NationStates Jolt Archive

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...

natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
nature - The material world and its phenomena.


First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...




First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
And then the robots will PWN HUMANITY!!

And if that happens, humanity, http://www.p0stwh0res.com/images/allowned.jpg

And then the robots will PWN HUMANITY!!
Robot monkeys FTW

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j315/crashcow/NSG/robot_monkeys.jpg

Feedback?

I said much the same thing in this thread:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=482050

"Present in or produced by nature"
not transformed by man

If it isnt Super-natural, then it's natural, (obviously).

"Present in or produced by nature"
not transformed by man

But everything transformed by man is present in nature... that was the whole point.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...




First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
There's nothing wrong with self-aware robots.

Further, I think this is a mostly philisophical viewpoint, or an attempt to play around with semantics. I do agree with you, though.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...

I think you did a pretty good job of explaining it. =)

7. Becasue bronze does not occur in nature, it requires the intevention of man to smelt two metals together.

Once human thought is imposed on a natural material to change the basic properties of some quantity of matter that matter ceases to be 'natural' even if the component atoms are.

Also, since to create matter, you would have to transpose natural energy, wouldn't by your argument, atoms created by human intervention still be 'natural'>

7. Becasue bronze does not occur in nature, it requires the intevention of man to smelt two metals together

But how is smelting not natural? If you take naturally occurring compounds and heat them with naturally occuring fuel and oxygen, what part of that process is unnatural?

If the intervention of man is what makes something unnatural, wouldn't your dispute be with #4? If man is natural, isn't anything that man creates out of naturally occuring compounds necessarily natural by extension?

Everything is natural
Define "thing".

Define "thing".
All matter and energy in the universe.

Am I leaving anything out?

Well, I like it. It makes sense.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...


natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
nature - The material world and its phenomena.


First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead. <- from this point.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?from #7. according to the definition you provided... "natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl."
Once you produce Bronze, it stops being produced by nature, and Produced by Man.

Plastics are also created by Man. As well as the process to create Glue, and other bonding agents used for circuitry.

from #7. according to the definition you provided... "natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl."
Once you produce Bronze, it stops being produced by nature, and Produced by Man.

Plastics are also created by Man. As well as the process to create Glue, and other bonding agents used for circuitry.

Yes, but it is present in nature, which is probably why he included the second definition (that of nature) as well.

from #7. according to the definition you provided... "natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl."
Once you produce Bronze, it stops being produced by nature, and Produced by Man.

Plastics are also created by Man. As well as the process to create Glue, and other bonding agents used for circuitry.

Ah, but if man is a part of nature, anything that man produces (short of something out of nothing) is natural by logical extention. See post #11.

Yes, but it is present in nature, which is probably why he included the second definition (that of nature) as well.
is it present in nature? I never heard of anyone Mining Bronze?

The components are natural, but the actual combination to produce Bronze, isn't.

is it present in nature? I never heard of anyone Mining Bronze?

The components are natural, but the actual combination to produce Bronze, isn't.

It is by the second definition. It is material, is it not?

So if everything is natural... I don't like that premise. No more room for debate, because everything just is part of nature?

Or does nature have a bad side?

Aside from that, though, I think you have a point.

Ah, but if man is a part of nature, anything that man produces (short of something out of nothing) is natural by logical extention. See post #11.
this is where you are nitpicking.

yes, every molicue and atom are natural, but the combination process isn't.

unless you can show me where plastics are naturally produced, Plastics, a product of Natrual Materials, is not in and of itself, a product of Nature.

So, at what point does the object become unnatural?


When a member of mankind uses it in a manner inconsistent with his natural end.

You see, you don't have a proper understanding of "natural", because your definition is of a completely different kind of thing that what medieval philosophers were talking about when they used the term. Your definition of the term incorporates the Aristotelian formal (the nature of a thing includes the term "natural" in its definition) and efficient (how is something produced), but medieval philosophers were more interested in the Aristotelian final cause, namely what for the sake of which something is made or used.

Now that's pretty technical, so I'll break it down for you in a simple example. By your definition, a steak is perfectly natural, and medieval philosophers would provisionally agree with you on this: it is a natural thing in the formal or efficient sense, because it was made by natural causes and essentially natural in character. However, if a man were to eat huge amounts of steak every night, while the steak itself is natural, his actions aren't. Why? Because his actions are of the kind that produce ill health in the human body, as eating red meat will give you atherosclerosis in no time. Ill health is not a thing for which the body was intended to be, but rather a deficiency in the proper functioning, and hence the proper end of human existence. As such, gluttonous consumption of steak is unnatural, and by extension sinful.

It is by the second definition. It is material, is it not?
nope, because Bronze is not a product formed by nature. it uses Natural materials, but the procedure does not occure in nature.

nope, because Bronze is not a product formed by nature. it uses Natural materials, but the procedure does not occure in nature.

It does by the second definition. The procedure is material. Read the second definition before you argue that again, since that is what the idea is based off of.

If you use a different definition for nature (which I'm inclined to use normally as well), I'd agree with you. However, that's not the point here.

this is where you are nitpicking.

yes, every molicue and atom are natural, but the combination process isn't.

unless you can show me where plastics are naturally produced, Plastics, a product of Natrual Materials, is not in and of itself, a product of Nature.

So are you saying that a bird's nest isn't natural because it doesn't grow on the tree? People are animals too, so anything that a human makes out of natural material is just as natural as a nest.

I've lost all concept of "natural" after reading the wikipedia article on homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_necrophilia_in_the_mallard_duck
Yep. Thats natural. 75 Minutes!

It does by the second definition. The procedure is material. Read the second definition before you argue that again, since that is what the idea is based off of.

If you use a different definition for nature (which I'm inclined to use normally as well), I'd agree with you. However, that's not the point here.

First, let's take a look at the thread title.
"Everything is natural."

thus, let's look at his definitions.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE --> natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.

This one is not ->nature - The material world and its phenomena.
why? simple, the thread title and his conclusions end in two different posistions.

"If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe. "
wrong, a robot is not "produced by nature, (as defined by his own quote)" but is produced by products produced by processes that unnaturally combines natural material.

"My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural. "
by re-arrainging molecues and atoms, recombing them to form different structures, you are infact making a different Item. one that is not produced Natrually, ie, Neither present nor produced by nature. His provided definition of Natural.

now if you can show me how a robot is made in NATURE (nature - The material world and its phenomena.) note, "It's Phenomena" not it's materials. then you have something, but as long as it requires an influence that cannot be reproduced in other areas natrually, then it's an actual product of the influencer.

-snip-

So you're saying that actions are unnatural insofar as they obstruct existence? If so, wouldn't that mean the extinction of a species due to whatever reasons (not just due to mankind, but also exhaustion of food supply, inabilty to adapt, an asteroid impact, etc.) is unnatural? Is the fact that life does not exist on Mercury unnatural? How can nonexistence be unnatural if at one point in time, we naturally did not exist?:confused:
Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting your position.

First, let's take a look at the thread title.
"Everything is natural."

thus, let's look at his definitions.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE --> natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.

This one is not ->nature - The material world and its phenomena.
why? simple, the thread title and his conclusions end in two different posistions.

"If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe. "
wrong, a robot is not "produced by nature, (as defined by his own quote)" but is produced by products produced by processes that unnaturally combines natural material.

"My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural. "
by re-arrainging molecues and atoms, recombing them to form different structures, you are infact making a different Item. one that is not produced Natrually, ie, Neither present nor produced by nature. His provided definition of Natural.

now if you can show me how a robot is made in NATURE (nature - The material world and its phenomena.) note, "It's Phenomena" not it's materials. then you have something, but as long as it requires an influence that cannot be reproduced in other areas natrually, then it's an actual product of the influencer.

A robot is material, ergo, upon being created, it is present in nature, by the second definition (the "not important" one).

Ergo, the process involved is irrelevant, as the robot is material and therefore present in the material world.

So are you saying that a bird's nest isn't natural because it doesn't grow on the tree? People are animals too, so anything that a human makes out of natural material is just as natural as a nest.yep. a birds nest is a construct. created by the birds using materials that undergo minimal alteration.

Bronze is a bit different than mixing mud, fecies, and spit.

a robot is even more complex than making bronze.

How about "Everything is derived from nature"?

A robot is material, ergo, upon being created, it is present in nature, by the second definition (the "not important" one).and how does it get in the envrionment (not in nature,)
it's created by man through a learned process. not an involuntary one.

thus it's not

thus it's not natural (natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl)

now a counter Definition by Dictionary.com
artificial
1
a Made by humans; produced rather than natural.
b Brought about or caused by sociopolitical or other human-generated forces or influences: set up artificial barriers against women and minorities; an artificial economic boom.

Made in imitation of something natural; simulated: artificial teeth.

Not genuine or natural: an artificial smile.

thus your robot, whose materials are made by humans, is not Natural, but artificial.

a robot, is made as an imitiation of something Natrual, a robot dog, a robot cat, a robotic worker.

the parts can be traced back to natrual sources, but the robot itself is not natural unless you can show one being produced in nature.

How about "Everything is derived from nature"?
I can see this, or even a "Everything started out as Natrual Materials."

wrong, a robot is not "produced by nature, (as defined by his own quote)" but is produced by products produced by processes that unnaturally combines natural material.

This is the part that I disagree with. I'm saying that the process itself is natural because every aspect of the process (including whoever is actually making the material) is a product of nature.

My equation: natural products combining in a natural process with a natural facilitator = a natural product

Do you disagree with the idea that stringing together natural materials and processes eventually loses its naturality?
Or are you saying that once man enters into the picture, it becomes unnatural?

EDIT: Gah! sorry, I type slow... I'm just trying to keep up, and failing miserably.

This is the part that I disagree with. I'm saying that the process itself is natural because every aspect of the process (including whoever is actually making the material) is a product of nature. while I do agree that the process does take place in the prime material plane on the planet called Earth, the process itself is not a product of nature.

My equation: natural products combining in a natural process with a natural facilitator = a natural product definition of natural Process.
natural process
n : a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings); "the action of natural forces"; "volcanic activity"

Do you disagree with the idea that stringing together natural materials and processes eventually loses its naturality?only when the base molecular structure of the object changes from it's original state.
Or are you saying that once man enters into the picture, it becomes unnatural?see definitions of Artificial and Natrual Process.

EDIT: Gah! sorry, I type slow... I'm just trying to keep up, and failing miserably.take your time... don't rush. mistakes are made when people rush... I speak from experience. :)

and how does it get in the envrionment (not in nature,)
it's created by man through a learned process. not an involuntary one.

thus it's not

thus it's not natural (natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl)

now a counter Definition by Dictionary.com
artificial
1
a Made by humans; produced rather than natural.
b Brought about or caused by sociopolitical or other human-generated forces or influences: set up artificial barriers against women and minorities; an artificial economic boom.

Made in imitation of something natural; simulated: artificial teeth.

Not genuine or natural: an artificial smile.

thus your robot, whose materials are made by humans, is not Natural, but artificial.

a robot, is made as an imitiation of something Natrual, a robot dog, a robot cat, a robotic worker.

the parts can be traced back to natrual sources, but the robot itself is not natural unless you can show one being produced in nature.

Dude - I JUST SAID that if a different definition were to be used, I'd agree with you on that one. That's not the question here - the question is if, using the definitions he's given, it works.

And since he's used Natural - Present in or produced by nature. and Nature - The material world and its phenomena, it does work by his definitions. BTW, for it to be a word, only ONE of the definitions given has to be accurate. Thus, because the "present in nature" part works, it is natural, even if it isn't produced by nature. Of course, since mankind is part of the material world, and humans are producing it, the "produced by nature" idea works too.

OK, so...
When the base molecular structure of the object changes from it's original state, natural materials become unnatural.

If this is true, wouldn't that make digestion an unnatural process?

It seems to all boil down to semantics:

natural process
n : a process existing in or produced by nature (rather than by the intent of human beings); "the action of natural forces"; "volcanic activity" [syn: natural action, action, activity]

na·ture
n.
1. The material world and its phenomena.
Now, if you combine them:

Natural Process - a process existing in or produced by the material world and its phenomena.

The material world includes everything on the planet, including man. The phenomena of the material world includes everything that can be perceived by the senses.

Is the process of smelting, polymerization, or robot building observable?

It seems to me that these two definitions are mutually exclusive. So I'm not quite sure where to go from here...

Yeah, if you define "natural" to include everything in the universe, it goes without saying that you could say "everything is natural."

Isn't that circular reasoning? Or just defining something so broadly that its meaning is more or less irrelevant?

If everything is "natural" what is the point of the word? According to such definitions, a Cthulhu mythos beast could come steaming out of the sewer one day and that too would be natural. So Lovecraft could no longer truly describe Nyarlathotep as "unnatural." So the word itself might as well not be used.

This is why most people don't use such a broad definition. In common usage, something is no longer "natural" when it's been, well, manhandled to a certain extent.

And it's hard to see where actual man-made elements, like Ununpentium, could really fall under "natural" given such definitions.

All matter and energy in the universe.
Then you are absolutely right, by that definition all things are natural.

Is the universe really natural? My definition for something "natural" would be "that which is created by or proceeds according to the established physical laws." Thus, the formation of the universe, our solar system, the evolution of life on Earth, and the ways those lifeforms produce and sustain an enviroment (the carbon/oxygen/nitrogen cycles, reproduction cycles, population checks) are all natural. What is "un-natural," then, is an object/event/consequence is not created by "natural" laws. Even the LCD on my laptop is a natural object reflecting the natural rise of a dominant species on Earth, and that society's intellectual and industrial progression. But, so far as we can trace the history of events, there is no known natural process which could have established the laws of "natural processes." (i.e. created the universe).

To bring together my point:

The universe exists.
Everything inside the universe, having formed and been ordered by the universe, is natural.
The universe itself cannot be a result of its own physical laws. This is analogous to the "chicken-or-the-egg?" conundrum. For this point to be false, one would have to (irrationally) argue a circular definition for the universe (i.e. it exists because it existed).
Some supernatural process/force initiated the universe, dictated the laws by which it would evolve, and commenced time.
Attempts to isolate a process responsible for the universe's existence are meaningless. No law/theorem/conjecture explaining the process can be verified by evidence within the natural universe. Simply put: you can explain the happenings inside the universe because you can observe it, but supernatural happenings have no effect on the observable universe. Something supernatural created the universe, but all observable phenomenon within it are a result of its own progression.


This argument also creates its own somewhat circular definitions, but it's logical...ish. Not exactly applicable to anything, or even consequential, but it was metaphysically very satisfying to think through.

...that's when I think things become un-natural. Sooo irrelevant..

Human beings are natural creatures, they are no less natural than birds. A bird's nest is not unnatural, is it avian certainly, but it is also natural. A person's house, is is not unnatural, it is artificial certainly, but it is also natural.

You can ascertain this by starting from first principals. It wont help to rely on dictionarys that simply reflect whatever muddled thinking might have inadvertently being linked to and wrapped up with a word.

In order to seperate human products some other class, we need a difference of kind (note this is not the same as a difference of degree). Complexity for instance is a difference merely of degree not of kind. We are looking for a qualitive difference and I just dont see any qualitive difference that makes sense of calling a bird's nest natural whilst calling bronze unnatural. They are both natural. Both are made by natural organic creatures, using natural materials and applying natural processes. The whole point of the word natural is it functions to describe all that is possible short of the super natural.

Artificial (natural human produced/generated/crafted artifacts) describes bronze, but so does natural. The earlier is a sub-group of the latter, not a contrary category.

Am I leaving anything out?In a way, yes. We can imagine things that aren't real. I think the correct term for a nondual universe is Kosmos (as opposed to cosmos), but I'm a bit rusty on philosophy.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...




First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
As I see it there is nothing unnatural in what you wrote (except possibly 11-13, and in that case you would understand it by looking at the processes needed to do it). However the stick, stone and twine shifted from nature/natural to culture/cultural at step 4. The axe is sure made from natural materials, but it is also in a sense produced by the human mind who thought out how the raw materials should be put together. And the mind is not part of the material world.

EDIT: Ok, I read parts of the thread now, and this is what you are missing/need to make explicit:

Is the human mind a part of nature? Or to phrase it differently, is your mind merely a material phenomenon, or is the mind an immaterial phenomenon? If you answer that the mind is just a relatively complex machine, then your reasoning in the OP is correct and everything is natural (and it is pointless to say that something is natural). But if man's mind is something special and not part of the material world, then when it is part of the creation of something then that creation also becomes separate from nature. And that is what is claimed by philosophers who make a distinction between nature and culture.

If all in the universe is natural, and all natural things are part of the universe, then all natural things = the universe. If this is the case then all we have here is a redundant term for the universe. While interesting for those who enjoy increasing the number of synonyms in existence this definition adds very little to science or philosophy or metaphysics.

If we attempt to draw the defining line so that the universe contains both the natural and the unnatural then we have at least a chance of learning something worthwhile.

Is the human mind a part of nature? Or to phrase it differently, is your mind merely a material phenomenon, or is the mind an immaterial phenomenon? If you answer that the mind is just a relatively complex machine, then your reasoning in the OP is correct and everything is natural (and it is pointless to say that something is natural). But if man's mind is something special and not part of the material world, then when it is part of the creation of something then that creation also becomes separate from nature. And that is what is claimed by philosophers who make a distinction between nature and culture.

This is, I think, the relevant conclusion.

If humans are natural creatures, then they act they perform (including the production of bronze) is necessarily a natural process. The only way human constructs can be unnatural is if humans are somehow unnatural.

I don't see how one can justify that position, though. Holding man apart from nature seems so fundamentally arrogant a position. Humans arose through a natural process. Humans are natural. Therefore everything humans do is natural.

Voila, the self-aware robots are natural, since they were produced by nature (aka humans).

So you're saying that actions are unnatural insofar as they obstruct existence? If so, wouldn't that mean the extinction of a species due to whatever reasons (not just due to mankind, but also exhaustion of food supply, inabilty to adapt, an asteroid impact, etc.) is unnatural? Is the fact that life does not exist on Mercury unnatural? How can nonexistence be unnatural if at one point in time, we naturally did not exist?:confused:
Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting your position.

No, I'm saying that actions are unnatural insofar as they impair the smooth functioning of the body and mind during existence. Getting eaten and killed by a lion is natural, since left to our own devices in Africa that might happen. Death by sticking your head in a lion's mouth, however, is unnatural, because it's unnatural for any rational person to do something so utterly foolish and ill-conducive to your continued existence.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
nature - The material world and its phenomena.
Umm... wait.

When I check Dictionary.com for "natural," I get:1. Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
2. Of, relating to, or concerning nature: a natural environment.
3. Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature: a natural death.
.... And ten other definitions, besides.
Hmm... and when I check the same site for "nature":1. The material world and its phenomena.
2. The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world: the laws of nature.
3. The world of living things and the outdoors: the beauties of nature.
4. A primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality: couldn't tolerate city life anymore and went back to nature.
.... And more!

So, clearly you are trying to pull a fast one. If one speaks strictly of your chosen definition of nature ("the material world and its phenomena"), then your claim that "everything its natural" is true by definition. You do not even need the "convoluted" reasoning that follows to show that.

But to claim on this basis that "everything" is "natural" according to all the other definitions of "nature" is ludicrous. Clearly not everything is "a primitive state of existence, untouched and uninfluenced by civilization or artificiality."

First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.Yes, yes. But for practical purposes, this is not a very useful definition of "natural"--a point that should be all too obvious from the fact that you could replace "is natural" and "are natural" with "exists" and "exist" without in any substantive way changing the meaning of these sentences.

So, at what point does the object become unnatural?According to the definition "nature=everything," obviously never. But if one is interested in, say, the imprint of human culture on the world, then one might suggest all kinds of useful measuring sticks. One very promising measure, for instance, might involve the level of repression (training, conditioning, education, work) required to produce a product or effect. As a rough-and-ready empirical measure that corresponds to this fairly well, we can use the extent of the human division of labor. Hence...

1. There is a tree in a forest. Natural
2. A stick falls off of the tree. Natural
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree. Natural
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.Natural
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.Natural
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.Natural as long as he finds it and does not have someone mine it for him.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.Less natural.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.Very unnatural... Think of all the many specialized behaviors that must be learned, all the delayed gratification, all the WORK. I'll stop here... It only gets worse from here on out.

Feedback? Yeah. Learn what "equivocation" means.

So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.


Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
I reckon there. Fuck the definitions, it took conscious thought to do number 3, hence it is no longer a force of nature per se as the action has been moulded by a mind. The stick falls from the tree by chance, the chimp has a purpose for the action - without that purpose, it would not have happened.

this is where you are nitpicking.

yes, every molicue and atom are natural, but the combination process isn't.

unless you can show me where plastics are naturally produced, Plastics, a product of Natrual Materials, is not in and of itself, a product of Nature.

His point is: everything made by humans are natural because humans are themselves natural. For ex: let's say a rabbid shits. That shit is natural right? Because rabbid did it. Similarly, everything humans does is natural. Of course making plastics requires intellect while shitting is biology. However, intellect comes from biology as well (brain). So, plastics come from brain and shit comes from intestines and both are natural. So, as the OP said, everything is natural.

When a member of mankind uses it in a manner inconsistent with his natural end.

You see, you don't have a proper understanding of "natural", because your definition is of a completely different kind of thing that what medieval philosophers were talking about when they used the term. Your definition of the term incorporates the Aristotelian formal (the nature of a thing includes the term "natural" in its definition) and efficient (how is something produced), but medieval philosophers were more interested in the Aristotelian final cause, namely what for the sake of which something is made or used.

Now that's pretty technical, so I'll break it down for you in a simple example. By your definition, a steak is perfectly natural, and medieval philosophers would provisionally agree with you on this: it is a natural thing in the formal or efficient sense, because it was made by natural causes and essentially natural in character. However, if a man were to eat huge amounts of steak every night, while the steak itself is natural, his actions aren't. Why? Because his actions are of the kind that produce ill health in the human body, as eating red meat will give you atherosclerosis in no time. Ill health is not a thing for which the body was intended to be, but rather a deficiency in the proper functioning, and hence the proper end of human existence. As such, gluttonous consumption of steak is unnatural, and by extension sinful.

Ends that'll lead to ill to human body are unnatural? Does that mean cancer is unnatural?

One can assert that anything done by a natural being is thus natural, however that assertion is, well, bilge. A factory is not naturally occurring, unless Dr. Livingstone missed that particular marvel on his tour of Africa.

My personal perspective, as an apathetic atheist, is that anything that is naturally occurring, and requires no fabricated input, may be considered natural.

First, let's take a look at the thread title.
"Everything is natural."

thus, let's look at his definitions.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE --> natural - Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.

This one is not ->nature - The material world and its phenomena.
why? simple, the thread title and his conclusions end in two different posistions.

"If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe. "
wrong, a robot is not "produced by nature, (as defined by his own quote)" but is produced by products produced by processes that unnaturally combines natural material.

"My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural. "
by re-arrainging molecues and atoms, recombing them to form different structures, you are infact making a different Item. one that is not produced Natrually, ie, Neither present nor produced by nature. His provided definition of Natural.

now if you can show me how a robot is made in NATURE (nature - The material world and its phenomena.) note, "It's Phenomena" not it's materials. then you have something, but as long as it requires an influence that cannot be reproduced in other areas natrually, then it's an actual product of the influencer.

Is an apple unnatural because they grow on a tree? No. Tree is natural and hence part of nature. Similarly humans are natural and hence part of nature. Anything a human does is therefore natural.

Is an apple unnatural because they grow on a tree? No. Tree is natural and hence part of nature. Similarly humans are natural and hence part of a nature. Anything a human does is therefore natural.

Not at all. The apple grown from the tree requires only a natural procedure to develop, whereas the majority of the acts of man require the use of either machinery, or materials, neither of which nature avails itself of.

yep. a birds nest is a construct. created by the birds using materials that undergo minimal alteration.

Bronze is a bit different than mixing mud, fecies, and spit.

a robot is even more complex than making bronze.

What do you define nature as? Trees do photosynthesis. Is the resulting oxygen unnatural because it underwent alteration from other elements?

No, I'm saying that actions are unnatural insofar as they impair the smooth functioning of the body and mind during existence. Getting eaten and killed by a lion is natural, since left to our own devices in Africa that might happen. Death by sticking your head in a lion's mouth, however, is unnatural, because it's unnatural for any rational person to do something so utterly foolish and ill-conducive to your continued existence.

But the elements of human psychology that lead to the behavior of sticking your head into a lion's mouth are perfectly natural, humans being natural creatures.

Not at all. The apple grown from the tree requires only a natural procedure to develop, whereas the majority of the acts of man require the use of either machinery, or materials, neither of which nature avails itself of.

Machinery is natural because humans made it. We didnt bend the laws of physics while doing that.

What do you define nature as? Trees do photosynthesis. Is the resulting oxygen unnatural because it underwent alteration from other elements?

Photosynthesis is a self sustaining process that requires only the presence of two elements to operate, and no regulation. To use Junii's example, the creation of Bronze is neither self-sustaining, nor self-regulating.

Machinery is natural because humans made it. We didnt bend the laws of physics while doing that.

No. Machinery does not beget more machinery, whereas a tree begets many more trees.

Not at all. The apple grown from the tree requires only a natural procedure to develop, whereas the majority of the acts of man require the use of either machinery, or materials, neither of which nature avails itself of.

You're presupposing that man isn't part of nature. If man is part of nature, and avails himself of machinery, then it is the case that nature avails itself of machinery.

You need to somehow justify that disconnect - that the things humans do are not natural, and yet the things non-humans do are natural.

Is the universe really natural? My definition for something "natural" would be "that which is created by or proceeds according to the established physical laws." Thus, the formation of the universe, our solar system, the evolution of life on Earth, and the ways those lifeforms produce and sustain an enviroment (the carbon/oxygen/nitrogen cycles, reproduction cycles, population checks) are all natural. What is "un-natural," then, is an object/event/consequence is not created by "natural" laws. Even the LCD on my laptop is a natural object reflecting the natural rise of a dominant species on Earth, and that society's intellectual and industrial progression. But, so far as we can trace the history of events, there is no known natural process which could have established the laws of "natural processes." (i.e. created the universe).

To bring together my point:

The universe exists.
Everything inside the universe, having formed and been ordered by the universe, is natural.
The universe itself cannot be a result of its own physical laws. This is analogous to the "chicken-or-the-egg?" conundrum. For this point to be false, one would have to (irrationally) argue a circular definition for the universe (i.e. it exists because it existed).
Some supernatural process/force initiated the universe, dictated the laws by which it would evolve, and commenced time.
Attempts to isolate a process responsible for the universe's existence are meaningless. No law/theorem/conjecture explaining the process can be verified by evidence within the natural universe. Simply put: you can explain the happenings inside the universe because you can observe it, but supernatural happenings have no effect on the observable universe. Something supernatural created the universe, but all observable phenomenon within it are a result of its own progression.


This argument also creates its own somewhat circular definitions, but it's logical...ish. Not exactly applicable to anything, or even consequential, but it was metaphysically very satisfying to think through.

...that's when I think things become un-natural. Sooo irrelevant..

"This argument also creates its own somewhat circular definitions" If something supernatural created the universe then what created that supernatural thing, right?
If we follow that logic we will go infinately to the primary source because a primary source can not exist. So the primary source should always be there. Not created by something else. Hence somehow the primary source should have always existed.
Is the universe primary source? No, because we know that universe had a beginning (big bang theory). So, I believe the primary source is GOD. Not a christian god that'll burn you if you look to your neighbors wife in a bad way, but a GOD as in some intelligent life force....

You're presupposing that man isn't part of nature. If man is part of nature, and avails himself of machinery, then it is the case that nature avails itself of machinery.

You need to somehow justify that disconnect - that the things humans do are not natural, and yet the things non-humans do are natural.

No. My posts are predicated upon the notion that anything that is the resulatant of a "natural" process is natural. However, that a natural entity uses a piece of machinery does not render it natural.

My point is this; a tree, and acorn or a tiger is naturally occurring, a jet engine is not, since its creation requires fabrication and the coalescance of several parts.

No. My posts are predicated upon the notion that anything that is the resulatant of a "natural" process is natural. However, that a natural entity uses a piece of machinery does not render it natural.

My point is this; a tree, and acorn or a tiger is naturally occurring, a jet engine is not, since its creation requires fabrication and the coalescance of several parts.

So, you define a bird's nest unnatural as well?

You're presupposing that man isn't part of nature. If man is part of nature, and avails himself of machinery, then it is the case that nature avails itself of machinery.

You need to somehow justify that disconnect - that the things humans do are not natural, and yet the things non-humans do are natural.

Self awareness justify that disconnect? Only humans are self aware, I think...

So, you define a bird's nest unnatural as well?

There is an obvious difference between constructing a birds nest and building a jet engine.

No. My posts are predicated upon the notion that anything that is the resulatant of a "natural" process is natural. However, that a natural entity uses a piece of machinery does not render it natural.

Because the machinery is unnatural? Why? At what level of complexity does something become unnatural? And what about that specific level of complexity makes it unnatural?

My point is this; a tree, and acorn or a tiger is naturally occurring, a jet engine is not, since its creation requires fabrication and the coalescance of several parts.

Much like a beaver dam and resultant lake. I don't understand why you think fabrication is an unnatural process?

Self awareness justify that disconnect? Only humans are self aware, I think...

Same question. Why does self-awareness or sentience matter? Is self-awareness necessarily unnatural? Why? And in that case, wouldn't everything humans do be unnatural?

There is an obvious difference between constructing a birds nest and building a jet engine.

If it's so obvious, what is it, exactly?

Ah, but if man is a part of nature, anything that man produces (short of something out of nothing) is natural by logical extention.

Yes, but again: only if you accept your initial definition such that nature=everything existing, making your entire argument circular. You beg the question from the outset: why adopt that definition of "nature" and not another? Why assume that everything is natural?

When most people think of the "natural" we think of "what would be or occur on its own, without cultural intervention." This distinction is a useful one: it describes a world of natural processes that occur regardless against a cultural world generated by the creative impulse and therefore subject to change according to the human will.

The natural world is not ordinarily subject to moral judgments: we cannot decide that the wind "should not" blow so hard in a hurricane--that's just what hurricanes do. The human world, however, we can judge: we can examine human actions and habits to decide if they are "right" or "wrong."

If you are serious in your argument that "everything is natural," then it seems that your entire argument is really a round-about way of getting at the idea of determinism. If human actions are fundamentally determined by physical processes, then you are correct: there is no interesting distinction to be made between what we do as cultural creatures and what any other natural species does.

So, if you want to have that discussion, fine. But don't try to play semantic tricks by pretending that the dictionary somehow "proves" your point. It does not.

Because the machinery is unnatural? Why? At what level of complexity does something become unnatural? And what about that specific level of complexity makes it unnatural?



Much like a beaver dam and resultant lake. I don't understand why you think fabrication is an unnatural process?



Same question. Why does self-awareness or sentience matter? Is self-awareness necessarily unnatural? Why? And in that case, wouldn't everything humans do be unnatural?

Self awareness might be unnatural. Someone else said it in this thread. If self awareness requires a soul, that sould should be beyond normal laws of physics.

It does by the second definition. The procedure is material. Read the second definition before you argue that again, since that is what the idea is based off of.
Right, but why? When the very dictionary cited lists ten very different definitions for "nature," why do we have to use the one that you like best?

why adopt that definition of "nature" and not another?

I prefer definitions to have some sort of etymological basis. So natural = of or relating to nature.

I would further assert that the entire universe is likely to be "of nature". As such, any assertion that anything in the world is unnatural needs to refute the intitial assertion that the entire universe is "of nature".

Or are you saying that once man enters into the picture, it becomes unnatural?No.

Human beings were around for tens of thousands of years before human culture became truly artificial.

When humans live an authentic existence, eating when they are hungry, napping when they are tired, and playing games when they want to have fun, they are living naturally.

When, for whatever reason, human beings give up this natural lifestyle to adopt symbolic existence--symbols being a mere substitute for reality--then life becomes more artificial.

Human beings are naturally a liesure-loving, fun-loving species. We don't like to work. Just look at how long and hard we need to condition our children to actually work through a gruelling modern existence. Look at how we have to medicate ourselves just to keep our bodies and minds going in a world that bears little resemblance to what we do naturally.

Making simple tools? Perfectly natural. Spending all day in a mine? You need to be forced to do that, in one way or another. That's unnatural.

Dude - I JUST SAID that if a different definition were to be used, I'd agree with you on that one. That's not the question here - the question is if, using the definitions he's given, it works.I have said it, too. I have only added that using his definition, the "argument" is true by definition. When you define "nature" to be "everything" it should be no surprise that "everything is natural."

Not very interesting then.

I have said it, too. I have only added that using his definition, the "argument" is true by definition. When you define "nature" to be "everything" it should be no surprise that "everything is natural."

Not very interesting then.

Yeah, it's a circular type of reasoning.

Does make people think about what they mean by "natural" however. I guess that's a good thing.

Humans arose through a natural process. Humans are natural. Therefore everything humans do is natural.

And, therefore, genocide is no more "wrong" than a hurricane.

I have said it, too. I have only added that using his definition, the "argument" is true by definition. When you define "nature" to be "everything" it should be no surprise that "everything is natural."

Not very interesting then.

Fine. Let's discuss that defnition, then. If there are things in the universe that aren't nature, what are they? And what standard do you use to determine what counts as nature and what doesn't?

And, therefore, genocide is no more "wrong" than a hurricane.

Since what is natural does not necessarily have anything to do with what is moral, no, not at all.

And, therefore, genocide is no more "wrong" than a hurricane.

Why are you equating "unnatural" and "wrong"?

I prefer definitions to have some sort of etymological basis. So natural = of or relating to nature.Well, if you like etymology, then you may have some trouble with the fact that the definition of "nature" adopted in this thread is one of the most recent, most reified definitions the word and its antecedents have taken on.

The original meaning of the Latin root had more to do with "character" or "essence." One might talk of a person's "antagonistic nature." Moreover, the distinction between "nature" and "artifice" is far, far older than the concepts of the "natural" and the "supernatural" as we know them today. The final division between the two did not occur until about two-hundred years ago.

Check the OED, for starters.

Why do I see all the simple threads blown out of proportion??

Everything is a part of nature but that doesn't make everything natural. Anything that would happen without human intervention is natural otherwise it's classified as unnatural or "man made" that's just how the definition of the words are.

So technically you could call everything natural since it is all a part of nature but for something that was changed by human intevention it now becomes unnatural as that is a sub-category within natural.

Why are you equating "unnatural" and "wrong"? I'm not. I think that my favorite TV shows are just as "unnatural" or "artificial" as genocide. Clearly I would give very different moral evaluations, however, to my TV shows and genocide.

What makes them artificial is the fact that they are subject to moral judgments, good or bad.

If they were natural--if they were "just what people do naturally"--then I would not be able to judge either of them. To reiterate, a "natural" genocide and a "natural" hurricane would be on the same moral level.

Since what is natural does not necessarily have anything to do with what is moral, no, not at all.Well, then just what is the point of this thread?

The reason we usually distinguish between "nature" and "artifice" is because human beings are responsible for the latter: and it is this responsibility that makes us think, "Gee, was building factories such a good idea?" Some people might say, "Yes, civilization advances our species." Others may say, "No, factories pollute our bodies and the environment alike."

The point is that we treat artificial phenomena differently than we do natural phenomena. We do not say, "Was it a good idea for lions to grow huge teeth?" We do not say this because the question is irrelevant: lions have huge teeth--that's just what they are. Moralizing about it simply makes no sense.

Hence, my assumption was that the poster who started this thread wanted to argue that we shouldn't be complaining that all of this civilized stuff is "unnatural" or worrying about what we do with it... because "really" it's all natural after all.

So if there is no moral distinction between the natural and the non-natural... then so what if "everything is natural"? So what if a robot would be natural?

Why should I care?

The reason we usually distinguish between "nature" and "artifice" is because human beings are responsible for the latter: and it is this responsibility that makes us think, "Gee, was building factories such a good idea?" Some people might say, "Yes, civilization advances our species." Others may say, "No, factories pollute our bodies and the environment alike."

The point is that we treat artificial phenomena differently than we do natural phenomena. We do not say, "Was it a good idea for lions to grow huge teeth?" We do not say this because the question is irrelevant: lions have huge teeth--that's just what they are. Moralizing about it simply makes no sense.

Well, okay, but you are not making a moral distinction as much as a practical one; it makes more sense for us, as humans, with influence over human society, to discuss its morality than to discuss the morality of things over which we have no control, but it does not follow that we cannot judge them morally, merely that there is nothing productive in judging them morally.

Of course, there is nothing productive in making many of the moral judgements that humans make about human society, either.

Hence, my assumption was that the poster who started this thread wanted to argue that we shouldn't be complaining that all of this civilized stuff is "unnatural" or worrying about what we do with it... because "really" it's all natural after all.

I think the original poster was trying to be clever, not to make some philosophical point.

So if there is no moral distinction between the natural and the non-natural... then so what if "everything is natural"? So what if a robot would be natural?

Why should I care?

Aesthetic appeal?

What makes them artificial is the fact that they are subject to moral judgments, good or bad.

I think you need to justify that claim.

Why should I care?

I don't think the question is why should you care, but should you care at all.

And the answer might be no. Maybe you shouldn't care.

I think you need to justify that claim.Which? The claim that human activities are subject to moral judgement, or the claim that this makes them different than natural phenomena?

So, you define a bird's nest unnatural as well?

Birds Nest:

Broken twigs

Jet Engine:

Composite alloys

Note the difference in the constituent parts.

Which? The claim that human activities are subject to moral judgement, or the claim that this makes them different than natural phenomena?

The assertion that something is artificial because it is subject to moral judgement.

But any of those will do.

Birds Nest:

Broken twigs

Jet Engine:

Composite alloys

Note the difference in the constituent parts.

But why does that difference matter?

The assertion that something is artificial because it is subject to moral judgement.That's not what I said. Or if it is, I misspoke.

What I meant to say is that something is subject to moral judgment because it is artificial and not "natural"--it is not what would have happened anyway; it involved choice, creativity (or destructiveness) that was not simply a result of natural processes having their way with natural materials.

Ultimately, I would opt for a more refined definition that allows all kinds of "free" natural activities, distinguishing the artificial as those activities which require repression of natural inclinations.

That's not what I said. Or if it is, I misspoke.

What I meant to say is that something is subject to moral judgment because it is artificial and not "natural"--it is not what would have happened anyway; it involved choice, creativity (or destructiveness) that was not simply a result of natural processes having their way with natural materials.

Ultimately, I would opt for a more refined definition that allows all kinds of "free" natural activities, distinguishing the artificial as those activities which require repression of natural inclinations.

But you still haven't defended that. Why does something's artificiality affect whether it's subject to moral judgement?

And how would you define "natural inclinations"? There seems to be a whole lot of chance for arbitrary distinctions.

But you still haven't defended that. Why does something's artificiality affect whether it's subject to moral judgement?I should think that would be obvious... but then, I may have overrated your ability to decipher common sense.

At any rate, I have already explained. But I will break it down for you.

We can only consistently judge, on moral grounds, the behaviors of moral agents. It makes no sense to say that something "did wrong" which could not have done otherwise. Indeed, this logic makes its way even into our criminal courts, in which it is commonly held that if a person is so devoid of reason--or was at the time an act was committed--that he/she had no moral control over the event in question, he/she may plead "not guilty" by reason of insanity. (A very hard case to prove, but a core component of moral reason nonetheless.)

When a person makes this plea, they mean one of two things: either they were so possessed by the cause-effect sequence of a material chain of events (in their mind or brain) that they could exercise no control over their actions; or they were so lost mentally that while they could control their actions, they could no longer tell the difference between "right" and "wrong."

Thus, there are two conditions under which we say that moral judgments do not hold: 1) when events are determined; and 2) when choices are arbitrary.

Only when we can reasonably conclude that events and behaviors are the result of a moral agent's intentional behavior can we apply moral judgments to them.

Now, it goes without saying that there is no "intent" to a hurricane, or to an earthquake, or to rain, or to a supernova. These things are determined by natural forces. Alternatively, it may be that some natural events happen essentially by chance: arbitrarily.

Such events cannot be evaluated morally. They may be materially "good" (the end of a drought) or "bad" (a devastating hurricane) for human beings, but these are not moral qualities.

If there is no moral difference between these sorts of things, and artificial things, then we cannot judge artifice either. But there is a difference: the artificial is that which someone intended to make or do.

And how would you define "natural inclinations"?That which an organism is inclined to do before or without training/conditioning/repression.

A dog is not naturally inclined to walk quietly beside a person, to look both ways before crossing a street, and so on... but with enough training, we can get a dog to repress its natural inclination to run, play, sleep and eat when it wants... and to become helpful to the blind.

There seems to be a whole lot of chance for arbitrary distinctions.
Not at all. If a creature would learn to do something on its own, that is natural. If a creature can learn to do something which does not conflict with its natural inclinations, I would still call that fairly natural: a human who learns to make arrows--which may actually be fun and which can fit into her/his normal schedule of napping and play--may be making natural use of the human intellect.

But a human who has to repress every natural inclination to go to work at a menial job for 40 hours a week, only to go home so tired he/she can no longer enjoy the most basic pleasure? That seems quite unnatural to me.

And no, I'm not equating "unnatural" with "wrong." I think it's just as unnatural for someone to spend thousands of hours practicing painting straight lines in order to produce a beautiful work of art... though I certainly would not consider this "wrong." But it does require repression of our innate (notice the shared root with "natural" in "innate") inclinations.

A dog is not naturally inclined to walk quietly beside a person, to look both ways before crossing a street, and so on... but with enough training, we can get a dog to repress its natural inclination to run, play, sleep and eat when it wants... and to become helpful to the blind.

Can't the repression of natural inclinations can occur through natural inclinations?

thing is, the OP stringing two definitions that illustrate two seperate uses of the words he provides, ignoring the other definitions that also play a role in the varied uses of both Natural and Nature.

everyone is correct, there is no wrong argument.

Can't the repression of natural inclinations can occur through natural inclinations?Ah, when reason doesn't work, try again with incoherence.

Nice.

Ah, when reason doesn't work, try again with incoherence.

Nice.

Actually, I phrased it one way, decided I didn't like the phrasing, and edited it, accidentally leaving a superfluous "can."

Or are you saying that you can't understand the concept of some natural inclinations repressing others? It seems perfectly coherent to me.

It seems perfectly coherent to me.Well, then why don't you explain it?

Given that we are discussing "repression" as the result of external conditioning or education, I really don't think it would be coherent to say that one "inclination" represses another.

Well, then why don't you explain it?

Given that we are discussing "repression" as the result of external conditioning or education, I really don't think it would be coherent to say that one "inclination" represses another.

And "external conditioning" wouldn't work if it did not manipulate "natural instincts."

There are countless examples of natural instincts repressing other natural instincts. Instincts to seek food can repress instincts to rest. Cooperative instincts can repress competitive instincts, or the reverse. Social instincts can repress instincts of self-preservation. And so on.

Does a dog have unnatural instincts? It might have conditioned responses, but such responses are dependent on natural instincts, not contrary to them (at least not universally).

Even the human being forced to work a menial job has some motive for doing so; is the human anything but a "natural" creature? If humans are natural creatures, how can our motives be "unnatural"? How can they suppress "every natural inclination"? Clearly, there must be some basis for these actions, otherwise they would not occur.

What does make sense to me is to make a distinction not between "repressed" and "unrepressed" natural instincts, but between natural and unnatural circumstances; "unnatural" being circumstances different from those that defined an organism's basic structure of instincts. Thus, while the worker you mention in your earlier example may be acting according to "natural instincts," he is not acting in natural circumstances, and thus those instincts do not manifest themselves in natural behavior.

But I don't think that has much to do with morality, except as far as it concerns the extent to which an unnatural society serves human welfare.

And "external conditioning" wouldn't work if it did not manipulate "natural instincts."So?

The point is that there is an empirically observable set of "things a creature would do left to its own devices" that is demonstrably distinct from "things a creature will do under artificial (created, manipulated) circumstances."

The things it wants to do innately represent its natural inclinations.

So?

The point is that there is an empirically observable set of "things a creature would do left to its own devices" that is demonstrably distinct from "things a creature will do under artificial (created, manipulated) circumstances."

Right. That's what I said.

The things it wants to do innately represent its natural inclinations.

Also true. But those "natural inclinations" aren't "repressed," at least not as a whole; they are merely channeled in different ways by circumstances, natural or unnatural.

It follows that even behavior in an unnatural setting is rooted in natural instincts, and therefore the moral distinction in terms of responsibility that you are crafting between "natural" and "artificial" is untenable.

But those "natural inclinations" aren't "repressed," at least not as a whole; they are merely channeled in different ways by circumstances, natural or unnatural.

"Channelling" or sublimation is a form of repression.

It follows that even behavior in an unnatural setting is rooted in natural instincts, and therefore the moral distinction in terms of responsibility that you are crafting between "natural" and "artificial" is untenable.

We're talking about two different things here. Two different definitions of "natural."

On the one hand, I am arguing that there is a useful definition of "natural" as opposed to "artificial." It is this distinction that is significant for moral purposes, relying on the fact that artifice is neither determined nor (necessarily) arbitrary.

At present, I am arguing that there is a difference between "natural" and "domesticated" or "conditioned" behavior in living creatures--natural behaviors being those that are innate. This is significant for understanding psychic alienation and culture itself.

The two are related, but not equivalent. This discussion, from the beginning, would benefit greatly if all of its participants would kindly recheck their dictionaries to see that the word "nature" refers to more than one thing. In case your elementary school teacher failed to point this out, the several definitions in a dictionary entry do not merely refer to the same thing in different ways. They may actually refer to different things.

Plato cautioned philosophers more than two thousand years ago to avoid the mistake of treating the word as the thing. It seems it takes a long time to learn that one.

We're talking about two different things here. Two different definitions of "natural."

On the one hand, I am arguing that there is a useful definition of "natural" as opposed to "artificial." It is this distinction that is significant for moral purposes, relying on the fact that artifice is neither determined nor (necessarily) arbitrary.

I see. And where does artificiality enter into the moral equation? You wrote earlier that "the artificial is what someone intended to do," yet how are intentions artificial? They most definitely are an aspect of any free being's nature and are certainly part of the natural world (because the beings who have them are.)

I see. And where does artificiality enter into the moral equation? You wrote earlier that "the artificial is what someone intended to do," yet how are intentions artificial? They most definitely are an aspect of any free being's nature and are certainly part of the natural world (because the beings who have them are.)

You're still equivocating by going back to the OP's definition of "natural."

Yes, everything that exists within this natural world, including the artifacts of free thinking beings, is "natural"... in the sense that it is a part of this natural, material world.

That is one meaning of "natural." Not a very useful one (what would one do with it?), but a coherent and understandable one. Fine.

As I have pointed out all along, however, there are other meanings of the word. One of them refers to the "natural" world as opposed to the "artificial" world. It seemed that at least one of the aims of the "everything is natural" crowd has been to claim that this distinction makes little sense, because "artificial" things are still material parts of this natural world.

All I have done, repeatedly, is to point out that this argument relies on equivocation; and to point out that the distinction between "nature" and "artifice" is not only completely obvious (for the most part, any random person can tell you which things are "natural" in this sense, and which things are "artificial"), but also analytically defensible--one coherent definition (not necessarily the best one) terms the "artificial" that which is produced by free intent as opposed to determination or arbitrary circumstance.

To reiterate, everything is a part of this material, natural world. But not everything in this world involves free intent; some things are determined; other things are arbitrary. This is a meaningful distinction. It just happens to be a quirk of our language that the word that applies universally to "this material world" is also the word that refers to those things which are determined by natural law or happen arbitrarily according to no law.

If you want to argue that the artifice/nature distinction is meaningless in some way, so that all artifice is natural in this sense, then you must argue that all human actions are determined (or arbitrary) rather than free. If that's what you want to do, fine. Just stop pretending that going back to the dictionary definition of "natural" will offer any help in the matter.

If you are still having trouble seeing that we are working with two completely different definitions of the word "natural," try this exercise.

Each meaning of the word entails a particular opposition. In the thread's dominant meaning, "natural" is the opposite of "supernatural." Whatever is natural is NOT supernatural, and whatever is supernatural is NOT natural.

Now, I have defended two different uses of the word. In the first, "natural" is opposed to "artificial." Whatever is natural is NOT artificial, and whatever is artificial is NOT natural. In the second, "natural" is opposed to "learned" or "conditioned." Whatever is natural is NOT learned, and whatever is learned is NOT natural.

It should be obvious that if a=a, then NOT-a = NOT-a.

But surely no one wants to argue that "supernatural" means the same thing as "artificial," or that either of these means the same thing as "learned"!

Thus, the oppositions do not match up. And since NOT-a =/ NOT-a, a=/a.

That is, the "natural" used in the "material world" definition DOES NOT REFER TO THE SAME THING as the "natural" that is opposed to artifice or to the "natural" that is opposed to learning.

For this reason, you CANNOT logically slip from one to the other in an argument.

You're still equivocating by going back to the OP's definition of "natural."

Yes, everything that exists within this natural world, including the artifacts of free thinking beings, is "natural"... in the sense that it is a part of this natural, material world.

That is one meaning of "natural." Not a very useful one (what would one do with it?), but a coherent and understandable one. Fine.

I've referenced the OP's definition precisely once, and that was in passing, in trying to explain why I didn't understand your distinction between "natural" and "artificial" on the basis of intention. To me it seems that the more "obvious" distinction would be between that which is altered by humans, or perhaps by human civilization, and that which is unaltered.

I don't agree with the OP at all, for what it's worth; I don't see why you keep on assuming that I do.

I've referenced the OP's definition precisely once, and that was in passing, in trying to explain why I didn't understand your distinction between "natural" and "artificial" on the basis of intention. To me it seems that the more "obvious" distinction would be between that which is altered by humans, or perhaps by human civilization, and that which is unaltered.That would be a fine distinction. The only reason I chose to make it more "abstract" was to allow for the possibility that non-human creatures may create artificial things. I think I saw a gorilla painting, once...

I don't agree with the OP at all, for what it's worth; I don't see why you keep on assuming that I do.I apologize for misinterpreting you. I was confused because you seemed to repeatedly try to refute my descriptions of the nature/artifice distinction by relying on the fact that everything is "natural" in the meaning used by the OP.

For instance,And where does artificiality enter into the moral equation? You wrote earlier that "the artificial is what someone intended to do," yet how are intentions artificial? They most definitely are an aspect of any free being's nature and are certainly part of the natural world (because the beings who have them are.)Here you seemed to be insisting that the artificial is "natural" because it is a part of the "natural world," which is precisely the argument the OP was making.

I guess you meant something else, and I'm too dense to make it out. :)

That would be a fine distinction. The only reason I chose to make it more "abstract" was to allow for the possibility that non-human creatures may create artificial things. I think I saw a gorilla painting, once...

I actually thought of that after I responded to you; not in regard to gorillas, but in regard to extra-terrestrial intelligence. I think the distinction isn't so much of one concerning intention as it is concerning simple human arrogance; we see ourselves as "beyond" nature, and thus activities similar to ours are also "beyond" nature.

I apologize for misinterpreting you. I was confused because you seemed to repeatedly try to refute my descriptions of the nature/artifice distinction by relying on the fact that everything is "natural" in the meaning used by the OP.

I seem to have misinterpreted you, too. Several times. Fair's fair. :)

Here you seemed to be insisting that the artificial is "natural" because it is a part of the "natural world," which is precisely the argument the OP was making.

I was making a reference to the OP's sense of the word there, yes, in trying to summarize why your definition didn't make sense to me (because it seemed to me that it didn't meet any of the senses of "natural," including both the OP's and your reference to the "nature" of things.) I should have been clearer. My excuse is that it is several hours past midnight and I didn't get any sleep this afternoon; my apologies.

My excuse is that it is several hours past midnight and I didn't get any sleep this afternoon; my apologies.
Sleep is for suckers!

:mp5:

Well, those were several fine hours of arguing the semantics of a point over which we seem hardly to disagree at all. A true Nationstates classic.

I dont even know where to start. All I can say is that attempting to defend the hegemonic (aka 'common sense') definition of 'natural' seems to involve a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings...
If all in the universe is natural, and all natural things are part of the universe, then all natural things = the universe. If this is the case then all we have here is a redundant term for the universe.
The exact same group of weeds cannot (in this universe at least) be simultaneously both growing in my mother's back yard, and not growing in my mother's back yard.
However both the weeds growing in my mother's back yard and the weeds not growing in my mother's back yard are simultaneously natural.
The universe refers to what is, natural refers to things that 'could be' within the boundaries of the 'natural laws' of the universe as we know it.
Thus a fictional book in which the events and characters detailed are all natural, isnt a book describing exacting the state of universe as it actually is
or was at some point (as a matter of definition a book describing natural events that also actually existed at some point in the universe, belongs to the category 'non-fiction').

But for practical purposes, this is not a very useful definition of "natural"--a point that should be all too obvious from the fact that you could replace "is natural" and "are natural" with "exists" and "exist" without in any substantive way changing the meaning of these sentences.

There are many places where it is true that
a tree growing at this place is natural
and yet false that
a tree growing at this place exists.
I'd call altering the truth value a substantive difference.

Only humans are self aware
We have no proof that all other animals on earth are not self aware. We do have some evidence that some primates are self aware.


only if you accept your initial definition such that nature=everything existing, making your entire argument circular. You beg the question from the outset: why adopt that definition of "nature" and not another? Why assume that everything is natural?
The definition doesnt entail that everything that exists necessarily is natural (although it may be the case that everything that exists is natural). Further the definition describes a category that contains members that are not members of the set 'things that exist in the universe', natural also describes things that could exist within the bounds of the 'natural laws' of the universe.
The word natural describes the boundaries of scientific enquiry - if something lies outside the boundaries of the cateogory 'the natural' (ie God) we cant investigate it using science - I suggest we can investigate 'the making of bronze' using science...

When most people think of the "natural" we think of "what would be or occur on its own, without cultural intervention."

If most people were sacrificing their first-born to Magog would you do it too?
In the first place, the fact that 'most people think X is true' is good reason to consider that it is not unlikely that 'X is true' is hegemonic rather than actually true.
Good sense is true/useful more often than common sense; that's a fact.

The natural world is not ordinarily subject to moral judgments: we cannot decide that the wind "should not" blow so hard in a hurricane--that's just what hurricanes do. The human world, however, we can judge: we can examine human actions and habits to decide if they are "right" or "wrong."
Whatever people make 'right and wrong judgements about' is 'subject to moral judgements'. This is/will continue to be true whatever definition we give to the word natural, or even if we were to speak a language in which the word natural didnt exist....

When, for whatever reason, human beings give up this natural lifestyle to adopt symbolic existence--symbols being a mere substitute for reality--then life becomes more artificial.

All anatomically modern humans live a symboloic existence. So according to your critieria, no human of our particular species is, ever was, or ever did anything natural...

The reason we usually distinguish between "nature" and "artifice" is because human beings are responsible for the latter:
There is no reason why we cannot distinguish the subgroup 'artificial' from the other members of the category 'the natural', just as we (quite luckily) distinguish the members of the subgroup '[plants that are] edible and non-toxic to humans' from the other members of the category 'plants'.

I dont even know where to start. All I can say is that attempting to defend the hegemonic (aka 'common sense') definition of 'natural' seems to involve a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings...And so you just introduce another definition of the word "natural." Yours has something to do with the bounds of scientific enquiry. Fine, I'm willing to accept that.

But, just like all the others, you cannot move from this definition to the others in an argument without treating them as different terms.

The universe refers to what is, natural refers to things that 'could be' within the boundaries of the 'natural laws' of the universe as we know it.Why? Someone provided a definition of "natural" as "the material world and its phenomena." This was interpreted as meaning "all that is," which is a perfectly coherent definition... and indeed the word "natural" is often used in this way. Now you say, "No, it means what could be." Certainly one can find people who use it this way as well.

Given that the word is customarily used with both meanings, and both of these are reasonably coherent, we may use them both. Just not as if they refer to the same thing. (Of course, one might pick at potential problems with your definition. Is a unicorn--a horse with a horn--'natural' because its existence would violate no physical law, or is it 'unnatural' because we know of no actual evidence that such a creature exists, has existed, or will exist through the natural process of nature?)

Meanwhile, I have pointed out that the word can be used consistently in at least two other ways--and possibly more. (Presumably, according to you it is "natural" to use the word "natural" in this way, since I can do it.)

The word natural describes the boundaries of scientific enquiry - if something lies outside the boundaries of the cateogory 'the natural' (ie God) we cant investigate it using science - I suggest we can investigate 'the making of bronze' using science...This is tiresome.

Once more, someone is insisting that the valid use of the word "natural" is in opposition to the word "supernatural"... without really telling us why that means we cannot (or should not) use it in opposition to "artificial" or "learned" as well.

It is a word. A symbol. A symbol can mean MORE THAN ONE THING!

In the first place, the fact that 'most people think X is true' is good reason to consider that it is not unlikely that 'X is true' is hegemonic rather than actually true.Given that I am the one arguing that the terms involved here may have multiple meanings, it seems unlikely that I am the one pushing a hegemonic agenda. Rather, it seems much more likely that the "everything is natural" or "nature refers to a scientific category" crowd are pushing an agenda related to the hegemony of positivist constructionism: i.e. the post-structuralist notion that there is no meaningful distinction between "nature" and "culture." This relies on several dogmas of postmodern thought, e.g. that thought requires language so that there can be no such thing as unmediated thought.

That appears to be the hegemonic trend, anyway. You seem to be a part of it.

All anatomically modern humans live a symboloic existence.No. As I have already pointed out, paleontologists and anthropologists have come to a consensus, within the last twenty years or so, that anatomically modern humans were around for tens of thousands of years before they finally drifted into symbolic existence.

So according to your critieria, no human of our particular species is, ever was, or ever did anything natural...Other than eating, pooping, fucking, playing fun games with no particular purpose... no. Modern humans, in our own ancient past, lived an authentic existence. Since then, children and primitives have been the closest.

But again, this is a different definition of "nature" than you claim for yourself. So let's try not to get confused, okay?

There is no reason why we cannot distinguish the subgroup 'artificial' from the other members of the category 'the natural', just as we (quite luckily) distinguish the members of the subgroup '[plants that are] edible and non-toxic to humans' from the other members of the category 'plants'.

Right. This analogy would be closer to the truth, however, if it were a quirk of our language that we call edible plants "plants" and inedible plants something else, with the difference between the subgroup "plants" and the set of all "plants" to be determined by context.

That is the situation we have vis-a-vis "nature." While in one sense we speak of "nature" as "all that is," in another sense we distinguish the "artificial" subset of this set from the "natural" subset. Whether when we use the term "nature" we mean the one or the other is to be determined from context.

For the times that we cannot tell, we have invented another word: "ambiguity."

And so you just introduce another definition of the word "natural." Yours has something to do with the bounds of scientific enquiry. Fine, I'm willing to accept that.
I dont see that it is another definition, it is merely a clarification of the definition I percieve as being described by in the OP.

But, just like all the others, you cannot move from this definition to the others in an argument without treating them as different terms.

WTF? Seriously I have no idea what you are talking now...

Why? Someone provided a definition of "natural" as "the material world and its phenomena."
Then this is an incomplete definition.

This was interpreted as meaning "all that is," which is a perfectly coherent definition... and indeed the word "natural" is often used in this way. Now you say, "No, it means what could be." Certainly one can find people who use it this way as well.
It certainly does mean 'all that is', it also means' all that could, within the bounds of the laws of nature, be.

Given that the word is customarily used with both meanings, and both of these are reasonably coherent, we may use them both. Just not as if they refer to the same thing. (Of course, one might pick at potential problems with your definition. Is a unicorn--a horse with a horn--'natural' because its existence would violate no physical law, or is it 'unnatural' because we know of no actual evidence that such a creature exists, has existed, or will exist through the natural process of nature?)
I dont see that I can clarify that issue for you since I dont believe that unicorn=horse with a horn. So far as I can tell a unicorn is a mythical creature (that bears some resemblence to a horse, but is not a horse). It's mythical and so I'd describe it as supernatural - I dont know that the laws of nature in this universe ever have, ever will, or ever could allow for the existence of a unicorn, so to me a unicorn is not natural.

Meanwhile, I have pointed out that the word can be used consistently in at least two other ways--and possibly more. (Presumably, according to you it is "natural" to use the word "natural" in this way, since I can do it.)
According to me it is natural for you to contract cancer, I sincerely hope you never do. You have not anywhere in this thread pointed out an alternative definition to my own, that is coherent and descriptive, rather than hegemonic and misleading nonsense.

This is tiresome.

Once more, someone is insisting that the valid use of the word "natural" is in opposition to the word "supernatural"... without really telling us why that means we cannot (or should not) use it in opposition to "artificial" or "learned" as well.

Can you not tell that the other definitions are incoherent? Isnt that reason enough? Artificial is a subset of natural, it renders the word natural utterly dysfunctional if it serves both to describe the set artificial belongs to and to describe a set that all artificial things are excluded from. The reason why we oughten use a word to describe a set that includes the artificial, whilst also using that same word to describe a set that excludes the artificial seems fairly blatently obvious to me...

It is a word. A symbol. A symbol can mean MORE THAN ONE THING!
I know a word can mean more than one thing, I also know that it is stupid for a word to mean contrary things. Another thing I know is that the very concept you want the word 'natural/nature' to stand in for is incoherent. That's why using the word nature/natural for the concept is so important to so many people. Because the concept it is being used to convey is a hegemonic incoherent nonsense, without 'nature' the concept would have to be described in full - yet it's so darn incoherent, most people who believe in the concept couldnt ever describe the concept in full; why? Because the concept doesnt make sense and when people go to explain it they find that they 'just cant explain it'.......

Given that I am the one arguing that the terms involved here may have multiple meanings, it seems unlikely that I am the one pushing a hegemonic agenda.
Arguing for multiple definitions doesnt indicate anything about hegemony whatsoever....whatever are you on about?:confused:

Rather, it seems much more likely that the "everything is natural" or "nature refers to a scientific category" crowd are pushing an agenda related to the hegemony of positivist constructionism: i.e. the post-structuralist notion that there is no meaningful distinction between "nature" and "culture."
Hang on, you are suggesting that a non-commonsense position is one of hegemony.....do you not know what hegemony is?
There is a meaningful distinction between nature and culture, the set nature includes many more members than the set cultural.

This relies on several dogmas of postmodern thought, e.g. that thought requires language so that there can be no such thing as unmediated thought.
Then it clearly doesnt apply to me, I dont believe that thought requires langauge. My convictions regarding the word nature were arrived at independently and in contrast to the ideas that were presented to me. So it simply is not possible that my understanding/definition of the word is the result of hegemony rather than reasoned.

That appears to be the hegemonic trend, anyway. You seem to be a part of it.
I dont see any evidence whatsoever that the definition I posted or the OP posted are hegemonic, quite the contrary, so far as I can tell they are counter-hegemonic.

No. As I have already pointed out, paleontologists and anthropologists have come to a consensus, within the last twenty years or so, that anatomically modern humans were around for tens of thousands of years before they finally drifted into symbolic existence.
I dont see that you have pointed this out. You've certainly not evidenced it and unless you do, I'm not buying.

Other than eating, pooping, fucking, playing fun games with no particular purpose... no. Modern humans, in our own ancient past, lived an authentic existence. Since then, children and primitives have been the closest.
I disagree, I also disagree that anatomically modern humans were ever not living in a symbolic world.

But again, this is a different definition of "nature" than you claim for yourself. So let's try not to get confused, okay?
You do that...

Right. This analogy would be closer to the truth, however, if it were a quirk of our language that we call edible plants "plants" and inedible plants something else, with the difference between the subgroup "plants" and the set of all "plants" to be determined by context.
Analogies are either weak or strong, not more or less close to the truth. The fact is it is utterly counter-productive and somewhat stupid to use one word to mean two contrary things - that is a set that includes all things artificial, and a set that excludes all things artificial.

That is the situation we have vis-a-vis "nature." While in one sense we speak of "nature" as "all that is," in another sense we distinguish the "artificial" subset of this set from the "natural" subset. Whether when we use the term "nature" we mean the one or the other is to be determined from context.
Often the context doesnt determine. So far as I can tell we already have the word artificial, why muddy up the waters and add unnecessary ambiguity by having the word natural mean the exact same thing? I think the reason is because it's a linguistic 'swifty'. In fact while everyone pretends that 'unnatural' is a descriptive word, it's actually a conceptual word. It describes something so incoherent, it actually cant be described without the word. Why dont people go 'hang on that doesnt make any sense, it's a nonesense'? Because although the concept is nonsense, it is also 'obvious' and 'common sense'....it's hegemonic.

My primary objection is that I think the use of the word as you claim it can be used, hides the incoherence of certain concepts and in many situations serves as a strong propaganda tool. I have never yet had anyone explain to me a coherent concept that resembles the concept you apparently wish to use the word natural/nature for.

For the times that we cannot tell, we have invented another word: "ambiguity."
Why use ambiguity, why not use natural - it can have more than one meaning.....? Can you see where this might go? In case you didnt realise, ambiguity is a shortcoming/flaw of our communication system, ie something to be avoided rather than something we attempt to produce more of....

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
And may indeed be the next step in evolution.

I understand your point that "everything is natural," but sometimes natural things can be put to quite unnatural uses.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...




First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?

It became "unnatural" at 3 because it ceased being a mere part of nature and became a "tool."

It became "unnatural" at 3 because it ceased being a mere part of nature and became a "tool."
How so? I see how you can construe 'became a tool', I dont see the 'ceased being a mere part of nature'. Your use of the word 'mere' in this context appears questionable (to me).

And what about when the stick gets dumped back on the ground? Do we now need to know the entire history of a stick lying on the ground before we know whether or not it is natural?

I dont see that it is another definition, it is merely a clarification of the definition I percieve as being described by in the OP.Well, then it is a matter of interpretation. Given that the OP persisted in this conversation with the sense that nature means "all that is," I tend to think this interpretation is correct. In either case, we have two different definitions--it's pointless at this juncture to argue over which one was meant in the OP.But, just like all the others, you cannot move from this definition to the others in an argument without treating them as different terms.WTF? Seriously I have no idea what you are talking now...Look up "equivocation."

In an argument, you can mean essentially whatever you want by a term, as long as you make your meaning clear. What you cannot do (without committing a logical fallacy) is to suddenly switch meanings and behave as if all of the arguments you made using the first term apply to the new meaning.

In other words, you can tell me that when you say "nature" you mean "whatever can be without violating natural law" until the cows come home. And I will always say, "Okay, fine." But the second you say, "Therefore, the distinction between artifice and nature is false," you will be wrong. This "therefore" makes no sense, because it attempts to conflate two different meanings of the term "nature."

Maybe if you think of them as nature-A and nature-B that will help. You can say all sorts of true things about nature-A, including "everything is natural-A." But when you try to say, "Because everything is natural-A, human constructs are natural-B," you have ceased to make sense.Why? Someone provided a definition of "natural" as "the material world and its phenomena."Then this is an incomplete definition.Why? Because you don't like it?

Let's see... It describes one way in which people use the word. Evidence? It was used for several pages in this thread, and everyone (until now) seemed to understood what was meant. Second, the meaning described is consistent and coherent, so there is no analytic problem here...

It seems like a perfectly fine definition to me. Yours is also fine, but different. Live with it.

It certainly does mean 'all that is', it also means' all that could, within the bounds of the laws of nature, be.If that's how you want to use it, fine. Just don't try to argue that because a unicorn could be, it therefore is.

I dont see that I can clarify that issue for you since I dont believe that unicorn=horse with a horn.Fine. Call it whatever you want. Would a "horse with a horn" be "natural" to you? Or how about "horse-like creature with a horn"? I don't care what you call it... I just want to know if something I've made up, which does not appear to violate any physical law, would be "natural" under your definition. Just for clarification.

You have not anywhere in this thread pointed out an alternative definition to my own, that is coherent and descriptive, rather than hegemonic and misleading nonsense.Sure I have. Two, in fact:

1. "Nature" consists of those things that occur through determinate physical laws, or through arbitrary chance that is not inconsistent with physical law. The non-natural or the "artificial" is that which occurs through the creative influence of humans (if you want to be anthropocentric about it) or some other free creative being.

2. A thing's "nature" is that which is "innate"--the etymology itself provides the explanation.

You have not bothered to criticize either of these views. You merely insist that a) there should (for some mysterious reason) be only one meaning for the words "nature" and "natural"; and b) since the definitions I have offered do not match yours, they must be wrong.

Artificial is a subset of natural, it renders the word natural utterly dysfunctional if it serves both to describe the set artificial belongs to and to describe a set that all artificial things are excluded from.No. It only renders the word "dysfunctional" for people who are incapable of (or unwilling to) recognize that context matters.

To use the fake terms introduced earlier, "artificial" is a subset of "natural-A" but wholly excluded from "natural-B." As long as we keep the meaning of these terms distinct, this should cause no problem.

The reason why we oughten use a word to describe a set that includes the artificial, whilst also using that same word to describe a set that excludes the artificial seems fairly blatently obvious to me...Well, if language were nice enough to us to provide unique terms for everything we want to say, that would be great. Unfortunately, it has not.

Now, if all you really want are two different words for the sake of convenience, how have you decided which meaning to abandon?

Why can't we keep "natural" and "artificial," while using a different term to refer to all that is or all that is possible?

Fine. If it helps you, we can call "natural-A" the "real" and keep the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Or, if you want, we can call everything that is or can be "natural" while we refer to the "artificial" and the "pristine"--or the "learned" and the "innate."

Just so long as you don't try to argue that because, in these definitions, everything is "natural," therefore the artificial/pristine distinction or the learned/innate distinction do not hold up.

But, this is exactly what you have been doing, and everyone on the "everything is natural" side in this thread have attempted to do. All I did was switch the words.

You need to stop equivocating. In language, for better or for worse, the same word is used to refer to different things.

I know a word can mean more than one thing, I also know that it is stupid for a word to mean contrary things.Yeah, language can be stupid. (I think I remember something about a famous slang use of "bad"...)

That just means that you always need to make your meaning clear. It does not entail that one accepted meaning of a word is "right" and the other is "wrong."

Another I know is that the very concept you want the word 'natural/nature' to stand in for is incoherent. That's why using the word nature/natural for the concept is so important to so many people. Because the concept it is being used to convey is a hegemonic incoherent nonsense, without 'nature' the concept would have to be described in full - yet it's so darn incoherent, most people who believe in the concept couldnt ever describe the concept in full; why? Because the concept doesnt make sense and when people go to explain it they find that they 'just cant explain it'.

I have explained it over and over again. You have done nothing but rant incoherently about how it is "incoherent" and "hegemonic." (Obviously someone has learned a new word recently. We're all very proud of you.) You have failed to justify this claim other than through... well, completely equivocal nonsense.

Arguing for multiple definitions doesnt indicate anything about hegemony whatsoever....whatever are you on about?:confused:Obviously you have not learned your new word very well... Hegemony is about dominance and about the attempt to maintain dominance. Often, in language, hegemony is maintained by curtailing the meanings of words... by constructing the use of language so that it does not allow alternative meanings, or so that such alternatives look naive or foolish.

Usually, one only speaks of such hegemony when there is some political or economic motive for maintaining a certain realm of discourse. In this case, I pointed out that the drive to constrain the meaning of the term "natural" tends to bolster the constructionist dogma that the nature/culture distinction is false, thereby ripping the rug out from underneath potentially critical discourse: if all we have is culture, then all we have is cultural change--there is no "truth out there" that we can touch with which to criticize the dominant power.

So tell me, what power does my liberation of meaning serve?

Hang on, you are suggesting that a non-commonsense position is one of hegemony.....do you not know what hegemony is?Yes. Clearly you do not.

Much of the time, attempts to consolidate cultural hegemony militate directly against common sense--or what would be common sense if language had not so twisted our ability to see it. Hegemony describes the process by which dominant groups maintain such a high degree of control that even constructing arguments against them is difficult--because they control the institutions (schools, communications, etc) that determine "valid" discursive tools.

The best-known account is Gramsci's. I suggest you read up on it before trying to use big words you do not understand.

Because the concept doesnt make sense and when people go to explain it they find that they 'just cant explain it'.......What you are describing is the condition of the people struggling against hegemony. The very defining characteristic of hegemonic meaning is that it makes perfect sense, and explanations of it make "perfect" sense as well--because the hegemonic power has determined which arguments are valid. When someone tries to dismantle hegemonic terms, that is when they keep running up against a wall: they lack the terms with which to describe their meaning, because those terms have been denied them.

Then it clearly doesnt apply to me, I dont believe that thought requires langauge. My convictions regarding the word nature were arrived at independently and in contrast to the ideas that were presented to me. So it simply is not possible that my understanding/definition of the word is the result of hegemonic rather than reasoned.Nothing you have said thus far so clearly demonstrates your ignorance of hegemony than what you just said. Criticizing hegemony is not a simple matter of "thinking outside the box." It is a matter of thinking beyond what can be said.

I dont see any evidence whatsoever that the definition I posted or the OP posted are hegemonic, quite the contrary, so far as I can tell they are counter-hegemonic.Then why do they serve so well the powers-that-be?

I disagree, I also disagree that anatomically modern humans were ever not living in a symbolic world.Well, you can take that up with scientists in the relevant field.

If you are still unwilling to believe it despite the extensive (if under-reported) empirical evidence, then you are simply adhering to a common postmodern dogma--which is, as I have said, a key part of existing capitalist hegemony.

The fact is it is utterly counter-productive and somewhat stupid to use one word to mean two contrary things - that is a set that includes all things artificial, and a set that excludes all things artificial.That may be. Nevertheless, both definitions exist.

If you want to claim that one is "right" (for no particular reason) and the other one is "wrong", then you should strongly suspect that you are being fooled... in a very hegemonic way.

So far as I can tell we already have the word artificial, why muddy up the waters and add unnecessary ambiguity by having the word natural mean the exact same thing?It doesn't. It means the opposite. Is that the source of your confusion?

I think the reason is because it's a linguistic 'swifty'. In fact while everyone pretends that 'unnatural' is a descriptive word, it's actually a conceptual word. It describes something so incoherent, it actually cant be described without the word.Exactly. That in itself should suggest to you that those of us who are trying to claim that the capitalist machine is "unnatural" are precisely the ones who are trying to break through the hegemony.

Isn't it convenient for the dominant order to claim that "everything"--including the massive suffering of the human race and the degradation of the non-human world--"is natural"?

My primary objection is that I think the use of the word as you claim it can be used, hides the incoherence of certain concepts and in many situations serves as a strong propaganda tool.Whose propaganda? If you are referring to the people who are trying to undo this mess, to make something different... then surely our "propaganda" cannot take part in the very hegemony we are attempting to dismantle?

You are turning "hegemony" into a virtually meaningless term.

In case you didnt realise, ambiguity is a shortcoming/flaw of our communication system, ie something to be avoided rather than something we attempt to produce more of....

Actually, a real theorist of hegemony would argue that ambiguity is not a "flaw" of our communication system, but rather a symptom of communications in which various groups attempt to control meaning.

The argument that we should do away with ambiguity is, almost exclusively, supportive of the existing hegemony. It insists that meaning should not be contested, language should become inert and unthreatening.

You, it seems, are more confused than I could have imagined.

So by saying everything man-made is natural, are you saying also that by-products of man's materials are natural as well?

For example, industrial waste, nuclear fallout... maybe even global warming?

So by saying everything man-made is natural, are you saying also that by-products of man's materials are natural as well?

For example, industrial waste, nuclear fallout... maybe even global warming?

Presumably.

The aim here seems to be to deflate critical arguments that attack any human activities as "unnatural" by insisting that in the "correct" meaning of the term "everything is natural."

Surprisingly, our friend Zagat has actually accused those of us fighting this monopoly on meaning of supporting the existing hegemony!!

I have hardly come across a more laughable claim in all my life.

Presumably.

The aim here seems to be to deflate critical arguments that attack any human activities as "unnatural" by insisting that in the "correct" meaning of the term "everything is natural."

Surprisingly, our friend Zagat has actually accused those of us fighting this monopoly on meaning of supporting the existing hegemony!!

I have hardly come across a more laughable claim in all my life.

That seemed quite odd to me too.

Ah well, we've all got our own approach to things, don't we?

Ah well, we've all got our own approach to things, don't we?I would tend to agree... although I'd be curious what Mr. Zagat would think, since he seems to be a totalitarian when it comes to language.

I should think that would be obvious... but then, I may have overrated your ability to decipher common sense.

At any rate, I have already explained. But I will break it down for you.

We can only consistently judge, on moral grounds, the behaviors of moral agents. It makes no sense to say that something "did wrong" which could not have done otherwise. Indeed, this logic makes its way even into our criminal courts, in which it is commonly held that if a person is so devoid of reason--or was at the time an act was committed--that he/she had no moral control over the event in question, he/she may plead "not guilty" by reason of insanity. (A very hard case to prove, but a core component of moral reason nonetheless.)

When a person makes this plea, they mean one of two things: either they were so possessed by the cause-effect sequence of a material chain of events (in their mind or brain) that they could exercise no control over their actions; or they were so lost mentally that while they could control their actions, they could no longer tell the difference between "right" and "wrong."

Thus, there are two conditions under which we say that moral judgments do not hold: 1) when events are determined; and 2) when choices are arbitrary.

Only when we can reasonably conclude that events and behaviors are the result of a moral agent's intentional behavior can we apply moral judgments to them.

Now, it goes without saying that there is no "intent" to a hurricane, or to an earthquake, or to rain, or to a supernova. These things are determined by natural forces. Alternatively, it may be that some natural events happen essentially by chance: arbitrarily.

Such events cannot be evaluated morally. They may be materially "good" (the end of a drought) or "bad" (a devastating hurricane) for human beings, but these are not moral qualities.

If there is no moral difference between these sorts of things, and artificial things, then we cannot judge artifice either. But there is a difference: the artificial is that which someone intended to make or do.

That which an organism is inclined to do before or without training/conditioning/repression.

A dog is not naturally inclined to walk quietly beside a person, to look both ways before crossing a street, and so on... but with enough training, we can get a dog to repress its natural inclination to run, play, sleep and eat when it wants... and to become helpful to the blind.

I agree with everything you've said here, but that's not what I asked.

I asked why the distinction between artificial and natural mattered with regard to moral judgement, and you explained why we can't judge natural events morally.

Which would be fine, if we were presupposing that we can judge artificial events morally.

No, I asked why that change from natural to artificial is relevant. You have, I think, correctly described the moral state of things with regard to natural events. What I want to know is what about artificial events makes them different, from a moral standpoint.

Not at all. If a creature would learn to do something on its own, that is natural. If a creature can learn to do something which does not conflict with its natural inclinations, I would still call that fairly natural: a human who learns to make arrows--which may actually be fun and which can fit into her/his normal schedule of napping and play--may be making natural use of the human intellect.

But a human who has to repress every natural inclination to go to work at a menial job for 40 hours a week, only to go home so tired he/she can no longer enjoy the most basic pleasure? That seems quite unnatural to me.

And no, I'm not equating "unnatural" with "wrong." I think it's just as unnatural for someone to spend thousands of hours practicing painting straight lines in order to produce a beautiful work of art... though I certainly would not consider this "wrong." But it does require repression of our innate (notice the shared root with "natural" in "innate") inclinations.

While I don't accept your definition of unnatural, at least I now know what it is. The question persists - what about them grants them differing moral states?

I agree with everything you've said here, but that's not what I asked.Well, at least it seems we may be making progress.

I asked why the distinction between artificial and natural mattered with regard to moral judgement, and you explained why we can't judge natural events morally.

Which would be fine, if we were presupposing that we can judge artificial events morally.

And that is precisely what I presuppose in making this argument.

You are correct in pointing out that I have not demonstrated why we should make moral judgments at all. I believe I have, however, successfullly demonstrated why--assuming we make moral judgments--we can only judge that which is morally free, which means we cannot judge that which is "natural" in the sense given here.

My purpose here has not been to prove that moral judgment is necessary, nor even to "prove" that human beings possess some muddy faculty commonly known as "free will."

My only purpose here has been to show that this is the real conversation. Thus, I believe I have shown that if one maintains that "everything is natural," then one must be willing to bite the bullet and allow that moral judgment is impossible--or at least contradictory.

Moreover, the practical use of all this happens to run as follows. When people (such as myself) try to evaluate our civilization in moral terms, its defenders have a habit of falling back on some version of the "everything is natural" argument. "Global warming? Hey, beavers build dams, right? And smoke-spewing factories are a part of the natural world, right? So if they're natural, how can you criticize them?"

My point here has been to demonstrate the equivocation in that argument. The "natural" in the second-to-last sentence is the "natural" of the OP. The "natural" in the final question is the "natural" of innateness or or determinateness. This argument is therefore invalid.

The argument that should occur here is one over free will versus determinism. Now we all know that this is a difficult and never conclusive argument... however, as a practical matter we also know that the absurdities of determinism either a) reduce to a point at which freedom and moral judgment--despite their own conceptual problems--win by default; or b) devolve into some form of "compatibilism" that explains why we are allowed to make moral judgments anyway.

Thus, I don't feel a great burden of proof to demonstrate free will--for practical purpose, if not for metaphysical purposes, it appears to be a rather necessary assumption.

It is therefore dishonest to try to pull out the "determinism" argument in disguise--because it could not win on its own--in the form of an equivocal argument about "nature."

No, I asked why that change from natural to artificial is relevant. You have, I think, correctly described the moral state of things with regard to natural events. What I want to know is what about artificial events makes them different, from a moral standpoint.The fact that they are free. If you want to dispute this fact, have at it: people have tried for thousands of years, but when it comes right down to it we still convict criminals, we still think pedophilia is "wrong"... and we still ask questions about the "right" way to live. I would be impressed indeed if you can find an argument that changes this.

I never judge arguments by how persuasive people find them. I judge arguments based on how well they stand up to logical scrutiny.

The point of this thread was to demonstrate that the disctinction between nature and artifice was illusory, since there's no point on the path from nature to artifice where we can say that things magically become unnatural.

I never tried to start with the assertion that everything is natural. I started with the assertion that the world prior to human modification was natural, and then pointing out that humans are incapable of unnatural behaviour (behaviour not stemming from nature), since all human behaviour necessarily stems from a natural source - humans themselves.

You, correctly, have argued that this stems from a different definition of nature. My response would be that the definition of nature you're using (the one that sets nature in opposition to artifice) relies upon an entirely arbitrary definition of artifice.

You're the one who brought determinism and morality into this. So let's work with that.

And that is precisely what I presuppose in making this argument.

I don't like that presupposition. I see no basis for it.

My purpose here has not been to prove that moral judgment is necessary, nor even to "prove" that human beings possess some muddy faculty commonly known as "free will."

But you have presupposed that moral judgement is necessary, and in doing so you've completely perverted the point of the argument.

My only purpose here has been to show that this is the real conversation. Thus, I believe I have shown that if one maintains that "everything is natural," then one must be willing to bite the bullet and allow that moral judgment is impossible--or at least contradictory.

You might have mentioned that. We weren't actually discussing morality at all until you brought it up.

All you've done here is demonstrate (to everyone's satisfaction) that morality doesn't apply to anything not influenced by free will. But who cares? We weren't discussing free will. Free will only entered into it because you defined artifice as the result of free will repressing nature, something I'm not actually willing to accept it can do without drawing some entirely arbitrary line between nature and artifice.

And if it's arbitrary, how can it have moral weight?

Moreover, the practical use of all this happens to run as follows. When people (such as myself) try to evaluate our civilization in moral terms, its defenders have a habit of falling back on some version of the "everything is natural" argument. "Global warming? Hey, beavers build dams, right? And smoke-spewing factories are a part of the natural world, right? So if they're natural, how can you criticize them?"

My point here has been to demonstrate the equivocation in that argument. The "natural" in the second-to-last sentence is the "natural" of the OP. The "natural" in the final question is the "natural" of innateness or or determinateness. This argument is therefore invalid.

And you've constructed a lovely straw man. The point isn't that the works of man are natural because they exist in the world. The point is that man is a product of nature, and thus his behaviour is necessarily natural. The only difference here is that you deny that man's behaviour is necessarily natural, but you can actually justify that position. You're just drawing an arbitrary line.

The argument that should occur here is one over free will versus determinism.

Only if you presuppose that free will is capable of artifice.

The fact that they are free. If you want to dispute this fact, have at it: people have tried for thousands of years, but when it comes right down to it we still convict criminals, we still think pedophilia is "wrong"... and we still ask questions about the "right" way to live. I would be impressed indeed if you can find an argument that changes this.

I don't dispute that people are free. I dispute that it's relevant.

Quick response, because that's all I have time for and because I think this essentially summarizes our argument.

You insist that I have drawn an "arbitrary" distinction between nature and artifice by defining artifice as that which is produced by free will. (Actually, there are things I don't like about this definition, but they are largely irrelevant to the current discussion.)

Why you think that the difference between "free" and "determined or arbitrary" is arbitrary is... well, rather mysterious.

Assuming arguendo that free will exists, the difference between the free and the not free seems to have prima facie significance, no?

Which brings us back again to the question of free will. I maintain that this is the real question posed by this discussion. It has merely been dressed up as a seemingly innocuous argument about the dictionary.

Free will only entered into it because you defined artifice as the result of free will repressing nature, something I'm not actually willing to accept it can do without drawing some entirely arbitrary line between nature and artifice.Wait, now you're confusing two different definitions I have used.

Definition 1: The "natural" is that which occurs without the influence of free will, while the "artificial" includes everything influenced by free will--repression or not.

Definition 2: The "natural" is essentially a synonym for the "innate" as opposed to the "learned." It is in this definition that I implicated repression. The discussion of repression is tangential, at best, to the discussion of free will.

The point is that man is a product of nature, and thus his behaviour is necessarily natural.Only on the "everything is natural" definition of natural. You persist in equivocation.

You're just drawing an arbitrary line.Even if I were, is it any more arbitrary than deciding that "nature" is defined as "everything in the world"? Why shouldn't it be defined some other way? Or in multiple ways?

Definitions are, after all, sometimes arbitrary.... especially when people insist that the words be precise when the reality isn't. For instance, how do you define "adulthood"? I doubt we can find objective criteria... and although there are some people that we could all agree are "adults," and some people we can all agree are "not adults," if we are pressed (for, say, legal reasons) to give a precise definition, we give some number like 17 or 18 or 21 (years old).

Does this mean that people are "magically" adults when they turn 18? In the meaning of the law, perhaps.

The real world does not always provide neat, tidy, precise distinctions. Demanding that the language that describes that world should be precise seems empirically perverse.

Still, I don't think that the difference between the free and the unfree is particularly arbitrary.

Only if you presuppose that free will is capable of artifice.Since we so love the dictionary, shall I point out that the OED provides "Human skill as opposed to what is natural" as a definition of "artifice."

Seriously, if the word does not mean what is created by human beings (or another free being), then what does it mean?

It matters little if you will not be convinced that there is a neat, sharp division between the natural and the artificial. What matters is that for at least some items (e.g. robots) you can confidently apply the label "artifical," and for other items (e.g. the planet Jupiter) you can confidently apply the label "natural." There may be a sharp division between the two (e.g. free will) or there may not be. It may be that some things humans can do (e.g. making a simple stone knife) are "more" natural than others.

Many very clear definitions become arbitrary if you insist on precision where nature provides none. I challenge you to provide, for instance, a precise definition between "hot" and "cold."

Of course, you may remark that these are relative terms, while "natural" and "artificial" are not. But then, I'm not particularly wedded to a sharp division between the two. I offered "free will" as a criterion for making sense of the distinction, but really I am willing to allow a very broad spectrum between the "most artificial" things and the "most natural" things.

Why do you insist that something must be purely one or purely the other. Since when has the real, natural world behaved in this way?

I don't dispute that people are free. I dispute that it's relevant.
Okay. As long as you are aware that if it's not relevant, then free creatures have the same moral status as natural things... and as you have already agreed, we cannot make moral judgments about natural things.

Therefore, moral judgment is impossible or contradictory, and we should abandon it with all deliberate speed.

To summarize a point that may have gotten lost in the previous post....


The real world rarely provides precise distinctions all by itself. For this reason, when we demand precision from language, our precise determinations may necessarily be arbitrary.

Personally, I prefer accuracy to precision.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
can you leave my home out of this "natural" business?... i hate "natural"...

primitive men were not natural, they were a pathetic genetic experiment of you-know-Who...

Only on the "everything is natural" definition of natural.

I didn't just define nature as including everything in the world. I started with something I thought we could all accept (natural describes the world prior to human intervention) and then tried and failed to find some reason why human intervention should change the state of the world. I could only make human works = artifice if I defined it like that (as you seem to have), and that makes the distinction arbitrary.

Okay. As long as you are aware that if it's not relevant, then free creatures have the same moral status as natural things... and as you have already agreed, we cannot make moral judgments about natural things.

Assuming there's not some other relevant difference, yes.

The problem with arbitrary distinctions is they prevent moral prescriptivity. No is implies an ought, so there needs to be some reason behind the distinction for it that have any moral weight. For the purposes of a moral discussion, arbitrary distinctions can't be relevant.

Therefore, moral judgment is impossible or contradictory, and we should abandon it with all deliberate speed.

And I'm okay with that as a conclusion, but I'd rather have reached it without defining my terms such that it was guaranteed.

What you've done is defined your terms such that you presupposed that human work is artifice, and further that artifice exists in the world. The point of this discussion was to determine whether artifice exists (or even can exist), and you've gone ahead and presupposed that it can and does.

I didn't just define nature as including everything in the world. I started with something I thought we could all accept (natural describes the world prior to human intervention) and then tried and failed to find some reason why human intervention should change the state of the world.
Right. We can all accept that this is one definition of the word "natural." And given this definition you will never find a reason to declare that anything in the world is "unnatural"--but then, that is true by definition.

EDIT: Okay, I see what you're saying. But what you're missing is that this still presupposes the original "everything is natural" definition, because you insist that nature has something to do with the material "state" of the world. I am arguing, instead, that there is something unique about human intervention (i.e. free will), and that a handy way of describing that difference is to use the word "artificial"... as opposed to a different meaning of "natural."

If it helps you, my argument stands just as well if we use "artificial" and "non-artificial"... or, to go the other way, "unworked" and "worked."

The words don't matter. The meaning does.

I could only make human works = artifice if I defined it like that (as you seem to have), and that makes the distinction arbitrary.Yes, but that is the definition of "artifice," which happens to correspond to a different definition of "nature."

I think this is the last time I shall post here, unless someone says something new. We are clearly going in circles, and it bores me.

For the last time, a word can mean more than one thing.

The problem with arbitrary distinctions is they prevent moral prescriptivity.The distinction isn't arbitrary. A precise line between where something is "clearly" natural and where things are "clearly" artificial may be. This does not prevent us using the distinction.

To use a rather famous philosophical example, if I stand somewhere in Nepal that is clearly NOT on Mount Everest and start walking toward the peak, with every step I take I might ask "am I now on Mount Everest?"

I will never find a step where I can say "one step before, I was NOT on Mount Everest, and now I AM." This does not mean that Mount Everest does not exist, since at some point I will reach a position at which I am confident that I am now on Mount Everest.

Precision describes a sharp point of transition. Clear, meaningful distinctions do not need them.

And I'm okay with that as a conclusion, but I'd rather have reached it without defining my terms such that it was guaranteed.But you're okay reaching the conclusion that "everything is natural" using a definition such that this was guaranteed?

I ask only minimal consistency from participants in a discussion. Please try.

What you've done is defined your terms such that you presupposed that human work is artifice, and further that artifice exists in the world.Yes. Because that is, in fact, the definition of artifice, which does, in fact, exist in the world.

The question, then, is this (as I have said before): Is there a moral distinction between artifice (defined to be human work) and nature (defined to be the unworked)? I would argue that there is: namely, that one involves free will and the other does not.

Again, if you want to dispute that the one involves free will, have at it.

The point of this discussion was to determine whether artifice exists (or even can exist), and you've gone ahead and presupposed that it can and does.

That's because it does.

artifice: 1) The action of an artificer, the making of anything by art, construction, workmanship.Now, unless you want to defend the absurd conclusion that there are no arts, no construction, and no workmanship in the world, then there is artifice in the world. The question is not does artifice exist, but rather how is it meaningfully different than the non-artificial (or the "natural" in the second definition)--if at all. This is, again, the question of free will and learned behavior.

Argument is not about definitions, it is about meanings. Words are tools for getting at meanings. The word "artifice" means "created" (usually by humans) whether you like it or not.

EDIT: Unless, of course, you would like to use some alternative definition of "artifice." Just let me know what it is, and maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.

To make this clearer, I believe this is what you are doing.

You are beginning with the statement, "Nature includes everything in the world prior to human intervention."

Then you say, "Okay, so humans intervene." And I believe you are willing to admit that they do so using some muddy faculty called "will."

But then you say, "But free will is 'natural'." Why do you make this claim? Because you are using the definition that everything in the world is natural.

Yet by making this assumption, you have already proven your case--by definition.

This is why "definition" arguments are so ridiculous.

Each meaning of the word entails a particular opposition. In the thread's dominant meaning, "natural" is the opposite of "supernatural." Whatever is natural is NOT supernatural, and whatever is supernatural is NOT natural.
Exactly, the problem lies in using ambiguous terminology without considering your desired meaning.

From this thread, I've decided to never use the word "unnatural" since there are more specific words that will work.

natural -- supernatural
natural -- artificial
normal -- abnormal
instinctive -- induced

By these opposites, humans can produce things that are artificial or abnormal and humans can be induced to act in certain ways that are not instinctive or normal.

To make this clearer, I believe this is what you are doing.

You are beginning with the statement, "Nature includes everything in the world prior to human intervention."

Then you say, "Okay, so humans intervene." And I believe you are willing to admit that they do so using some muddy faculty called "will."

But then you say, "But free will is 'natural'." Why do you make this claim? Because you are using the definition that everything in the world is natural.

Yet by making this assumption, you have already proven your case--by definition.

This is why "definition" arguments are so ridiculous.

Okay, so what's really happening here is you're defining artifice to mean worked by creatures with free will, and I was defining artifice to mean unnatural, which would mean it does not arise from nature.

So the end result is that you're making moral distinctions based on what you see as a prima facie difference between the presence and absence of free will, and I'm unwilling to accept anything prima facie. In the end, we can only agree if you can demonstrate the existance of morality, and that's not likely.

Well, that was fun.

Okay, so what's really happening here is you're defining artifice to mean worked by creatures with free will, and I was defining artifice to mean unnatural, which would mean it does not arise from nature.Why would you define artifice to mean "unnatural"?

Historically, etymologically, and by analytic synonymy it means, and has always meant "made" (to put it simply). Why would we define it as anything else?

Moreover, if you define it as "unnatural," that means you first have to define "natural"--in which case you still have to explain why you are using one definition rather than another.

So the end result is that you're making moral distinctions based on what you see as a prima facie difference between the presence and absence of free will, and I'm unwilling to accept anything prima facie.No, I am merely stating that the presence or absence of free will is the prima facie difference between the "artificial" and the "non-artificial."

I am then arguing, from the presence of free will, that artificial things are subject to moral judgment.

Why? Because moral judgment refers to "right" and "wrong" action--which logically implies that it can only apply to actions involving choice. If something happens and could not have happened otherwise, or happens by pure chance, it would be contradictory to apply moral judgments to it.

In the end, we can only agree if you can demonstrate the existance of morality, and that's not likely.Why do you keep pushing back the burden of proof?

Suddenly you want me to show, not only that moral judgments can only apply to free beings--if they apply to anything at all--but now you want me to also justify the entire practice of moral judgment? You want me to prove that there are such things as "right" and "wrong"?

No thanks. That has nothing to do with this argument.

The whole reason that the defenders of the "given"--of this obscene civilization--raise the "everything is natural" argument is because they have been so unsuccessful at convincing everyone to give up on moral reasoning.

No matter how complete the hegemony of the dominant order, people persist in asking, "is this right?"

The latest attempt to consolidate hegemony has been to try to deflate this question by insisting that it is simply "natural"--because "everything is natural."

Given that moral distinctions are so pervasive--and, moreover, so inherently useful--the burden of proof is yours to show that they should not be made.

Considering how fundamentally the notion that there is no such thing as "right and wrong" would change our understanding of the world, and our behavior in it, the burden of proof is yours to show that there is no such thing.

Well, then just what is the point of this thread?

The reason we usually distinguish between "nature" and "artifice" is because human beings are responsible for the latter: and it is this responsibility that makes us think, "Gee, was building factories such a good idea?" Some people might say, "Yes, civilization advances our species." Others may say, "No, factories pollute our bodies and the environment alike."

The point is that we treat artificial phenomena differently than we do natural phenomena. We do not say, "Was it a good idea for lions to grow huge teeth?" We do not say this because the question is irrelevant: lions have huge teeth--that's just what they are. Moralizing about it simply makes no sense.

Hence, my assumption was that the poster who started this thread wanted to argue that we shouldn't be complaining that all of this civilized stuff is "unnatural" or worrying about what we do with it... because "really" it's all natural after all.

So if there is no moral distinction between the natural and the non-natural... then so what if "everything is natural"? So what if a robot would be natural?

Why should I care?

Actually, I believe this thread was born out of the idea many people have that homosexuality is not natural, and not the question of free will.

But anyways,

Morality is a worthless endeavor, it bears no more meaning than the good or bad that one would assign to a hurricane. Both are arbitrary opinions derived on practical effects that a behavior or action has on one and one's interest, as passed on through culture and those individuals that compose a culture.

Given that moral distinctions are so pervasive--and, moreover, so inherently useful--the burden of proof is yours to show that they should not be made.

Considering how fundamentally the notion that there is no such thing as "right and wrong" would change our understanding of the world, and our behavior in it, the burden of proof is yours to show that there is no such thing.

There have already been ample reason to deny moral judgements. Most are so tied to the idea of a definite "right and wrong" and a free will, that they extend a wall of malformed ideas to separate humanity from an overwhelming deluge of deterministic forces.

It seems that this debate has stalled throughout history because many deny determinism because it denies "right and wrong", yet uphold morality because they have rejected determinism. It is amazing the falsifications even the most intelligent and disciplined will achieve in order to protect their humanity, when, in the end, there is nothing to protect.

Why would you define artifice to mean "unnatural"?

Historically, etymologically, and by analytic synonymy it means, and has always meant "made" (to put it simply). Why would we define it as anything else?

I wasn't actually using the word artifice at all until you came along. I was working with the natural/unnatural distinction.

Moreover, if you define it as "unnatural," that means you first have to define "natural"--in which case you still have to explain why you are using one definition rather than another.

"Of or relating to nature" seems a wonderfully complete definition.

No, I am merely stating that the presence or absence of free will is the prima facie difference between the "artificial" and the "non-artificial."

I am then arguing, from the presence of free will, that artificial things are subject to moral judgment.

Except all you demonstrated was that things that are not artificial are not subject to moral judgement. The reverse was never shown.

Why? Because moral judgment refers to "right" and "wrong" action--which logically implies that it can only apply to actions involving choice. If something happens and could not have happened otherwise, or happens by pure chance, it would be contradictory to apply moral judgments to it.

Exactly right. But that doesn't imply that moral judgement does apply to artifice. All it says is that moral judgement doesn't apply in the absence of artifice.

Why do you keep pushing back the burden of proof?

If I start from a position of complete uncertainty (the only rationally defensible default position), everything needs to be shown.

Suddenly you want me to show, not only that moral judgments can only apply to free beings--if they apply to anything at all--but now you want me to also justify the entire practice of moral judgment? You want me to prove that there are such things as "right" and "wrong"?

Because I think you're ignoring the "if they apply to anything at all" angle.

No matter how complete the hegemony of the dominant order, people persist in asking, "is this right?"

And I ask "Do they have reason to believe that's a sensical question?"

Given that moral distinctions are so pervasive--and, moreover, so inherently useful--the burden of proof is yours to show that they should not be made.

Considering how fundamentally the notion that there is no such thing as "right and wrong" would change our understanding of the world, and our behavior in it, the burden of proof is yours to show that there is no such thing.

As I'm sure you're aware, it's not logically possible to prove a universal negative of that sort.

But as I said, if we start from a position on complete uncertainty, the burden of proof lies with whichever of us is asserting that something exists. And that's you.

You must be aware why you hold your own opinions, much as I am aware why I hold mine. I hold mine because I did start from a position of uncertainty, and I have yet to be moved from it on most issues.

To use a rather famous philosophical example, if I stand somewhere in Nepal that is clearly NOT on Mount Everest and start walking toward the peak, with every step I take I might ask "am I now on Mount Everest?"

I will never find a step where I can say "one step before, I was NOT on Mount Everest, and now I AM." This does not mean that Mount Everest does not exist, since at some point I will reach a position at which I am confident that I am now on Mount Everest.

And that's a terrible example.

If you're able to answer the question "Am I on Mount Everest?" you must have some sort of standard by which to determine whether you're on Mount Everest. And if you're aware of what that standard is, you know exactly when it's been satisfied. There is a point where I can say, "One step before I could not tell if I was on Mount Everest, but now I can and I am."

Well, I suppose that does suggest there might be a fuzzy middle ground between nature and artifice, but if you can claim to know the difference you should be able to tell when that middle ground starts.

And that's a terrible example.

If you're able to answer the question "Am I on Mount Everest?" you must have some sort of standard by which to determine whether you're on Mount Everest. And if you're aware of what that standard is, you know exactly when it's been satisfied. There is a point where I can say, "One step before I could not tell if I was on Mount Everest, but now I can and I am."Yep. But that "standard" is necessarily arbitrary. Why couldn't it have been the step before? At that level of precision, the difference between one step and the other is arbitrary.

This merely demonstrates that "precision" is not an innate property of real differences.

Well, I suppose that does suggest there might be a fuzzy middle ground between nature and artifice, but if you can claim to know the difference you should be able to tell when that middle ground starts.Nope. If you cannot precisely identify when A becomes not-A, how are you supposed to precisely identify when A becomes maybe-not-A?

This is a very old problem in philosophy. It has yet to be solved to anyone's satisfaction.

Well, then it is a matter of interpretation. Given that the OP persisted in this conversation with the sense that nature means "all that is," I tend to think this interpretation is correct. In either case, we have two different definitions--it's pointless at this juncture to argue over which one was meant in the OP.Look up "equivocation."
From the Original Post:
If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
I dont believe that a self-aware, self replicating robot currently exists in the universe, and I see no reason to believe the OP believed such a robot currently exists either.
To interperet the OP definately meant 'only everything that exists' (rather than including everything that exists) requires the assumption that either the OP believes that self-aware, self-replicating robots do currently exist, or the OP is woefully incompetent in the grammar department. I see no reason to assume either of these things. Which are you assuming is the case, and what are your reasons for doing so?

In an argument, you can mean essentially whatever you want by a term, as long as you make your meaning clear. What you cannot do (without committing a logical fallacy) is to suddenly switch meanings and behave as if all of the arguments you made using the first term apply to the new meaning.
My objection to people putting the word nature to the use that you seem to be advocating, is that it's meaning is never made clear. I suspect this is because it has no clear meaning.

In other words, you can tell me that when you say "nature" you mean "whatever can be without violating natural law" until the cows come home. And I will always say, "Okay, fine." But the second you say, "Therefore, the distinction between artifice and nature is false," you will be wrong. This "therefore" makes no sense, because it attempts to conflate two different meanings of the term "nature."
You seem to entirely miss the point that I believe one of the 'meanings' is in fact meaningless, and that the two meanings are such it makes no sense and a great deal of nonsense to have both as the referent of any one one word.

Maybe if you think of them as nature-A and nature-B that will help.
Not unless when people used the words they said/wrote/typed either nature-A or nature-B, but they dont.
Further not in this case either way since it is not merely the use of a particular word to convey a particular concept that I find problematic, but rather the concept itself.

You can say all sorts of true things about nature-A, including "everything is natural-A." But when you try to say, "Because everything is natural-A, human constructs are natural-B," you have ceased to make sense.
Actually I would say 'natural-B' is contrary to good sense. Why? Because natural-B is contrary to good sense...

Why? Because you don't like it?
No it is because we already have words to describe the concept 'things that do exist' and the concept' the entire universe'.

Let's see... It describes one way in which people use the word. Evidence? It was used for several pages in this thread, and everyone (until now) seemed to understood what was meant.
Really? Was it? Well firstly, untill you tell me why on earth it should be assumed that the OP either believes in self-aware, self-replicating robots, or is unable to differentiate between 'is' and 'would be', I dont have too much faith in your interpretive skills.

Second, the meaning described is consistent and coherent, so there is no analytic problem here...
We already have the word 'exists', it is not linguistically functional to have the exact same word describe two such similar yet distinct concepts.

It seems like a perfectly fine definition to me. Yours is also fine, but different. Live with it.

I see no use for it, what purpose does using the word in such a way serve that isnt already served by the word 'exist'? To me it just adds ambiguity and the possibility for misunderstanding, without adding anything of benefit whatsoever. The only kind of sense that makes to me is bad sense.

If that's how you want to use it, fine. Just don't try to argue that because a unicorn could be, it therefore is.
Since I dont believe a unicorn could be within the bounds of the natural laws of this universe, I wont be arguing any such thing.

Fine. Call it whatever you want. Would a "horse with a horn" be "natural" to you?
I dont believe I'm qualified enough on horse genotypology to know one way or the other. Certainly if one did exist, that would answer the question in itself - obviously. In the absence of such a horse existing, I'd have to know a lot more about genetics than I currently do in order to state one way or the other whether or not a horned horse is natural... it could be...

Or how about "horse-like creature with a horn"? I don't care what you call it... I just want to know if something I've made up, which does not appear to violate any physical law, would be "natural" under your definition. Just for clarification.
Not necessarily, it might well be. If there is a set of circumstances that conforms to all the natural laws of this universe, in which some event would be true, then that event is natural.

Sure I have. Two, in fact:
1. "Nature" consists of those things that occur through determinate physical laws, or through arbitrary chance that is not inconsistent with physical law. The non-natural or the "artificial" is that which occurs through the creative influence of humans (if you want to be anthropocentric about it) or some other free creative being.
I interpret the above as self-contrary. The category you define as 'non-natural or the articificial' is encompassed by the earlier described category 'nature'....unless you mean that the category 'nature' includes the category 'non-natural'....:confused:

2. A thing's "nature" is that which is "innate"--the etymology itself provides the explanation.

I dont see a novel definition, merely a restricting of the level of application from universal to individual. Rather than nature describing the innate potential and limitation of the universe (and events/occurences therein), the word is applied in a way that the scope of what it describes is the innate potential and limitation of an individual entity.

You have not bothered to criticize either of these views. You merely insist that a) there should (for some mysterious reason) be only one meaning for the words "nature" and "natural"; and b) since the definitions I have offered do not match yours, they must be wrong.
It's true that I have not bothered to go through and individually criticise all the different definitions in the thread. This is (as I thought would be plain) because any definition of nature I've come across in the thread that is contrary to the definition I have been describing is incoherent, and since there are so many posts and definitions (including one that seems to equate natural with some kind of minimum rationality/IQ standard - apparently humans being irrational is [according to that particular poster's definition of natural] unnatural....I guess that person doesnt get out much huh?...) it seemed a pointless waste of time for me to quote and respond to each and every possible variant.

No. It only renders the word "dysfunctional" for people who are incapable of (or unwilling to) recognize that context matters.
Unless you can prove some good reason to assume that the only people communicating with people who are incapable of or unwilling to recognize that context matters are such people, then I have to assume that you're probably wrong. Then there's the fact that context doesnt always indicate which possible meaning is the intended meaning.
Furthermore if it makes it dysfunctional for even one person (even forgetting anyone and everyone that one person ever communicates with) without adding any functionality, please explain why it is a 'good idea'...
As it happens, I've good reason to believe that the number of people who do realise (at least in theory) 'context matters' is greater than the number of people who 'are immune to the linguistic dysfunction (described)'.

To use the fake terms introduced earlier, "artificial" is a subset of "natural-A" but wholly excluded from "natural-B." As long as we keep the meaning of these terms distinct, this should cause no problem.
2 problems, firstly people dont consistently do as you suggest, in fact many people not only dont keep the two distinct, they have not even thought about either. Secondly, as I've said before, I dont see that 'natural-B' is coherent, and I do see bandying about incoherencies whilst mistaking them for coherencies as being a problem.

Well, if language were nice enough to us to provide unique terms for everything we want to say, that would be great. Unfortunately, it has not.

We generate/produce lanaguage, we need not wait around for it to provide words; if we did, human language wouldnt exist...
The fact that you would stoop to such a spurious argument is suggestive of the lack of soundness of the concept you are trying to argue.
What do you imagine you mean by this? That there are not enough words is not a defence for why a word should be allowed to mean something contrary to what it means in order for some other concept to have multiple words that describe it.
Nonesense.
What concept is there not a word for? Artificial, non-artificial....what coherent concept is missing a word that it necessitates or even justifies having nature mean something contrary to what nature means...?

Now, if all you really want are two different words for the sake of convenience, how have you decided which meaning to abandon?
It isnt all I want, however to answer your question as near as it can be – the coherent meaning that doesnt have a describing word unless the word nature/natural is that describing word. We already have 'non-artificial' to describe the category that excludes all things artificial, we have existent to describe every existing thing - both artificial and non-artificial, we dont have some other word to describe 'all things that are possible within the bounds of the natural laws of the universe', unless nature/natural is that word.

Why can't we keep "natural" and "artificial," while using a different term to refer to all that is or all that is possible?
Because it makes very poor sense to do so.
We have supernatural, so are we going to leave it hanging or change that terminology too?
It makes better sense to have
natural V supernatural
and
artificial V non-artifical
I suppose we could have
natural V artificial
and
supernatural V non-artificial
personally I think the earlier makes better sense, and that the latter is frankly absurd....but that might just be me....:rolleyes:

Fine. If it helps you, we can call "natural-A" the "real" and keep the distinction between the natural and the artificial. Or, if you want, we can call everything that is or can be "natural" while we refer to the "artificial" and the "pristine"--or the "learned" and the "innate."
WTF?! No idea what you're on about....

Just so long as you don't try to argue that because, in these definitions, everything is "natural," therefore the artificial/pristine distinction or the learned/innate distinction do not hold up.
What on earth you are on about, I dont even want to guess....

But, this is exactly what you have been doing, and everyone on the "everything is natural" side in this thread have attempted to do. All I did was switch the words.
Right....care to explain what the referent of 'this' is....

You need to stop equivocating. In language, for better or for worse, the same word is used to refer to different things.
This particular argument is only making you look desperate. There is a difference between a word having more than one definition, and a word having a definition that is contrary to the definition of that word. I find it difficult to believe you are unable to see and understand the significance of that distinction....equivocation is (IMO) an appropriate word to use in this case, the only problem with your usage is that you've directed it at the wrong person...

Yeah, language can be stupid. (I think I remember something about a famous slang use of "bad"...)
And so can people, together the combination can have very unpleasant results, which is why it is a good idea to minimise the stupidity present in either, whenever an opportunity presents itself....such as this one...

That just means that you always need to make your meaning clear. It does not entail that one accepted meaning of a word is "right" and the other is "wrong."
The problem is that people are not always capable of keeping their meaning clear in their own minds/reasoning. The other problem is that (in my belief) the meaning that is often being attributed to 'nature/natural' is incoherent and so cannot in any case be made clear.

I have explained it over and over again. You have done nothing but rant incoherently about how it is "incoherent" and "hegemonic." (Obviously someone has learned a new word recently. We're all very proud of you.) You have failed to justify this claim other than through... well, completely equivocal nonsense.
You have not described a single definition that is both coherent and contrary to the definition I am describing. While I also extend my congradulations to all who have learnt a or some new words recently, I fail to see why you would be proud of me on this account....I dont recall the last time I picked up a new word, but it (unfortunately) wasnt any time recently.

Obviously you have not learned your new word very well...
Or at all, what word is it you imagine is new to me?

Hegemony is about dominance and about the attempt to maintain dominance. Often, in language, hegemony is maintained by curtailing the meanings of words... by constructing the use of language so that it does not allow alternative meanings, or so that such alternatives look naive or foolish.
Right, and often hegemony is maintained by the circulating of concepts, the denial of which is supposed to look naive or foolish.
So tell me which definition is the dominant definition of nature? The definition in which 'unnatural' is another word for 'supernatural' and 'artificial' is a subset of natural, or the one you are advocating. I know which one I constantly encounter. I know which one is intended when politicians talk about the 'naturalness' (or otherwise) of homosexuality, or when an advert declares that a product is 'all natural' or when a person is described as a 'natural beauty'....are you really going to tell me that the definition I am advocating is the definition that holds dominance....? Are you really going to tell me that a significant number of people dont find the denial of the concept you are advocating foolish and naive?

Usually, one only speaks of such hegemony when there is some political or economic motive for maintaining a certain realm of discourse.
Or when there is a political or economic motive for maintaining certain concepts and understandings within the 'commonsense' of a society. I suspect this is equivocation on your part, because it's that or ignorance.

In this case, I pointed out that the drive to constrain the meaning of the term "natural" tends to bolster the constructionist dogma that the nature/culture distinction is false,
In the first place it isnt just a constructionist dogma, rather in some times and places it is a simple fact - not every culture has a nature/culture dichotomy paradigm.

thereby ripping the rug out from underneath potentially critical discourse:
Could the reason you suspect equivocation everywhere be akin to the reason why thieves expect theft everywhere? Potentially - so another words not definately so. If there is no distinction between culture and nature, and if a lack of such a distinction 'rips the rug out from underneath a discourse' then obviously such a discourse however 'potentially critical' is not 'actually critical'....

if all we have is culture, then all we have is cultural change--there is no "truth out there" that we can touch with which to criticize the dominant power.
If culture is part of nature then it is not necessarily true that we only have culture or that we only have cultural change. If we only had cultural change it would not necessarily be true that there were ‘no truth out there’, nor that any ‘truth out there’ would not be touchable for criticising dominant power.


So tell me, what power does my liberation of meaning serve?
It's not a liberation. However it does serve, it’s useful to all kinds of people from politicians to advertising executives. In the past the notion of women as dependent chattel was ‘propped up’ on notions of what is and is not ‘natural’. Currently the refusal to allow homosexual marriage is’ propped’ up on notions of what is ‘natural’ sexual conduct….even cosmetic sales are propped up by notions of ‘all natural goodness’…are you really suggesting you didn’t notice how often the vague concept of ‘natural’ that you appear to advocate is used is this way?


Yes. Clearly you do not.
Mmm, nearly as clear as opaque mud...care to make it a little more transparent for me?

Much of the time, attempts to consolidate cultural hegemony militate directly against common sense--or what would be common sense if language had not so twisted our ability to see it.
Perhaps you ought to head back to Gramsci and see what he had to say about common sense… I gather you missed that bit…

Hegemony describes the process by which dominant groups maintain such a high degree of control that even constructing arguments against them is difficult--because they control the institutions (schools, communications, etc) that determine "valid" discursive tools.
According Gramsci what you describe is only part of the process. Equally important is providing motivation to not seek arguments (I’m shocked you missed the whole ‘consent’ aspect of hegemony – given that it was Gramsci’s most significant contribution to the whole issue of hegemony, it’s odd that you should have missed it).
What you are either equivocating over or have utterly failed to comprehend is the manner in which this occurs in practise and the manner in which hegemony interacts with ‘Gramscian-commonsense’.
Further you seem not to have realised the implication of describing a concept as hegemonic - note the difference between a concept being hegemonic – ie dominant and virtually unchallenged and a concept being a tool of hegemony – ie used by a dominant class order, group, what-have-you, to achieve, maintain or further their hegemony.

The best-known account is Gramsci's. I suggest you read up on it before trying to use big words you do not understand.
I’m aware of Gramsci’s writings and I don’t accept that I don’t understand any word that I have used anywhere in any of my posts.

What you are describing is the condition of the people struggling against hegemony.
No, I’m not describing people struggling against hegemony, I am a person struggling against hegemony.

The very defining characteristic of hegemonic meaning is that it makes perfect sense, and explanations of it make "perfect" sense as well--because the hegemonic power has determined which arguments are valid.
No, the characteristic is that it appears to make sense or makes perfect sense within a particular world view.

When someone tries to dismantle hegemonic terms, that is when they keep running up against a wall: they lack the terms with which to describe their meaning, because those terms have been denied them.
Er, well as it happens I’m not convinced that many people can explain what is entailed in the concept often conveyed by the word nature. What do you think ‘clued me in’ to it being a hegemonic commonsense in the first place?

Nothing you have said thus far so clearly demonstrates your ignorance of hegemony than what you just said. Criticizing hegemony is not a simple matter of "thinking outside the box." It is a matter of thinking beyond what can be said.
No it isn’t.
You see human language is characterised by ‘productivity’, put simply, this means that the finite number of words in a language can be combined into an infinite number of meaningful expressions. Now if there is any one thing that cannot be expressed in a particular communication form, then that particular communication form can only express a finite number of meaningful expressions and is not even classed ( by linguists) as a language… So if what you say were true, then hegemony would never happen anywhere language is happening….

Then why do they serve so well the powers-that-be?
They don’t.

Well, you can take that up with scientists in the relevant field.
What field would that be? I’d have thought those most qualified would be anthropologists….

If you are still unwilling to believe it despite the extensive (if under-reported) empirical evidence, then you are simply adhering to a common postmodern dogma--which is, as I have said, a key part of existing capitalist hegemony.
What a joke, so extensive you cant describe a single example….aha…
As it happens I am adhering to my understanding of the facts as they have been presented to me. I note that you have not presented a single evidence or fact that indicates, much less proves either that language did not exist in any form prior to anatomically modern humans or that language is not symbolic.
So I’m to simply take your word that the empirical evidence is extensive and ignore the fact that you appear unable to posit a single such evidence….if I were that much of a ‘easy-believer’ in what was said to me, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now…

That may be. Nevertheless, both definitions exist.
Which does not necessitate that this continue to be the case.

If you want to claim that one is "right" (for no particular reason) and the other one is "wrong", then you should strongly suspect that you are being fooled... in a very hegemonic way.
I call bullshit!
I claim that of two concepts only one is coherent. No one told me to believe that to be so. The prevailing ‘common sense’ and dominant dogma is that the concept I claim is incoherent is coherent.
There is nothing in the fact of a person claiming that only one of two concepts is coherent that indicates the person so claiming is being fooled nor is there anything that indicates that if such a person were being fooled that they would be being fooled in a hegemonic way.

It doesn't. It means the opposite. Is that the source of your confusion?
Oh no! It’s a typo! Well clearly either I must be wrong or I must be not a perfect typist. Equally clearly either you couldn’t work your way around a typo, or you have no proper response and were left grasping for this rather frail straw…

Exactly.
No not exactly. I perhaps should not have assumed general awareness of the fact that human language is productive. The concept requires a particular word convey it or it cant be conveyed simply because it is incoherent. Were it coherent then it would be meaningful and if it were meaningful it could be conveyed by combining words (we know this because we know that language can convey infinite meanings).

That in itself should suggest to you that those of us who are trying to claim that the capitalist machine is "unnatural" are precisely the ones who are trying to break through the hegemony.
No it shouldn’t. What a load of crap. That a concept is incoherent and so cannot be ‘unpacked’ and is also used to argue against a dominant social order does not render the concept non-hegemonic, rather it might simply shows how pervasive its domination is.
What does it mean to claim that the capitalist machine is unnatural, that it’s like ‘wearing clothes’ or like ‘medicine’…? Or does it mean that capitalism is ‘bad’ because goodness knows how fabulous cancer is?
What a total crock of shit. ‘Natural’ rights paradigms are used both to support and to decry capitalism, this does not indicate either way whether or not the concept being conveyed by the word natural (in such a context) is hegemonic nor whether attempts to point out the incoherence of the concept, is hegemonic either in intent or in effect.

Isn't it convenient for the dominant order to claim that "everything"--including the massive suffering of the human race and the degradation of the non-human world--"is natural"?
Only if the concept you are advocating is being expressed, otherwise they are saying nothing more than ‘is possible within the bounds of natural law’, given that such things are occurrent, they wouldn’t actually be saying anything we didn’t already know….

Whose propaganda?
‘Homosexuality is unnatural, gays therefore cant be allowed to marry’ as just one example.

If you are referring to the people who are trying to undo this mess, to make something different... then surely our "propaganda" cannot take part in the very hegemony we are attempting to dismantle?
Undo what mess? I have no idea what you think you are on about here…

You are turning "hegemony" into a virtually meaningless term.
You appear to be mistaking you for me again. I’m not the one who insists that we ascertain the absolute ‘non-questioned’ state of a word before we can call it hegemonic.

Actually, a real theorist of hegemony would argue that ambiguity is not a "flaw" of our communication system, but rather a symptom of communications in which various groups attempt to control meaning.
Anyone who is real and theorises about hegemony is a real theorist of hegemony. Anyone who claimed that all (linguistic) ambiguity is not a ‘flaw’ of our communication system but rather a symptom of communications in which various groups attempt to control meaning, is a simplistic reductionist whose reasoning is likely to be consequentially impaired.

The argument that we should do away with ambiguity is, almost exclusively, supportive of the existing hegemony. It insists that meaning should not be contested, language should become inert and unthreatening.
No. Doing away with unnecessary and counter-productive instances of ambiguity does not necessitate that meanings should not be contested nor that language should become inert. I personally don’t find language threatening….

You, it seems, are more confused than I could have imagined.
Seems to you perhaps.

Presumably.
Yes, just like the bubonic plague, murder, volcanic eruptions, and cigarette smoking, industrial waste is natural. Of course in saying this I am saying nothing more than that the existence of industrial waste is not inconsistent with the natural laws of this universe.

The aim here seems to be to deflate critical arguments that attack any human activities as "unnatural" by insisting that in the "correct" meaning of the term "everything is natural."
What a fantastic crock of shit. The aim of stating that something can exist, consistent with the natural laws of the universe is to deflate criticism of that thing?! The aim of stating that something is not ‘impossible as per the natural laws of this universe’ is to prevent any criticism thereof?! Have you tried pulling the other one….rumour has it might come with bells.

Surprisingly, our friend Zagat has actually accused those of us fighting this monopoly on meaning of supporting the existing hegemony!!

I have hardly come across a more laughable claim in all my life.
Monopoly? Wow, you really are desperate are you not? So to your mind the OP made this thread to state an already well-known and accepted paradigm, and the fact that most posters in it have in fact taken a contrary view is a simple coincidence rather than indicative of the lack of monopoly of that paradigm….now that’s a laughable view. One wonders why the use of ‘all natural’ is so pervasive in advertising, or why politicians find writing homosexuality off as ‘unnatural’ even possible much less easy, given the monopoly of the view that nothing is not all natural and that homosexuality either defies the laws of nature or doesn’t exist….might I suggest you are talking a crock of shit….obviously I might since it seems I just did.

Zagat: I have been tiring of this discussion for some time, as it only goes in circles. Forgive me, therefore, if I do not respond to every word of your lengthy post. I will do my best to address that which is most relevant.From the Original Post:If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot isequally natural as the air we breathe.I dont believe that a self-aware, self replicating robot currently exists in the universe, and I see no reason to believe the OP believed such a robot currently exists either.
To interperet the OP definately meant 'only everything that exists' (rather than including everything that exists) requires the assumption that either the OP believes that self-aware, self-replicating robots do currently exist, or the OP is woefully incompetent in the grammar department. I see no reason to assume either of these things. Which are you assuming is the case, and what are your reasons for doing so?I had assumed that the OP was using the verb "to be" casually (or incorrectly) in the present tense to indicate that a self-aware robot, should one exist, would be natural, because it exists.

If I am incorrect in that assumption, I apologize for misinterpreting the OP. Whether he/she agrees with your definition or some other is, for present purposes, entirely irrelevant.My objection to people putting the word nature to the use that you seem to be advocating, is that it's meaning is never made clear. I suspect this is because it has no clear meaning.My meaning has been perfectly clear. In one definition, the "natural" is that which has been untouched by humans. Unless you believe that we are inherenly incapable of telling the difference between that which has been touched by humans (or, for general purposes, another intelligent entity) and that which has not, then the meaning is perfectly clear.

I would be willing to accept that the distinction (in a different definition) between that which is "innate" (natural) and that which is learned is less clear. Nevertheless, unless you want to claim that people cannot tell the difference between learned behavior and innate behavior, then the meaning is perfectly clear.

What you are trying to argue, with an exceptional degree of incoherence, is not that these meanings are not clear (they are clear to everyone), but rather that these distinctions are not worth making, for some reason or other.

You seem to entirely miss the point that I believe one of the 'meanings' is in fact meaningless, and that the two meanings are such it makes no sense and a great deal of nonsense to have both as the referent of any one one word.Whether it makes "sense" or not, words can mean more than one thing. Just like any other symbol.

If I extend my arm and hold out my palm while my friend drives away, it means "farewell." If I extend my arm and hold out my palm while a car bears down on me, it means "for God's sake, STOP." Context matters.

Actually I would say 'natural-B' is contrary to good sense. Why? Because natural-B is contrary to good sense...My, your justificatory statements are oh so compelling!

No it is because we already have words to describe the concept 'things that do exist' and the concept' the entire universe'.Yes, and we have a word to describe words that mean the same thing: namely, "synonyms."

I dont believe I'm qualified enough on horse genotypology to know one way or the other.I'm sorry, "genotypology" does not appear to be a word in any dictionary I can find, you master of the English language you.

Of course, I know what you mean... but then again, I have the strange ability to figure things out from contextual cues.

I interpret the above as self-contrary. The category you define as 'non-natural or the articificial' is encompassed by the earlier described category 'nature'....unless you mean that the category 'nature' includes the category 'non-natural'....:confused:Don't be "confused." Just pay attention to the fact that words can mean different things, and you will avoid that troubling fallacy of equivocation.

It only renders the word "dysfunctional" for people who are incapable of (or unwilling to) recognize that context matters.Unless you can prove some good reason to assume that the only people communicating with people who are incapable of or unwilling to recognize that context matters are such people, then I have to assume that you're probably wrong.Gibberish. Then there's the fact that context doesnt always indicate which possible meaning is the intended meaning.Yes. Again, for this unfortunate circumstance we have invented the word "ambiguity." Learn it. Love it. Live it. (You really don't have much choice in the matter, since this is (after all) the nature of language.)

Furthermore if it makes it dysfunctional for even one person (even forgetting anyone and everyone that one person ever communicates with) without adding any functionality, please explain why it is a 'good idea'...Well, it's not a good idea for the dominant order, since finality of meaning always tends toward hegemony. For those of us attempting to fight the good fight, however, we're willing to accept some ambiguity as one of the symptoms of our struggle.

2 problems, firstly people dont consistently do as you suggest, in fact many people not only dont keep the two distinct, they have not even thought about either.Which is only to say that most people are not very good at either logic or rational thought. Big surprise.

Secondly, as I've said before, I dont see that 'natural-B' is coherent, and I do see bandying about incoherencies whilst mistaking them for coherencies as being a problem.You have yet to state a reason why you don't think 'natural-B' is "coherent." Do you have some problem telling the difference between that which has been touched by free intelligent creatures, and that which has not? Is this some disability of yours? When you see a ravine, do you often mistake it for a canal? When you see a canal, do you often mistake it for a ravine?

What concept is there not a word for?Quite a few, to be sure... though it would be difficult indeed to explain them using only words over the Internet. In person, perhaps. With a demonstration, perhaps. With experience... ah, most assuredly.

we dont have some other word to describe 'all things that are possible within the bounds of the natural laws of the universe', unless nature/natural is that word.According to a thesaurus, "realistic" will do. "Physically possible" also seems to capture this meaning, and there is no non-arbitrary reason to insist that concepts must be captured by single words rather than phrases.

Seriously, good luck with your one-word-per-meaning agenda. You're going to need it.

WTF?! No idea what you're on about.... My point, which apparently flew gracefully over your head, was merely to demonstrate that in a real argument the ideas are important, not the words. But as I have already noted, Plato pointed this out over two thousand years ago. I should hardly have to do so again.

There is a difference between a word having more than one definition, and a word having a definition that is contrary to the definition of that word.If you admit that a word can have more than one definition, then it is incoherent to complain that it cannot have a definition that is contrary to "the" definition of the word. This presumes that it can have only one definition, a position which you have (just now) explicitly repudiated.

Right, and often hegemony is maintained by the circulating of concepts, the denial of which is supposed to look naive or foolish.Yes, that is absolutely correct. The attempt being made here is to circulate the notion that "everything is natural," and to make the denial of this claim appear naive and foolish--after all, people who disagree can't even read a dictionary, can they?

So tell me which definition is the dominant definition of nature?I don't think there is one.

You keep going on about how people can be "confused" by the diverse meanings of the word... but if the diverse meanings are so confusing, how can you simultaneously claim that one of them is dominant? Surely if it were, people would assume that the word "natural" referred to it?

I am not claiming that one meaning is dominant. I think that simple empirical observation will demonstrate that none of them is. However, I have noticed in recent years the attempt to refer all complaints of the unnatural back to the argument that "everything" is natural. I have noticed that critics of the dominant order are increasingly silenced by this analysis, which relies on such apparently simple deductions.

I do not believe that this meaning is dominant. But I do believe that I am witnessing the attempt to make it so.

I know which one is intended when politicians talk about the 'naturalness' (or otherwise) of homosexuality, or when an advert declares that a product is 'all natural'And you really want to claim that these sources hold cultural hegemony? You must be joking.

You seem to be forgetting that hegemony necessarily refers to maintaining the dominant order--at present, post-industrial capitalism and Western military/political dominance.

Homosexuality? Please... Homophobia is a socially conservative agenda that bears no relation to capitalist dominance. Indeed, capitalism is perfectly happy to accomodate homosexuals. They turn out to be very good consumers--and what may be even better, it turns out that in a wide variety of contexts "gay" sells. You must be blind to contemporary popular culture if you are missing this.

Fewer and fewer people buy the "homosexuality is unnatural" argument, largely because this argument is predicated not on a "artificial vs. natural" distinction or even an "innate vs. learned" distinction, but because it is predicated on a concept of "God" who determines by dicta what is "natural" and what is not. According to the best empirical evidence we have, in twenty years homophobia will be deader than gender-role sexism--because of capitalist hegemony, not despite it.

As for the "all natural" brands... do you see much market dominance for these fellows? Because I am a vegetarian who prefers organic... and I have to tell you, these products are not nearly as easy to find as the saccharine and preservative-filled chemical composites that dominate the market.

Here--as everywhere else that I see--the notion that "everything is natural," including growth hormones and pesticides, serves the hegemony of the dominant capitalist order. It is merely a boon for the resistance that they have not (despite your help) managed to actually achieve a monopoly on the meaning of "natural."

In the first place it isnt just a constructionist dogma, rather in some times and places it is a simple fact - not every culture has a nature/culture dichotomy paradigm.Wow, now you're really contradicting yourself.

First the fact that "everyone thinks so" is evidence that a view is probably wrong... but now you want to argue that because a culture lacks a distinction that makes it a "simple fact"? Forgive me if I'm confused.

Perhaps you ought to head back to Gramsci and see what he had to say about common sense…For the record, Gramsci pointed out that one of the ways that the dominant class maintains power is by propagating certain "common" truths that tend to support the system. He did not claim that every commonly accepted truth is necessarily a part of the hegemonic order.

In order to show that a common belief is related to class hegemony, you need to show--among other things--how that common belief supports class hegemony. As it happens, those in power could hardly care less about homosexuality anymore... the most they'll do is make vague assertions and symbolic gestures (e.g. a doomed-to-failure constitutional amendment) to pacify their own (inconvenient) constituents who are not towing the real pro-capitalist line.

Here's a helpful tip: when you see a partisan division among members of the ruling class (e.g. Democrats vs. Republicans over gay rights), you're probably not dealing with an issue of relevance to the theory of hegemony. Divisions among the ruling class are usually false divisions, distractions from the fact that both sides really stand for the same thing. Really, did you ever read Gramsci at all... or just the Wikipedia article about him?

According Gramsci what you describe is only part of the process. Equally important is providing motivation to not seek arguments (I’m shocked you missed the whole ‘consent’ aspect of hegemony – given that it was Gramsci’s most significant contribution to the whole issue of hegemony, it’s odd that you should have missed it).Actually, political theorists widely agree that his most important contribution to the theory of hegemony was his liberation of cultural power from the traditional Marxist concept of the "superstructure." Consent was always part of the concept of hegemony... It was the very essence of Marx's concept of the superstructure as the ideas and cultural institutions that generate consent for the underlying economic condition.

Now I'm convinced you've read neither Marx nor Gramsci.

I’m aware of Gramsci’s writings and I don’t accept that I don’t understand any word that I have used anywhere in any of my posts.I don't contest that you're "aware" of Gramsci's writing. I contest the assertion that you've actually read it.

No, I’m not describing people struggling against hegemony, I am a person struggling against hegemony.Just for the record, then... against whose hegemony do you struggle? Presumably, it would have to be the capitalist state and/or Western dominance, no?

You see human language is characterised by ‘productivity’, put simply, this means that the finite number of words in a language can be combined into an infinite number of meaningful expressions.Okay. I just don't think you understand what this means... Let's see... Now if there is any one thing that cannot be expressed in a particular communication form, then that particular communication form can only express a finite number of meaningful expressionsThat's not true. Consider the integers... Now, this is actually an infinite set--presumably more expansive than the finite words in language... And, of course, I can use the integers to create an infinite number of meaningful expressions... 2/3, 25/31, and so on.

But even with this infinite set, I cannot express the idea expressed by an irrational number, or by the imaginary number i. Indeed, there are far, far more expressions that I cannot present with the integers than there are expressions that I can present with them.

And you want me to believe that finite language is better? Please.

EDIT: The point here is that there is a difference between "infinite" and "everything." As you would say, we already have a word for that.

The fact that language can express an infinite number of concepts does not mean that it can express any concept. Many, many infinite sets are smaller than "everything."

What a joke, so extensive you cant describe a single example….aha…To the best of my recollection, this is the first time you have requested one. Therefore I name archaeologist Theresa Kintz. I could name more, but you only asked for one. ... aha...

Or does it mean that capitalism is ‘bad’ because goodness knows how fabulous cancer is?And just how often do those "primitives" who live outside this wonderful civilization actually get cancer?

If not cancer itself, then the epidemic it has become, does indeed appear to be unnatural--in the sense that it is a symptom of the artificial society in which we live.

I personally don’t find language threatening….Really? Because you surely seem threatened by its natural development, so much so that you lash out in an anal-retentive totalitarian attempt to control it....

The aim of stating that something can exist, consistent with the natural laws of the universe is to deflate criticism of that thing?! The aim of stating that something is not ‘impossible as per the natural laws of this universe’ is to prevent any criticism thereof?!You're contradicting yourself again.

You want to claim, on the one hand, that the attempt to establish that homosexuality is "natural" helps to defeat the opponents of homosexual rights...

But suddently the claim that nuclear waste is just as natural does not serve to defeat the opponents of nuclear waste?

How does the rhetoric work for one, but not the other? :confused:

Zagat: I have been tiring of this discussion for some time, as it only goes in circles. Forgive me, therefore, if I do not respond to every word of your lengthy post. I will do my best to address that which is most relevant.
If this is your best attempt to address what is most relevent...I'd sure hate to see your worst.

I had assumed that the OP was using the verb "to be" casually (or incorrectly) in the present tense to indicate that a self-aware robot, should one exist, would be natural, because it exists.
Right, you realise then that based simply on your assumption you have told me that my interpretation is wrong - in other words based on no evidence whatsoever you assume that the OPer does not have basic grammar skills and that I must be wrong in interpreting the OP as having meant what the OP said.
Rather than consider the possibility of one error on your part, you automatically assume that everyone else is an idiot...no wonder you have trouble recognising when someone else is making a point.

If I am incorrect in that assumption, I apologize for misinterpreting the OP. Whether he/she agrees with your definition or some other is, for present purposes, entirely irrelevant.
Right....:rolleyes:
It was relevent when you didnt realise it might indicate an error on your part, now you realise it does, suddenly it's not....as you wish.

My meaning has been perfectly clear. In one definition, the "natural" is that which has been untouched by humans.
No your meaning has not been perfectly clear. Just for clarification in this one definition above, the human body is not natural?

Unless you believe that we are inherenly incapable of telling the difference between that which has been touched by humans (or, for general purposes, another intelligent entity) and that which has not, then the meaning is perfectly clear.
Sure I can tell, for instance human urine is touched by humans, so according to the definition you advocate above, it is not natural. I've never encountered an argument that human urine isnt natural before.
It is my understanding that most people that dont accept that artificial is a sub-category of natural dont believe that urine is not natural, so I dont believe that the definition you give actually applies to any widespread degree in practise.
If what you were saying were the definition people were applying, it would make no sense to use 'unnatural' or 'not natural' as a moral perjoritive, yet in practise that is how the word is used.
This is what I mean by incoherent. You see people appear to actually think they are applying the objective definition that you describe above, but they dont think human urine is unnatural despite it being objectively so according to an objective application of the critieria entailed in the definition concerned.

Now the problem is this. Natural as described in the definition above is an empiracal category, but in practise it is used to convey normative (moral/subjective) expression; the concept is incoherent because it is framed as an empiracal, yet is mostly used and understood as a normative, and even when not used to convey moral expression of some kind it is very rarely used objectively as it is described. It is incoherent and an evidence of this is that people claim and believe it means something that they dont use it or interpret as meaning in practise.
Consider for a moment what definition of natural it is that is consistent with the possibility of defining homosexual sex as unnatural and heterosexual sex as natural - that's the definition I am objecting to, and in practise even though it is claimed that people mean the definition you describe above, it is my experiance that in practise they dont mean anything nearly as coherent as that at all.

I would be willing to accept that the distinction (in a different definition) between that which is "innate" (natural) and that which is learned is less clear. Nevertheless, unless you want to claim that people cannot tell the difference between learned behavior and innate behavior, then the meaning is perfectly clear.
You accept the distinction is unclear but seem to think it would somehow be out of sorts to suggest that there might be some difficulty ascertaining the difference?
That a behaviour is innate is very rarely discernable, and probably never 'readily' so, of course it must be true that there are learned behaviours that cannot be readily discerned as such (otherwise we could assume that if a behaviour were not readily discernable as learned it must be innate). We can readily discern that piano playing is a learned behaviour, we cannot nearly so easily discern if a preference for 'Action Man' over 'Barbie' is innate, learned, or a product of the interactivity between innate propensities and learned perceptions/understandings.

What you are trying to argue, with an exceptional degree of incoherence, is not that these meanings are not clear (they are clear to everyone), but rather that these distinctions are not worth making, for some reason or other.
The meanings are not clear because the meanings being applied in practise are not as you describe. If they were, given such clear, non-subjective boundaries (either something is or is not touched by humans) people wouldnt be wasting so much time arguing over whether or not something is natural. Frankly it's just a distraction from the real discussion as to whether or not that something is desirable, neutral or deleterous, and if the latter how to best minimise the harm.

Whether it makes "sense" or not, words can mean more than one thing. Just like any other symbol.
Do you understand that I am not and have never argued anything to the contrary of the above? Given that you keep beating on the above strawman rather than addressing the actual point being made (ie that contrary to the courtroom assertions of degenerates, in no language does yes mean no, or maybe mean impossible) I have to start assuming that you simply dont have any real counter-argument are left grasping for straws (you need them to stuff all those strawmen you then proceed to beat the stuffing out of again).
Show me an example of a symbol meaning two contrary things within any single lexicon. In the meantime you might as give the poor tired and excessively beaten strawman a rest; after all, what did he ever do to you?

If I extend my arm and hold out my palm while my friend drives away, it means "farewell." If I extend my arm and hold out my palm while a car bears down on me, it means "for God's sake, STOP." Context matters.
Are you going to replace all that stuffing when you are through?
The fact is 'farewell' and a 'cease the status quo' directive are actually not contrary concepts.

My, your justificatory statements are oh so compelling!

Yes, and we have a word to describe words that mean the same thing: namely, "synonyms."
:rolleyes:

I'm sorry, "genotypology" does not appear to be a word in any dictionary I can find, you master of the English language you.

Of course, I know what you mean... but then again, I have the strange ability to figure things out from contextual cues.

You keep working over that strawman...

Don't be "confused." Just pay attention to the fact that words can mean different things, and you will avoid that troubling fallacy of equivocation.
Wow, you really are a bold one huh? There you are equivocating with your fallicious strawmen while throwing out accusations that it's everyone but you who is doing exactly that....

Gibberish. Yes. Again, for this unfortunate circumstance we have invented the word "ambiguity." Learn it. Love it. Live it. (You really don't have much choice in the matter, since this is (after all) the nature of language.)

Aha, I have no choice, it appears foolish and naive to even attempt to challenge this thing, which is why you conclude that this thing it is foolish and naive for me to challenge isnt hegemonic but rather that challenges to it are...:rolleyes:
The most relevent aspects of my comments are not that that ambiguity arises as to which definition, but the ambiguity that is inherent to one of those definitions. Frankly your post appears much more to be an attempt to ignore everything that is most relevent rather than address it...

Well, it's not a good idea for the dominant order, since finality of meaning always tends toward hegemony. For those of us attempting to fight the good fight, however, we're willing to accept some ambiguity as one of the symptoms of our struggle.
Finality of meaning is not inconsistent with incoherence and ambiguity.

The ability to distract all discussion away from the point and channel it off into an irresolvable argument over whether or not something is or isnt 'X' where 'X' is an incoherent category, is absolutely not helpful to any attempt to alter the status quo. Quite the contrary by tying people up in irresolvable argumentation over an incoherency, productive discourse is effectively prevented.

Which is only to say that most people are not very good at either logic or rational thought. Big surprise.
And of course making them aware of illogical constructs that they have invested in should not even be attempted - rather it's best to just give up and quite, why try to change anything? Interesting (although I expect utterly unsuccessful) method of fighting the good fight you have there...
It's also interesting that you repeatedly seem to imply that I am challenging the unchallengable, and also repeatedly state that what I am doing can be appropriately described by the word hegemonic...

You have yet to state a reason why you don't think 'natural-B' is "coherent." Do you have some problem telling the difference between that which has been touched by free intelligent creatures, and that which has not? Is this some disability of yours? When you see a ravine, do you often mistake it for a canal? When you see a canal, do you often mistake it for a ravine?
I dont believe that in practise there is any widespread use of the word natural to convey a concept that is consistent with the one described above. All the waffle about what people think they mean about it, doesnt make the actual way they use and interpret its use any more coherent, rather the inconsistency between the declared meaning and the actual use and interpretation of the word is simply another indicator of the incoherent usage/interpetation that I object to.

Quite a few, to be sure... though it would be difficult indeed to explain them using only words over the Internet. In person, perhaps. With a demonstration, perhaps. With experience... ah, most assuredly.
Well so much for your assertions that you could you take your cues from context...

According to a thesaurus, "realistic" will do. "Physically possible" also seems to capture this meaning, and there is no non-arbitrary reason to insist that concepts must be captured by single words rather than phrases.
Realistic wont do to convey a category that includes possiblities that are not realistic. I never stated that there was a non-arbitary reason to insist that concepts be captured by single words rather than phrases. My comments in this regard were a response to a direct question about why this rather than that, they were not a general statement about the necessity of single words to convey concepts. This was rather obvious from the context...

Seriously, good luck with your one-word-per-meaning agenda. You're going to need it.

Seriously, good luck impressing anyone with your sadistic cruelty to strawmen. You're going to need it.

My point, which apparently flew gracefully over your head, was merely to demonstrate that in a real argument the ideas are important, not the words.
How about you get down off the arrogance box. You appear to either be utterly unable to comprehend the ideas behind words, or you are deliberately avoiding the point because you cant counter it. I dont care if you use the word periwinkledolylamamcfudge to convey the concept I object to, that is being conveyed with the word nature; now either this point has flown gracefully or otherwise over your head, or you are simply arguing back because you are too arrogant to reconsider a point you've argued against. I'm thinking the latter.

as I have already noted, Plato pointed this out over two thousand years ago. I should hardly have to do so again.
You shouldnt be pointing it out to anyone when you are either unable to comprehend the point in practise or simply choice to pretend to be unable to comprehend. Do you truely not understand that it is the concept (ie the idea) that I object to no matter what word is used to convey it?

If you admit that a word can have more than one definition, then it is incoherent to complain that it cannot have a definition that is contrary to "the" definition of the word. This presumes that it can have only one definition, a position which you have (just now) explicitly repudiated.
No. If a word can only convey meanings that are not contrary to the meanings it can convey then it is not true that the word can only convey one meaning because it is not true that all possible meanings are directly contrary to all other possible meanings. I'm astonished that you would either believe the argument you make above is sound or that you would expect anyone else to believe as much.:eek:

Yes, that is absolutely correct. The attempt being made here is to circulate the notion that "everything is natural," and to make the denial of this claim appear naive and foolish--after all, people who disagree can't even read a dictionary, can they?
Aha, because you certainly have not tried to win this argument by reference to dictionary definitions, nor by denigrating the intelligence or lack of knowlege of anyone who disagrees...
Sarcasm aside, no that is not the attempt being made here. I suggest that of the two of us I am better qualified to know my motivations than are you. The attempt being made here is to get people to critically think about a concept that they bandy about and yet show no sign of ever having thought about or considered critically and which they appear to overtly believe has a definition that is inconsistent with the actual use and function of the concept in practise.

I don't think there is one.

You keep going on about how people can be "confused" by the diverse meanings of the word... but if the diverse meanings are so confusing, how can you simultaneously claim that one of them is dominant? Surely if it were, people would assume that the word "natural" referred to it?
I did not claim diverse meanings. I referred to variations, for instance the varition between the empiracal description of what the word refers to and the actual use of it in discourse. The concept is vague, variation isnt indicative of diverse meanings but rather stems from that vagueness.
I claim it is dominant because contrary paradigms are rarely encountered and when they are they are negated and often furiously rebuffed....

I am not claiming that one meaning is dominant. I think that simple empirical observation will demonstrate that none of them is. However, I have noticed in recent years the attempt to refer all complaints of the unnatural back to the argument that "everything" is natural. I have noticed that critics of the dominant order are increasingly silenced by this analysis, which relies on such apparently simple deductions.
Really? Well I have not noticed any such thing. I take it you've been living in a cave during all the debate about homosexual marriage in the US because the 'it's unnatural' cry was loud and clear and was successful in distracting people away from the real issue (what is desirable/best practise rather than what is 'natural') and thus preventing or delaying challenges to the status quo.

I do not believe that this meaning is dominant. But I do believe that I am witnessing the attempt to make it so.
Then you are wrong. It certainly is the meaning that resonates with me, but frankly I wouldnt object if the meaning of 'not crafted by humans' was applied, what I object to is the incoherent meaning that acts simply to derail discourse about issues and displaces productive discourse in favour of irresolvable argumentation about whether or not X belongs in incoherent category Y. What I object to is the way the concept functions to prevent relevent dialogue by spinning everyone off into an argument that cant be resolved because there is no way of proving either way whether or not X belongs to a category that lacks any consistent boundary. If you cant see how arguments about whether or not something is natural is utterly irrelevent to whether or not we ought to do something about it, then I can only assume that the definition you apply to natural

And you really want to claim that these sources hold cultural hegemony? You must be joking.
Are you really going to try to pass this off as actually addressing what I said...apparently so.
When will you just leave off that poor strawman?

You seem to be forgetting that hegemony necessarily refers to maintaining the dominant order--at present, post-industrial capitalism and Western military/political dominance.
I refer to the weilders of political power and the mouthpieces of capitalism and you conclude the above? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Homosexuality? Please... Homophobia is a socially conservative agenda that bears no relation to capitalist dominance.
Whether or not it bears relation to capitalist dominance is a complexity we need not get into since anti homosexuality does bear relation to cultural dominance, you know that thing you knew was relevent to hegemony just a few sentences back....

Indeed, capitalism is perfectly happy to accomodate homosexuals. They turn out to be very good consumers--and what may be even better, it turns out that in a wide variety of contexts "gay" sells. You must be blind to contemporary popular culture if you are missing this.
Which would matter if hegemony was mono-faceted and that facet was economic. However our good friend Gramsci was very particular in pointing out that this was not the case...

Fewer and fewer people buy the "homosexuality is unnatural" argument, largely because this argument is predicated not on a "artificial vs. natural" distinction or even an "innate vs. learned" distinction, but because it is predicated on a concept of "God" who determines by dicta what is "natural" and what is not. According to the best empirical evidence we have, in twenty years homophobia will be deader than gender-role sexism--because of capitalist hegemony, not despite it.
Way to miss the point. We are discussing how the concepts uses, not whether or not the use of it results in success 100% of the time.
The facts are not consistent with your explaination. Attitudes towards God and Christianity have caused some shifting in the vague concept we are discussing, just as Gramsci suggests it appears some adaptability and flexibility is necessary for hegemony to be maintained...
As it has become less accepted to rely on God's will as a rationale in many contexts, this aspect of the concept has become less crucial - if it hadnt then the concept would not have maintained its utility. This is consistent with the flexibility Gramsci describes as necessary hegemonic longevity.
The fact is the argument that homosexuality is 'not natural' is counterered not by a realisation that the concept of natural is an irrelevent distraction, but rather by an attempt to argue that in fact homosexuality is natural. Since only one of these definitions (ie the one where 'against God=unnatural and so sinful and unnatural= against God so sinful) actually indicates anything relevent to the discourse, then it's a waste of time arguing whether or not it is natural according to the other definition, yet that is precisely the response that calling homosexuality unnatural receives.
The best response is surely to make the person unpack the definition of unnatural so that it can be discussed rather than everyone getting into an argument that involves both sides talking past each other.

As for the "all natural" brands... do you see much market dominance for these fellows? Because I am a vegetarian who prefers organic... and I have to tell you, these products are not nearly as easy to find as the saccharine and preservative-filled chemical composites that dominate the market.
I'm not talking about brands that are organic, I'm talking about the use of the word natural to convey the idea that they are 'orgainicish' or 'greenish'. The fact that the idea conveyed is a crock of shit is precisely my point...:rolleyes:

Here--as everywhere else that I see--the notion that "everything is natural," including growth hormones and pesticides, serves the hegemony of the dominant capitalist order.
No it doesnt. Let's take it slooooowly for you. The notion that 'everything is natural' is an implication of natural referring to 'events/occurences not inconsistent with the natural laws of this universe', so to state 'everything that exists is natural' is to state 'everything that exists isnt impossible'. I dont see any propaganda value in stating the obvious conclusion that things that exist are not impossible!
The only way the concept of nature serves the hegemony of any order is if it has some moral implication and the concept that I use nature to convey does not contain any moral implication whatsoever! I dont know why this point is so difficult for you to comprehend...

It is merely a boon for the resistance that they have not (despite your help) managed to actually achieve a monopoly on the meaning of "natural."

Quit the strawman crock of shit. Either put up and demonstrate that the notion that 'things that exist are not impossible' is somehow going have any negative effect whatsoever on whatever resistence you are harping on about, or once and for all put the strawman down!
The melodramatics dont help your case any.

Wow, now you're really contradicting yourself.
No, I'm not...

First the fact that "everyone thinks so" is evidence that a view is probably wrong...
No, I never stated that at all. I did comment to the effect that if nearly everyone appears to hold a view/perception/belief, yet apparently nobody can give any coherent account of that thinking, then this is indicitive that there is good reason to suspect hegemony is involved.

but now you want to argue that because a culture lacks a distinction that makes it a "simple fact"? Forgive me if I'm confused.

You are?
It's human beings who make the distinction, necessarily if at any time and place no human being exists that makes such a distinction then nothing is generating the distinction in that time and place - it doesnt exist at that particular 'there and then'.

For the record, Gramsci pointed out that one of the ways that the dominant class maintains power is by propagating certain "common" truths that tend to support the system. He did not claim that every commonly accepted truth is necessarily a part of the hegemonic order.
For the record I am aware of this fact and nothing I have stated in my comments is contrary to such an awareness. For someone to weary of the subject to bother addressing what I did post, you sure seem to spend an awful lot of time and effort addressing stuff that I didnt...

In order to show that a common belief is related to class hegemony, you need to show--among other things--how that common belief supports class hegemony. As it happens, those in power could hardly care less about homosexuality anymore... the most they'll do is make vague assertions and symbolic gestures (e.g. a doomed-to-failure constitutional amendment) to pacify their own (inconvenient) constituents who are not towing the real pro-capitalist line.
The concept/belief has been common to class hegemony for centuries, you might have heard of a thing called the Natural Order, you know it was the central rationale and justification for the heirachy preveliant throughout Europe for only say a millenium or so...
The modern variant still has it's uses in maintaining the status quo and so it still has it's uses in the maintainence of hegemony and the struggle for hegemony.

Here's a helpful tip: when you see a partisan division among members of the ruling class (e.g. Democrats vs. Republicans over gay rights), you're probably not dealing with an issue of relevance to the theory of hegemony. Divisions among the ruling class are usually false divisions, distractions from the fact that both sides really stand for the same thing. Really, did you ever read Gramsci at all... or just the Wikipedia article about him?
Here's a helpful tip: the world includes more than the US!:eek:
When you come out of your simplistic shell and get over the fact that you are not the only person in the world familiar with Gramsci then perhaps you might actually be able to make sensible contribution rather than this simplistic 'cant see the world past my country's border' crap.

Actually, political theorists widely agree that his most important contribution to the theory of hegemony was his liberation of cultural power from the traditional Marxist concept of the "superstructure." Consent was always part of the concept of hegemony... It was the very essence of Marx's concept of the superstructure as the ideas and cultural institutions that generate consent for the underlying economic condition.
The way you are talking one would think there was in such a thing as traditional Marxism in Gramsci's day....of course traditional Marxism is in countradisctionction to neo-Marxism, prior to neo-Marxism, it was all just Marxism.
As for something being widely accepted by political theorists, it's rather subjective.
The consent of Marx isnt the consent of Gramsci. For Marx culture generates consent but for Gramsci, the particular processes and actions taken to seek and gain and maintain consent is a factor that acts to shape culture rather than merely an effect of it. For Marx consent is caused by culture, for Gramsci both culture and consent are mutually influencing. Culture provides the potential and limitation regarding the instruments and methods for achieving consent, but the manner of achieving and maintaining consent is in turn a factor in the generation of culture.

Now I'm convinced you've read neither Marx nor Gramsci.
Never mind, it appears you are prone to erroneous convictions so what's one more.

I don't contest that you're "aware" of Gramsci's writing. I contest the assertion that you've actually read it.
If by 'it' you mean in Italian, well no, I concede I've only read English translations...

Just for the record, then... against whose hegemony do you struggle? Presumably, it would have to be the capitalist state and/or Western dominance, no?
What do you mean whose? Do you think the capital state or that the Anglo-Western culture is an identity rather than a particular series of conditions? If you dont understand that hegemony isnt one particular entity or group, or representitive of a particular entity or group, you have no place accusing others of failing to understand Gramsci. Hegemony is not static. Coalitions and form and break apart and various interests compete across a range of spheres. Capitalism is not a hegemony although it can serve hegemonic interests. The Anglo-Western culture is the product of events and occurences and of course hegemony isnt not a factor in the shaping of a culture, but it isnt the culture itself. I dont struggle against the Anglo Western culture or any particular capitalist state, I struggle against particular outcomes, potential or currently occurent.

Okay. I just don't think you understand what this means... Let's see... That's not true. Consider the integers... Now, this is actually an infinite set--presumably more expansive than the finite words in language... And, of course, I can use the integers to create an infinite number of meaningful expressions... 2/3, 25/31, and so on.
I understand fine. I understand that integers have nothing whatsoever to do with the concept 'language-productivity'.

But even with this infinite set, I cannot express the idea expressed by an irrational number, or by the imaginary number i. Indeed, there are far, far more expressions that I cannot present with the integers than there are expressions that I can present with them.
Maths is an internally consistent system that is not externally consistent with universe in which it exists. You can do things in maths that just cant be done elsewhere because the rules of mathes are not identical to the rules of this universe.

And you want me to believe that finite language is better? Please.
Take it up with the scientists...

EDIT: The point here is that there is a difference between "infinite" and "everything." As you would say, we already have a word for that.

But of course, 'infinite' refers to a set without end, whereas the set 'everything' is most likely finite, ie has an end.

The fact that language can express an infinite number of concepts does not mean that it can express any concept. Many, many infinite sets are smaller than "everything."
Which might be relevent if productivity as a language trait referred to an infinite set of some restricted kind (like a set that occurs due to the special cirumstances that apply in mathes) rather than to a lack of limitations...

To the best of my recollection, this is the first time you have requested one. Therefore I name archaeologist Theresa Kintz. I could name more, but you only asked for one. ... aha...

Theresa Kintz is not an example of evidence of the kind requested. What a lame attempt to equivocate - do you really think the name of someone who might have views on a matter is some kind of evidence about those veiws? You get more desperate as you continue posting. Either state an evidence or not...you know like a reason why Theresa alledgedly thinks what you seem to imply she thinks, in your vague round about way...

And just how often do those "primitives" who live outside this wonderful civilization actually get cancer?

What do you imagine you are on about. Who is it that has posited wonderful, is this your assessment or are you trying to attribute it to me. What relevence has the cancer rate of people you so rudely call primitives got to do with anything whatsoever?

If not cancer itself, then the epidemic it has become, does indeed appear to be unnatural--in the sense that it is a symptom of the artificial society in which we live.
Blah, blah, irrelevent blah. What the heck do you think you are proving either way with such a circularity. I say that if artificial things are unnatural then artifical things are unnatural...I also that this doesnt prove that a single artificial thing is natural...it doesnt prove or indicate anything whatsoever except some apparent love of melodrama on your part.

Really? Because you surely seem threatened by its natural development, so much so that you lash out in an anal-retentive totalitarian attempt to control it....
Oh, I see, you fight the good fight but those that disagree with you are threatened and lashing out with anal-retentive totalitarian attempts to control...how very melodramatic of you...

You're contradicting yourself again.
No, I'm not.

You want to claim, on the one hand, that the attempt to establish that homosexuality is "natural" helps to defeat the opponents of homosexual rights...
No I dont, so you might as well put that strawman down.

But suddently the claim that nuclear waste is just as natural does not serve to defeat the opponents of nuclear waste?
The only way in which the claim that nuclear waste is natural could possibly serve to defeat opponents of anything is if it meant something other than the concept I use it to convey.

How does the rhetoric work for one, but not the other?
Try re-reading and responding to what has been said rather than fantasing and proceeding to beat up on strawmen, otherwise I dont see the point of bothering...clearly you either failed to address what was most relevent or (as i suspect) never even tried...

If this is your best attempt to address what is most relevent...I'd sure hate to see your worst.Actually, I was politely attempting to keep this discussion focused, cutting down on the excessively long posts so that it remains feasible to continue the conversation. I humbly admitted that some points would necessarily be lost in this, but as a matter of respect I did not attempt to bias the argument by picking and choosing your weakest or least relevant points. Implicitly, I expected that you should be allowed to do the same as a matter of mutual respect... but clearly respect is a value that you do not understand.

No your meaning has not been perfectly clear. Just for clarification in this one definition above, the human body is not natural?Since it truly strains credibility to believe that you do not understand what I mean by the common, if somewhat colloquial, expression "touched by humans," I must conclude either that you are an imbecile or that you are intentionally misinterpreting my language for rhetorical effect.

Because I do not care to make the more unflattering assumption, I must conclude that you are more interested in a rhetorical shouting match than in a conversation in which we actually attempt to convince one another. As an intellectual, I have little interest in such childish games.

Consider for a moment what definition of natural it is that is consistent with the possibility of defining homosexual sex as unnatural and heterosexual sex as natural - that's the definition I am objecting to,Considering that any educated person is aware that homosexuality occurs in nature, has occurred consistently throughout human history, and does not appear to have anything to do with "artificial" human behaviors, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

The only definition of "natural" that has anything to do with the debate about homosexuality is the one that runs as follows: The natural is what the Christian God likes, and the unnatural is what the Christian God hates. This really is incoherent, because the Christian God (if his favorite book is taken as evidence), says wildly inconsistent things about what he likes and doesn't like.

We can readily discern that piano playing is a learned behaviour, we cannot nearly so easily discern if a preference for 'Action Man' over 'Barbie' is innate, learned, or a product of the interactivity between innate propensities and learned perceptions/understandings.The fact that it may be "hard to tell" has never in the history of philosophy, to this very point in time, been taken as reason to declare that a definition is incoherent or meaningless. You are confusing ontological and epistemological problems.

Show me an example of a symbol meaning two contrary things within any single lexicon.

1. To cleave: a) to cling to; b) to cut apart.
2. To dust: a) to remove dust, as when cleaning; b) to deposit dust, as when "dusting" for fingerprints.
3. To adumbrate: a) to clarify; b) to cast a shadow over.
4. Aught: a) anything; b) nothing.
5. To bolt: a) to secure in place; b) to dash away suddenly.
6. Bound: a) restrained (e.g. by rope); b) to spring or leap.
7. To buckle: a) to fasten; b) to come undone; to collapse.
8. To clip: a) to fasten; b) to cut apart.

You know what? I'm tired of embarassing you now. Just Google "autoantonym," the proper term for a word that has contradictory meanings, and look at the many thousands of examples.

I'm bored now.

I can't remember if I posted in this thread before; too lazy to look for it too. So I'll risk it by saying this:

People have a delusion that a natural act is always the "right" or "best" act. What so many can't seem to understand is that a natural act can be just as devastating, or even moreso, than a non-natural one.

Nope. If you cannot precisely identify when A becomes not-A, how are you supposed to precisely identify when A becomes maybe-not-A?

This is a very old problem in philosophy. It has yet to be solved to anyone's satisfaction.

But if you can identify when A at all, then you must know precisely when you can determine that.

If you decide that you are standing on Mount Everest, how did you do that? You applied some sort of standard of being-on-Everestness. And since you were able to use it, you must know what that standard is.

If you can ever tell when you're on Everest, then you must be able to tell when you knew that.

But if you can identify when A at all, then you must know precisely when you can determine that.

If you decide that you are standing on Mount Everest, how did you do that? You applied some sort of standard of being-on-Everestness. And since you were able to use it, you must know what that standard is.Right. But nothing about that fact requires that the standard is precise. In other words, it does not require that I can identify the exact moment that I stepped onto Mount Everest... Or, if I have such a standard, it is necessarily arbitrary.

If you can ever tell when you're on Everest, then you must be able to tell when you knew that.Consider it as a problem in Bayesian confidence intervals.

I may know when I am 10% confident that I am on Everest; I may know when I am 50% confident that I am on Everest; and I may know when I am 100% confident that I am on Everest.

But to get to 100%, I had to go through the progression from 10% to 50% confidence and beyond. At no point do I have to say, "I am now 100% confident that I am NOT on Everest... and after this step, I am now 100% confident that I AM on Everest."

Uncertainty is an epistemological problem... it has nothing to do with "meaning" per se, which is an ontological problem.

I always focus on the epistemological problems. Ontological problems can be defined away.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...




First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.


So, at what point does the object become unnatural?

1. There is a tree in a forest.
2. A stick falls off of the tree.
3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
5. The man then ties a stone arrowhead and a feather to the stick, loads it into a bow (made of a stick and a vine), and uses it to go hunting.
6. The man makes a new arrow, this time out of copper ore that he finds.
7. The copper ore is smelted with tin to form a bronze arrowhead.
8. Copper is used to make wire, which is used to create a simple electrical circuit to light a(n?) LED.
9. Copper is used in a vacuum tube inside of an early, simple computer.
10. The simple computers constantly improve, eventually becoming modern computers.
11. A modern computer developes an AI program.
12. AI developes to such a degree that it surpasses human intelligence.
13. The robots become self-aware!:eek:
14. The robots begin to self-replicate.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?


I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords, and would like to offer my assisstance in assimilating-- er, I mean acclimating my fellow humans to the new world order.

I always focus on the epistemological problems. Ontological problems can be defined away.Yep, that's pretty much been the problem with this whole thread.

Any time you get into "meaning," you're dealing with ontology... and you're pretty much on your own.

Speaking of ill-defined terms, philosophers have never really managed to explain what they mean by "meaning" without using the word in its definition or falling back on some untenable notion of "representation" or "synonymy" (which itself actually relies on a concept of meaning).

Quine wrote some nice essays on this stuff. Some of my favorites. :)

Finality of meaning is not inconsistent with incoherence and ambiguity.Clearly not, as your own attempts to establish finality have amply demonstrated. ;)

The way you are talking one would think there was in such a thing as traditional Marxism in Gramsci's day....of course traditional Marxism is in countradisctionction to neo-Marxism, prior to neo-Marxism, it was all just Marxism.For the record, Gramsci is considered one of the most prominent Neo-Marxists; hence it is appropriate to distinguish his innovations (as well as those of the Frankfurt School and other Neo-Marxists) from traditional Marxist strains of thought.

I understand fine. I understand that integers have nothing whatsoever to do with the concept 'language-productivity'.Ah. Here is the argument that I thought needed to be corrected so badly that I actually returned to this post.

You may think that integers have "nothing whatsoever" to do with the concept, but they have everything to do with your claim that if "any" element is excluded from an infinite set, it is not infinite.

Let's name some infinite sets, shall we?

1. The positive integers.
2. The positive even integers.
3. The positive and negative even integers.
4. The real numbers.
5. The real numbers between 0 and 1.

Okay, that's enough. Obviously, all of these sets are infinite. Yet equally obviously, for each of these sets I can name things that they do not contain.

Maths is an internally consistent system that is not externally consistent with universe in which it exists.Ummm... If math were not "externally consistent," then the fact that 5-3=2 could not be taken to mean that if I have five oranges and eat three of them, I have two left.

Take it up with the scientists...I will happily do so, as soon as you provide a scientist who claims that because language can generate infinite expressions, there is therefore no idea, feeling, or concept that it cannot express.

But of course, 'infinite' refers to a set without end, whereas the set 'everything' is most likely finite, ie has an end.What you seem to misunderstand about the infinite, however, is that a set can easily have no end yet still exclude many things.

Given all the words in the English language, I can recombine them in infinite ways. Of course, if I go through and weed out every single word that refers to, say, human feelings--love, fear, hate, etc; and others that connote or imply these--I can take the remaining words and recombine them in infinite ways.

This is still a language in every technical sense. Yet naturally, with none of these combinations would I be able to express a human feeling.

Indeed, one can take any limited lexicon and generate infinite combinations. Consider the technical language of computer science, for instance. We could easily take these words and generate infinitely many strings. This set also, however, would be unlikely to express many human feelings... well, unless one includes such statements as "I hate Windows" in said technical language. :)

These "limited" languages serve to demonstrate the point: even a language capable of infinite production may exclude many things that its elements cannot express. Clearly, there are many words expressing human feelings in real languages. Yet there may also be many ideas or feelings that cannot be expressed, or cannot be expressed adequately.

The limits of language are evident to anyone who has ever tried to translate effectively between very different languages. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that there are some words in German and ancient Greek that simply do not have analogues in English... and even extensive dissertations on them cannot quite capture the "sense" for an English audience. The only way to really understand them is to become familiar with their use in the native language--through, as I suggested earlier, context and experience.

Which might be relevent if productivity as a language trait referred to an infinite set of some restricted kind (like a set that occurs due to the special cirumstances that apply in mathes) rather than to a lack of limitations.If language had no limitations, we might not need art.

It's what I've always been saying. Littering doesn't harm the Earth because plastic comes from the Earth. The humans that make the plastic also come from Earth.

It's what I've always been saying. Littering doesn't harm the Earth because plastic comes from the Earth. The humans that make the plastic also come from Earth.
Littering isn't about plastic on the earth, it's about ugliness.

Hmm... let's see if I can make this semi-coherent...

First of all:
A. The universe is natural.
B. Earth as a part of the universe, is natural.
C. Living organisms, as a part of the earth, are natural.
D. Humans, as living organisms, are natural.

So, at what point does the object become unnatural?
If you consider that unnatural means "not natural", then you are right, there is nothing (literally no thing) that is not "of nature".

But that's not what it means (that isn't even in my dictionary (http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0716500.html)). Even unnatural things have a nature. It means, "...at variance with the character or nature of a person, animal, or plant." It is that variation from (not a negation of) its set nature that makes a thing unnatural.

That refers specifically to one defintion of "natural", that being: "of, pertaining to, or proper to the nature or essential constitution; character, kind or sort; characteristic disposition; temperament." I would also attribute it to "...having a real or physical existence, as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious, etc.," as that definition grew out of the above.

As others have said, as soon as consciousness and conscious intent enter the picture, things become meaningful. Is that meaning that affords things the label "unnatural", because that same meaning is used to define what their nature is.

1. There is a tree in a forest.
...that grows and turns its leaves up to the sun. It neither speaks nor moves from its place, but remains steadfast and true through the centuries.

2. A stick falls off of the tree.
...and the stick neither speaks nor moves, but lies on the ground, until...

3. The stick is picked up by a chimp, and is used to knock fruit out of a tree.
So, here we have something unnatural happening to the stick (not the chimp, the stick). If left to its own devices, the stick would just sit there. The chimp, on the other hand, is behaving naturally.

4. A primitive man ties a rock to the stick with a vine, and uses it to hunt.
Again, an unnatural use for the vine, as it doesn't usually find itself doing these things. They are not a part of its characterstics, but someone else's.

etc.

If everything is derived from nature (which it is), then a self-aware, self replicating robot is equally natural as the air we breathe.
My basic point is that unless we can find some way to create matter out of nothing, everything is simply a rearrangement of existing natural raw material, and a derivative of nature is natural.

Wow, that was convoluted as hell. Feedback?
Every-thing is derived from nature; but, more significantly, everything has a nature that allows for it to be identified as a thing. Your premise does not prevent some things from being unnatural.