23 Reader Responses

1. Ran Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 6:26 pm

   Interesting argument! As an eco-spiritualist myself, this is where I turn to gnosticism or other theological systems that say, “Damn right, something has got into humans that’s not part of nature, and here’s what it is.”

   Still, I wouldn’t say we “fare no better.” We can always say, well, nature is fallible, nature fucked up. But most God-ists can’t stand to say that about God. That’s one thing I like about PKD — he’s not afraid to say that God might be fallible or insane.

2. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 6:39 pm

   Well, what about the argument that everything we’re doing now is merely an extension of nature - technology, civilization, etc? That maybe it’s nature’s weird faltering attempt to transform itself somehow? I’m not saying I buy into that argument, but what if nature has some crazy fucking hundred thousand year plan of which this current era is but an infinitessimally small part? A transhumanist might say that nature’s plan necessitates technology, etc so that life can leave the biosphere and spread to other planets. Again, it’s not necessarily my take on things, but the “Who can possibly comprehend the will of God/Nature?” argument at least opens a lot of questions and new perspectives…

3. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 6:43 pm

   I guess what I’m interested in via the above comment is: Is there a sound “eco-spiritualist” explanation that doesn’t resort to saying that there’s something inherently non-natural in humans? Cause as much as I like gnosticism, I find that idea hard to swallow. It also might suggest that if there’s something non-natural in us, that the only way to eradicate it would be to cause us to not exist. But can’t humans live more and less naturally?

   I’m also curious about trying to pin down what the ‘non-natural’ element might be - if there is one. I’d wager it has something to do with consciousness/language. If that’s what it is, then we’re still faced with the question of how did it arise in the first-place? How did a non-natural event intrude into natural events? It might be useful here to go back to the whole thing about the nature of “real” as being anything one experiences. How do we define nature? Is nature anything that exists? If it’s defined some other way, when did something stop being natural and start being unnatural?

4. alistair Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 7:24 pm

   the guilt thing is precisely what my dad and other theocrats made no sense with thier position regarding the good/bad duality. it`s similar to the santa clause thingy. makes sense to a six year old wishing for gifts……..i don`t think those performing ecclesiastic somesaults to make the bits fit actually believe what they say, anymore than parents talking about santa. but the credulous keep coming back for more each sunday.

5. prunesquallor Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 9:56 pm

   The problem was resolved for me personally by the Islamic concept of remembrance or dhikr. Sin is the result of “forgetfulness,” not imperfection or duality. “You have forgotten your first love.” This jibes really well with my intuition. On a larger scale, the deity has forgotten itself in the most totalistic way.

   God plays rough.

   But our hearts quicken at a glimpse of our long-forgotten Friend.

6. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 21st, 2005 at 9:59 pm

   Sin is the result of “forgetfulness,”

   That’s more or less the view of the Christian Scientists as well.

7. alistair Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 12:11 am

   eco-spiritualist? i`m not one to knock opinion but what does that mean? is that environmentalism rebadged? if you insist on seperating humans,or some humans, not including yourself, away from nature then you are the one who is creating evil in people, by your insistance. if i may ask, what do you feel that your eco-spirituality has done for the planet(ecosystem.). i, personally, don`t think that anything i can or will do could effect the planet one iota. i could interfere with the plans of some other people mind you. that`s entirely doable, but to effect change on a mass the size of a planet? gaia, if there is such an entity, would be capable of defending it`s self if it felt threatened by humans. i think the risk humans run by doing stupid ass shit on a global scale is to hurt themselves. not the big hot iron ball whizzing through space. it`ll be fine, unless it hits an asteroid. but here`s the thing. fuck all we can do about that…………………………………………… i`m going to talk to the racoons.

8. Ran Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 12:16 am

   …but what if nature has some crazy fucking hundred thousand year plan…

   Yes, I’ve thought about that many times. The fossil record shows a huge dieoff every 60 million years, and we’re right on schedule for one now. So one guess is that the biosphere likes to be “pruned back to the roots,” and this time we’re the mechanism. Another guess is that it knows the dieoff is coming anyway, so it has nothing to lose by setting us up to kill it back while serving some other purpose. I speculated about these and a few other ideas in
   21 Stories About Civilization.

   I’m also curious about trying to pin down what the ‘non-natural’ element might be - if there is one. I’d wager it has something to do with consciousness/language. If that’s what it is, then we’re still faced with the question of how did it arise in the first-place? How did a non-natural event intrude into natural events?

   That is a huge question! I could say, well, the Archons floated in from somewhere and infected us… but then, where did they come from? How did they get started? And then we’re right back to the old theological problem of evil.

9. Occult Investigator Says:
   July 22nd, 2005 at 12:21 am

   I’m gonna try and repackage this into a post of it’s own and continue the discussion there - but if anybody wants to respond to the original post or the points made below it, feel free to do so.

10. zacharius Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 12:32 am

    I actually sort of speculated on the ‘human pathology’ a while back, in relation to rudolph steiner, lucifer and the impulse towards progess…

    http://goldenbraid.blogspot.com/2005/0...infectious-derangements-part-iii.html

11. Ran Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 12:34 am

    (Alistair wrote)

    what do you feel that your eco-spirituality has done for the planet

    I know that it is motivating people to form and join ecological communities that have a good chance to save some species through the dieoff (like the story of Noah) and to help restore life after the dieoff more quickly than nature could do alone.

    i think the risk humans run by doing stupid ass shit on a global scale is to hurt themselves

    This is a specific form of a general idea that I think is just a way of avoiding responsibility: “People who do bad are ultimately just hurting themselves” (so I don’t have to do anything about it). I think it’s pretty clear that people really can and do hurt others, not just themselves, and therefore we have the responsibilty to intervene. We need to face the disturbing possibility that life on Earth really does hang on our actions. Talking to the raccoons is a great idea! You should ask them if they want to stay on this planet, and if they want your help, and listen to what they say.

12. Alec Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 12:44 am

    The premise that isn’t being questioned here is that “nature” is inherently good and anything that is “unnatural” is inherently bad. It’s a fine belief to have, but it is a belief, one with serious consequences once you start dividing things up into “natural” and “unnatural” (kind of like distinguishing the real humans from the reptiles).

    It’s no good mixing logic with articles of faith and matters of opinion, at least not without laying all the cards on the table. Nature produced humans, humans produced the ozone hole, therefore nature (indirectly) produced the ozone hole. Simple, logical. But since we want to believe that nature can’t produce anything “bad,” and since we have the opinion that the ozone hole is bad, we try to invent premises that aren’t grounded in logic in order to logically short circuit the original statement. It’s kind of disingenuous.

    Apart from that: are we saying that there’s something unnatural about humans because humans harm the environment? There are a lot of things that have been or could be a lot more destructive to our environment than fossil fuels and industrial waste. Supervolcanos, asteroids, supernovae. True, a global thermonuclear war would be up there, but we haven’t actually done that yet. Besides, nuclear winter couldn’t compete with a black hole. If there’s any life anywhere else in the universe, you can bet a whole lot of it has been sucked up into black holes. Those folks probably called the black hole unnatural.

    So, yeah, I think humans are natural and everything we do is natural, though it’s kind of a semantic argument. To even suggest that humans could be unnatural or have some unnatural aspect is to define “natural” in such a way that something (anything that exists) is capable of being unnatural. Maybe the reality we experience is, in fact, formed by the intersection of two hyperdimensional entities, one perfectly formed to God’s specifications, one damaged or half-baked. Is the damaged one “unnatural?” If so, that’s how you can define natural/unnatural, but I might just as well say that the damaged entity is just as natural as anything else. Semantics.

    Getting back to the quote, if you want to come out against the ozone hole, you can do so without casting everything in terms of good and evil. Just say you value the ability to go outside without being burned alive: most people will share this value.

13. Alec Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 12:52 am

    Oops, took too long writing. When I started, alistair’s second comment wasn’t up. Didn’t mean to pile on Ran or anything (much respect; really dig your novel).

14. zacharius Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 12:53 am

    the problem is there is no clear way of specifying the boundaries of the system, short of the universe in it’s entirety, and perhaps not even then.

    even if you postulate that the earth is inherently self interested and would not generate self destructive manifestations ( in spite of the fact the pretty much every other life form is capable of doing so) it still leaves open influences from outside the gaia system itself.

    i’ve no reason to doubt the earth is an organism working out it’s own evolution, but it’s undoubtedly part of an ecosystem of stellar and planetary influences that may effect it in all kinds of ways

15. Occult Investigator » Is Humanity Unnatural? Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 1:20 am

    […] ge!

    Is Humanity Unnatural?

    In response to my latest bit on Ken Wilber, a really interesting debate began. To paraphra […]

16. Ran Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 1:40 am

    To even suggest that humans could be unnatural or have some unnatural aspect is to define “natural” in such a way that something (anything that exists) is capable of being unnatural.

    Damn right! If you define “natural” so that everything is natural, you render the word useless, and you reduce the power of language. Does a doctor does define “health” so that everything is healthy? Of course not! For the same reason, I define “natural” so that some things are natural and some things are not. Roughly I define it as “in symbiosis with the biosphere,” which humans, right now, are not! I don’t need to believe that nature is all good, or perfect, but on the whole I think it’s obviously good because most of its participants are enjoying it, and it’s not harming anything outside itself. Nature is the largest thing that passes both of those tests, and my morality is to serve the largest good that I can perceive.

17. Occult Investigator Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 2:12 am

    If you define “natural” so that everything is natural, you render the word useless, and you reduce the power of language.

    Why? Maybe we just need a different word, or maybe the definition needs to be less restrictive? Why is your definition more valid (or useful) than one that’s all-inclusive?

    Roughly I define it as “in symbiosis with the biosphere,” which humans, right now, are not!

    Devil’s advocate: can you conclusively prove that humans are out of symbiosis with the biosphere as a whole?

    Nature is the largest thing that passes both of those tests, my morality is to serve the largest good that I can perceive.

    Does morality then arise from the biosphere or does it come from somewhere else? How can you be sure your morality isn’t detrimental in the long term to the biosphere?

18. Alec Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 2:43 am

    If you define “natural” as “anything that exists,” you’re excluding those things that don’t or cannot exist. And if you pressed me, I’d limit “natural” to those things that do not violate physical laws (one possible definition of “exists”), with the understanding that humans have an incomplete understanding of those laws. This further distinguishes what is natural from those things that we (currently) consider “supernatural,” namely ghosts, the soul and that sort of thing, granting that what is considered supernatural will change as our understanding of physical laws changes.

    I do like your definition, too, however (as posted by Tim). I just don’t use the word that way.

    I don’t need to believe that nature is all good, or perfect, but on the whole I think it’s obviously good because most of its participants are enjoying it, and it’s not harming anything outside itself.

    The same could be said of autoerotic asphyxiation. Just a little … joke.

    Nature is the largest thing that passes both of those tests, and my morality is to serve the largest good that I can perceive.

    I can dig that. Just depends on one’s perceptions, then. Since humans are unnatural by virtue of not being in symbiosis with the biosphere, would it be moral to kill a person if doing so would prevent harm coming to Nature? If not, would it be moral to damage a machine like a logging truck for a similar reason? If so, why, given that machines and people are both unnatural? Or are some things more unnatural than others?

19. alistair Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 9:29 am

    not piling on ran per se, more the idea that humans actually caused ozone layer fluctuations in the first place. the planet has been reacting to the effects of big energy systems like the sun and the electro-magnetic energy of space for billions of years. industry has been polluting for 150 years or so, not including “natural” toxifiers such as forest fires and volcanoes, some of which cool the air temperature of the planet for decades. it is the self hate of certain word structures used by certain types of thought that suggest that we can take some sort of higher moral responsibility in this issue. individual responsibility works. don`t buy spray cans or drive cars, if you feel purposeful, but please don`t challenge the riights of others to make choices for themselves. more damage has been done by that single mechanism that any ozone depletion or fossil fuel emmisions.

20. alistair Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 9:30 am

    my sincere apologies for any ad hominem phrasiology.

21. Occult Investigator Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 am

    Since humans are unnatural by virtue of not being in symbiosis with the biosphere, would it be moral to kill a person if doing so would prevent harm coming to Nature?

    Excellent question!

22. alistair Says:
    July 22nd, 2005 at 2:06 pm

    who`s to judge, who`s to jury the process and who`s to execute the plan? seems a bit of a mask for agression.imo.

23. Occult Investigator » Ken Wilber Critique, Part 8 Says:
    July 25th, 2005 at 2:50 pm

    […]

    Ken Wilber Critique, Part 8

    Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 What Color Is Your Soul? Sorry to keep hammer […]