Nice read. Although I respectfully disagree with the point at large. Anthropocentricity here is unfalsifiable. We can conclude we don’t know enough yet about how to view non-human consciousness and May or may not fall into anthropocentric projections. I get how the world makes us cynical, but cynicism too is a disservice to truth. All said, I do like what you write and mean well.
Really great piece. Respectfully disagree with your conclusions at the end, but you’ve got me thinking. I guess I’m curious on your thoughts about this distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Is this a line we can even draw? I’m thinking of the 10,000 species of microorganisms in our bodies that allow us to live for example.
"The point is that nature actually is competitive and ruthless. It's also cooperative and mutualistic." And also, surely the point is that we are nature too, we are also all of these things, we are all part of the same thing, and are nothing without each other. We can't rise above nature, because we are nature.
There is a prevalent, base assumption that "the natural state" of things are an ideal to strive for. Which may be true in some specific circumstances, but another truth is that nature begets incredible amounts of suffering and anguish. There isn't malice in nature, but that doesn't mean there is no pain.
I enjoy your writing and observation that we use nature to justify our expansionist, consumerist, and capitalist ideologies. Thank you for sharing.
Hey Ben, I love your work! Enjoyed this piece. I am just as skeptical as the next guy when it comes to claims of anthropomorphism. And I fully agree that we have a tendency to weave stories about nature to our own confirmation bias. However, I would like to challenge your idea of consciousness. While I agree that trees do not “talk”or posses consciousness in any human-centered definition of the word, I do think it is dangerous when we start to “other” ourselves from the rest of the living world. That is also a mark of human-exceptionalism. “Being Salmon, Being Human” by Martin Lee Mueller is a great book that covers a lot about this topic and how Indigenous storytelling can aid in creating a new philosophy of the human “self” in the time of the Anthropocene. Highly recommend, I think you would enjoy it :)
One thing we know to be true, we can talk to trees and it makes us feel more alive.
Thanks for sharing! Very interesting
👍🏽
Nice read. Although I respectfully disagree with the point at large. Anthropocentricity here is unfalsifiable. We can conclude we don’t know enough yet about how to view non-human consciousness and May or may not fall into anthropocentric projections. I get how the world makes us cynical, but cynicism too is a disservice to truth. All said, I do like what you write and mean well.
Really great piece. Respectfully disagree with your conclusions at the end, but you’ve got me thinking. I guess I’m curious on your thoughts about this distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Is this a line we can even draw? I’m thinking of the 10,000 species of microorganisms in our bodies that allow us to live for example.
"The point is that nature actually is competitive and ruthless. It's also cooperative and mutualistic." And also, surely the point is that we are nature too, we are also all of these things, we are all part of the same thing, and are nothing without each other. We can't rise above nature, because we are nature.
There is a prevalent, base assumption that "the natural state" of things are an ideal to strive for. Which may be true in some specific circumstances, but another truth is that nature begets incredible amounts of suffering and anguish. There isn't malice in nature, but that doesn't mean there is no pain.
I enjoy your writing and observation that we use nature to justify our expansionist, consumerist, and capitalist ideologies. Thank you for sharing.
Hey Ben, I love your work! Enjoyed this piece. I am just as skeptical as the next guy when it comes to claims of anthropomorphism. And I fully agree that we have a tendency to weave stories about nature to our own confirmation bias. However, I would like to challenge your idea of consciousness. While I agree that trees do not “talk”or posses consciousness in any human-centered definition of the word, I do think it is dangerous when we start to “other” ourselves from the rest of the living world. That is also a mark of human-exceptionalism. “Being Salmon, Being Human” by Martin Lee Mueller is a great book that covers a lot about this topic and how Indigenous storytelling can aid in creating a new philosophy of the human “self” in the time of the Anthropocene. Highly recommend, I think you would enjoy it :)