Photo by Brittany Rockwell on Unsplash
Beneath the Surface:
Toward a Process Theology of Jellyfish
It is important for philosophers and theologians to look beneath the surface of things, not only inwardly but outwardly. When we look beyond ourselves to the worlds of other people and our creaturely kin, we ought not to focus solely on land-based creatures. We can also attend to water-based creatures, our oceanic kin, who truly live beneath the surface. They, too, are our kin. They, too, are our sisters and brothers.
These oceanic kin can teach us many things. They reveal the importance of adaptation and resilience, showing us how to live in harmony with environments that seem inhospitable or constantly changing. Their fluid movements remind us that we, too, must live in a spirit of fluidity, adapting to different circumstances. They teach us the value of quiet presence and patience - the need to live in vast, silent spaces. Their lives beneath the surface inspire us to explore hidden depths within ourselves and the mysteries of the world around us, reminding us that much of existence is unseen and yet deeply significant.
How strange they are, and how beautiful. We best claim our inner jellyfish.
- Jay McDaniel
These oceanic kin can teach us many things. They reveal the importance of adaptation and resilience, showing us how to live in harmony with environments that seem inhospitable or constantly changing. Their fluid movements remind us that we, too, must live in a spirit of fluidity, adapting to different circumstances. They teach us the value of quiet presence and patience - the need to live in vast, silent spaces. Their lives beneath the surface inspire us to explore hidden depths within ourselves and the mysteries of the world around us, reminding us that much of existence is unseen and yet deeply significant.
How strange they are, and how beautiful. We best claim our inner jellyfish.
- Jay McDaniel
Jellyfish as Societies
Process theology is influenced by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. A process theology of jellyfish is a Whiteheadian theology of jellyfish.
From Whitehead's perspective (see passages from Process and Reality below), a jellyfish is not a singular organism but rather a "society" of organisms, a collective of harmonized cells working together. Despite this collective structure, the jellyfish demonstrates a basic level of perception, allowing it to respond to its environment. This resonates with Whitehead's idea (see below) that non-centralized entities, like worms and jellyfish, have a form of experience or "feeling" that connects them to their world. The jellyfish’s ability to advance and withdraw reflects this rudimentary perception, shaped by its societal structure. Moreover, jellyfish exhibit individual agency, as seen in their feeding practices. They primarily feed on small marine organisms such as plankton, tiny fish, fish eggs, crustaceans, and other jellyfish, using their tentacles equipped with nematocysts to paralyze and capture prey. Once immobilized, the prey is moved toward the jellyfish's mouth located at the center of its bell. Depending on their size and habitat, some jellyfish can consume larger prey, while others feed on microscopic organisms, making them opportunistic feeders that adapt to their environment.
All of this suggests that Whitehead's assessment of jellyfish may have underestimated their complexity. While he viewed jellyfish, worms, and even plants as decentralized "societies" of organisms with harmonized cells, recent insights into jellyfish behavior and feeding practices indicate that they may possess more individualized agency and centralized control than he realized. Their ability to respond to environmental stimuli, hunt prey, and exhibit coordinated actions suggests a more integrated, subject-like existence. This challenges Whitehead's broader view that these organisms are purely collective entities and opens the possibility that they operate with a greater degree of individualization than he had acknowledged.
In any case, whether a jellyfish is more individualized or non-individualized, we can still wonder if the living whole of the universe—God, as the deep listener who shares in the experiences of all creatures, and as the cosmic lure guiding each toward flourishing—feels the jellyfish. Whitehead’s vision of God as intimately connected to all life raises the possibility that God participates in the jellyfish's experiences, no matter how simple or complex they may be. In this view, even the movements, sensations, and inner beckoning of a jellyfish toward its survival and flourishing might be embraced and felt by God as part of the ongoing process of life in the cosmos.
This would affirm the idea that all creatures, from the simplest to the most complex, are seen, felt, and gently guided by the divine presence. It also invites process theologians and others to move beyond a human-centered, and indeed a land-centered, approach to life, recognizing that there is more to God's life than what is found on land. The lives of sea creatures like jellyfish, with their unique forms of experience and agency, remind us that God's relationship with creation encompasses the depths of the oceans and the vast diversity of life forms, each with its own intrinsic value and connection to the divine. This broader perspective challenges us to embrace the fullness of life across all ecosystems, acknowledging that God's presence and care extend to the entire web of existence, both on land and in the sea.
From Whitehead's perspective (see passages from Process and Reality below), a jellyfish is not a singular organism but rather a "society" of organisms, a collective of harmonized cells working together. Despite this collective structure, the jellyfish demonstrates a basic level of perception, allowing it to respond to its environment. This resonates with Whitehead's idea (see below) that non-centralized entities, like worms and jellyfish, have a form of experience or "feeling" that connects them to their world. The jellyfish’s ability to advance and withdraw reflects this rudimentary perception, shaped by its societal structure. Moreover, jellyfish exhibit individual agency, as seen in their feeding practices. They primarily feed on small marine organisms such as plankton, tiny fish, fish eggs, crustaceans, and other jellyfish, using their tentacles equipped with nematocysts to paralyze and capture prey. Once immobilized, the prey is moved toward the jellyfish's mouth located at the center of its bell. Depending on their size and habitat, some jellyfish can consume larger prey, while others feed on microscopic organisms, making them opportunistic feeders that adapt to their environment.
All of this suggests that Whitehead's assessment of jellyfish may have underestimated their complexity. While he viewed jellyfish, worms, and even plants as decentralized "societies" of organisms with harmonized cells, recent insights into jellyfish behavior and feeding practices indicate that they may possess more individualized agency and centralized control than he realized. Their ability to respond to environmental stimuli, hunt prey, and exhibit coordinated actions suggests a more integrated, subject-like existence. This challenges Whitehead's broader view that these organisms are purely collective entities and opens the possibility that they operate with a greater degree of individualization than he had acknowledged.
In any case, whether a jellyfish is more individualized or non-individualized, we can still wonder if the living whole of the universe—God, as the deep listener who shares in the experiences of all creatures, and as the cosmic lure guiding each toward flourishing—feels the jellyfish. Whitehead’s vision of God as intimately connected to all life raises the possibility that God participates in the jellyfish's experiences, no matter how simple or complex they may be. In this view, even the movements, sensations, and inner beckoning of a jellyfish toward its survival and flourishing might be embraced and felt by God as part of the ongoing process of life in the cosmos.
This would affirm the idea that all creatures, from the simplest to the most complex, are seen, felt, and gently guided by the divine presence. It also invites process theologians and others to move beyond a human-centered, and indeed a land-centered, approach to life, recognizing that there is more to God's life than what is found on land. The lives of sea creatures like jellyfish, with their unique forms of experience and agency, remind us that God's relationship with creation encompasses the depths of the oceans and the vast diversity of life forms, each with its own intrinsic value and connection to the divine. This broader perspective challenges us to embrace the fullness of life across all ecosystems, acknowledging that God's presence and care extend to the entire web of existence, both on land and in the sea.
Whitehead on Jellyfish
A good many actions do not seem to be due to the unifying control, e.g., with proper stimulants a heart can be made to go on beating after it has been taken out of the body. There are centres of reaction and control which cannot be identified with the centre of experience. This is still more so with insects. For example, worms and jellyfish seem to be merely harmonized cells, very little centralized; when cut in two, their parts go on performing their functions independently. Through a series of animals we can trace a progressive rise into a centrality of control. Insects have some central control; even in man, many of the body's actions are done with some independence, but with an organ of central control
*
A jellyfish advances and withdraws, and in so doing exhibits some perception of causal relationship with the world beyond itself; a plant grows downwards to the damp earth, and upwards towards the light. There is thus some direct reason for attributing dim, slow feelings of causal nexus, although we have no reason for any ascription of the definite percepts in the mode of presentational immediacy.
But the philosophy of organism attributes ‘feeling’ throughout the actual world. It bases this doctrine upon the directly observed fact that ‘feeling’ survives as a known element constitutive of the ‘formal’ existence of such actual entities as we can best observe. Also when we observe the causal nexus, devoid of interplay with sense-presentation, the influx of feeling with vague qualitative and ‘vector’ definition† is what we find. The dominance of the scalar physical quantity, inertia, in the Newtonian physics obscured the recognition of the truth that all fundamental physical quantities are vector and not scalar.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28) (p. 177). Free Press. Kindle Edition.