Importance of Nature / Gaia

Metaphysics / Philosophy / Physics of Gaia

All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature.
(Zeno, 300 - 260 B.C.)

Constantly think of the Universe as one living creature, embracing one being and one soul; how all is absorbed into the one consciousness of this living creature; how it compasses all things with a single purpose, and how all things work together to cause all that comes to pass, and their wonderful web and texture. (Marcus Aurelius, 170 A.D.)

We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow (Spinoza, 1673)

Modern man no longer regards Nature as being in any sense divine and feels perfectly free to behave towards her as an overwhelming conqueror and tyrant. (Aldous Huxley)

Oh what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox! This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the Earth, and sun, and stars - and love, poor blossom, we plucked from its stem on the tree of life, and expected it to keep on blooming in our civilised vase on the table.
(D.H. Lawrence)

I consider that this shift [to an emphasis on our “capacity to identify with the larger collective of all beings” ] is essential to our survival at this point in history precisely because it can serve in lieu of morality and because moralising is ineffective. Sermons seldom hinder us from pursuing our self-interest, so we need to be a little more enlightened about what our self-interest is. It would not occur to me, for example, to exhort you to refrain from cutting off your leg. That wouldn’t occur to me or to you, because your leg is part of you. Well, so are the trees in the Amazon Basin; they are our external lungs. We are just beginning to wake up to that. We are gradually discovering that we are our world. (Joanna Macy)

We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching
of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature. (Henry David Thoreau)

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature. (Mikhail Gorbachev)

When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.
(Henri Matisse)

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Humanity has become disconnected from Nature in our modern world of cities, cars and economics. The 'particle' conception of matter has contributed to this incorrect conception of self, founding the illusion that we exist as discrete bodies without relations to all other matter. Recent discoveries on the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) show that human beings do not exist in isolation, but are in fact structures of the Universe. Thus they do not have dominion over the earth and all living things by divine decree, on the contrary, Humans are intimately interconnected both to all other matter in the cosmos, and to all other life on Earth. It was the realisation of how rapidly Nature was being destroyed on this planet which led me to the study of Philosophy and Physics, and to understanding the Wave Structure of Matter.

As Humans have evolved from Nature they ultimately depend upon Nature for their survival. Until we understand what we are as humans (what matter is) and how we are connected to the universe (reality), it is impossible for humanity to be wise, and to be able to evolve cultural knowledge that enables us to live in Harmony with Nature. And so I have come to believe that humans are endangered animals / species while they do not understand true knowledge of reality (their true connection to Nature) and act in ways that destroy Nature and consequently themselves.
As Freya Matthews (Deep Ecologist) writes;

What is wrong with our culture is that it offers us an inaccurate conception of the self. It depicts the personal self as existing in competition with and in opposition to nature. [We fail to realise that] if we destroy our environment, we are destroying what is in fact our larger self. (Freya Matthew)

Deep Ecology is a movement which promotes an awareness of the oneness and interconnection of all life and its cycles of change and transformation. We can now understand this perpetual change as being caused by the Wave Structure of Matter. Thus the Deep Ecologists realisation that All is One and Interconnected is correct (it is Space which connects all things) and the error has been the conception of matter as discrete particles (which obviously does not explain matter's activity / flux nor its interconnection).

'All is One and Interconnected' is not a new idea, its foundation lies with the ancient philosophers. For thousands of years, philosophers have gazed at the stars and known that One thing must exist that is common to and connects the Many things within the Universe. As Leibniz profoundly says;

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz, 1670)

Albert Einstein also had a good understanding of humans as an inseparable part of the One, as he writes;

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe ... We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein)

Unfortunately (and most likely tragically), this knowledge of our interconnection to the Universe (Nature, God) has been lost (or is naively considered as not important) to modern day humanity. We are 'bleeding at the roots because we are cut off from the Earth' as D. H. Lawrence writes.
Sincerely,
Geoff Haselhurst

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What is Gaia? by James Lovelock

Most of us sense that the Earth is more than a sphere of rock with a thin layer of air, ocean and life covering the surface. We feel that we belong here as if this planet were indeed our home. Long ago the Greeks, thinking this way, gave to the Earth the name Gaia or, for short, Ge. In those days, science and theology were one and science, although less precise, had soul. As time passed this warm relationship faded and was replaced by the frigidity of the schoolmen. The life sciences, no longer concerned with life, fell to classifying dead things and even to vivisection. Ge was stolen from theology to become no more the root from which the disciplines of geography and geology were named. Now at last there are signs of a change. Science becomes holistic again and rediscovers soul, and theology, moved by ecumenical forces, begins to realise that Gaia is not to be subdivided for academic convenience and that Ge is much more than just a prefix.

The new understanding has come from going forth and looking back to see the Earth from space. The vision of that splendid white flecked blue sphere stirred us all, no matter that by now it is almost a visual cliche. It even opens the mind's eye, just as a voyage away from home enlarges the perspective of our love for those who remain there.

The first impact of those voyages was the sense of wonder given to the astronauts and to us as we shared their experience vicariously through television, but at the same time the Earth was viewed from outside by the more objective gaze of scientific instruments. These devices were quite impervious to human emotion yet they also sent back the information that let us see the Earth as a strange and beautiful anomaly. They showed our planet is made of the same elements and in much the same proportions as are Mars and Venus, but they also revealed our sibling planets to be bare and barren and as different from the Earth as a robin from a rock.

We now see that the air, the ocean and the soil are much more than a mere environment for life; they are a part of life itself. Thus the air is to life just as is the fur to a cat or the nest for a bird. Not living but something made by living things to protect against an otherwise hostile world. For life on Earth the air is our protection against the cold depths and fierce radiations of space.

There is nothing unusual in the idea of life on Earth interacting with the air, sea and rocks, but it took a view from outside to glimpse the possibility that this combination might consist of a single giant living system and one with the capacity to keep the Earth always at a state most favorable for the life upon it.

An entity comprising a whole planet and with a powerful capacity to regulate the climate needs a name to match. It was the novelist William Golding who proposed the name Gaia. Gladly we accepted his suggestion and Gaia is also the name of the hypothesis of science which postulates that the climate and the composition of the Earth always are close to an optimum for whatever life inhabits it.

The evidence gathered in support of Gaia is now considerable but as is often the way of science, this is less important than is its use as a kind of looking glass for seeing the world differently, and which makes us ask new questions about the nature of Earth.

If we are "all creatures great and small," from bacteria to whales, part of Gaia then we are all of us potentially important to her well being. We knew in our hearts that the destruction of a whole ranges of other species was wrong but now we know why. No longer can we merely regret the passing of one of the great whales, or the blue butterfly, nor even the smallpox virus. When we eliminate one of these from Earth, we may have destroyed a part of ourselves, for we also are a part of Gaia.

There are many possibilities for comfort as there are for dismay in contemplating the consequences of our membership in this great commonwealth of living things. It may be that one role we play is as the senses and nervous system for Gaia. Through our eyes she has for the first time seen her very fair face and in our minds become aware of herself. We do indeed belong here. The earth is more than just a home, it's a living system and we are part of it.

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Gaia Theory / Articles

James Lovelock has developed the "Gaia theory" over the last twenty-five years as a scientific claim that the earth's "biota", tightly coupled with its environment, acts (and has acted since life on earth developed any complexity) as a single, self regulating living system in such a way as to maintain the conditions that are suitable for life. The system includes the near-surface rocks and atmosphere. In particular, it regulates the chemistry of the oceans, composition of the atmosphere and surface temperature

The Gaia theory suggests that, in some sense, the earth is "alive". Lovelock writes:

I recognise that to view the Earth as if it were alive is just a convenient, but different, way of organising the facts of the Earth. I am of course prejudiced in favour of Gaia and have filled my life for the past twenty-five years with the thought that Earth may be alive: not as the ancients saw her—a sentient Goddess with a purpose and foresight—but alive like a tree. A tree that quietly exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil. Using sunlight and water and nutrient minerals to grow and change. But all done so imperceptibly, that to me the old oak tree on the green is the same as it was when I was a child. (James Lovelock, Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine, Gaia Books Limited, London, 1991)

The idea of a living earth is ancient. Plato wrote:

We shall affirm that the cosmos, more than anything else, resembles most closely that living Creature of which all other living creatures, severally or genetically, are portion; a living creature which is fairest of all and in ways most perfect. (Plato)

Gaia, goddess and earth mother, the Anima Mundi - the "world soul", the idea of "spirit" in things - we have only lost this understanding since Descartes and the coming of objective science. There were some advocates of a living earth even in the scientific period: James Hutton (earth as a super-organism, a physiological system), Lamark, Goethe, Humbolt and the (little known until recently) Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky who introduced the concept of the biosphere, recognised matter as "living", life as "a geological force" and the atmosphere as an extension of life.

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Quotes on One, Nature, Gaia & Humanity
Quotations from Heraclitus, Rig Veda, Gottfried Leibniz, Fritjof Capra, David Suzuki, Joanna Macy, Oscar Wilde, Spinoza, Zeno & Aristotle

All things come out of the One and the One out of all things. (Heraclitus, 500BC)

Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz, 1670)

Though One, Brahman is the cause of the many.
.. Brahman is the unborn (aja) in whom all existing things abide. The One manifests as the many, the formless putting on forms.
(Rig Veda)

Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray. (Kabir)

The Universe is Brahman, the One that underlies and make possible all the multiplicity; the universal consciousness that is the soul of all existence. It is the primordial no-thingness from which all things arise, the one reality whose oneness is all-inclusive; and includes all that is, or shall be. It is Brahman; the source of the entire cosmos and all cosmic activities relating to the emergence, existence and dissolution of the terrestrial phenomena that form the cosmic rhythm. And this ultimate reality is One- absolute and indeterminable. (Sudhakar S.D. I am All)

That which we call Nature is therefore the power which permeates and preserves the whole universe, and this power is not devoid of sense and reason. Every being which is not homogeneous and simple but complex and composite must have in it some organising principle. In man this organising principle is reason and in animals it is a power akin to reason, and from this arises all purpose and desire. (Cicero)

So we see that the parts of the world (for there is nothing in the world which is not a part of the universe as a whole) have sense and reason. So these must be present to a higher and greater degree in that part which provides the organising principle of the whole world. So the universe must be a rational being and the Nature which permeates and embraces all things must be endowed with reason in its highest form. And so God and the world of Nature must be one, and all the life of the world must be contained within the being of God. (Cicero)

The most important characteristic of the Eastern world view - one could almost say the essence of it - is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness. All things are seen as interdependent and inseparable parts of this cosmic whole; as different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. (Capra, The Tao of Physics)

In Indian philosophy, the main terms used by Hindus and Buddhists have dynamic connotations. The word Brahman is derived from the Sanskrit root brih - to grow- and thus suggests a reality which is dynamic and alive. The Upanishads refer to Brahman as 'this unformed, immortal, moving', thus associating it with motion even though it transcends all forms.' The Rig Veda uses another term to express the dynamic character of the universe, the term Rita. This word comes from the root ri- to move. In its phenomenal aspect, the cosmic One is thus intrinsically dynamic, and the apprehension of its dynamic nature is basic to all schools of Eastern mysticism.
They all emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically, as it moves, vibrates and dances. ..The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves and grows and changes continually. (Fritjof Capra, 1972.)

In my opinion, no more destructive belief exists than the idea that we have escaped the constraints imposed by nature on all other species. We assume that by enabling us to exploit and alter our surroundings, our intellect has freed us from dependence on specific habitats. We believe we are no longer part of nature, because we have acquired the ability to control and manage the forces impinging on us. This illusion of escape from nature has been reinforced by our extraordinary transformation in this century from country dwellers to city dwellers. In an urban setting, we live in a human-created environment, surrounded by other people plus a few domesticated plants and animals, as well as the pests that have overcome our defences. Living among such a dearth of species, we no longer recognise our dependence on the rest of life for our well-being and our very survival. It is simpler to assume that the economy delivers our food, clean air, water and energy and takes away our sewage and waste. We forget that the Earth itself provides all these services, and so makes economists and the economy possible. We are biological beings, as dependent on the biosphere as any other life form and we forget our animal nature at our peril. (David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies)

We have to treat others as part of who we are, rather than as a ‘them’ with whom we are in constant competition. (Robert Bellah)

The crisis that threatens our planet, whether seen from its military, ecological, or social aspect, derives from a dysfunctional and pathological sense of self. It derives from a mistake about our place in the order of things. It is a delusion that the self is separate and fragile that we must delineate and defend its boundaries, that it is so small and so needy that we must endlessly acquire and endlessly consume, and that it is so aloof that as individuals, corporations, nation-states, or species, we can be immune to what we do to other beings. ..This view of human nature is not new. Many have felt the imperative to extend self-interest to embrace the whole. (Joanna Macy, World as Lover World as Self)

Deep Ecology is concerned with the Metaphysics of Nature, and of the relation of the Self to Nature. It sets up ecology as a model for the basic metaphysical structure of the world, seeing the identities of all things- whether at the level of elementary particles, organisms, or galaxies- as logically interconnected: all things are constituted by their relations with other things ... Applying this principle of interconnectedness to the human case, it becomes apparent that the individual denoted by “I” is not constituted merely by a body or a personal ego or consciousness. I am, of course, partially constituted by these immediate physical and mental structures, but I am also constituted by my ecological relations with the elements of my environment- relations in the image of which the structures of my body and consciousness are built. I am a holistic element of my native ecosystem, and of any wider wholes under which that ecosystem is subsumed ... From the point of view of deep ecology, what is wrong with our culture is that it offers us an inaccurate conception of the self. It depicts the personal self as existing in competition with and in opposition to nature [We fail to realise that] if we destroy our environment, we are destroying what is in fact our larger self. (Freya Matthew) (Fox, 1995)

One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. (Oscar Wilde, Panthea)

We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow (Spinoza)

All things are parts of one single system, which is called Nature; the individual life is good when it is in harmony with Nature. In one sense, every life is in harmony with Nature, since it is such as Nature’s laws have caused it to be; but in another sense a human life is only in harmony with Nature when the individual will is directed to ends which are among those of Nature. Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature. (Zeno of Citium, 300 - 260 B.C.)

Nature does nothing uselessly. (Aristotle, Politics, 384 BC - 322 BC)

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is Nature's way. (Aristotle)

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1869 - 1959)

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings. (Albert Einstein)

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

People in the vast majority of traditional and indigenous groups believe that the Earth is alive, that it is an organism, like Gaia. And they believe that human beings are as much a part of the natural world as insects or whales or clouds. Most of them believe that humans have a responsibility to take care of the other creatures around them, that calamity will result if we are greedy, wasteful and destructive. They cement this understanding of the physical world not with scientific data, but with emotion and experience. (Suzuki, 1999)

The basic pattern of life is a network. Whenever you see life, you see networks. The whole planet, what we can term 'Gaia' is a network of processes involving feedback tubes. And the world of bacteria is critical to the details of these feedback processes, because bacteria play a crucial role in the regulation of the whole Gaian system. (Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life, New York: Anchor Books, 1996)

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Links / Gaia

Evolution: Organic Gardening Farming Foods - The Philosophy of Sustainable Organic Food Production from Nature.

Evolution: Creation Vs. Evolution - Only Evolution abides by the rules of Science, i.e. Something always existed, Something is never created from Nothing (creation ex nihilo). Wave Structure of Matter (in Infinite Eternal Space) describes a Perpetual Infinite System of Evolution.

Aurelius, Marcus - The great Stoic Roman Emperor and his Meditations on our Interconnected Existence in the Universe and how we are to live.

Philosophy Stoicism Zeno - Famous Roman Stoic Philosopher Zeno realised the Interconnection of All Things in the Universe.

Capra, Fritjof - The Spherical Standing Wave Structure of Matter sensibly explains Capra's 'Tao of Physics'. Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism all Correctly Realised the Dynamic Unity of the Universe.

Spinoza, Benedictus de - The Wave Structure of Matter in One Infinite Eternal Space explains Spinoza's Substance (God is Nature) and the Interconnection of all things to One Thing and the Importance of (Wave) Motion in the Universe.

https://www.gaiamind.org/ The GaiaMind Project is dedicated to exploring the idea that we, humanity, are the Earth becoming aware of itself. From this perspective, the next step in the evolution of consciousness would seem to be our collective recognition that through our technological and spiritual interconnectedness we represent the Earth growing an organ of self-reflexive consciousness. While we believe that the Earth is alive, and we are part of it, we also affirm the Great Spirit of Oneness found at the heart of all the worlds great spiritual traditions. What is most important may not be what we believe, but what we find we all share when we put our thoughts aside to go into meditation and prayer together.

https://gen.ecovillage.org/ - Global ecovillage network.

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On the Evolution of Nature & Culture
Human, Society, Ecology, Life, The Environment & Universe

Metaphysics of Evolution: What is Matter & Life?	Evolutionary Biology: Wave Genetics	Charles Darwin: The Theory of Evolution
Evolution of Culture: Sociobiology & Custom	Richard Dawkins: Famous Evolutionary Biologist	Jared Diamond: Famous Biologist Ecologist
Endangered Animals Extinct Species List	Ecology: Interconnection Life, Matter & Universe	Deep Ecology: Arne Naess: Unity Life Nature
Gaia: Complex Ecology of Nature, Life on Earth	End of Nature: Climate Change Global Warming	Utopia Cultural Evolution Truth Reality & Society

Help Humanity

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
(Mohandas Gandhi)

"When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. ... Physical objects are not in space, but these objects are spatially extended. In this way the concept 'empty space' loses its meaning. ... The particle can only appear as a limited region in space in which the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. ...
The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided. ...
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)

Our world is in great trouble due to human behaviour founded on myths and customs that are causing the destruction of Nature and climate change. We can now deduce the most simple science theory of reality - the wave structure of matter in space. By understanding how we and everything around us are interconnected in Space we can then deduce solutions to the fundamental problems of human knowledge in physics, philosophy, metaphysics, theology, education, health, evolution and ecology, politics and society.

This is the profound new way of thinking that Einstein realised, that we exist as spatially extended structures of the universe - the discrete and separate body an illusion. This simply confirms the intuitions of the ancient philosophers and mystics.

Given the current censorship in physics / philosophy of science journals (based on the standard model of particle physics / big bang cosmology) the internet is the best hope for getting new knowledge known to the world. But that depends on you, the people who care about science and society, realise the importance of truth and reality.

It is Easy to Help!

Just click on the Social Network links below, or copy a nice image or quote you like and share it. We have a wonderful collection of knowledge from the greatest minds in human history, so people will appreciate your contributions. In doing this you will help a new generation of scientists see that there is a simple sensible explanation of physical reality - the source of truth and wisdom, the only cure for the madness of man! Thanks! Geoff Haselhurst (Updated September, 2018)

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1920)

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(Edmund Burke)

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
(George Orwell)

"Hell is Truth Seen Too Late."
(Thomas Hobbes)

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On Truth & Reality The Spherical Standing Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) in Space
Deducing Most Simple Science Theory of Reality	Metaphysics of Space, Dynamic Unity of Reality	Maths Physics On Mathematics Logic & Reality
Albert Einstein's Special & General Relativity Theory	Quantum Physics Wave Theory of Light & Matter	WSM Cosmology Finite Universe & Infinite Space
Philosophy Wisdom from Truth & Reality	Theology God Religion Spirit Morality	Life Evolution Ecology Nature Environment
Human Health Nutrition Diet Medicine Drugs	Education On Teaching Truth & Reality	Politics Utopia True Democracy Political Science

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