I have been reading around the subject of nature in order to consider nature not from a pure perceptual and artistic perspective but also from a theoretical one. However of all the reading I have so far encountered Alfred North Whitehead's writings on the Bifurcation of nature is the most difficult to comprehend.
To begin to attempt to explain this I shall quote Whitehead himself from 'The concepts of nature':
Nature is a process. As in the case of everything directly exhibited in senseawareness, there can be no explanation of this characteristic of nature. All that can be done is to use language which may speculatively demonstrate it, and also to
express the relation of this factor in nature to other factors.
It is an exhibition of the process of nature that each duration happens and passes. The process of nature can also be termed the passage of nature. I definitely refrain at this stage from using the word 'time,' since the measurable time of science and of civilised life generally merely exhibits some aspects of the more fundamental fact of the passage of nature.
This is summarised by Albert Balz as he simplifies that he believes Whitehead thought ‘The philosophy of nature, or of science, is not a philosophy of physics alone. Physics, and all other sciences, are developed out of a single subject matter. Nature is the whole field of existence.’ Therefore we can not try to define or bifurcate nature through the frame works of time or science, as nature is the origin and definer of both of these things and frames our whole existence. All of the matter, gases, particles and even ourselves and own minds are determined by nature therefore the only way we can consider nature is through human perception as Kantian ideas detail.
Blaze further quotes Whitehead that ‘The modern account of nature is not merely an account of what the mind knows of nature; but it is also confused with an account go what nature does to the mind… it has transformed the grand question of the relations between nature and mind into the petty form of interaction between the human body and mind.’. However I view this to be not petty but inevitable as consequence of considering nature. And thus a question which will trouble humanity to try to understand our minds fully as Freudian ideas lead us to consider our inability to control our own consciousness.
This becomes very difficult to understand and accept as Whitehead suggests ‘For us the red glow of the sunset should be as much a part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon.’ We are faced with a conflict between the scientific events and our sensory experience.
To look at the top image we will interact with nature, for example causing ripples in water and though the nature of our minds experience and sensory satisfaction to this however we are not considering the displacing of the molecules in the water when we have disrupted it. This of course is a extremely simplified interpretation of the idea at hand. However I essentially embrace Whitehead’s ideas as it redefines how nature can be considered and arouses questions of whether we are to bifurcate nature.
To summarise and pose a question which I intend to keep as a point of reference for my art practice; Balz states that ‘If we do not bifurcate nature, not only the electrons and the red glow of the sunset, but also that animal soul which enjoys the sunset will fall within nature.’
Sources;
http://www.univpgri-palembang.ac.id/perpus-fkip/Perpustakaan/Filsafat/Epistemologi/Whithead/the_concept_of_nature.pdf
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2016585