in reading such writers as Hobbes and Butler, they often use the word,
nature, as in “human nature” and the overall idea of “nature”…
As in, man is a part of nature, but that leaves us with this idea of
nature and what is nature?
as it is good to start somewhere, I am going to start with a definition of
nature…
Nature: 1. the essential quality of a thing; essence 2.inherent tendencies of a person
3. kind; type. 4. (a)the physical universe. (b) {sometimes N-}the power, force etc.
that seems to regulate this. 5. the primitive state of humans 6. natural scenery…
by nature naturally; inherently…
so human nature is, perhaps, the essential quality of a thing; its essence…
or perhaps it is the inherent tendencies of a person?
this definition doesn’t really seem to answer our question…
as to what is nature?
perhaps as a thought experiment, we can call nature, a system…
we are inherently a system that lives within a system that exists within
another system and so on and so forth… there doesn’t seem to be an end
to the number of systems we can belong to… we can be classified as a
biological system and part of the natural system and different
parts within each…
so depending on how you classify human beings, we can be in a number
of different type of systems…or we can be part of any number types of
natures…
however to classify human beings the same way as say the solar system
in regards as to having or being the same type of system, can lead us astray…
we operate differently, as a system then the solar system operates…
and yet, we come from the same matter as the solar system, we are composed
of the same matter as the solar system…these differences complicates
our understanding of what is nature/systems…
we exists as a system which means we are within nature, our bodily functions
are nature, as we come from a long, billions of years old, line of biological
creature’s… the one cell amoeba of two billion years ago is the father of
all life on planet earth and every biological creature since comes from
that one cell amoeba… and that is part of our nature and the nature of
all life on earth… part of the essential aspect of biological life on earth…
so we can say that, nature for all life comes from this long ago
one cell amoeba… our essence…we are biological, not metaphysical…
this is our nature…and yet we exist as all life has existed within an
environment, another aspect of nature, with system upon system
being the land, sky, sea, air, plant life, animal life, all acting and interacting
upon each other… systems engaging with each other… this is nature…
and we are just another system engaging with other systems like the land,
sea, sky, air, plant life…etc. this is nature…a complex interwoven,
interdependent cycle of systems acting upon other systems… and this
is also nature…nature is our lungs breathing and our heart beating
and our blood circulating and our muscles and sinews and all that
makes up the human animal…
if you try to isolate nature into component parts, you fail to see
the essential aspect of nature which is connection between the various
systems, which is nature…nature is our essential operating system…
of which is also part of our essential operating systems of land, sea
and sky, air, so on and so forth…nature is within us and outside of
us…
Kropotkin