Originally Written in 2017 – Updated Frequently

You[1] have asked me to describe why I love nature. It’s a serious question. This is a serious answer. It’s necessarily incomplete because I’m very conscious of my own inability to be completely certain of anything so I often reconsider earlier conclusions. “I don’t know!” has become the mantra of my personal philosophy.

I freely admit, for example, that I don’t understand “consciousness”.[2] But history records that the force of consciousness can make people walk calmly into fire. It is the power behind love and war. It is not something to be taken lightly.

Before analyzing something seriously, it’s always wise to ensure that you understand the question. Before analyzing nature, it’s necessary to define it. It’s not a trivial task. For one thing, the word itself has powerful emotional appeal. One of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals is named Nature. The emotional appeal of the word itself increases the risk of a bad definition. Anything so freighted with emotion is doomed to create an emotional response – the enemy of rational analysis.

The first definition of “nature” in many dictionaries is:

The material world and its phenomena.

This would be my first choice since it’s very broad and seems to carry no emotional baggage. By this definition, distant stars and Donald Trump are both part of nature. But, coldly rational though it may be, this definition doesn’t help me understand my feelings about nature because it’s too broad to be useful. For this analysis, it is probably better to move on to the second definition.

The world of living things and the outdoors.

Both stars and Donald Trump fit poorly into this definition. This definition carries emotional baggage. Why are “living” things important? Why must they be “outdoors”?

Everyone defines a word like “nature” for themselves because it has emotional baggage. That makes it a “value” – you must decide what a value is for yourself.

“Values” are what the rest of this essay is about. Everyone has values and everyone’s values are unique. A person’s set of values is like the famous snowflake that is different from all other snowflakes.

There are many rational people who highly value non-living things: gold, stamps, cost-benefit ratios and their impact on economic growth. Who am I to say that they’re wrong? Many who value gold and cost-benefit ratios would be quick to say that my values are completely wrong. To them, I might be dismissed as a “tree hugger” with values that are trivial and unimportant – and then overridden. I might decide that they’re cold-hearted and ignorant because they fail to see how they are ruining the planet for themselves and everyone else. But I don’t.

A foundation of my way of thinking about things is to assume at the very outset that my values are equal to anyone else’s values – and that their values are equal to mine. This seems to me to satisfy Occam’s razor – the simplest answer is most likely to be the right one.[3]

This is not a trivial assumption. It’s a concept that has been argued by philosophers for centuries. (And disregarded by nearly everyone else.) A lack of equality is deeply embedded into human nature. “All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”[4]

The mathematician Peano[5] is credited with describing eight assumptions, mathematicians call them “axioms”, that are necessary for the mathematical use of natural numbers. Everything starts with assumptions … even “natural numbers”. Our emotional response to events in our daily lives start with axioms as well. Each of us has built in assumptions that we use unconsciously and automatically. I call these everyday assumptions, “values”.

At first glance, this may seem to be a trivial conclusion. Peano’s axioms seem trivial too – initially.  One of them is:

For every natural number x, x = x.

Well, Ja! Of course x is equal to itself. But these axioms have been shown to be a solid foundation for today’s mathematics. In philosophical history, the concept that everyone’s values are equal to everyone else’s values has not been widely accepted. The opposite conclusion has been the foundation of millennia of war and philosophy: “My values are superior to yours! I’m right, and you’re wrong! Therefore, I will kill you.”

In 1781, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant gave the world a concept he called the “categorical imperative”[6] that is a perfect example.

Wikipedia explains:

Categorical imperatives are principles that are intrinsically valid; they are good in and of themselves; they must be obeyed in all situations and circumstances, if our behavior is to observe the moral law.[7]

Like Peano , Kant believed that everything must have a starting point, even morality, and he named this starting point the “categorical imperative”.

Mathematicians, in general more reasonable than philosophers, have given only qualified approval to Peano’s axioms. They concede that the axioms can provide a consistent foundation for one type of mathematics, but they reserve the possibility that some other set of axioms might provide a different type of mathematics that is more consistent with reality. Mathematicians, always cautious about defining ultimate truth, reason that it’s possible that we just haven’t discovered these “more consistent” axioms yet. Philosophers like Kant often adopt a more confrontational approach.

My concept of equal values is the very opposite of Kant’s categorical imperative. The word “imperative” is based on the root word “imperial” and is a synonym of “command”. I don’t believe that we must be commanded to think anything. I see no reason why everyone’s feelings should be tied to the same universal starting point. Peano created his axioms to organize mathematics but even he would not claim that they are imperial commands.They’re just the best starting point he could devise.

Why do so many, like Kant, think that we need a categorical imperative? The answer is that humans seem to require a reason for everything, whether it is to make war or make love. Kant believed that there must be an ultimate reason for everyone – a way of evaluating the morality of any action – and he gave it a name.

For nearly all humans, a categorical imperative is provided by a higher power or intelligence through a supernatural mechanism. To get back to the original question, this choice of a starting point is critical in an analysis of why we do, or do not, “love nature”. If loving nature is a supernatural categorical imperative, then it is not a part of “nature”. It is “superior” to “nature”. That’s what the word “supernatural” means.

Kant never specified what the correct “categorical imperative” is. He was a pure philosopher and not a theologian.[8] Like many pure theoreticians, he left the definition of such mundane matters as an exercise for readers and for this reason, a minority of Kant’s adherents think he was an atheist. Christians, however, assume that Kant’s categorical imperative must be the teachings of Christ. For Muslims, it is the teachings of Allah as recorded by Mohammed in the Koran. So, even if you agree with Kant’s philosophy, it doesn’t help you decide what to do with your life. A different starting point leads to very different values. Catholics were commanded to eat fish on Friday.[9] Shiite Muslims are forbidden to eat shellfish on any day. Mormons do not drink coffee.

For thousands of years, people ranging from SS officer Adolf Eichmann (in his 1961 trial) to Pope Francis (in his 2015 Encyclical Letter Laudato Si) have appealed to the existence of a categorical imperative that did (for Eichmann) or should (for Pope Francis) control our actions.[10] Both felt that this ultimate motivation should apply to everyone. That is, their own unique set of values was the “categorical imperative”. Neither Eichmann nor Pope Francis has been successful in persuading the rest of humanity. Far from it, we each have our own personal and individual imperatives. People, especially religious leaders, claim that their own imperatives are universal. But for each of us, they are ultimately personal.

Values are sometimes thought to be universal like Kant’s categorical imperative because they are widely shared.

• Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.

But individual values can be very controversial.

• “Above all … resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry.” – Adolf Hitler
• “I just grab ‘em by the pussy!” – Donald Trump

If many people share a value, that doesn’t make it “right”. An assumption that your own personal values constitute the universal laws of nature leads directly to hanging witches in Salem or beheading Christians in Syria. Indeed, the very concept of a value being “right” or “wrong” is just another value.

“Right” and “wrong” are deeply embedded in philosophy and especially religion. For example, in the Mormon religion, 2 Nephi 2:11 in the Book of Mormon puts it, well, categorically:

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so … righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.

This reasoning in the Book of Mormon is functionally identical with Kant’s categorical imperative.

One reason Kant concluded that there must be a “categorical imperative” is that the opposite conclusion is the same as saying that there is no universal right or wrong. Kant, and nearly everyone I talk to cannot get beyond this point. Their minds rebel at the implications. “Of course Hitler was evil! How could you suggest anything else?” – No. Not “evil”. “Evil” is an individual human construct and doesn’t actually have any consistent meaning. He just had values that were very different from mine and, hopefully, different from yours too.

The benefit to human society of rejecting the values of Hitler should be obvious to nearly everyone. Unfortunately, history proves over and over and over again that it is not obvious. The benefit of “loving nature” is even less obvious for many people.

My own philosophy tends toward something that I have learned has been named by others as “metaphysical naturalism”. Resorting to Wikipedia again:

“… whatever exists or happens is natural … Hence, naturalism is polemically defined as repudiating the view that there exists or could exist any entities which lie, in principle, beyond the scope of scientific explanation …”[11]

We seem to have returned to the first definition of nature ­– which was singularly unhelpful since it excluded any emotional interference. What is a metaphysical naturalist to do?

I clearly recall struggling with these same questions in high school (without understanding or even being aware of the philosophical background of the questions) about sixty years ago when most of my peer group was pressuring me to become a Mormon.

I arrived at a conclusion that actually does have a metaphor in nature.

Consider a stream of water flowing downhill – nothing could be more natural. The water consists of molecules; trillions of molecules. Each of these molecules is buffeted by its neighbors, by gravitation, by other molecules in rocks and twigs, even by air at the surface. And each finds its way due to the forces around it.

Each one of us is like one of those molecules. There are billions of us being buffeted by forces at every instant. With us, the forces are, if anything, more complex than the forces on a water molecule, but the concept is the same. The path we find through life might be a result of these forces around us.

In the case of humans and many other higher animals, an important but poorly understood force is a complicated feedback loop known as “consciousness” – a phenomenon that continues to defy science in spite of the first assumption of metaphysical naturalism: that nothing lies beyond the reach of scientific explanation. For the time being at least, “consciousness” continues to be resistant to scientific explanation. But things are changing fast!

There is no reason to feel good or bad about our values. How we feel – our values – simply exist and feel we do. “Feeling” is part of our personal path through life. We are motivated in a particular direction by an internal moral compass – just as we are by the vast array of external forces. It’s not a categorical imperative – we are not commanded to have these feelings – but they exist in all of us anyway. In that, we might be different from a molecule of water. Since there is no reason to think that a molecule has an internal moral compass, I assume that a molecule of water does not have values. It’s an assumption much like Peano’s axioms.[12]

I clearly remember that as a teenager, I concluded that my current set of internal feelings simply existed and there was no better way to explain them. I may have inherited them. I may have acquired them from my environment. I simply did not know where they all came from and in any case, it made no practical difference. I had them regardless of how I got them. I was very much like a water molecule that finds itself traveling downhill at a particular place and in a particular time. The water molecule had no choice about where or when it was. Neither did I.[13]

There continues to be that poorly understood concept of “consciousness” or if you’re religious, “the soul”. The soul might be able to modify a person’s path through life. If our water molecule had a soul, it might be able to summon the will to not be a part of the Mississippi and join the Columbia River instead. Maybe humans can do that – I don’t know. This gets us into the hugely controversial question of “free will”. But the choice of a “categorical imperative” – which has given so many in history the justification they lust for to force others to adopt their values – has been a continuing source of disagreement and bloody warfare for all of human existence as far as we know. Indeed, it is the source of the “tribalism” that infects politics today.

So, a foundation stone of my way of thinking is that I simply admit that, “I don’t know!” One of my values is that I very much want to avoid thinking that I understand something that might be wrong. It’s one of my personal, and most deeply held values in these, my later years. In a much deeper sense than it is usually taken, I believe that “Ignorance is bliss”.

As a teenager, I decided to adopt and bless whatever values I already had – joyfully and freely. It’s the same choice that most teenagers make, but I flatter myself that I did it with more analysis than I imagine most teenagers use. My values could not accept the mystical approach of Mormon (or any) religious belief. I still can’t. As a horny teenager, I thought about sex a lot. I still do.[14] And my mother – and other influences to be sure – instilled a love of nature (the second definition above). It’s still there. I’m still joyful and happy about this state of existence. As the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 2:25 states, “Men are that they might have joy.” I am a happy water molecule in the great ocean of the universe.

This is not to say that nothing ever changes. Water molecules can’t see what lies ahead downstream and we can. For example, I used to debate religious people as a teenager. More recently, I have decided (“consciousness” ???) that the result of this debate made it an unsuccessful value. I have (mostly) expelled the value of contentious debate from my life now. Similarly, I have (“consciously” ???) adopted many values that my wife Roxy holds dear. I even wrote a poem for myself about this value.

Every happy ship has a captain and a crew.

The happiness comes from knowing who is who.

Most people take the poem as a joke. It is not! I have discovered that you can change your own values – maybe not like a water molecule in Kansas willing itself into the Columbia River, but to a greater degree than might be expected.

For example, one of my values now is vegetarianism. It certainly wasn’t a value when I was a teenager. In daily life, I am a more complete vegetarian than Roxy, although Roxy is the original source for this value. I actually do believe that sincerely, actually, and completely adopting the value expressed in this little poem is one reason why Roxy and I still have a very happy marriage after more than fifty years. I think a lot of good marriages are based on this principle. I think that many “born again” Christians (“I once was a sinner but now I am saved!”) have benefited from the same kind of internal value modification – but, again, without the same analysis. I have no doubt that “benefited” is the right word to use for most “born again Christians” and I’m glad for them even though I don’t adopt their values. This ability to change your own values may be what is called “free agency”. It’s complicated. I’m still learning.

So … My own love of nature has come to me “naturally”. I don’t have a better explanation and I don’t know. This one works for me. It’s a value.

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[1] Originally written to a friend who is deeply committed to environmental causes and animal rights.

[2] In his book, A Thousand Brains neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins discusses what “consciousness” could be at length but he reaches the conclusion that we still don’t know. An important fact to ground any investigation of “consciousness” must recognize that the electrical signals sent by sensory neurons constitute all the information processed by your brain.

[3] Our power to implement our own values, rather than someone else’s values, is never equal. But that’s another discussion.

[4] Social reformer Robert Owen (1771-1858)

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Peano

[6] Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant retrieved 2 Sep 2019

[8] Many historians speculate that Kant was conscious of the fact that leaving the source of the categorical imperative unstated was necessary to ensure his personal safety at the time. Disagreeing with the categorical imperative of someone with the power of life and death over you could be fatal.

[9] A commandment that has not been observed for many years, even though it was once strictly enforced.

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/categorical_imperative  retrieved 2 Sep 2019

[11] A complimentary philosophy is called “moral relativism”. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes this philosophy, “is virtually the default position encountered among undergraduates by countless philosophy instructors today.” When extended to all knowledge, it’s called “cognitive relativism” and denies the existence of objective truth. In my own case, I don’t deny the existence of truth. I just don’t know what it is, and I don’t think anyone else knows either.

[12] Physicists have discovered evidence that individual quanta of electromagnetism might “choose” a different path depending on whether they are “observed” or not. That’s getting mighty close to my metaphor.

[13] I invented this “water molecule” analogy much later. But the underlying thought came to me in high school.

[14] The source of that value is much easier to explain. Read The Red Queen by Matt Ridley for more.