So the philosophical comprehension of existence runs in the family?
Absolutely. . . . .. I might be laughing at myself and my cousin a bit here. . . . while I extend the proposed "General Theory of Relativity" to my cows, dogs, and indeed the flies. . . . every living thing. . . . as well as to the rocks and seas. . . . . for that matter to the stars.
With Mormons, there has been a scandalous charge that Joseph Smith was an animist, as he stated that even trees as well as the earth have an organized "spiritual" body. . . . In fact, his version of the Genesis creation myth has God creating it all "spiritually" before it was created physically.. . . and as such a creation, it was more "than a twinkle in our father's eye."
I'm actually realizing that "the philosophical comprehension of existence" runs in the whole human family, and that the level of comprehension may be somewhat different in other living things, perhaps vastly different in what we in our arrogance consider the inert and unthinking "non-living" world. . .. the rocks, for example. I'm saying that when we slam, say George Bush or Obama for being dumber than a rock, it might not be all the insult we imagine it to be.
A Russian scientist/philosopher of sorts, Vladimir Vernadsky, of the not too recent soviet tradition succeeding in keeping his funding while elaborating on the light radiated by radish and potato roots. . .. and even on some processes ongoing in the geological sphere of planetary evolution. . . . describing these things in terms of the "Noosphere" and publishing his work in the soviet science press. . . .
We could not have had a planet that can sustain our present diversity of life without the contributions made by primeval bacteria clearing the air of hydrogen sulfide, for example. . .. and rendering nitrogen into a form that can be taken in by other organisms to build proteins. The primordial soup needed ancient life forms to jump start our major traditon of life today, and they are still there in the underwater volcanic plumes that the rest of us can't live in.