When the German philosopher Immanuel Kant puzzled over why nature looks beautiful to us, he considered the case of replicas. Imagine, Kant wrote in the late 1700s, a jovial innkeeper who, for lack of a nightingale to enchant his guests, plays a trick on them by hiding a boy in a bush with a reed “hit[ting] off nature to perfection.” Kant was sure that the moment people found out the truth, “no one will long endure listening to this sound.” Why should that be, if the sound is identical?
Kant’s confidence may seem out of place today. Copies of nature proliferate. Not only can we go skiing in Dubai and sunbathe on indoor tropical beaches in Germany, but fake plants and synthetic lawns are filling up our cities, restaurants, and homes. The global artificial flowers market is predicted to reach $1.78 billion this year. Bewilderingly, faux flowers—the upmarket term for fake—are even presented as a green alternative. Faced with impressively elaborate copies of plants that never droop or wither, and living increasingly convenience-based lives, a lot of us may wonder if we are justified to choose natural over fake, and on what grounds.
Yet research consistently shows that experiencing real nature, from having houseplants to gardening, has unparalleled mental health benefits that are significantly diminished in the case of artificial experiences of nature. What is so rewarding about experiencing real nature that cannot be replicated by artificial copies?
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Philosophers long ago identified an unexpected pleasure of natural beings: they satisfy the human desire to understand. Aristotle thought that asking “Why?” can lead to one of the greatest human delights—knowing the world around us. With real nature, we can receive answers that render the most alien-looking and silent beings understandable, from plants to sea urchins and sponges—much like they did for Aristotle, who was famously captivated by them. Answers to questions like, “Why does my plant have blossoms?” and “why does it get brown spots?” teach us something about the identity of these living beings, what is good and bad for them.
This pleasure disappears in the case of fake plants. The only answer I can hope to receive when I ask “why” is something about the intention of their designer, like that they wanted to give it the appearance of blossoming, or make it pass more realistically for a real plant by making it look a bit unhealthy. In this case, asking “why” leads us back to ourselves.
Everything else that takes place with a fake plant is merely a result of chemical and physical reactions. For instance, imagine I own both a real and fake plant, and I place them on a sunny spot in my study. As sunlight hits them, both will feel warm to touch. At higher temperatures, particles speed up and gain energy. But with my real plant, the sunlight also links to photosynthesis, which is vital for its development. Whether the fake plant is warmed by the sun or stays cool when it is cold and dark has no bearing on any process within it: it is neither good nor bad for it.
Because a real plant has a life of its own, we can care for it in a way that is not possible for the replica. I can help an acorn become an oak by planting it, but I can neither help a plastic acorn grow into an oak nor impede it from doing so. This would be the case even if we imagined a fake plant that was designed to behave as if it needed care, which scientists are beginning to explore. And if a fake plant was made to turn greener when placed in a humid environment, nothing detrimental would happen to it if I did not do so. Even if I placed that fake plant in a humid environment, still nothing would happen for it. The fake plant can neither die nor flourish.
Receiving answers to our “whys” allows us to care. We can acquire information to promote the real plant’s health, water it, make sure it has enough light, and so on. This brings the joy of helping something thrive for its own sake—the pleasure of blooms, green leaves, and growth along with the sadness of failing to do so. But we cannot have one without the other.
This can also help us care about the other natural beings that are suffering due to their impeccable copies. For it is a law of nature that if a deathless copy is produced, waste must follow; and that waste from such copies results in the death of real, living nature. Most of the world’s fake plants are indeed made in China’s Pearl River delta, a global pollution hotspot.
Thinking of plants as lives that serve their own purposes opens up a distinct way of understanding our connection to them. They are independent from us and yet knowable; otherworldly and yet familiar. It is this profound sense of sharedness that we glimpse when we observe our plants’ activities. This connection brings us joy and inspires us to care for them. After all, who truly cares about a fake plant?
