Mother Nature

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

Post by Just Me »

3uGH7D4MLj wrote:
Just Me wrote:Just to note I used the term "Mother Nature" as the subject title, synonymous to mean"Nature" Not with any inference to any nurturing quality etc. I believe for most people the term "Mother Nature" means that which is all and that which is responsible for producing and maintaining life.
Can you talk more about the "As an atheist" part? I suppose an atheist's take on nature would be different from that of a believer in God. But I'm assuming. Any clarifying on that part?

For me it's a source of wonder no matter where or how deeply I look. And I do love a walk in the woods.
Well, since I don't believe in God and not accepting any creation myths as truth I still have to wonder how I and everything else has come into being. I used the word Nature to mean the entire universe and all of it's workings and all of it's elements. I don't know what else to call it. I think believers view nature as God's creation where as I view nature as the universe itself and all the mysterious forces that make evolution and life possible.
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Re: Mother Nature

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Greta wrote:I did notice an omission in one of my previous posts:
Usually "Mother Nature" is considered to be the Earth's ecology.
I should have added "and geology".
I was reading an article in the NYT Book review about LIGO, a billion dollar instrument constructed to capture Einstein's imagined gravity waves. The article reviewed a book about the construction, the personalities behind it, the problems, etc. ok, so there's this huge thing designed to catch impulses from black holes colliding several millennia in the past. Well one of the problems which had to be surmounted was "nature."

"In between complex calculations, the scientists crawl into the belly of LIGO's sophisticated instrument to fight infestations of mice, wasps, spiders, snakes and... bass. In this endeavor to hear the deepest bellows of the cosmos, nature herself chimes in with her own reminders that not everything can be controlled and accounted for."

This caught my eye because the way "the cosmos" and "nature" were juxtaposed, giving an example of the way these terms are used in the real world. The author even suggested a gender. Seems to me "nature" is not intended to mean "the universe" here.
fair to say
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

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It seems the word "Nature" can be used in different ways to mean different things. Nature the noun, a beautiful scenery of a forest or Nature the verb the mysterious forces of life. And last to include all things in the universe or the universe itself.
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Re: Mother Nature

Post by Iapetus »

Reply to Greta:

Greta, I don’t think you are being fair. I have tried very hard to understand your position and I don’t think that it is at all unreasonable, in an argumentative philosophy forum, to ask you explain and justify it. If I challenge your position, then I do not see that as unreasonable either. Because you have written something after one of my questions, it does not follow that I think you have answered it. If I disagree with what you wrote, then it is up to me to explain my disagreement. I think that is all legitimate. If I think you have not answered my questions and you think you have, then that is something which we have to work through, and I shall now attempt to do so from my point of view.

My particular concern is with regard to your use of the word, ‘living’. I must have asked about this in at least ten different ways and I still don’t think you have provided me with an explanation which helps me to understand. That this would become the critical issue became clear to me shortly after post #52 where, in relation to definitions of nature, I stated, “I wanted to check with you that you were in agreement that it also included non-living elements such as rocks, landscapes, rivers and so on”. Your reply included this:

My point was that everything is a set of living systems. Rivers are living systems, as are viruses, prions, stars, planets and moons. They are not biological life, but they are living systems nonetheless with origins, growth, development and decline.



I am sure you thought that clarified things but it didn’t for me. You refered to “a set of living systems”. But I was asking about elements within the systems, which is not the same thing at all. You told me that rivers are not biological life – which helps – but that they are “living systems nonetheless”. That does not clarify, for example, whether a rock is a system in and of itself, or whether it is part of a larger system which you say is living. I was asking whether individual elements could be non-living and, as far as I can see, you did not answer that question. Furthermore, what you did make clear was that you interpreted ‘living’ as something distinct from ‘biological life’. When I look up definitions of ‘living’, however, what keeps coming up is that ‘living’ refers to ‘life’. I therefore found your response confusing rather than clarifying. It did not answer my question in any way which was helpful to my understanding.

In my next post, - #55 – I therefore suggested, “…I would happily go along with your first three sentences if you subtracted the word, ‘living’. I don’t see how it changes the meaning at all but it then enables us to separate biological from non-biological concepts. The systems remain systems … However we get around this, I need to confirm whether or not you understand ‘nature’ to include biological and non-biological, living and non-living, animate and non-animate, sentient and non-sentient elements. I need also to remind you of a question I put to you in my last post; If, as you seem to suggest, there are things that have none of your seven attributes, would that mean that they were non-natural?”.

In your reply you said nothing about my suggestion with regard to the word, ‘living’. You did not answer my repeated question about whether or not things which had none of your seven attributes of life were non-natural. Instead, you made an alternative suggestion:

How about most alive to least alive? Most reactive to least reactive? I don't see these things as black-and-white - alive and dead.



If you had answered my questions and then gone on to suggest other viewpoints, then this could have been productive. As it was, you left my questions hanging.

You may feel that you addressed a part of my question regarding ‘life’ and ‘living’ subsequently:

… Stars also are not made of cells, although they do have a dynamic structure. So they do not qualify as life (which is purely reserved for biological life, not stellar life). Still, stars have more in common with biology than most purportedly nonliving entities. Ditto planets and moons, variably.



You told me that you do not regard stars as life but you had already refered to them as living systems. But you had not addressed my question about the significance of the adjective, ‘living’, nor how a ‘living system’ was distinct from a system. You did not, therefore, answer my question.

In post #66 I tried a very direct tack: “Is a grain of sand alive? Is it partially alive? Does ‘alive’ mean the same as ‘living’? Does ‘living' equate with ‘life’? You offered me seven characteristics which define life. What use is that if everything is alive or partially alive? When you talk of a ‘living system’, what characteristic of that concept is different from ‘a system’? I have to ask you for the third time; if none of your seven characteristics apply, then does that mean than an entity is ‘non-natural’?"

Your response to this was:
What's wrong with gradations? A grain of sand is not alive but it does have a place on a spectrum of reactivity, in which life is only a part. Researchers already operate on the obvious truth that silicon atoms (in a grain of sand) are more reactive than, say, neutrinos.



You did answer my question about whether or not a grain of sand is alive. You did not answer my question about whether ‘alive’ means the same as ‘living’. You did not tell me whether or not ‘living’ equates with ‘life’. Once more, you did not offer me any explanation for how a ‘living system’ is distinct from a ‘system’. Nor, for the third time, did you attempt to explain the status of things which do not conform to your characteristics of life. I didn’t need your references to reactivity because I had already commented on the relative merits and demerits of such a scale. What I was seeking was answers to significant questions. I didn’t get them.

I then refered to the search for life on Mars; the point being that scientists do not yet think they have discovered any. You refered to “a living planet with living systems”. But you then refer to abiogenesis which, according to my understanding, is where living organisms arise from non-living matter. So is Mars living or not? If it is living, then does that mean that there is life? This is very confusing and I don’t think you have done anything to clear up my confusion. You have still not explained the equivalence or otherwise of ‘life’ and ‘living’. You have not answered the question.

…"Geologically alive" can be seen as poetic rather than correct, but I feel that the use of language betrays the disconnect between our shorthand assumptions and detailed reality.



In most of the articles I read, the term which is most commonly used is ‘geologically active’. Yes, your choice could be justified on poetic terms, as could ‘living’ in metaphorical terms. Whatever the ‘disconnect’, language depends on commonly agreed terms. You have chosen to use ‘alive’ instead of ‘active’. There must be a reason for this but you have not told me what it is. Once more, however, you have not answered my request to explain the relationship between the terms, ‘life’, ‘living’ and ‘alive’. Your use does not seem to conform to that commonly in use, nor to dictionary definitions, so I would have thought that explanation and justification was essential. When mentioning ‘geologically alive’, for example, it would have been a good opportunity to explain that you meant that the geology on Mars was directly associated with life. Except that you couldn’t because it isn’t.

The purpose of my cake analogy was to draw out the disconnect between the metaphor and the actuality. Because something seems to resemble processes observed in another circumstance, it does not follow that the two correspond. Because you observe dynamism and interactivity, it does not follow that it is automatically indicative of life. So using ‘living’ as an adjective is confusing and inappropriate. Similarly, observing that the combination of processes on a planet is nurturing in the same way as a cake, the use of the adjective, ‘cakey’ would be similarly confusing and inappropriate. I went to some trouble to try to make the point but you dismissed it out of hand. You did not address the issues related to it.

So we arrive at my statement which seems to have irritated you; “I have not even been able to pin you down on your understanding of the term, ‘nature’, which is rather fundamental to our discussion. Many dictionary definitions refer to living and non-living elements but you seem to understand it in a different way”.

You replied as follows:

What questions have I not answered? I have answered every single one of your questions but, as shown above, you have missed or not understood my answers. Just find me a single so-called unanswered question put to me and I am confident that I have covered it on the thread, possibly multiple times. I am providing responses but you simply don't like the answers and then claim I've said nothing. Personally, I don't think you have the slightest interest in my ideas, only an interest in breaking down ideas that seem to deviate from orthodoxy.

I, and a number of others here, would have apologised had we made such a huge and embarrassing mistake like you accusing me of not attempting to define nature when I'd had done so in such an obvious way. I don't want or need an apology now, but it's disappointing.



If you want examples of questions which you have not answered, then here are three of the more fundamental ones for starters:

When you talk of a ‘living system’, what characteristic of that concept is different from ‘a system’?

Does ‘living’ equate to ‘life’, or do you mean something else by it?

Does ‘alive’ mean ‘having life’, or ‘living’? Are they the same or is there a difference?

I have asked each of these questions many times and in many different ways. If you think that you have answered these direct questions in a similarly direct way, then I would very much like you to quote your responses. I am unable to find them.

If your concern is that I am trying to ‘break down your ideas’, then my response is in my first paragraph. Without wanting to sound at all patronising, I have found many of your responses on the forum to be intelligent and interesting. I don’t always agree with everything you say but it is usually worth reading and I generally find you to be on the side of the angels. I don’t post very often; I need to find something which grabs me or where I think I can add a slightly different point of view. You post very frequently. I have often thought that I could have responded more often to things you have written but have been slightly inhibited because it is clear to me that we view things from different viewpoints. I thought that I ought to address this. Thus my response, tardy though it was, this time. I resent your misinterpretation of my motives.

I wrote, “I have not even been able to pin you down on your understanding of the term, ‘nature’", because I was not able to pin you down to specifics, the most significant of which are my unanswered questions listed above. I did not say that you had not attempted to define nature. From post #52 onwards, I have been trying constantly to check your understanding based on what you have offered as definitions. I explained that these did not respond to the questions to which I most needed answers, the uses of the terms, ‘life, ‘living’ and ‘alive’. Not for the first time, you have twisted what I said. It is interesting that your most detailed ‘obvious way’ of defining nature was to 3uGH7D4MLj and not to me. Nonetheless, I had read it, though it was no use whatsoever in reponding to the questions I had specifically asked. It did not help me to pin you down, which is why I said what I said.

So I shall not be apologising for “a huge and embarrassing mistake” because the only mistake I can recognise is your misinterpretation of my words.
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Re: Mother Nature

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Iapetus wrote:Reply to Greta:

Greta, I don’t think you are being fair. I have tried very hard to understand your position and I don’t think that it is at all unreasonable, in an argumentative philosophy forum, to ask you explain and justify it.
Is that what you think, Iapetus? You keep shoehorning classical panentheism on to the idea I proposed than then critiquing panentheism. THAT is why you feel your questions are not being answered - you are questioning a notion that I did not espouse.

When I suggest that life and consciousness are parts of a broader spectrum of reactivity I am NOT saying that everything is alive and conscious. Stars and planets have some of the qualities of life but not all. Therefore they are not biological life but could be treated as a form of geological life - which our ideas of abiogenesis suggest both preceded and produced biological life.

Does light's place in the EM spectrum mean that everything is light? No. Do life's and consciousness's place in the "reactivity spectrum" mean that everything is alive and conscious? No, but it does mean that a piece of rock is not a complete null in terms of activity and reactivity, and we know that the surfaces of rocks are constantly exchanging electrons with the environment (unless is very cold conditions). A rock has its own story, modest and seemingly untold though it may be.

The views I've put forward above are closer to this than panentheism: smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/life- ... 07/?no-ist
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

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Am I correct to assume that Nature is neutral neither good or bad? This might have been mentioned in a previous post already. Is this the scientific position?
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Re: Mother Nature

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Just Me wrote:Am I correct to assume that Nature is neutral neither good or bad? This might have been mentioned in a previous post already. Is this the scientific position?
I would say it's a scientific position most scientists would take, as regards "nature" with a small "n". Both growth and entropy shape our reality.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

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Greta wrote:
Just Me wrote:Am I correct to assume that Nature is neutral neither good or bad? This might have been mentioned in a previous post already. Is this the scientific position?
I would say it's a scientific position most scientists would take, as regards "nature" with a small "n". Both growth and entropy shape our reality.
Just to be clear I used the word nature to indicate the elements and forces of the universe responsible for the evolution of life. I realize how the word nature can be understood to mean other things as well. With this clarification is the answer still the same, neutral?

Thanks
Iapetus
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Re: Mother Nature

Post by Iapetus »

Reply to Greta:

Don't worry, Greta. I don't think you have been fair and I know that you don't want to answer my questions. I am not, however, concerned about 'winning' an argument. I know that I am not going to get any further if I press you so I am perfectly content to drop the discussion.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Mother Nature

Post by Sy Borg »

Just Me wrote:
Greta wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

I would say it's a scientific position most scientists would take, as regards "nature" with a small "n". Both growth and entropy shape our reality.
Just to be clear I used the word nature to indicate the elements and forces of the universe responsible for the evolution of life. I realize how the word nature can be understood to mean other things as well. With this clarification is the answer still the same, neutral?
Is anyone an authority on whether the universe is good or bad or just guessing? We see bonding and morality in nature, along with brutality and separation, so "good" or "bad" would seem to simply be relative, and this points to neutrality.

Then again, the existence of, something rather than nothing suggests "good" (in terms of primate interests). Also, it's not just "something" that exists but highly ordered and sophisticated systems that are becoming ever more so, and more sentient. That seems "good" to me, but some would argue that nothingness is at least as desirable as "something", given the travails of existence.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Re: Mother Nature

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The goodness or badness of things, depends on how you look at them. Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.
Even though you can see me, I might not be here.
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

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Thanks Greta, I appreciate your insight.
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3uGH7D4MLj
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Re: Mother Nature

Post by 3uGH7D4MLj »

Just Me wrote:Am I correct to assume that Nature is neutral neither good or bad? This might have been mentioned in a previous post already. Is this the scientific position?
I would say that goodness and badness and neutrality are moral judgments outside the view of science.

It still seems to me that you are seeking something with a quasi-divine quality. First the OP asks about Mother Nature, who is a vestige of Goddesses, and now you're wondering if she, or it, is morally good bad or neutral. I think questing after this is not a bad way to go. Spinoza had ideas like this and he was thrown out of Judaism and listed on the Pope's forbidden book list, both good signs.

I think it would be very difficult to say if the Sistine God Himself, the great war God Yahweh, could be listed in the good bad or neutral category.
fair to say
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Just Me
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Re: Mother Nature

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3uGH7D4MLj wrote:
Just Me wrote:Am I correct to assume that Nature is neutral neither good or bad? This might have been mentioned in a previous post already. Is this the scientific position?
I would say that goodness and badness and neutrality are moral judgments outside the view of science.

It still seems to me that you are seeking something with a quasi-divine quality. First the OP asks about Mother Nature, who is a vestige of Goddesses, and now you're wondering if she, or it, is morally good bad or neutral. I think questing after this is not a bad way to go. Spinoza had ideas like this and he was thrown out of Judaism and listed on the Pope's forbidden book list, both good signs.

I think it would be very difficult to say if the Sistine God Himself, the great war God Yahweh, could be listed in the good bad or neutral category.
I'm just seeking the truth whatever that is, I'll gladly accept it. You're right I have wondered on whether there is some quasi divine quality in nature, that's natural I suppose for some of us. But I'd rather use logic than to rely on a feeling to reach a conclusion.

-- Updated May 15th, 2016, 12:52 pm to add the following --
Greta wrote: Both growth and entropy shape our reality.
I think this is spot on. We probably will never understand the detailed engineering of nature but we can through the observation of life see the pattern of how things are working.
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