Are humans part of nature?

H

Hume

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Defining nature as separate from people perpetuates troubled relationship with the natural world, say campaigners

Currently, all English dictionaries define nature as an entity separate from and opposed to humans and human creations – a perspective campaigners say perpetuates humanity’s troubled relationship with the natural world.

So when she got home, Gormley approached Jessie Mond Webb, of the collective Lawyers for Nature, with whom she was already working, and they decided to start a campaign to persuade dictionaries to grant a new, more expansive definition to the word “nature” – and with it, perhaps, to redefine what it means to be human.

What is ‘nature’? Dictionaries urged to include humans in definition

Defining nature as separate from people perpetuates troubled relationship with the natural world, say campaigners
www.theguardian.com
 
"It was the French philosopher René Descartes who set the tone for the modern separation of humans and nature, by “putting forward the view that the mind is divine and God-like, and our bodies, and the bodies of other creatures, are just kind of lifeless matter”, said Oliver. Concurrently, other western philosophers were espousing the idea that human progress meant moving away from the “state of nature”, a life Thomas Hobbes derided as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
 
It's older than Descartes.
Aristotle and Plato placed humans in the foreground and their moral and political philosophies made human concerns the ultimate object of valuation, making our experience of reality discrete.

The Taoists thought of reality as a seamless whole in which the background was as important to pay attention to as the foreground. I don't think any ancient or pre-18th century European traditions ever thought of the background and foreground reality as a mutually seamless whole the way the Taoist tradition did.
 
It's almost endemic in human thought. Just look at this particular thread. We have @Cypress. In many threads when challenged he claims humans have special mental powers that animals cannot possibly have despite the fact that clearly mental capabilities are on a spectrum across all life on the planet.

While it may (or may not) be true that humans have mental powers other animals are incapable of we simply cannot know that. However it is such a part of @Cypress' philosophy that he will insist on it even though there is no way for him to know this.

It's a backstop for human ego. Humans are pretty certain they are (in the words of the holy rollers) "The crown of creation" and as such must have special powers that differentiate them from mere "animals".


(Also: I put the one sentence in red so Cypress will be able to ignore it and further mischaracterize my position)
 
Obtenebrator said:
It's almost endemic in human thought. Just look at this particular thread. We have @Cypress. In many threads when challenged he claims humans have special mental powers that animals cannot possibly have despite the fact that clearly mental capabilities are on a spectrum across all life on the planet.

While it may (or may not) be true that humans have mental powers other animals are incapable of we simply cannot know that. However it is such a part of @Cypress' philosophy that he will insist on it even though there is no way for him to know this.

It's a backstop for human ego. Humans are pretty certain they are (in the words of the holy rollers) "The crown of creation" and as such must have special powers that differentiate them from mere "animals".


(Also: I put the one sentence in red so Cypress will be able to ignore it and further mischaracterize my position)
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Stopped reading your post at the second sentence because you just want to get my attention by making sure a notification is sent to me. No one else on this forum does that, or begs for my attention.
 
Cypress said:
Stopped reading your post at the second sentence because you just want to get my attention by making sure a notification is sent to me. No one else on this forum does that, or begs for my attention.
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Funny but it relates to the topic. However it does call into question your claims of being able read animal minds.

You are free to run away from it as you like.

The funniest part is that you don't even seem to see the disconnect in your own position. LOL.
 
Obtenebrator said:
You never read my posts all the way through, Cypress.
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Maybe your shouldn't have lied about having sock puppets, lied about having a glorious geochem PhD, lied about stealing pictures of minerals from Reddit, if you want people to invest their time treating your posts seriously
 
I find it interesting when someone claims that only humans are capable of advanced reasoning but then you see crows figuring out what it took Archimedes to figure out with regards to volume displacement.
 
Cypress said:
Maybe your shouldn't have lied about having sock puppets, lied about having a glorious geochem PhD,
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I will admit to lying about a sock. But I didn't lie about the degree. And that's the part that really gets to you. It shouldn't. Not everyone is cut out for that kind of stuff. If you topped at at the MS that's great! You did good.

You are obsessed with my degree.

Cypress said:
lied about stealing pictures of minerals from Reddit,
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Again, not a lie. It was my photo. (Do you know why you can't find it on Reddit anymore? Because I took it down. )

Cypress said:
if you want people to invest their time treating your posts seriously
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You can also attempt to NOT make every debate an ad hominem and actually address the POINTS I raise.

But that would require you to have more education I suppose. And I just said you shouldn't feel bad for having less than I have. Guess there is an advantage to having more education now that I think about it.

Not tell us how you read animal minds.
 
Cypress said:
Maybe your shouldn't have lied about having sock puppets, lied about having a glorious geochem PhD, lied about stealing pictures of minerals from Reddit, if you want people to invest their time treating your posts seriously
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Poor Cypress is SO threatened by people who have more education than he does. It is sad to see someone whose ego is SO FRAGILE they post stuff like this because they are unable to address the points I raise.
 
Obtenebrator said:
Poor Cypress is SO threatened by people who have more education than he does. It is sad to see someone whose ego is SO FRAGILE they post stuff like this because they are unable to address the points I raise.
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The purpose of formal education is to help one be a better communicator who can play nice with others. Education does not prevent one from having a god complex or losing touch with reality.
 
Cypress said:
It's older than Descartes.
Aristotle and Plato placed humans in the foreground and their moral and political philosophies made human concerns the ultimate object of valuation, making our experience of reality discrete.

The Taoists thought of reality as a seamless whole in which the background was as important to pay attention to as the foreground. I don't think any ancient or pre-18th century European traditions ever thought of the background and foreground reality as a mutually seamless whole the way the Taoist tradition did.
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Aristotle thought humans were part of nature. No soul.
 
Hume said:
Aristotle thought humans were part of nature. No soul.
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He studied nature as a scientist.
I read the Nicomahean Ethics, and there is nothing I recall in there connecting human flourishing to the mutually dependent matrix of all of natural reality, which was a concept fairly unique to Taoist philosophy. The Taoists even parted with the Confucians in that respect
 
Cypress said:
He studied nature as a scientist.
I read them Nicomahean Ethics, and there is nothing I recall in there connecting human flourishing to the mutually dependent matrix of all of natural reality, which was fairly unique to Taoist philosophy.
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The Ethics is about, you know , ethics.
 
Hume said:
OThe Ethics is about, you know , ethics.
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It's more than that, it's about how human flourishing is cultivated and achieved.

And it completely lacks any perspective connecting human concerns to the overall seamless matrix of natural reality, which is what the Taoists are famous for - they don't remove human concerns apart and discreet from the overall matrix of reality
 
Cypress said:
It's more than that, it's about how a human flourishing life is cultivated and3achieved.

And it completely lacks any perspective connectivity human concerns to the overall seamless matrix of natural reality, which is what the Taoists are famous for - they don't remove human concerns apart and discreet from the overall matrix of reality
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Why would a text on ethics have to reference nature? Aristotle wrote on physics and metaphysics as well.
 
Hume said:
Why would a text on ethics have to reference nature? Aristotle wrote on physics and metaphysics as well.
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It's not just about ethics, it's about the cultivation of a flourishing human life.

Nothing Aristotle ever wrote connected human concerns with the background fabric of natural reality. From the Taoist perspective, Aristotle was setting human concerns into the foreground and divorcing it from the seamless fabric of natural reality.

Anyone who wants to revisit dictionary definitions of nature and reimagine the human relationship to nature, is thinking more like a Taoist than an Aristotilean.
 
Cypress said:
It's not just about ethics, it's about the cultivation of a flourishing human life.

Nothing Aristotle ever wrote connected human concerns with the background fabric of natural reality. From the Taoist perspective, Aristotle was setting human concerns into the foreground and divorcing it from the seamless fabric of natural reality.

Anyone who wants to revisit dictionary definitions of nature and reimagine the human relationship to nature, is thinking more like a Taoist than an Aristotlean.
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There is nothing but nature and the Prime Mover.
 
Cypress said:
It's not just about ethics, it's about the cultivation of a flourishing human life.

Nothing Aristotle ever wrote connected human concerns with the background fabric of natural reality. From the Taoist perspective, Aristotle was setting human concerns into the foreground and divorcing it from the seamless fabric of natural reality.

Anyone who wants to revisit dictionary definitions of nature and reimagine the human relationship to nature, is thinking more like a Taoist than an Aristotilean.
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"For nature, like intelligence, acts for a purpose, and this purpose is for it an end. Such an end the soul is in animals, and this in the order_of nature, for all the natural bodies are instruments of soul: and this is as true of the bodies of plants as of those of animals,"


De Anima, Aristotle. 415b6.
 
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