What is Nature?

How would you define nature?

Often times we think of "nature" as green, beautiful landscapes. We think of nature as "natural" and define a word with the very word we are trying to define.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (Man, I'm going to miss being a college student), nature is:

1. Senses relating to physical or bodily power, strength, or substance.
2. Senses relating to mental or physical impulses and requirements.
3.Senses relating to innate character.
4. Senses relating to the material world.

How does this help us to define what nature is? Nature is the sensory experience of bodily strength? Nature is our physical impulses or mental requirements? Nature is the senses related to who we really are? Nature is what is experienced in the material, tangible world?

Timothy Morton discusses how to disassociate our idea of nature as landscape and butterflies, for every aspect of our lives is nature. Just as music is about notes and sounds, music is also about the silences in between notes. Nature is not just what we see, but nature is the mere act of seeing something and the act of perceiving sight through sensory organs. By understanding nature as all of these things and not just pastoral images, ecology must take on new significance. I have no idea what Morton does with this newly constructed ecology as I have only read a chapter of his book, but I'll let you know when I do. (See for yourself: http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/, Zizek claims Morton's book is "Outstanding")

Why do I seek to define what nature is? I think we all too often put nature outside ourselves. We are Homo sapiens, of the Mammalia class, the order of Primates, the phylum Chordata and the Animalia kingdom. Thus, we are part of nature. Even me typing this into a computer is an action I've acquired through natural tendencies of the society I live in. Perhaps by seeing nature in all things, we can better see how intricately interrelated all of nature is and the dire need to resolve the ecological crises. If not for ethics, then we must better tend to our relatives plants, other animals and organic matter because their decline will lead in our own demise.