Ecology without Nature, Timothy Morton

Everything that exists is natural.

Why are they natural, but human buildings are unnatural? — TiredOfYall

Bird's nests are Natural, because they are "designed" by evolution. Buildings are Cultural because humans take control of plodding erratic Evolution, in order to speed it up, and turn it to their own purposes. :smile:

Nature vs Culture :
What makes culture distinct, according to Ortner, is that it has the power to transcend the natural and manipulate it for its own purpose.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-relationship-between-nature-culture-diana-szpotowicz

Art - anything created by humans
Nature - everything else
Unnatural, artificial - anything not produced by nature
Equivocation - saying different things are the same

"Unnatural" has other meanings, for example, "perverted", "counter-intuitive".

Computers are unnatural in the sense of artificial. They don't grow on trees, for example, or fall from the sky. Some person has to put them together.

The sticky part #1 is that humans ARE natural beings as well. Just as much as a bird. So how does a building or a computer differ from a nest? They're are both built by natural beings.

Sticky part #2: they're all built by natural materials, just the degree of processing has changed, which seems trivial, especially considered together with #1.

A building differs from a nest in this crucial way. The building is created by humans (so it is art, artificial). The nest is created by a bird. The bird is not human, therefore the nest is natural.

Humans are natural beings. The things that humans make are not natural - they are artificial.

For the definition to work we need only be able to tell the difference between humans and non-humans and the difference between creation and non-creation. Then you can check by a simple series of questions

I'm interested in X
Was X created?
If so, was the being that created X a human?

:up:

The word natural has many connotations and in this case, in order to elucidate your confusion I strongly advice you to revise the importance of the field of study of Pragmatics within linguistics (later Wittgenstein).
Questions like the ones you make are linguistic traps. The concepts like natural and unnatural (artificial...) work depending on the context. If we do not take into account the context we can debate for ever and get trapped into sterile debates...

The sticky part #1 is that humans ARE natural beings as well. Just as much as a bird. So how does a building or a computer differ from a nest? They're are both built by natural beings. — Artemis

True, but trivial. Everything in the world is "natural". But only one species of natural beings has gone beyond the limitations of Natural Laws, to become a law unto themselves. Humans can now break, or bend, the laws of Nature to their own Will (culture). Admittedly, sometimes this "super-natural" power works to their own detriment (pollution) , but the law-bending also results in undeniable benefits to humanity (air-conditioning).

Ask yourself if you'd rather live like a cave-man (i.e. like an animal), or like a modern house-man ; or woman. The cave-dwellers used cold dark caverns and rough animal skins to shield them from adverse weather conditions. But, modern home-dwellers have air-conditioning to make the indoor weather more suitable to their preferences. That power to rule over Nature, makes humans more like gods than animals. As a species, humans have not yet created a Garden of Eden, but they are working on it. :joke:

PS___The technological progress of humanimals may seem to be offset by a lack of moral progress. However, from a long-term perspective, the ethical treatment of animals & fellow humans has evolved in a positive direction, as illustrated by Steven Pinker's book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, i.e. Human Nature .

But only one species of natural beings has gone beyond the limitations of Natural Laws, to become a law unto themselves. Humans can now break, or bend, the laws of Nature to their own Will (culture). — Gnomon

You can break the laws of nature? Really? Where? How? Let me see!

What you're talking about is humans understanding and using the laws of nature. And even you admit that we're not doing a very good job at it.

Global warming is strong evidence that we neither know what we're doing nor are we fully capable of controlling it.

BUT, even if we were, even if you're right... being the most powerful natural beings doesn't make us and our culture unnatural. It doesn't actually remove us from nature. Just like being a king or a queen doesn't make anyone not human.

ex.

Say, humans "created" airplanes to be able to so-called "fly". Why would it still be correct to say that humans can not naturally fly — TiredOfYall

"unnatural" can mean 3 things:

1. Something that is uncommon to do.
- ex. it's unnatural to start hitting people on the streets without valid reason, however no unnatural substance would be used to do so.

2. Something that is not material or energy
- ex. the laws of physics are not material things, you can't touch or eat them.

3. Something that is supernatural or spiritual
- ex. ghosts, demons, God etc.

You can break the laws of nature? Really? Where? How? Let me see! — Artemis

Drivers on speed-limited highways "break" the law by exceeding the posted limit. Nature has imposed certain limits on its creatures (Natural Laws), but arrogant humans have gone beyond those limitations. In that sense, they "break" the law. For example, where terrestrial animals are bound to the ground by their "nature", humans have learned to fly with artificial wings, and even to "slip the surly bonds of earth" to fly into uninhabitable space. That's un-natural, and un-lawful. Do you "see" what I'm saying? :joke:

even if you're right... being the most powerful natural beings doesn't make us and our culture unnatural. — Artemis

Perhaps not. But it does make our way of life Artificial. :cool:

Artificial synonym : unnatural
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/artificial

. the laws of physics are not material things, you can't touch or eat them. — SpaceDweller

Still, they are very natural. So can be ghosts. Something uncommon to do can be a very natural. Like singing loudly during a seminar where D. Hofstadter explains that our brain is in fact a computer, or jearking off when Verlinde explains emergent gravity. Though jearking off when emergent gravity is explained is quite unnatural, on second thought. Naturally, I wouldn't do that!

The laws of physics would be very unnatural if it appears obvious that the laws don't hold in a new unterritoried realm of chemistry.

A ghost can behave very natural, when making principally no use of tech (I'm serious!).

Art - anything created by humans
Nature - everything else
Unnatural, artificial - anything not produced by nature
Equivocation - saying different things are the same

"Unnatural" has other meanings, for example, "perverted", "counter-intuitive".

Computers are unnatural in the sense of artificial. They don't grow on trees, for example, or fall from the sky. Some person has to put them together. — Cuthbert

If artificial = unnatural, then how does something natural create something unnatural? It's the same problem in trying to explain how something comes from nothing. Humans are the outcomes of natural processes. When we talk about how human manipulate the environment vs. how other animals manipulate the environment, we are only talking about different degrees of the same thing, not different things altogether.

Another common phrase is that "humans are accidents in nature" - as if nature had the intentions of existing without humans but somehow humans came about anyway. This notion that humans are somehow separate from nature, or special, is antiquated and is not supported by objective observations.

Humans, and what they do and create, are as natural as supernovas and a cicada swarms. One could even say that AI is natural and the next evolutionary step of life. There is nothing in the universe that says that life has to remain organic, or that organic life is the pinnacle of all life. We have yet to even search for life elsewhere in the universe, so our very narrow view from our own place in time and space limits our understanding of what life can actually be.

Sometimes I use "natural" to distinguish between us and everything but us. At the end of the day, however, it's all natural. Maybe someday nature will pound this square peg that is us into the round hole that is everything else. But it's still all Her pegs and holes.

Natural is a phenomenon(process or entity) when its causal mechanism doesn't involve a thinking agent.
Unnatural is the phenomenon when a thinking agent has altered or removed all physical mechanisms.

What is considered unnatural, is when humanity creates an element to add to the periodic table which does not occur naturally. In contradiction to this, one could say, that anything that is, is natural.

Sometimes I use "natural" to distinguish between us and everything but us. At the end of the day, however, it's all natural. Maybe someday nature will pound this square peg that is us into the round hole that is everything else. But it's still all Her pegs and holes. — James Riley

I think that most people use the terms "natural" and "artificial" in this way, but this is just a hold-over from the obsolete view that humans are separate from nature, or special in some way. Why would humans be the only square peg? Seems that one can only make that assertion if they assume that humans are special in some way, but then what would you expect a human to initially believe about their relationship with the universe?

There is nothing that humans have done that already hasn't happened in the universe to some degree, nor is there any reason to assume that what humans do isn't determined given the type of universe we find ourselves in. Humans could be the one's that create the environment for AI to evolve and flourish, and possibly even outlasting their human designers, and this would simply all be the natural way that this universe operates. So maybe environmentalists are the one's trying to hold back the universe from evolving towards it becoming what it is destined to be given its properties. Maybe carbon-based life is the antiquated form of life and silicon-based is the "better" version. We may never know considering the limited view of space and time that we currently possess.

What is considered unnatural, is when humanity creates an element to add to the periodic table which does not occur naturally. In contradiction to this, one could say, that anything that is, is natural. — boagie

In the beginning there was only hydrogen and a trace amount of helium. Heavier elements were forged inside the cores of stars and then spewed across the galaxy when they exploded. Stars are natural forces that created new elements. Humans are no different.

Seems that one can only make that assertion if they assume that humans are special in some way, but then what would you expect a human to initially believe about their relationship with the universe? — Harry Hindu

I would like them to stop using the word "special." I think "different" would be less value-loaded.

So maybe environmentalists are the one's trying to hold back the universe from evolving towards it becoming what it is destined to be given its properties. — Harry Hindu

Indeed. They are conservatives that way. And I am one of them. Hell, I'm reactionary: Back to the Pleistocene!

I would like them to stop using the word "special." I think "different" would be less value-loaded. — James Riley

But every animal and natural process is "different" in their own way. So again, you could only be assuming that humans are special in some way.

But every animal and natural process is "different" in their own way. So again, you could only be assuming that humans are special in some way. — Harry Hindu

I agree. Every animal and natural process is "special" in their own way. But "special" has a higher/better/superior ring to it. At least in my mind. Thus, I find use of the term "different" to be more equalizing and accurate.

I agree. Every animal and natural process is "special" in their own way. But "special" has a higher/better/superior ring to it. At least in my mind. Thus, I find use of the term "different" to be more equalizing and accurate. — James Riley

My only gripe is of your square peg notion of humans, as if they are so different from everything else as to require a special term or meaning for a term when used in reference to humans only.

Say we discover a new species that have small primitive brains that has eradicated all other life and transformed it's entire planet's ecosystem? What about an alien species that has reshaped it's own galaxy? It is possible that there are other species or natural processes that have a larger impact on their environment than humans have on scales that dwarf the distance between humans and their Earthly counterparts. Would humans be so "different/special" then?

My only gripe is of your square peg notion of humans, as if they are so different from everything else as to require a special term or meaning for a term when used in reference to humans only. — Harry Hindu

I agree. Don't be distracted by my extrapolation. I said:

At the end of the day, however, it's all natural. — James Riley

I think Christopher Stone likened it to an ontological problem where, at the end of the day, we are but play things made of straw. (Old Chinese thing?)

I think Christopher Stone likened it to an ontological problem where, at the end of the day, we are but play things made of straw. (Old Chinese thing?) — James Riley

For me, it comes down to causality. Are humans the effects of natural processes, and in turn, do they not cause changes in natural processes? If the answer is "yes" to both, then humans are as natural as anything else. In this sense, God (if one were to exist) would be natural as it would be the creator of the natural world, and has an effect on the natural world. Supernatural and artificial only make sense in the light of the natural which makes the natural fundamental.

In this sense, God (if one were to exist) would be natural as it would be the creator of the natural world, and has an effect on the natural world. — Harry Hindu

Even God can make mistakes. :grin:

Supernatural and artificial only make sense in the light of the natural which makes the natural fundamental. — Harry Hindu

My view of God is All, so that would account for all that we can fathom, and more, and less, and not.

Anyway, I agree with you on a fundamental level. It's just a matter of convenience to distinguish between us and everything else. But maybe that is part of the problem. On the one hand, if we view ourselves as natural, then really, we can do no wrong. We just point and say "Nature made me do it!" And even if we agree that we can still be natural *and* do wrong, we are still inclined to let ourselves off the hook in an open conspiracy. On the other hand, if we deem ourselves separate, we tend to deem ourselves as better, or special, instead of merely different. That gives excuse to devalue and marginalize everything else in nature.

We always take the best of both worlds, coming and going. Lacking in grace and gratitude, with an abundance of fear and insecurity, we spin everything toward us.

Anyway, I agree with you on a fundamental level. It's just a matter of convenience to distinguish between us and everything else. But maybe that is part of the problem. — James Riley

Sure, it's convenient to still use the terms in this way when most people still believe that humans are special and separate from nature. You use the words that you know people will understand if you intend to communicate. Think of how you might change your use of language when speaking to a child.

On the one hand, if we view ourselves as natural, then really, we can do no wrong. We just point and say "Nature made me do it!" And even if we agree that we can still be natural *and* do wrong, we are still inclined to let ourselves off the hook in an open conspiracy. On the other hand, if we deem ourselves separate, we tend to deem ourselves as better, or special, instead of merely different. That gives excuse to devalue and marginalize everything else in nature. — James Riley

At any moment, we can only behave and think as we are designed to do given our form, memories and sensory organs - all of which are natural things. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. Nature does not dictate what is right or wrong. Humans with goals do that. Nature has no goals.