We brought up this point in class on Thursday Jan 15 whether humans are in fact, part of nature or if we are "natural." We were also trying to distinguish nature from non-nature. Some said for example, rocks were not nature. I feel nature is one of those fuzzy areas in our world. When I looked up the meaning for nature, there were probably 15 different definitions between different websites like Merriam Webster, etc. The way I view nature is anything that is on earth and not changed by humans. So anythings that is not man-made. For example, houses are not "natural". They are made from natural things like wood or even plastics that are basic molecules found naturally on earth. Rocks, dirt, living trees, those are all natural and to me are considered part of nature.
Another thing I noticed during class was views on extinction. I felt many people felt humans were going to be an animal that would, in loose terms, never go extinct. In some ways I can see how people have that feeling. After all, we have the technology to keep people alive and medicines to make you feel no pain and structures to keep us safe during catastrophes or crisis. That definitely does sound like a sure ticket for the future. On the other hand, I have no doubt we will be taken by mother nature. There has been no other species to survive from the start of times. All species originally on earth are long gone, what makes us any different? Even with out ever growing capabilities to "better survive", I don't think we have a ticket to the far future. Human-like beings will probably be in the future but it won't be homo sapiens like we are now.
I'd like to know what other peoples views/definitions are on nature and also how they feel about extinction.
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Humans were created in the imagine of god or a higer power just as all other things were created by that same being. However humans seem to place ourselves above the fates of any other beings. With our feeling of superiority over the others we also envoke a control over them. In Botany of Desire chapter on the Apple we see this very control over nature. Over the years we have decided which plants should live on and produce the goods that we find the most appealing by placing ourselves in charge of the continuation and creation of the species we place ourselves up with the ultimate creator which made us and all other things. Since we place ourselves up with the ultimate creator and mimic his moves we feel that we could never fall to the same fate that all other creatures that are subjects just as we are to the higher power. Over time humans have been able to control many aspects of nature which grants us a slight feeling of superiority over nature but then we fall vitcim to natures many versions of storms that we have no control over. Even thought we have so much control on the other aspects of nature I think the fact that we can't control the weather is our higher powers way of establishing a balance of power between us and nature. Which will allow us humans and nature to live together working as one until we try to upset the balance of power.
ReplyDeleteI believe humans are animals just like any other animal that has and that ever will walk the face of this earth. It just so happens that unlike our forest relatives, for some reason fate decided that we would evolve complex thought and emotions. I do, however, think that our complex thought and emotion has separated us from nature. Because we are unable to communicate with the other species in our world, we find ourselves thinking we are above the rest. That there can be no logical grounds on which one could argue that we are related to the woodland creatures. Thus we psychologically separate ourselves. Technology has also served to separate us. Some have argued that well if a beaver’s dam or bird’s nest is part of nature, then why can’t a car or a skyscraper also be part of nature? I have also pondered this question myself, and in that regard I think that those man-made things are part of nature. But these things have served to separate, because they force us to rip up the environment for the raw materials to produce them. By doing so, we destroy our environment which endangers not only our forest relatives, but also ourselves. Most of us try to say that we live in “civilization”, away from nature, but in reality nature is everything. From our hair, to our shoes, to the car we drive, and the house we live in. Nature is all around us. Without it there would be no humans or life.
ReplyDeleteAs far as extinction goes, I think that it is a real possibility that with the way we treat nature. We have evidence to support that the original atmosphere of the earth was primarily carbon. Then plants and other photosynthetic beings came along and put excesses oxygen into the atmosphere causing oxygen to become predominate. Through deforestation, we are destroying the life that is allowing us to live in our oxygen rich environment, and we are replacing those trees with carbon producing technology. We even have scientific proof that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at an exponential rate. It would not surprise me if one day the atmosphere became so overwhelmingly carbon that humans were forced into extinction.
I appreciated how Pollan got the message of what is and isn't beautiful. Is it how we treat each other?...only the fruit-bearing flowers are pleasing to us? If a Buddha teaches (plants) a student for years and the student takes on a yellow robe...just like all the other monks....would the student stand out in a garden of other monks? And, when we choose a partner to date, don't we have tulipomania? I think so...I also think marriages that failed or are failing attributes alot to that Mystery of the petals flexing, that Pollan talks about.
ReplyDeleteI loved the part in the chapter, too, where he (Polllan) says that there are relatively few things in nature whose beauty people haven,t had to invent. Again..the things he mentions...sunrise, human face and form...etc. All these things that we can visibly see.