Humanimals of Earth: Interconnectedness as an Ethical Imperative in the Dialogue between Quantum Mechanics and Buddhism

This article investigates the interconnectedness of reality in the dialogue between quantum mechanics and Buddhist philosophy, from which is extracted an ethical stance on humanimal relationship. More precisely, physicist David Bohm’s ontological implicate order and Huayan Chinese Buddhism share a commonality of the preponderance of the whole, respectively expressed through the underlying unbroken wholeness of the nonlocal implicate order in Bohm and interpenetration in Huayan philosophy. Although caution is exerted in establishing such convergence of holistic thinking, a recurring and pervasive “principle of wholeness” can be inferred from this dialogue. In turn, this principle of wholeness is interpreted in an ethical way, providing a much-needed heuristic rearmament to encourage a revision of humanimal relationship, nurtured by a revived moral dedication. In a fundamentally interconnected universe, animals no longer represent an unfathomable and controllable “other” but become an instance of a reciprocal togetherness, an echo of the undifferentiated whole.