is Space Nature?

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Sure, why not? If you define "nature" as everything that exists outside of human culture - which isn't very satisfactory, but is how people tend to use the word - then it certainly is.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Perhaps, if someone is present to witness it

It’s nature if we infer its various properties as natural but then we would have to define space too, Planck energy n all that without looking like you’re kicking back having sussed fuck all

34240631-039A-4461-BC7A-D6C32C7955D4.jpeg
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Sure, why not? If you define "nature" as everything that exists outside of human culture - which isn't very satisfactory, but is how people tend to use the word - then it certainly is.
I think this is a useful definition. Normally I'd define nature as a total, all-encompassing category for the physical universe, with the artificial being what conscious matter has engineered within that universe, but I also tend to think that all-encompassing definitions aren't always that useful.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
 

abodywithoutorgans

Well-known member
Sure, why not? If you define "nature" as everything that exists outside of human culture - which isn't very satisfactory, but is how people tend to use the word - then it certainly is.
Hm, interesting take on what 'nature' is/ought to be—haven't really thought of it as defined as being outside of human culture, I'll have to think that through more. Doesn't the epoch of the 'anthropocene' complicate that outsideness, though?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hm, interesting take on what 'nature' is/ought to be—haven't really thought of it as defined as being outside of human culture, I'll have to think that through more. Doesn't the epoch of the 'anthropocene' complicate that outsideness, though?
What I meant by "unsatisfactory" is that I think the concept of nature is sort of redundant, or tautological, in that nothing is actually "unnatural", since it would have to arise out of the natural and is therefore itself natural.

So the word is sometimes used to mean everything other than human beings, but that's very unattractive to me, both because it's an arbitrary exclusion and because it's the root cause of many of our problems (social, ecological, etc.). Further, it seems very odd (even if we take the idea of "unnaturalness" seriously for a moment) to describe a hunter-gatherer type society as unnatural just because it's made up of humans.

So we might refine the definition of the unnatural to involve the use of technology. But then, a stone-tipped spear is a piece of technology. In fact, if technology at base is synonymous with tool use, then it's not even limited to humans, but is found among the other apes, crows and even octopuses.

When you talk about what it means to be outside human culture in the anthropocene, I take it you mean that the non-human world is being drastically altered by humans, so where does "human culture" actually end? Something like that? That might be an insoluble problem if you adhere to the natural/unnatural dichotomy. But it vanishes if you discard the idea of unnaturalness altogether.
 
Top