What is Nature?

[Resha Caner]

Next up: What is Nature?

I realize there are several meanings. I had concepts related to the material world in mind for this question, but if you feel other meanings are relevant, feel free to expound.

Further, the question is open to all, even those who don't want to talk to me. I promise I won't barge into conversations where I'm not wanted.

 

[durangodawood]

Next up: What is Nature?...

Complicated question.

Sometimes its useful to think of nature as all activities in the world apart from what humans do - because humans are presumed capable of deliberate choice making in contrast to everything else.

Other times its useful to think of nature as the entire universe, human action included, with only the God realm set aside (if you believe in such a thing).

 

[Resha Caner]

Sometimes its useful to think of nature as all activities in the world apart from what humans do - because humans are presumed capable of deliberate choice making in contrast to everything else.

Right. I anticipated this one.

Other times its useful to think of nature as the entire universe, human action included, with only the God realm set aside (if you believe in such a thing).

Interesting. I didn't anticipate this one - though it seems obvious now. What, then, of those who don't believe in God? Do you think monisms are tenable?

 

[durangodawood]

Right. I anticipated this one.

Interesting. I didn't anticipate this one - though it seems obvious now. What, then, of those who don't believe in God? Do you think monisms are tenable?

Yeah, the first is obvious because its so utterly common... which is because its so useful.

For non-believers, deploying "nature" in the second sense is usually more about making one of a couple different points:

1. that all the stuff in the world doesnt include nor require miracles and supernatural souls and so on. OR

2. being very deliberate that we should not consider human action in some separate category from the rocks and trees and fish etc.

Those are sort of rhetorical deployments of the word. But sometimes it can be a simple rhetorically-neutral description of the monism, like the way people say "the universe" or "everything". The concept seems tenable as I watch it operate in the culture.

 

[Resha Caner]

1. that all the stuff in the world doesnt include nor require miracles and supernatural souls and so on.

We'll get to that (mischievous laughter).

2. being very deliberate that we should not consider human action in some separate category from the rocks and trees and fish etc.

This one perplexes me ... I've encountered it, but ... what motivates people to take that position?

But sometimes it can be a simple rhetorically-neutral description of the monism, like the way people say "the universe" or "everything". The concept seems tenable as I watch it operate in the culture.

IMO "Everything" is the only tenable monism, but not very useful or interesting - sorta like the null case in mathematics.

 

[Occams Barber]

Next up: What is Nature?

I realize there are several meanings. I had concepts related to the material world in mind for this question, but if you feel other meanings are relevant, feel free to expound.

Further, the question is open to all, even those who don't want to talk to me. I promise I won't barge into conversations where I'm not wanted.

At it's semantic core, nature (small n) is a reference to the intrinsic, unmodified qualities of the entity under discussion. So it's possible to talk about human nature or the nature of grasshoppers. 'Natural', the adjective derived from 'nature' effectively describes something which is unmodified.

With a capital N its usually a reference to those aspects of the world, or places in the world, which are 'unmodified' or unchanged - particularly by humans. Humans can be included in a definition of Nature providing they are in a state where they appear to have not significantly modified the environment - typically not technologically advanced.

As an atheist the question of whether or not God is part of Nature (or nature) is irrelevant,
OB

 

[Silmarien]

Next up: What is Nature?

I realize there are several meanings. I had concepts related to the material world in mind for this question, but if you feel other meanings are relevant, feel free to expound.

Further, the question is open to all, even those who don't want to talk to me. I promise I won't barge into conversations where I'm not wanted.

I'd probably be most comfortable defining "nature" as anything that is contingent--anything that comes into existence and depends upon something else for its being. Anything that is not God, as it were.

This means that angels, demons, fairies, ghosts, and witches, if they exist, are natural rather than supernatural, but I think that's correct. They're only supernatural insofar as we have not detected them, and I think that's more of a methodological categorization. If we ever discover fairies, they will be naturally existing creatures.

 

[Chesterton]

Next up: What is Nature?

I realize there are several meanings. I had concepts related to the material world in mind for this question, but if you feel other meanings are relevant, feel free to expound.

Further, the question is open to all, even those who don't want to talk to me. I promise I won't barge into conversations where I'm not wanted.

I think it just means "what is". If you say it's in Bob's nature to be a crook, you're simply saying that's what Bob is, or how Bob is.

If anything "is", i.e., it exists, then it could be said to be a part of Nature, and that would include say, angels and demons, even though we can't detect them with our senses. A couple of hundred years ago, an idea of microwaves could have been said to be supernatural, but after we invent the means to detect them, we know they are just another part of Nature.

The fact of the free will of the human mind is the only thing that makes the question difficult; it's the monkey wrench thrown into Nature.

 

[durangodawood]

I'd probably be most comfortable defining "nature" as anything that is contingent--anything that comes into existence and depends upon something else for its being. Anything that is not God, as it were.

This means that angels, demons, fairies, ghosts, and witches, if they exist, are natural rather than supernatural, but I think that's correct. They're only supernatural insofar as we have not detected them, and I think that's more of a methodological categorization. If we ever discover fairies, they will be naturally existing creatures.

But the whole universe itself might not be contingent for all we know.

 

[Silmarien]

But the whole universe itself might not be contingent for all we know.

That would be a hard case to make, but if true, it just means the whole universe is divine.

 

[durangodawood]

That would be a hard case to make, but if true, it just means the whole universe is divine.

Is contingent. Isnt contingent. The case seems just as hard either way, given how little we really know.

 

[Silmarien]

Is contingent. Isnt contingent. The case seems just as hard either way, given how little we really know.

Eh, I think modern cosmology points really strongly towards this universe at least being contingent, as in not eternal, and it's tricky to say that we ourselves (who are part of the universe) are necessary and could not have failed to exist. The science could be wrong, but I'm not aware of anything that points in the opposite direction at present.

You could still take an eternal universe (or multiverse) on faith, but again, that's a form of pantheism. The natural falls away and everything is divine.

 

[FireDragon76]

Next up: What is Nature?

A substance or essence.

I have a feeling you mean something like "created order".

The modern idea that nature is something "out there", separate from the observer seems to be a cultural artifact of this belief.

I've been reading Thitch Nhat Hanh's Love Letter to the Earth. Lots of interesting thoughts about the root cause of environmental destruction rooted in this sort of dualistic view of the world.

 

[Resha Caner]

What, then, of Natural Law?

 

[jayem]

Nature is everything that is a function of matter/energy and the 4 observed fundamental forces. Which are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear, and the strong nuclear force. There are theories that there may be a fifth force which accounts for some anomalous observations, but this is still just speculative. Another, and simpler way to put it is that nature is the interactions of particles. And nothing more.

 

[Resha Caner]

Nature is everything that is a function of matter/energy and the 4 observed fundamental forces. Which are gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear, and the strong nuclear force. There are theories that there may be a fifth force which accounts for some anomalous observations, but this is still just speculative. Another, and simpler way to put it is that nature is the interactions of particles. And nothing more.

If that 5th force is found, will it be incorporated into the definition of nature? And if a 6th is found? A 7th and an 8th? Would there ever be anything that would not be nature? If not, what use is the word? Why not just say, "Everything"?

 

[BigV]

They're only supernatural insofar as we have not detected them, and I think that's more of a methodological categorization. If we ever discover fairies, they will be naturally existing creatures.

Why call them supernatural if we haven't detected them? Or are you using 'supernatural' in the sense of being a synonym for 'imaginary'?

If I could ask this question another way, let's say I claim to have supernatural powers but nobody can detect them. At what point can I consider myself delusional?

 

[Silmarien]

Why call them supernatural if we haven't detected them? Or are you using 'supernatural' in the sense of being a synonym for 'imaginary'?

If I could ask this question another way, let's say I claim to have supernatural powers but nobody can detect them. At what point can I consider myself delusional?

Yes, I think that the word "supernatural" is effectively used as a synonym for "not real." A dragon is a supernatural creature, but if we ever find one flying around, we'll know that they were real after all, and thus natural.

 

[jayem]

If that 5th force is found, will it be incorporated into the definition of nature? And if a 6th is found? A 7th and an 8th? Would there ever be anything that would not be nature? If not, what use is the word? Why not just say, "Everything"?

I was just stating it in more mechanistic term. But sure, nature is everything. And everything is particles and their interactions.

 

[Resha Caner]

Merry Christmas.