IV. THE NATURE OF NATURE

In some sense, I have already been speaking of nature, since persons are, at least, a part of nature. But on any definition, there is a great deal more to nature than humanity. Anyone who happened to be reading my blogs two years ago might well have noticed a series of seven posts under the general title, “Reflections of a Humanist on Modern Science and Our Relationship with Nature.” Without surprise, some of what appeared there will, in some form, inevitably fall here in the context of my World View. As I noted then, there is no “bottom line” in nature, no deepest place where it all makes tidy sense. “Out there” we meet the curvature of space and time, and “down there”, the strange mirage-like character of elementary particles—some of which seem as disembodied as the grin of the Chesire Cat.  And in the middle-size world the strangest phenomena are the most familiar things of all—the self-awareness that each of us has and the mysterious frontier along which the mental and physical worlds meet.

Then let me borrow from those earlier posts an approach to our relationship with nature that references and takes seriously the discoveries and advances of the sciences but which also portrays, from a humanist perspective, our three-fold relationship to nature:

• We are both a part of nature and observers of nature
• We are stewards of nature
• We are recipients of aesthetic gifts from nature

In the first place, then, when I speak of nature—the physical universe—I am speaking of something I believe to be objectively real, something which is “out there.” Yet it is a reality which, to some significant degree, is altered and ordered in the human process of perceiving it. I think I can illustrate that in two ways, one from the philosophical tradition and the other from the scientific.

From the British empirical tradition represented by John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume, and from Immanuel Kant, I have learned something about the active creativity of the human mind. For example, since we cannot possibly take in all the welter of “facts” with which our senses, our minds, and our intuitive creativity are bombarded daily, we pick and choose what we can, and order it and interpret it according to our background, training, interests, and values—in other words, as noted in the previous post, we “filter and funnel” it. From a rich variety of “givens,” we create a common-sense world that has meaning for us by a process that is largely unconscious.

The physicist, on the other hand, by highly conscious and formal processes, has also created a world from the gross “givens” that are out there, and has described that world to us in categories that have little or no relationship to the common-sense world of experience—i.e in “models” such as molecules, atoms, neutrons, protons, quarks, energy, etc. While we do not “see” them, we can see the apparent results of their actions, interactions, and even human manipulations upon the world we experience.

Science has brought us to the place, in trying to describe and explain the natural order, that we cannot even imagine it. Who can imagine a four-dimensional, curved cosmos with time and space so comingled that one cannot tell at what point “whenness” leaves off and “whereness” begins? That may be put down in a mathematical formula, but it cannot be pictured. Or, for that matter, who can imagine a neutron star, a pulsar, collapsing on itself until a piece of it the size of a sugar cube contains a mass equal to Pike’s Peak—to say nothing of Black Holes with infinite density?

And take this statement, for example: “A helium atom, going eighteen thousand miles a second through a glass wall without leaving a trace of its transit. . . .”  Is that a true statement? I don’t know.  Although it came from a reliable source some 45-50 years ago, the answer would no doubt depend on a number of factors—what we know now about the speed of the helium atom at the time it encountered the glass wall, how it was projected, the density of the glass, what else we have learned about helium atoms in the last half-century, etc., etc.  But even if it is—or was—true, such an encounter might be thought, but it can hardly be imagined.  The universe is still full of mystery, and the conclusions of science, however strongly we trust it, can in one generation—even in one year—be contradicted, changed, or reversed in the next. The tenacity of science in the face of deductions or inferences reversed/replaced is clearly what Loren Eiseley—as committed a naturalist as one can imagine—had in mind when he wrote this poem, entitled “His Own True Shadow:”

Just fifty years ago we thought ourselves

I have started with these observations in order to underscore my contention that beliefs and judgments about meaning—even those that masquerade as descriptions—are human judgments and one must begin with those. One might infer from that, as I do, that nature is open, amenable, pliable to the human quest for meaning, even when what is “true” today may have to be tossed aside as “sticks” tomorrow. But one could also contend, as I do, that it is too simple to say that meaning and order are “out there.” Meaning and order are human categories, we ourselves are part of the meaning and order that we seek in nature, and unless the meaning and order are “in here,” we can know little or nothing about whether it is “out there.”

That said, in the second place, we are a part of the natural order and part of our responsibility to persons is a responsibility to nature—we not only dwell in nature, we also transform it by the way we use it, sometimes for the better, but sometimes not! So why should we consider ourselves stewards—keepers, custodians—of nature? As noted in a previous post, one reason clearly arises from the evolutionary point of view—i.e. we are (at least as far as I know) the only sentient and prescient creatures able to act based upon an ability to be reflective, able to consider the effect our actions may have on the environment rather than acting simply on genetic impulse or a neurological trigger.

Thus, when nature is harmed and misused, persons, in the long run, will be harmed and misused. Environmental concerns are therefore also central to my World View. Confronted as we are with climate change, global warming—call it what you will—undeniably threatening things are happening in our global world, from the stratosphere, to the atmosphere in which we humans and all wildlife live and breathe, to all terrestrial, insect and microbial life. Whereas nature once frightened us with her mysterious vastness, it now frightens us with its limitations and a new-found fragility. I do not claim to be an expert on these issues, but whatever causes may lie beyond our control, it is virtually certain that human actions are responsible for some critical parts of these environmental menaces. For example:

The depletion of the ozone layer—due, among other things, to automobile exhaust emissions and chemicals present is cleaning products—causes increased UV radiation levels at the Earth’s surface, which is damaging to human health, and is linked to bothheat-trapping gases that keep the planet toastier than it would be without them, known as the‘greenhouse effect’, and, therefore, also to the phenomenon of ‘global warming’.  Deforestationis significant because ofthemultiple ecological role of forests, which, if destroyed, affect all types of life in a variety of ways—e.g. soil erosion, floods, wind erosion, and groundwater evaporation. Loss of biodiversity, i.e. the minimizing of the variety of life on earth, is caused, among other things, by loss of habitat and by chemical fertilizers, pesticides and oil pollution. Water Pollutionhas multiple causes but among them are the thousands of tons of mercury, nitrogen, phosphorus, cadmium, lead, zinc and other waste that is dumped every day in river and sea waters. Note that in each of these issues—and others I’m sure you could add—it is human action or inaction that is a major contributing factor to problems being foisted on the natural world. We are faced quite uncompromisingly with the problem of how to stop, or at least moderate, the destructive effect of those human actions which violate the laws of nature. As my friend, Guy Sayles, put it so profoundly, it is our task “to care for creation as a home in which generations after us will live and not as a warehouse of expendable resources for our reckless use” (Mars Hill University Commencement address, 5/11/19).

*[Should you choose to read them—and I urge you to do so—look to the Appendix below for some poetic words from Loren Eiseley that are graphically and poignantly appropriate to the point just made.]

And third—drawn mostly from the aforementioned previous post, with apologies to those who may have read it, along with the arrogant notion that they might  even recall it:  We are recipients of aesthetic gifts from nature.Simply put, nature provides for many, perhaps most of us, moments and sometimes hours of enjoyment—ranging from simple appreciation to heart-breaking thrill—in the presence of nature’s beauty, fascinating order, dizzying diversity, and if we are fortunate enough to find it, a display unspoiled by human touch.

Every time I go to the beach or take a flight to travel abroad, I fall in love with the sea again. I’ve never fully recovered from the stunning impression the ocean made on me when, already in my late twenties, I saw it for the first time—its depth, its vastness as it disappeared over the horizon.

The natural world itself—in its massiveness, its splendor, its awesomeness—can offer overpowering moments of a sense of connection to “something beyond,” and I have been fortunate enough to be caught up in the wonders of our National Parks—Yellowstone and Glacier—the fjords of Norway, the “Outback” and rain forests of Australia, the mountains, glaciers, and Sounds of New Zealand, and many others from various parts of the world that I need not name.

They are all unforgettable, and yet my most recurrent meditative and appreciative connections with nature occur simply sitting on our deck, looking out gratefully over our spacious fenced in back yard—we call it “the back forty”—surrounded by its “green screen” with the bird calls from the trees, wild turkeys and deer in the woods, squirrels and bunnies scampering about, our two dogs enjoying their “kingdom,” and with the Blue Ridge Mountains visible beyond.

And, as mentioned in the previous post, who has not been caught up in an ecstatic experience of “something more” in the beauty of a piece of music, art, theatre, or, to come back full circle, a transformative “magic moment” in a loving human relationship. But those, you might say, are not “nature.” Oh, but they are—human creations? Yes, but we, remember, are also a part of nature!

To return, then, to our role as both a part and observer of nature, I can affirm the investigations and advances in our understanding of the natural world asthe legitimate province of the sciences and—as noted in the previous post—I accept the consensus of the scientific community regarding the origin of the universe and the evolutionary development and continuity of life.

**[I invite you to have a look at the final offering in the Appendix for a “glimpse” into that developmental process from—one more time—Loren Eiseley, who  says it far better than I can!]

That said, however, I reject the notion of science as the only valid approach toour understanding of the world. Science need not, must not, use a Supreme Being as a hypothesis in its explorations, but it is not, in my judgment, incompatible with the view that the universe and the processes that science studies are the result of a “Great Initiator.” The following excerpt from Loren Eiseley indicates that even a committed naturalist, which he clearly is, can comfortably “leave the door open” for such a possibility.

“We cannot know all that has happened in the past, or the reason for all of these events, any more than we can with surety discern what lies ahead. . . . It is interesting to consider [that] we . . might . . . never have existed at all. . . Perhaps there also, among rotting fish heads and blue, night-burning bog lights, moved the eternal mystery, the careful finger of God. . . .We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or learn all that we hunger to know.”

(from The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature , pp. 48-53 [contextual arrangement mine])

Either the universe had no beginning—even the “Big Bang” had to “bang” Something—or it was initiated by a Supreme Being that had no beginning. I can choose between these alternatives but we are dealing with “the eternal” either way and, while we can say that, we, as persons whose experience is bounded by time and space, cannot truly grasp the reality of eternal entities. So I can choose to believe that the natural world is “dependent,” not self-sufficient, and that the conclusions of science are the “ways of an Eternal Being” (by whatever name) that we have partially charted. At that point, I must fall back on my reverent agnosticism—I can choose to “believe” but I cannot “know.”

Since I have already begun to speak of God, I will leave the subject of nature with one final observation—with some embarrassment about all I have left unsaid—and proceed in my next post to the final topic.

I must acknowledge with a heavy heart the tragedy of the many in our world—the disabled, the disenfranchised, those discriminated against, the poor who struggle from day to day—who do not have “a back yard” nor the time, the means, or the ability to engage with nature in a way that appreciates its beauty rather than its threat to their well-being. I close, then with the following from Diane Ackerman, and the devout wish that all were able to embrace it:

“The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one’s curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.  Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length.  It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what savage and beautiful country lies in between” A Natural History of the Senses, 1990).

Appendix:

               *This . . .

Habitat grassy plains, jackrabbits . . . .

Trapped against fences now, beaten to death by clubs

At fancy gatherings . . . .

                                                                           Ah well

this is the blind world swerving to its end, all balance gone . . . .

Sometimes on winter nights before my window

I lift a hand against the draft . . . The night wind blows on my hand

                                                                             But will not tell

Even the method by which the world was changed . . . .

I close the window, know that fuel grows scarce,

Watch the uneasy landlords, know

That nature is deathly in return . . . .

(from “Watch the Uneasy Landlords,” The Innocent Assassins, pp. 37-38.)

*And this . . . .

In the November light on the drab thoroughfare it passed me,

silvering the grey day with its tiny shimmering perfection,

a small planet,

life seed, thistledown,

journeying the wrong way toward the city’s heart.

It was all alone on a slight wind, had come

many miles perhaps

                                      And it brought memories

to me who could bear none.

I took it gently from the air, walking

onward for blocks, seeking

a place where it could bed for the winter and be given

a chance to grow.

I had a home once where such things

happened by nature without human intervention.

Here I walked by car lots, highways,

I walked by pruned hedges, by formal gardens.

I knew if I dropped the seed its life would perish

either at once or be quickly weeded

from all the delicate, suburban gardens.

I tramped so long fear took me;

                                 My hand was cramped from carrying the seed,

where could I put it?

                    I was like the last knowing man

carrying the last vital thing,

                 The last feral seed nursed in his hand,

the last wild chance in the universe.

                Desperate I walked,

                a mad anxiety heightening my pulse.

In the curve of an old wall where the leaves

                              were obviously never gathered

                                                  I buried it

                                                  hoping for a resurrection.

The snows will come and the rains, but what have we done,

                                                   how have we come to this:

that someone, even I, must think, and not nature,

         thoughts for the winter sleep of the last thistledown?

(“Desperate I Walked,” The Innocent Assassins, pp. 25-26)

**And, finally, this . . .

“They fell out of the trees,” he said . . . .“What were they doing sitting up there in bunches? I ask you. It’s no place for a fish. . . . A fish belongs in the water. . . . It ought to stay there. . .

It began as such things always begin—in the ooze of unnoticed swamps, in the darkness of eclipsed moons. It began with a strangled gasping for air. . . .

   On the oily surface of the pond, from time to time a snout thrust upward, took in air with a queer grunting inspiration, and swirled back to the bottom. The pond was doomed, but the creature would not die. It could breathe air direct through a little accessory lung, and it could walk. . . . rarely and under protest, but that was not surprising. The creature was a fish. . . .

   There was something fermenting in the brain of the Snout. He was no longer entirely a fish. . . . Though he breathed and walked primarily in order to stay in the water, he was coming ashore. . . something had happened back of his eyes. . . . 

   It is interesting to consider [that] we, the remote descendants of the Snout, might . . . never have existed at all. It was the Snout and the ooze that did it. Perhaps there also, among rotting fish heads and blue, night-burning bog lights, moved the eternal mystery, the careful finger of God. The increase was not much. . . . two thin-walled little balloons at the end of the Snout’s small brain. The cerebral hemispheres had appeared. . . .

 The world is fixed, we say: fish in the sea, birds in the air. But in the mangrove swamps by the Niger, . . . . There are things still coming ashore. . . .

(from The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature, pp. 48-53.)