The Nature of Nature

[Teonanacapilli]

Ok, so just now I had a really great (for me) arguement with an old "Rainbow Warrior" who I thought would be that cliche open-minded, peace and loving hippie type. He was SO FUCKING closed-minded and childish (despite his age and apparent learnedness) I couldn't believe it! (What was that about books and their covers?) He really got me impassioned and thinking and now I want to know, what is your definition of nature?

Mine, if you don't want to read our conversation, is that nature is EVERYTHING that exists in the universe ("man-made" or not). I REALLY would like to see some discussion on this one

IF YOU WANT TO READ IT, here is the conversation I had on facebook with him, I wouldn't mind knowing what others think of this guy's views along with my own (Discussing psychiatric meds for mental illness):

ME: I believe in cures, not medication.

HIM: I believe everybody is different in seeing/understanding those differences they are each unique. It is by unlocking that uniqueness we see the real person under it. Drugs suppress that. I do not include herbs as drugs for they are mother natures medicine.

ME: Well that's silly, a molecule is a molecule, whatever its label. If it's found in a plant or in a synthetic "drug", makes no difference.

HIM: How little you seem to understand. Sythetics are a whole different thing and out of balance with nature.

ME: Your mind seems closed. LSD, MDMA.

HIM: Closed to all the B.S. that I've heard way to many times before to take it seriously

ME: "Out of balance with nature". How can anything be, when EVERYTHING is nature????

HIM: If you don't know I hardly am going to waste a lot of time trying to get you to understand. Naure did not produce nuclear weapons or anything related to such things.

ME: Man, nature is the universe and everything in it. You can't see that? Man is natural, anything man-made therefore, is natural. Nuclear weapons are a part of nature. [I knew that would set him off ]

HIM: I can see the misinformation put out there to make people think that such things are just all OK, when in fact they are not and are destroying this world.

ME: I don't deny that, they really are very detrimental to the planet. But that doesn't make them unnatural!

HIM: Adios, you obviously have nothing of real value to say.

ME: A fucking meteor has the same impact as nuclear weapons, does that make it "out of balance with nature"? No no no man!! Lets DISCUSS! Don't shut me out!

HIM: HORSESHIT

ME: Come on, let's have an arguement? Or are you done growing?

HIM: I have way too many good things to do that help people and the natural world for all that crap.

ME: I think you just don't like your views challenged!

HIM: I grow in postive ways. Not all that same old B.S. I've heard from every wannabe philiospher.

ME: Closed mind bro. I've seen you so many times before, most often in people with "faith"

HIM: CLOSED MINDED MY ASS. To be subjected to such crap for the millionth or so time and whoever is spouting it, thinking it is some kind of orignal thought is to me stupidity!

ME: What does original thought have to do with it? Anyway, back to the matter of nature and it's definition. I think nature is everything that exists.

HIM: Got something good to contribute, go for it, but don't waste my life with a lot of crap.

ME: What do you think? "Good" or "bad" is subjective, think what I have to contribute now, what I'm doing NOW (discussing) IS good!

HIM: Everything that exists in a natural balance with the rest of real life [his definition of nature].

ME: Ok, "natural balance", "real life" explain. What is real life?

HIM: Mental mindfuck is hardly worthy of an intelliegent person. If you do not understand what nature is you really need to spend time in it [he doesn't know who the FUCK he is talking to here!].

ME: No, I understand what a forest is, what a desert is, I understand what you think nature is. But that view is short-sighted. How can anything in the universe be unnatural? Nature extends beyond this planet.

HIM: If you don't understand you probably won't until you pass on to realize the infinite and eternal are far beyond what you seem to think.

ME: That's pretty vague man. Don't understand what? That nature exists only in your personal definition?

HIM: I'm out of here. I have real work and real needs of many that need doing.

ME: Ok, well I really enjoyed our discussion. I love to argue and have my views challenged. The exchange of new ideas, it's how I grow. Exchange of new ideas brother! That's what it's all about! Growth!

After that, I got: "You don't have permission to chat with this person.", then he removed me from his "friends list". So there it is, I just had to share that with someone, really couldn't believe that closed mind!

 

[Brugmansia]

Why would you waste time and exertion in a pyramid if you feel you're the sphinx yourself?

 

[Teonanacapilli]

Yeah man, no doubt!

 

[IJesusChrist]

His ego needs to be shattered. He is the one influenced by all the propoganda... nuclear weapons aren't natural? What is the fucking sun? It's a giant nuclear reactor going on for a billion fucking years...

He is seperating himself from nature... as well as other ideas. It's a dangerous and ego-boasting concept. I feel bad for him - he is as bad as a hardcore christian.

I do however, distinguish nature from natural. I don't use "Natural" in its pure definition -- natural means unaltered by man's hand.

To me, the definition has aquired its own meaning, seperate from its root word. But he should know that, everything is from nature, and everything is natural. In the objective sense.

 

[Teonanacapilli]

Haha, the irony being that earlier he commented on how we need to "get rid of all the fundamentalists", and that is exactly what he seemed to be. Nuclear weapons are made possible by atoms, the stuff of all of nature, synthetic or unnatural in what way?

 

[BrainEater]

i wonder how much we can try to separate ourselves from nature, without destroying ourselves. sometimes i feel like the way humanity seems to have chosen or is choosing, is like cutting off the branch it is sitting on. still i see it is relatively irrelevant whether we define manly creations having to be strictly included in the defintion of nature as well. maybe for some people stuck in different paradigms it may help... however for me it's more about living in peace with the nature that is alive, like we are.. or maybe should be.
we should have respect and awe for nature and thus set the relation more in the direction of us serving nature than nature having to serve us, because we have been blinded a lot we need to find the direction where our existences are going etc etc.
we need to wake up and recognize the inconceivability of the nature of nature, i suppose. we hardly seem to know who we are ourselves so how would we be able to see what the bigger "ourselves" may be? for many the notion of nature seems to almost have become obsolete, but perhaps they will become obsolete for nature therefore? i don't know.. :? :|

 

[IJesusChrist]

I like to see this trend in humanity:

We were enslaved by mother nature, we had to agree to all her terms.
Then, we started to fight back, we built dams, made roads, bridges, etc...
Then we built entire cities (chicago) where no city would ever have been built before - JUST to show the power of man.
People were in awe upon seeing a city - a magnificent conquering of nature.
Cities became popular, no matter what the location.
Now, we are fearful of mankind.
We fear the end of natural forests, the unaltered, untouched.
We fear everything will be a city.

Who would have seen it coming? ...Alot.

 

[Teonanacapilli]

I guess at our early stages of development and continuing here and there through ancient, medieval, recent and present times, nature has been a somewhat hostile force to us. Natural disasters, predatory beasts, harsh weather, etc. So maybe our desire/need to supplant nature is a backlash to this quasi-hostility we have felt. Humans have historically had the need to "tame" nature, to subdue it. Like you pointed to, IJC.

That taming of nature is what has allowed us all this progress, no doubt. Advances in medicine, all industry, damn well any piece of our complex mosaic has been made possible by our false and imagined "control" of nature. But nature doesn't fit under our thumb and I think we are really beginning to see that now, in some cases. Regardless, if we don't set nature (that includes ourselves) free, it is us who will be under her thumb once again.

 

[Brugmansia]

I agree with your view very much, but spread the word amoung those who're yet ignorant but accessible for adapting it and don't waste your time on those with a pyramid in their stomach even if they have marked themselve with a rainbow on their exterior. Nowadays symbols, marks, icons, logo's, words and what not are used by many for tons of reasons except for the original profound meaning it was once founded for.

 

[ophiuchus]

you guys were both arguing the same side of a coin, however, he was not open to the fact that you ARE intelligent, so he allowed the conversation to go nowhere based on this malformed BIAS. he stereotyped you and that is why we (using that as example) can't play by those rules. do, and you might miss an opportunity to join intelligent minds together. and the worst part is, you become content with yourself because you failed to even see in the first place that there was another intelligence out there.

 

[ophiuchus]

you both have to assume a level of trust with someone first before you can begin to debate hypotheticals. i have come to understand this more recently