistic framework (which characterises some animistic cultures), and with Harvey’s ideas on shamanism in mind, we could say that users enter into a relationship with an other-than-human person.

In response to this, I would like to raise two points. Firstly, a belief in encounters and interactions with other-than-human persons is not necessary for an animistic ethic, be that towards psychedelic plants and mushrooms specifically or the natural world more generally. Secondly, if one is using the term ‘other-than-human persons’ in a literal way, and not in a poetic sense, then one needs to clarify the meaning of ‘person’. We must surely mean consciousness, awareness, or sentience as a baseline. But normally, these are necessary, not sufficient, conditions for personhood. The idea that plants meet other conditions for personhood needs to be justified. Capacities that constitute personhood – which many psychedelic users feel apply to plant spirits – might include emotionality, rationality, agency, self-awareness, future-directed thinking, and the ability to engage in moral judgements.

Harvey does actually address the topic of psychedelic use in shamanism in his book, which is worth highlighting:

Some shamans utilise preparations or derivatives of plants that are commonly labelled ‘hallucinogenic’ in the West. The implication is that what people see and experience with the help of such substances is hallucination: false vision, illusion or delusion. To accept the label is to prejudice everything. Only a little better, perhaps, are words that privilege the internality of the results of ingesting these powerful derivatives and extracts: psychotropics, psychedelics, psycho-actives and even entheogens. Even words that allow the possibility of ‘visionary’ experiences are problematised by the possible implication that what is seen transcends the mundane world, i.e. that it is not ‘real’. The point is, of course, that people who consider themselves helped in this way think what they are enabled to see is really there – the false vision belongs to those who cannot or will not see.

Yet this raises the question: What exactly is the ‘spirit’ that one meets in the psychedelic state? While Harvey rejects the ‘psychologisation’ of shamanism, which views altered states in psychological or therapeutic terms, the exclusion of these perspectives may not be helpful. There are legitimate concerns that psychologising animism and shamanism is a way of forcing Western thinking onto indigenous beliefs, a distortion that makes certain experiences and beliefs more comfortable for us. But if we ignore psychological interpretations, then we might miss out on some key aspects of the phenomena we are seeking to understand. If we want to explain encounters with ‘spirits’ as fully as possible, then we should consider psychological and evolutionary perspectives that seek to clarify the causes and character of these experiences.

This is not to dismiss animism in any respect. Whether naturalised or supernaturalised, animism provides a way of relating to the natural world that is mutually beneficial. This worldview enhances biophilia (fondness for nature or the tendency to engage with nature), which feels personally fulfilling and lends itself to an environmental ethic – and one which we desperately need.

References

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This is a slightly modified excerpt from my book Altered Perspectives: Critical Essays on Psychedelic Consciousness (2024, Iff Books).