Naturalism versus Unnaturalism

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Rewilding Mind & Heart
#1

This is indeed a subject that modern philosophy and conventional thinking does not like.

Usually when I ask this question in philosophical circles you will get some twit who will say that everything man does is natural which includes nuclear fusion and toxic waste. :-\ :-X

That sounds so unreal in my book which I am sure many primitivists will agree.

Quite frankly I ever do so wonder how these people come to the conclusion that every human prosthetic is natural. It just is mind boggling to be honest. :smiley:

So I figured in this thread we might be able to make a demonstration of what is natural and what is unnatural by putting our heads together.

What is natural?

What is unnatural?

What is unnaturalism in comparison to the natural?

Cheers- TheJoker.

#2

I like to think of the difference in terms of what Daniel Quinn called “the law of life”. Anything that abides by that law–taking only what you need to live, competing only for direct resources (be the first to kill the game as opposed to killing any other species that might possibly want the game), using sustainable practices–I would consider “natural”. (It has been a long time since I read Quinn, and I don’t have a copy handy, so if anyone has a better or more accurate explanation of “the law of life” please chime in.)

But terms like “natural” and “unnatural” have lost any potent meaning. It’s like saying “I support our troops.” Well what do you mean by “support our troops”? Does that mean you are in favor of the government’s militaristic involvement in foreign policies? Or do you mean that you wish that the government would get the troops out of harms way by bringing them home?

#3

One could argue that while technological society is not a pillar of the natural process, it is nevertheless subject to it and therefore forms a part of it in some way. I like to think of it as functioning like a gigantic dysgenetic timebomb that will eventually slice the branch of humanity that created it right off the evolutionary tree and send it down the road to atrophy and extinction.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, such self-correction seems to be one of the fundamental laws of the universe. Balance or die. The phenomenon of human intelligence and free will outpacing natural rhythms is most definitely walking the latter path of the two.

Perhaps unsustainable technology serves a purpose in this way as a sort of antimatter to nature’s matter. Elaborating on that requires more time and philosophical capacity than I have, so I’ll leave it open there…

#4

Here is the same subject at a philosophical forum.

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/26461

Definately not a popular subject in philosophy.

#5

I used to be a proponent of the ‘primitive natural, civilized unnatural’ mindset. However, I don’t feel using these words get conversation anywhere too useful, to me it’s similar to how Good & Evil function in conversating with others, it’s quite subjective. Couldn’t it be enough to, instead of saying “civilization is unnatural”, saying “industrial civilization expels pollutants of type and degree heretofore not seen on Earth”? If somebody supports destroying mountaintops topped in forests in exchange for tooth picks and aluminum foil, it won’t matter much whether they see such an action as natural/unnatural. If something is unnatural, how did it come about (that is, if everything beforehand was entirely natural)?

Dichotomous thought (good/bad, natural/unnatural, primitive/civilized, etc. etc) exists primarily as a product of civilization (oh, where went you, dear Trickster?), creates abstractions, and it fails to see (and also not see) the flux of things, that they [i]are/i becoming, not purely static but changing. It also views things in opposition to one another, often seeing one as better than (and/or in domination of) the other, rather than as complementary (night and day, male and female) and inseperable parts of a whole.

Natural vs. Unnatural, but one abstraction in a world of many.

#6

[quote=“chiggles, post:5, topic:232”]I used to be a proponent of the ‘primitive natural, civilized unnatural’ mindset. However, I don’t feel using these words get conversation anywhere too useful, to me it’s similar to how Good & Evil function in conversating with others, it’s quite subjective. Couldn’t it be enough to, instead of saying “civilization is unnatural”, saying “industrial civilization expels pollutants of type and degree heretofore not seen on Earth”? If somebody supports destroying mountaintops topped in forests in exchange for tooth picks and aluminum foil, it won’t matter much whether they see such an action as natural/unnatural. If something is unnatural, how did it come about (that is, if everything beforehand was entirely natural)?

Dichotomous thought (good/bad, natural/unnatural, primitive/civilized, etc. etc) exists primarily as a product of civilization (oh, where went you, dear Trickster?), creates abstractions, and it fails to see (and also not see) the flux of things, that they [i]are/i becoming, not purely static but changing. It also views things in opposition to one another, often seeing one as better than (and/or in domination of) the other, rather than as complementary (night and day, male and female) and inseperable parts of a whole.

Natural vs. Unnatural, but one abstraction in a world of many.[/quote]

In order for me not to be of the subjective nature I use the terms dangerous,destructive and harmful as I am not a advocate of morality at all.

This is how I keep the terms naturalism and unnaturalism from falling into the entrapment of subjectivism.

#7

After going round and round with my tribemates on this topic for months, all I have to say is that nothing is unnatural, except zombies. Plastic doesn’t just come from nothing, it is a combination of “natural” ingredients. I fail to see how pretty much anything could be unnatural.

That’s not to say civ doesn’t make lots of “natural” products that are really really stupid to make, i.e. nuclear weapons, power and waste, just to name one of the most egregious and flagrant stupidities.

Civ’s penchant for stupid dichotomies blows my mind. My personal fave is the “mind exists independent of the body” dichotomy.

#8

I recently had the misfortune of having the “good, natural products” vs “bad, unnatural products” argument/discussion with an acquaintance. Suffice it to say, I walked away from that conversation the moment the argument turned into “well, Coca-Cola is made from the Earth, so it’s natural”. Yes, quite literally every single item in existence on our planet came from ingredients from our planet. However, any product that comes into existence by methods requiring test tubes and deep knowledge of chemistry does not present itself as natural to me.

To me natural means taking plants, taking animal meat, cooking it and eating it. If you have to chemically alter a substance to make something new, you’ve just created something unnatural. Personally, I see cooking itself as being somewhat unnatural – what kind of explanation exists to show why humans make up the only species that needs to cook meat before eating it? Every other carnivore and omnivore rips open a live animal and eats the raw meat. You would think we’d be capable of the same.

Which actually does bring me to a point. Surely there existed a time our ancestors ate all meat raw, even if we must go back so far in history to the point where we didn’t have fire. At what point did we compromise our ability to digest all the “bad” components of raw meat?

#9
Which actually does bring me to a point. Surely there existed a time our ancestors ate all meat raw, even if we must go back so far in history to the point where we didn't have fire. At what point did we compromise our ability to digest all the "bad" components of raw meat?

I don’t think we ever compromised our ability to digest raw meat. Nor do I think that raw meat has “bad” components. I think modern slaughter practices introduce bacteria that compromise our health. And I think cooking meat changes the way in which we digest it–possibly making it easier to digest, though I don’t remember what source I read that in. But I still eat raw meat–mostly in the form of jerky and pemmican.

#10

i look at the organisms of this planet, and i see how they live, and what they do. it is natural. it is natural, because it is what these organisms are meant to do. a bee is supposed to make a hive, this is natural to the bee because it is what the bee has evolved to do. mosquitoes suck blood for nutrients, this is natural to the mosquito because this is the way the mosquito has evolved to live. a human is not meant to drink blood, we evolved to live a different way and to get nutrients a different way, therefore this would not be natural.

some birds of the same species will destroy the nests and eggs of the same species near them. this though it may seem cruel, is natural to these birds. it is natural to these birds because that is the way these birds evolved to live. the birds goal like all organisms is to spread its genes. having many nests of the same species in the same area competeing to get the nutrition to the their babies is hard. the bird destroys the other nest to ensure her chicks will have enough food and will be able to live and spread their genes. this is natural to the bird, it is the way for the bird that has evolved to work for this species of bird.

if a human women were to eat the head of the man that impregnated her. this would be horribly unnatural. but to the praying mantis this is totally natural. the husband sacrifices himself to the female to ensure that she has nurishment for her young. this practice is found other places in the community of life, like in some species of spiders.

so i think being natural is just doing what you and your species were meant to do on this earth. doing what works for your species is what is natural. doing what benefits you and your species is natural.

#11

[quote=“23, post:7, topic:232”]After going round and round with my tribemates on this topic for months, all I have to say is that nothing is unnatural, except zombies. Plastic doesn’t just come from nothing, it is a combination of “natural” ingredients. I fail to see how pretty much anything could be unnatural.

That’s not to say civ doesn’t make lots of “natural” products that are really really stupid to make, i.e. nuclear weapons, power and waste, just to name one of the most egregious and flagrant stupidities.

Civ’s penchant for stupid dichotomies blows my mind. My personal fave is the “mind exists independent of the body” dichotomy.[/quote]

I think what makes somthing unnatural is when a object and creation becomes a synthetic or prosthetic usage entirely replacing the physical faculties of man altogether.

That is just the basic foundation of my belief as there is much more than that.

There was this one German thinker who had a theory of tool usage from a anthropological point of view. If I can find his writings I would like to post them here.

The problem is that he is a not a well known writer and I don’t even remember his name. :-\

#12

[quote=“yexxle, post:8, topic:232”]I recently had the misfortune of having the “good, natural products” vs “bad, unnatural products” argument/discussion with an acquaintance. Suffice it to say, I walked away from that conversation the moment the argument turned into “well, Coca-Cola is made from the Earth, so it’s natural”. Yes, quite literally every single item in existence on our planet came from ingredients from our planet. However, any product that comes into existence by methods requiring test tubes and deep knowledge of chemistry does not present itself as natural to me.

To me natural means taking plants, taking animal meat, cooking it and eating it. If you have to chemically alter a substance to make something new, you’ve just created something unnatural. Personally, I see cooking itself as being somewhat unnatural – what kind of explanation exists to show why humans make up the only species that needs to cook meat before eating it? Every other carnivore and omnivore rips open a live animal and eats the raw meat. You would think we’d be capable of the same.

Which actually does bring me to a point. Surely there existed a time our ancestors ate all meat raw, even if we must go back so far in history to the point where we didn’t have fire. At what point did we compromise our ability to digest all the “bad” components of raw meat?[/quote]

I recently had the misfortune of having the "good, natural products" vs "bad, unnatural products" argument/discussion with an acquaintance. Suffice it to say, I walked away from that conversation the moment the argument turned into "well, Coca-Cola is made from the Earth, so it's natural". Yes, quite literally every single item in existence on our planet came from ingredients from our planet. However, any product that comes into existence by methods requiring test tubes and deep knowledge of chemistry does not present itself as natural to me.

Good point.

Natural to me implies somthing being formed by the symbiosis of nature being a product of the natural cycle of the enviroment.

Even a primitive club as a tool is natural since such a thing can be found in abundance around many enviroments.

A unnatural prosthetic or synthetic tool however has to be formulated and transformed from raw materials by the intellect of man. Such a prosthetic and synthetic tool that is unnatural is a constructive processed item.

#13

A good example in differences between a natural tool compared to prosthetic ones is that a natural tool is ubiquitous found everywhere in abundance amongst nature where the synthetic prosthetic is not.

Example:

A spear is comprised of a very long shaft of wood with a sharp flint stone that comprises the spear tied with natural laced cords.

All the ingredients of a spear are ubiquitous found almost everywhere.

A car, gun, sheet of plastic and many other prosthetics are definately not ubiquitous. Anyone who can prove me wrong by showing me a car being ubiquitous would delight my funny bone. ::slight_smile:

A natural tool can be used by anyone while many prosthetics require trained specializations in use of them not to mention it takes specialization just to create some prosthetics also.

#14

- When I can get some more information I would like to make a even more detailed paragraph elaborately showing the differences between a natural tool in comparison to a synthetic prosthetic tool.