Efekt motyla. Natura jako paradoks

Abstract

The butterfly effect. Nature as a paradox

A clear-cut structuralist distinction between nature and culture seems to be a somewhat anachronistic concept in today’s humanities. What belongs strictly to nature and what pertains to culture only? Can these two domains be cleanly separated from each other, so that “pure” nature could stand on one side and equally “pure” culture on the other? Butterfly wings, with their “natural harmony and beauty” unintentionally oxymoronic phrase taken from Roger Caillois seem to be a borderline case to me. And this is what makes them so intriguing. Butterfly wings and perhaps the butterfly itself in its airiness? boldly defy the “obvious” division into the natural, cultural, biological and aesthetic. The eponymous “butterfly effect” does not then refer to the theory of chaos, but, rather, signifies the disturbance experienced by the subject of cognition faced with the intoxicating beauty of butterfly wings