To What Extent Can Human Beings Really Control 'Nature'?
I am writing this because I believe that human beings are so limited in spite of scientific advances. We have gained knowledge to fight against so many illnesses and extend life. But, all this comes with certain costs for ourselves and other lifeforms. I think that Covid_19 has made us so aware of our vulnerability.
But, generally, I believe that problems of climate change and difficulties posed by physical and mental illnesses raise the question of how much mastery we have over nature. I believe that it goes back to questions of deep ecology, and I do believe that James Lovelock' s idea of 'Gaia', seeing the planet as living being,
is an important metaphorical truth.
In this thread, I am interested in exploring ideas about nature, including the idea of 'Gaia'. I am also interested in the way in which both religious and scientific perspectives have thought about the control or mastery of nature. In addition, humanism attempted to explore human beings striving to work with nature. We also have transhumanism which is seeking further attempts to 'overcome' basic aspects of nature, including death itself. How do these ideas work, and to what extent do we truly have mastery over 'nature'?
But, generally, I believe that problems of climate change and difficulties posed by physical and mental illnesses raise the question of how much mastery we have over nature. I believe that it goes back to questions of deep ecology, and I do believe that James Lovelock' s idea of 'Gaia', seeing the planet as living being,
is an important metaphorical truth.
In this thread, I am interested in exploring ideas about nature, including the idea of 'Gaia'. I am also interested in the way in which both religious and scientific perspectives have thought about the control or mastery of nature. In addition, humanism attempted to explore human beings striving to work with nature. We also have transhumanism which is seeking further attempts to 'overcome' basic aspects of nature, including death itself. How do these ideas work, and to what extent do we truly have mastery over 'nature'?
Comments (33)
We were better off with the old arrangement despite life being, in Thomas Hobbes' words, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Now life's become "overcrowded, still poor, still nasty, still brutish, and unbearably long" - sounds like a description of a cramped prison in Thailand or Madagascar where criminals are packed like sardines! :chin:
I think that it is interesting that you link the idea of nature with human nature. But, when you speak of our relationship with nature, I think that it partly comes down to whether we see our own lives as serving nature or as using nature for our own benefits and 'pleasure'. I certainly don't think that egotism can be overcome easily, but I do believe that our understanding of our needs does need to be considered in balance to wider aspects of the natural order. It probably, involves seeing our place or role within it, in the most balanced way.
My thoughts exactly, Jack Cummins! What role does our egotism have in nature with special emphasis on balance as pertains to the way nature pulls it off?
I do believe that ego plays a very important but precarious role. There is the 'will to power' identified by Nietzsche, in contrast to our fears of annihilation, or loss of self, or chaos. I think that we each walk this tightrope, but it may involve careful, ongoing negotiations of our own assertion of our own needs, but also the exploitation of nature. I believe that it is extremely complex, and it is also difficult because we see the immediate effects of our actions. It is so difficult to see the wider implications of any specific way, especially in predicting harms, but often, in retrospect, we can see these. I think that the ideal would be about greater awareness of our own deepest needs alongside, awareness of the ripple effects of our own actions.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting Jack Cummins
Quoting Jack Cummins
Au contraire, I've changed my position on how complex things are, it's rather very simple. The ego does two things simultaneously - avoid annihilation and will to power - the second of the two is about effects i.e. predicting. It is [s]extremely complex[/s] extremely simple! No?
I am left wondering about the experiences of suffering in this, both that of the individual and of others. I think that it involves balancing the two, but it also involves the widest distanced perspectives. I think that climate change was underestimated and many people thought that Covid_19 would be a brief problem, and my own view and; of some others, is that it is going to be a real problem for many many years to come.
So, while you speak of the ego simultaneously seeking to 'avoid annihilation' in conjunction with 'the will to power', I think that it occurs within a context of uncertainty and unpredictability. I know that Wittgenstein speaks about uncertainty, but I think that apart from this being an epistemological problem, it also poses a problem with how we tackle problems, juggling the immediate and potential long reaching effects of any specific actions which we initiate for our benefit or those of other people or forms of life. Therefore, I think that we need to understand the effects of our actions in the fullest way, but I do believe that there are limitations of this because life, because even science does not seem to be able to fine tune the exact way in which nature and reality becomes manifest in real life.
Then we have nothing more to discuss, no?
Is The Glass Half-full Or Half-empty?
Anekantavada (many-sidedness).
Postmodernism (relativism)
I am glad for your response and I do think that ' perspectives' is important. However, I do believe that if no one other than you responds to my thread it may suggest that the 'nature' is not seen as important at all.I believe that nature is often seen as unimportant in Western culture, as something which we can and should exploit for human benefit.
My own view is that this is not possible. For example, in medical science, we make progress, but even medicines come with side effects. I am not in any way against medical advances. but I am suggesting that sometimes nature seeks vengeance. Also, we are very far from being in control. For example, we cannot turn off, or turn on, the rain at the present time.
But, perhaps barring a nuclear apocalypse - and even then - give nature a few hundred thousand years, and they'll likely be somewhat intelligent life around.
I stop just short of believing in teleology, though once certain conditions are met, it looks as if life seeks to expand itself to every corner of habitability. Perhaps in most of the universe, such conditions are supremely rare, but life is quite stubborn.
In short, our control of nature is considerable up to a point, but nature wins and always will.
I think that your point, ' We can control nature until we can't, then we perish' may be pertinent to our times. We have come so far in technological advances and creating the 'best' conditions for human beings to thrive.
However, I do think that it comes with a lot of 'buts' and questions of where do we go from here? Throughout the Covid_19 crisis, I have seen the problem as being about the destruction aspects of nature rearing their ugly head. Meanwhile, there is so much bravado about vaccines, but it is not a simple picture with variant strains, and, from my perspective, it is hard to predict how far it is under control. Also, we don't know what potential viruses are coming, or catastrophes.
With climate change, it appears that the problems are increasing at a far larger scale than ever imagined. I put Covid_19 and climate change together, as being the 'dark' side of nature, and I am genuinely of the belief that human beings do not have nearly as much control of this as we would like to believe, in spite of scientific and technological advances.
Yeah. I mean, people can build dams, construct cities, destroy mountains. But when a 8 scale earthquake hits or a tsunami or a hurricane or a volcano erupts, etc., then it's much harder.
Viruses have been around forever, so in a sense they are a dark side of nature. Climate change is on us, the planet is simply following habits of nature and we pay for it.
Life can only thrive in very specific circumstances, outside these we're nothing. Let's grant several planets have intelligent life, despite having no evidence for this, what's a few planets with intelligent life compared to the universe? It's not even possible to compare.
I mean, if we wanted to merely visit the closet star outside our sun, it would take us 4.24 light years to reach it. That is, we would have to go for over 6000 years using our fastest technology just to reach it.
Our control of nature if very much deceptive.
Christian's use!
Jains say it's abuse! (Kudos to Indians, all 3,832,190,623 of them!)
Let's compromise: use but don't abuse!
For nuance let's use but not abuse/misuse!
Yes, yes, bemuse but don't confuse!
I refuse to use/misuse/abuse!
Me amused amuse!
As far as use and abuse is concerned, I think that human beings have seen themselves as the top of the hierarchy with a right to use all resources for human consumption. I think that there is also a mythic assumption of our time that we are at the end of history. This almost allows for human beings to think that it does not matter what we do to the planet.
Environmentalism is the position that what we think is use (of the planet's resources) is actually abuse, this grave state of affairs compounded by the fact that we misuse (resources). The response is to take the position that not all use is misuse/abuse. To think so is to be confused. Nevertheless this ticking time bomb must be defused. Some have refused and that has left many amused and bemused.
I think that it is tricky because we want to have progress and the best possible life. But, petroleum is running out and it may not be possible to sustain the lifestyles we have come to expect in consumer materialistic culture. It is hard to know what kind of life human beings will have in fifty or a hundred years time. I believe that is why some people have antinatalist views.
However, on the other hand, we have transhumanism which is about trying to overcome death. If many people try to do this, I don't see how life would be sustainable at all. Therefore, I see antinatalism and transhumanism as two opposing poles along the spectrum of approaches to our relationship with nature. I think that we probably need a balanced approach, but this is hard because life is often about imminent concerns with no ultimate knowledge of the future and we make it up as we go along.
For instance, Covid is a natural disaster for humans. We know biochemistry, and we know how to affect changes in biochemistry. The law of biochemistry then are used by humans to leverage their effort to eliminate Covid.
Almost no natural disasters are prevented or fought against or done reparations of their effect, without applying and using as leverage other apparatus that relies on the knowledge of natural laws.
This is a tough cookie, because the environment is destroyed beyond its capacity to regenerate; regeneration can only be hoped for if humans reduce their habits by leaps and bounds, and that can only be achieved by reducing the human head-count on the planet.
We need an invention that appeals to human sexuality, and appeals to humans' desire (strong, unsuppressable, biological desire) to have babies, yet prevents babies from happening. I can't think of any such device (may not be a singular device, but a controllable, and multi-aspect device). Somebody sure has to do that in a hurry sometime soon, if we are to survive and not eat the bird that lays the golden eggs -- not destroy nature that provides us with livelihood.
Goldilocks.
I think that if governments tried to enforce population control in the Western world it would cause outrage. I think that such measures were in place in Third World countries but in the Western world I think that people would see it as a severe restriction of civil liberties.
You say that; 'Our control of nature is very deceptive' and I think that many human beings do like to feel in control. That is connected to our psychological sense of empowerment. But, in reality the natural world is much larger and more powerful than us. I believe that we need to be aware of our own role in the cosmic scheme in a much more humble way, and, perhaps see ourselves as stewards rather than lords of the universe.
I think that people are struggling to know what to do with the knowledge of the mess we are in. Generally, the approach seems to be that we need to use resources very differently rather than the need for less people to be brought into the world Even the antinatalists are not seeing the reason not to bring children into the world as a way of reducing harm, because their perspective is about the suffering of being born in itself. I think that a lot of people do feel demoralised by the current situation and the leaders are struggling rather than seeing it as a philosophical problem.
I also wonder if nature will find a way of solving the problem somehow, or of bringing balance. It is hard to know if there was a flood, as mentioned in the Bible, which may have wiped out aspects of civilisation, or even the lost continent of Atlantis. But, let's hope that we don't have to see some kind of global catastrophe, and it would be better if humanity was able to take steps to address its relationship with nature, which is probably deeper than the pressing concern of climate change.
It's hard enough to find many people interested in these topics. Which is strange, they should be fascinating without need for further explanation.
Covid was a feeble try by nature, if you want to look at it that way. (Not me.)
I think that there is a danger in reading meanings into natural occurrences, especially how some people interpreted Aids as nature's vengeance against gay people. It is possible to project our own agendas and meanings onto occurrences in the natural world.
The best option would be if human nature can adapt to nature. I think that people are becoming more minimalist and starting to see possessions more negatively as clutter.
Another possibility is that nature will accommodate by bringing changes in mutations to enable people to survive in different conditions, like how people stopped needing an appendix in relation to diet changes. Perhaps, future human beings will evolve a bit differently in the future.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Get your values straightened out. Either you believe Nature is a sentient, purposeful unit (which you verified you beleive in quote 1) or you don't. (Verified in quote two).
You can't play for both teams, Jack, and then have the audacity to explain things to me that everyone knows.
I think what I am suggesting is that there is probably some kind of ordering behind nature but we can't try and explain it by our human meanings alone. My own view is that nature has some underlying memory, like Rupert Sheldrake suggests in his theory of morphic resonance.
As it is, we are struggling to make sense of what is happening and, for all we know, there could be some kind of process going on which will bring about further stages in evolution. I think that our own perspective is limited because we can't see into the future, but, that doesn't mean that we should overlook our responsibility for future generations.
No more, at most, than we have 'mastery over human nature'.
The problem of mastery of nature and human nature are interconnected, and bound up with the idea of chaos. We have areas of wilderness and storms within our psyches and are unpredictable. The sages tried to master human nature, and perhaps greater understanding is the key aspect, even if there are no easy solutions. There is so much we do not understand and it may be that trying to gain the deepest possible understanding of our own nature, and the natural world can make us more conscious of our actions and, the effects which they have in the larger scheme of life.
:ok:
Hah. That's like asking a dog to understand itself.
We are indeed, very far away.
I definitely don't think that technological control is the best approach. If anything, my thread question of 'control' is a critical aspect of this because human beings like to be in 'control', but that is the perspective of the ego. I think that we are may be best looking to the ideas of the writers you mentioned and some other ancient thinkers because they have more of an intuitive understanding of turbulence and flow inherent within ourselves and other aspects of nature.