Abstract
Gilbert Simondon, a twentieth-century French philosopher known for his theories of individuation and technique, introduced a new concept of “pre-individual (being)” as the energetic condition of individuation in order to explain his ontological conception of the individual. He calls this being “Nature” by comparing it to the physis of the pre-Socratics, especially to Anaximander’s apeiron. This essay considers Simondon’s Nature as a universe profoundly transformed by living beings, similar to Liu Cixin’s descriptions in his famous Chinese science fiction trilogy, The Three-Body Problem (2006-10), particularly in the third volume entitled Death’s End (2010). In this volume, Liu Cixin gives a fictional but believable description of highly intelligent extraterrestrials at war. They use extremely advanced technology to destroying their possible enemies, even though the weapon transforms the structures of their world in which they live. To illustrate Simondon’s Nature as such, it is important to consider that he formulates his ontological concept with other expressions, “individual-milieu” coupling or “associated milieu,” which mean that pre-individual reality is always carried by the individual and it supplies energy to its future individuation. By underscoring the interactivity between the individual and their milieu, this essay interprets Nature as being more dynamic than is commonly understood.
