New Book: BACK TO NATURE. Excerpts from Intro. and Ch. 1

Introduction

I place a lot of faith in objective reality outside of my mind, and the innate power of the human mind to know that reality to a great degree when properly applied, so much so that when the world becomes almost completely divorced from objective reality, including in the areas of the economy, government, and military conflict over borders and resources, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see a train heading off its tracks. Politically, economically, and culturally.

I myself enjoy short, concise, engaging books. The kind you can finish in a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon, and store on the bookshelf for quick reference. To this end, this is a short introduction, followed by five short chapters, a short conclusion, followed by references. That’s it.

I will be applying the principles of natural philosophy, and other subjects of philosophy, as discussed by Aristotle, which are the very foundation of the natural sciences themselves, the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas, and my own reflection to the issue of post-modern society being in a state of separation and rebellion against Nature itself. The Christian, theist, agonistic, and even honest atheist alike can appreciate this only in so far as they also value objective reality and the natural order, our ability to know it with a degree of certainty, and the fact that mankind must act in harmony with that objective reality if it wants sanity.





Nature, the cosmos, three-dimensional, extramental reality, or as the believer calls it Creation, will be our subject. My argument is we must go back to, or return to the natural order, to live in harmony with that order, or we face a dark dystopic future full of existential despair, in which, in my opinion, we have already somewhat entered, or worse we face eventual self-annihilation.

My method will be to muse on my own experiences in nature, in the Great Outdoors, during this Fall of 2022 here in Oklahoma, while I simultaneously write this book, while gardening, having backyard fires, fishing, and all things outdoors, as we are want to do once the purgatorial tropical heat and humidity of summer in Oklahoma subsides.

I hope the content is informative and engaging, so that its message will motivate you to more and more reconnect with Nature, that is Creation, as part of the answer to the existential problem of contemporary society, as I endeavor to do, and ultimately by means of that reconnection to connect more deeply with the divine source, the personal Creator. Please share this book with family and friends, and thank you once more for paying me for this book to listen to what these pages have to offer.



Ch. 1 How to View Nature?

The Four Causes

Aristotle observed that in every physical object are four causes or principles that govern its existence: the efficient, material, formal, and final cause. See his book Physics, and Aquinas’ commentary on it. Taking the example of a cabbage, it therefore is not just a collection of atoms or material stuff, the material cause. It has a three-dimensional organization and purpose, the formal cause. It is not a random collection of quarks and quantum strings, at the most primordial level, but rather a living organism that has an internal nature or essence that can be understood through scientific observation and definition.

Such was my reflection as I reached down with my small, hooked knife to harvest this Fall’s Napa, Chinese cabbages from the root, planted from tiny seeds in late August, spaced two feet apart along a thirty-six foot long row. Cabbage is an excellent Fall crop that can be extended into winter in many agricultural zones, including Oklahoma, an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, the cabbage being traditionally used to make sauerkraut, kimchi, and cabbage rolls, among other tasty dishes. Personally I prefer the Napa among other cabbage varieties for its less fibrous texture, as its large leaves can be folded to make a wrapper alternative for steamed dishes like showmai, a kind of Chinese dumpling pinched upward and open at its top to let out steam for an appetizing visual display at the dinner table.

But as I look out across rows of green and white cabbage plants, I see more than recipes. Or more than trillions of subatomic quarks. I see living things with form and purpose. From the seed, water, and sunlight, we have efficient causes that bring each individual plant from a state of once not-existing, to a state of existence. In the seed’s DNA is a blueprint for what a cabbage is, for its nature, which Aristotle says is experienced by observing the outer form, the shape and three-dimensional design. Its most basic, lowest level purpose is to live, to grow, to survive, to exist for a period of time, and to generate seeds for more cabbages.

However, for modernity, purpose tends to end there, according to Darwinian thought. We would not be allowed to say cabbages exist–that is according to the very design in Nature itself–for the sake of feeding humanity, in particular for providing fiber for digestion, and antioxidant compounds to prevent chronic disease.

Just as a person might follow so-called “gender theory,” the latest Marxist fad, which posits that gender is merely a cultural construct projected onto the individual human, where attributes such as masculinity and femininity are claimed to have no basis in objective biological reality, the same postmodernist, nonsensical line of thinking would have us ascribe those attributes of the cabbage to mere human culture projecting its own uses for cabbage onto the cabbage species, rather than intrinsic purposes fused into the very nature of a cabbage by Nature itself.........


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