Everything is "natural": Philosophy Forums

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Everything is "natural"

Cassie
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Posted 08/04/09 - 11:07 PM: Subject: Everything is "natural"	#1
I'm posting this after having an argument with my flatmate. Basically I'm saying that everything on this earth is natural if you think of "natural" as something that is just there. Specifically what I mean is for example a raspberry fizzy drink is a natural product. The pieces in it are put together artificially by humans, but the pieces are things that occur naturally (that's if you beleieve in the idea of matter). This makes raspberry fizzy drinks products of nature assembled by humans to create a solid mass of unnaturally occurring nature. If you have any objections to that, enlighten me.

jalwhat
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Posted 08/04/09 - 11:15 PM:	#2
The definition of natural is this; Present in or produced by nature. Natural means that it is made by the earth or is part of the earth. And yes everything is made out of natural things, but the fact that we have to produce these things make them unnatural.

Cassie
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Posted 08/04/09 - 11:19 PM:	#3
We are a part of the earth too. We have to produce them so the natural products in them have a different appearance - but essentially you would be drinking natural products.

TIC
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Posted 08/05/09 - 12:15 AM:	#4
If you postulate that any combination of things could be natural, then I guess everything is natural. But it isn't that powerful of a thought because you could theoretically apply any definition to any word you want and make it appear rational

Cassie
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Posted 08/05/09 - 12:23 AM:	#5
You could only make the rational appear rational - and that was the point.

linear_occurance
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Posted 08/05/09 - 12:27 AM:	#6
I agree. A flower takes CO2, minerals, water and what not, and makes a berry. That's natural. We take Carbon and Iron, and make train tracks. That's not natural? How is it different? Ours is certainly more damaging to the prior inhabitants, but does that make it "un-natural'? A tiger does things that are rather damaging to prior "natural" beings, but it still retains its natural"ness". It seems that humans have created a throne above nature and gotten quite comfortable. Edited by unenlightened on 08/05/09 - 05:44 AM. Reason: punctuation.

Cassie
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Posted 08/05/09 - 12:36 AM:	#7
Yes, people have lost the understanding of nature. People go to the beach or in the bush to experience nature, but everyone is experiencing nature everyday just in a differenct form. What else, is people are seeing nature in an aesthetic point of veiw. I think to be able to fully appreciate or understand nature you must first appreciate the nature inside of you.

RoboticHand
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Posted 08/05/09 - 01:52 AM:	#8
We evolved from animals, we came from nature. We are a product of nature. If we are a product of nature, are our products then a product of nature themselves?

fruiteatsself1
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Posted 08/05/09 - 01:55 AM:	#9
When i hear the word natural, what comes to mind are things that are made by the Earth, using processes that are only controlled by nature. However, my definition is flawed, because we are nature. Therefore processes we create are natural. Essentially, everything is natural, but only for the sake of argument. If you live your life that way, I imagine life would be boring, and you'd probably be very unhealthy. ^_~

Aceedwin
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Posted 08/05/09 - 02:00 AM:	#10
I think a good metaphor is a beaver's dam. Is that natural? Is a bird's nest? Bees make honey, although it's beyond me what they do with it. Ant's make insanely complex nests, and naked mole rats, well, they make toilets, sort of. They make special caves for it anyway, so that's close enough. I think we could have a few definitions of natural. Although, just as a thought, if beaver's could talk, would they call human cities natural? Hmm.
Some people enjoy finding answers, but I dislike losing questions.

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