Red Expendable

I never know where I should post what topic. Hopefully this is under the correct one.

Many times I have had the thought that there is no such thing is an event, creation (invention, etc) that is NOT natural.

Oftentimes, people will refer to something like a building, a nuclear missile, or anything made by humans as unnatural.

A beaver would be considered a part of nature. A beaver building a damn would be considered natural. The damn it built would be considered natural as well.

How should it be any different with humans?

Something not normally occurring in nature. That doesn't seem to sit right with me. After all, aren't humans a natural occurrence? How could we be otherwise? How could a creation from a human being be otherwise?

If we are a natural occurence then, if a skyscraper is built, concrete foundation is laid, a tree is cut down, etc - would these things be considered unnatural? Even something that destroys the planet or kills people by the millions, like a nuclear weapon. Would this not also be natural?

Any opinions?

RedEx

Christopher Lord

I agree completely.

BUT

Since we can understand the consequences of our activity on the planet, we should predict which are 'net good' and which are 'net bad'.

Setting off nukes is definately a 'Net Bad'.

Planting new trees after we cut them down is a 'Net Good'

beavers dont give a damn if what they build kills all other life on earth (some really stinky swamp pus or something). They cant, really. They make decisions solely on what will benefit them.

With our ability to build and invent, we can easly cause massive damage to the planet as a whole. If beavers could do this we would all be dead long ago.

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: Christopher Lord ]</p>

John Page

Love the topic, I was pondering about this last week.

Natural is that which is not artifical or a product of the mind's imagination. But man is natural so....

Does this mean we should label metaphysical naturalism "metaphysical mindlessness"?

Red Expendable

I agree that setting off nukes would be bad. Of course, it would kill of a great deal of life on the planet.

Actually, I was hoping to spawn a thread that would expand on this idea of 'unnatural' - to see exactly what that is supposed to mean.

If a baby is genetically altered before birth to be perfect, or at least more perfect than it would have been without altering - this in my opinion would be considered natural as well.

I suppose this could easily turn into yet another debate on: good or evil, moral or not moral - although I was hoping to stay on the topic.

Let me say it this way. That's just my opinion...
Anyone have a counter argument for this?

Theists are encouraged to participate as well!!


RedEx

Christopher Lord

Nope, I agree that most things we do are 'natural'.

Even making 'artifical' viruses. I dont see that 'its not natural' argument as valid in any sense.

I think the most terrible and destructive viruses have already seen the light of day. I doubt we can top some of the nasty (yet ALL NATURAL(TM) ) lifeforms out there.

Ierrellus

Red,

Fine topic! I would agree with you if by "natural" you mean products associated with human nature. Whether such products are deemed "good" or "bad" is a social issue, a moot argument in this type of discussion.

Humans appear to construct or destruct by starting from analogies of experienced phenomena.
The computer is a brain analogy, not vice versa.
Fuel systems are analogies of organisms, etc.
Would a beaver start from a "beaver analogy" for dam construction?

Ierrellus
PAX

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Ierrellus ]</p>

excreationist

What about natural being a synonym for normal and everyday? i.e. according to their "natures". Doing things they're "supposed" to do... Unnatural acts are against their proper "nature".

e.g. about gays - if you have the opinion that God created Adam and Eve as an example for their descendants to follow, then gays are unnatural - they are going against what people are "supposed" to do. But now gay people say that their sexuality is "natural" - it is their nature to be gay. (It's been going on for millions or billions of years)

Another example - sometimes people might say to "act natural" - i.e. act how you're *supposed* to act. And people might "be a natural" - i.e. what they are doing is in their nature - it is an inherent ability they have.

Mr. Sammi

I seem to think of natural as a thing-in-itself, it feeds off of itself, it enhances itself, it culls itself, it augments itself.

Un-natural would then be effects which imply feeding, enhancing, culling, and augmenting from outside of itself, which produces effects in itself.

An example of un-natural foods would be the human genetically altering the seeds to produce a change in the quality of the food-product which natural processes could not do.

I guess most of us would be able to hazard guesses about un-natural human behaviour. Example, the study of dogs, in order to socialise a human experiment for a human-dog colony. That would be un-natural, taking doggie samples and smearing it on the human species, BUT, sometimes it seems as if some have already managed to further this to some end.

Sammi Na Boodie (not(woof-woof))

Marz Blak

There was a popular song in the '80's, how did it start? "You cannot go against nature...going against nature is part of nature too..." Then there was the part about there being "no new tales to tell...." Anyone remember?

Alonzo Fyfe

The original post seems to contain an unstated assumption that there is only one (legitimate?) definition of 'natural' and, by this definition, all things are natural.

In fact, there are several.

One definition is best understood by opposing 'natural' with 'supernatural'. In which case, yes, everything is natural.

Another definition of 'natural' contrasts it with 'manmade' -- in which case everything manmade is unnatural by definition.

The term 'unnatural' actually appears to have the greatest significance is in the following argument.

(P1) Whatever is unnatural is bad.
(P2) X is unnatural.
-------------
(C) Therefore, X is bad.

I hold that this is a bad argument, because there is nothing in the real world where both P1 and P2 are true at the same time.

P1 would be true only in a universe in which intrinsic values exist, and those intrinsic values inhere in 'unnatural' things (for some definition of 'unnatural'). Because intrinsic values do not exist, there is no definition of 'unnatural' for which P1 is true.

Another way of saying the same thing, for any definition of 'unnatural' in which P1 actually is true, then there is no X in the real world to which the term 'unnatural' applies. In other words, P2 is false for all X in the real world.

Either way, the argument is unsound.

Now, many people -- way too many people -- make the double mistake of (1) assuming that the unnatural argument above is sound for some X, and (2) use the definiton of 'unnatural' that is equivalent to 'manmade', yielding the conclusion that everything manmade is bad.

This is a strange form of cult that holds to such things that if we place a footprint on another heavenly body (e.g., the moon), that this alone ruins it or contaminates it in some way. It is a cult grounded on a mistake, and yet the conclusion is accepted with religious devotion in some circules.

[Not entirely surprising, since P1 is itself a religious premise, originally defended in its strongest form by St. Thomas Aquinas).