What is Nature?

I went on a Philosophy Hike last Saturday afternoon. If you're wondering what that is, it's just a bunch of people hiking, discussing things in a philosophical manner. And if you're wondering what a philosophical manner entails, then it's just asking a bunch of questions.

This seminar series was titled "Walk and Talk: On Nature" hosted by my old philosophy professor, his colleagues, The Public Philosophy Project, and The New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

This seminar discussed perception and nature.

What do you think nature is?

Most people tend to go off into two different categories. Either discussing nature as a function, such as "human nature" or "the nature of that animal is to be a herbivore". The other category is nature as it surrounds us, in its physical state: the woods for example.

As my professor put it, nature is a set of principles that has the properties to influence and protential to be something else. And that protential already resides within an objects properties. A tree has the protentional to become a wooden chair because it has the properties to do so. A lot of cis-gender woman have the potential to become of a mother because the object already has the properties within it.

So really nature is a mixture of both those ideas/ categories.

Nature comes from the Latin word natura, "or essential qualities, innate disposition".

So this is cool and all if you're a word freak, but what is to be learned and understood from a philosophical nature hike?

Nature surrounds us daily. Scientists have their set of arguments that explain the way nature operates. Where philosophers come in, is that they have their set of questions that target those already "set" ideas in order to eliminate any precarious positions.

This is a video of a beaver returning to its home after my friend and I were nosy, looking inside.

As mentioned earlier, this seminar discussed perception too. Perception is to be aware of something via the senses.

This is where the talk alluded to the stigma that philosophers just sit and ask rabbit hole questions. And to clarify that stigma: it's not a stigma because it's real. But what's not real, is the notion that asking rabbit hole questions get us no where- because it does and it's crucial to truly understanding the basis of EVERYTHING.

How do we know where nature is? Is a tree really there or do we just associate nature with trees, and our mind just imagines a tree? How do we know that a tree is green and brown to everyone? The most important question this seminar regarding to perception and nature is: Do we have access to nature as it really is or does our perception distort things?

I absolutely love this question so much. So beautifully constructed. I don't have a solid answer for this question, and I think it would be wrong if I did. What I do have, is a solid set of ideas that at least gear me towards a better understanding of perception in relation to actual reality, and certainly towards a more grateful heart for nature and the mind.

I think we do have access to nature as it really is and that perception also distorts it. It's a tango dance between each of our very unique human experiences and life as a whole.

What do you think?