What's Natural ?

[chance]

Just thinking How about:

Natural – reacting to the environment.

Not Natural – quickly altering the environment, to alleviate the need to react.

 

[farmermike]

Just thinking How about:

Natural – reacting to the environment.

Not Natural – quickly altering the environment, to alleviate the need to react.

Would altering the environment to plant a crop in order to alleviate the threat of starvation be considered natural?

 

[chance]

farmermike

Would altering the environment to plant a crop in order to alleviate the threat of starvation be considered natural?

No. I suppose I should add that ‘altering quickly’ has to be faster than evolution, this allows for exceptions to, beavers building dams, birds building nests and animals storing food for winter etc.

 

[Just thinking]

Just thinking How about:

Natural – reacting to the environment.

Not Natural – quickly altering the environment, to alleviate the need to react.

Well, you see he point I'm having thoughts about is that man, which is just as 'natural' to this planet as anything else, can only do 'natural' things. Of course, they may be very destructive, and harmful to many species -- even over many years. But it's still very 'natural' in that an organism which evolved entirely on and from this planet did it. Certainly our brains are natural -- and its products, even computers, are natural. And if computers and robots were to someday become the sole inheritors of this planet, then that too is natural.

Perhaps you can explain why man must be given special treatment over any other form of natural entity on this planet when it comes to defining natural behavior. Thank you.

 

[Jyera]

I think we can explore these 3 key areas.
(1) Respect.
(2) Inter-dependency for Survival
(3) Balance within an environment.

The lack of respect, shown in the thinking that a hunter have the right to hunt a species to extinction, is bad. The actual hunting of the animals for food isn't as bad as the arrogant attitude to think we have the absolute right to do what we want.

There has to be understood that there are inter-dependency.
If we hunt and eat all the deer in an area we depend on without letting it's population recover, we would have run out of food and starve to death.

To take a step out, if all hunter hunts many species to extinction, the diversity of species will be compromised and the chance of our survival as a planet filled with life will be dim.

Natural always finds balance and equilibrium. The more disruption to the cycles of processes, the more likely the chance of imbalance. With balance and dynamic equilibrium, the community of interdependant participant has a chance of continued survival.

Any actions that threatens the equilibrium and balance will accelerate the demise of the system.

 

[Just thinking]

To take a step out, if all hunter hunts many species to extinction, the diversity of species will be compromised and the chance of our survival as a planet filled with life will be dim.

Natural always finds balance and equilibrium. The more disruption to the cycles of processes, the more likely the chance of imbalance. With balance and dynamic equilibrium, the community of interdependant participant has a chance of continued survival.

Any actions that threatens the equilibrium and balance will accelerate the demise of the system.

Didn't our prehistoric ancestors hunt species to extinction? The Giant Mammoth as one example? And don't we today owe our existance as a species to such hunting?

 

[Atlas]

I think we can explore these 3 key areas.
(1) Respect.
(2) Inter-dependency for Survival
(3) Balance within an environment.
...
Natural always finds balance and equilibrium.
...
Any actions that threatens the equilibrium and balance will accelerate the demise of the system.

I like your thoughts but I don't think (1) Respect is relevant.

The demise of systems is quite natural. I think you made this point but I wasn't sure you realized it. Respect however is natural only to humans who make assumptions about their environment. "The buffalo is my god" causes in the human deep respect. A $20 gold piece for every skin elicits a different natural reaction.

 

[Jyera]

Didn't our prehistoric ancestors hunt species to extinction? The Giant Mammoth as one example? And don't we today owe our existance as a species to such hunting?

I think you do not mean it.
But NO, I don't think the ability to hunt a species to extinction is what brings us here today.

Humans are probably the only animal that is able to hunt by crafting and using weapons like spear. And I thinking this is one of the pivotal abilities to the success of our species.

But our ancestor are wise enough to know they have to co-operate with the environment. Through farming and domesticating animals.

Consider one prehistoric line of ancestors, who hunted and hunted and only-hunt and only-knows-how-to-hunt. And who said, "every thing i do is natural, at most I'll hunt until there is no more deer on this island, and then I'll just die of starvation." "Mother nature takes care of herself."

You and I, probably do not have such ancestor, or we won't be here today.

And yes, mother nature takes care of itself. Not us, the individuals; and not necessary the single species, called homo sapien.

 

[Jyera]

Respect can be used to explain many things in nature.

Eg. A modern grain of rice seed can only survive on a human managed farm. A Human needs the rice to survive. The lack of "respect" of a grain, to think that it can break away from this relationship is disastrous. It might think that it could and take a plane (bird) to other place to place it roots. Soon it find that it lacks it ancenstor's natural insect repelling genes.

Eg. 2. Man can lacks respect. If he thinks that he can survive with only one best type of super-grain. He don't think there is need for natural diversity. He will be caught of guard when a new strain of plant disease threaten to wipe out the homogenous crop.

Humans are NOT always a master in our strategic alliance with our "partners-of survival". (plants, animals or resources)

We are so engrossed and entrenched in our reliance with fossil fuel that we have to venture far(arctic ice cap), dangerous, labouriously , to continue this relliance of fossil fuel. Do we realize this? Besides being slaved to it to feed our lifestyle, are we getting the poorer end of the bargain than we realised? Global warming? Lesser diversity? Polluted environment?

We need to respect, that our ally, can turn their back on us easily.

Just like Richcard Dawkin's referring to our genes as "selfish".
Forces of natural are impersonal, cruel and cold.

We need more respect, not just for gods, but for simple daily relationship with our environment. (plants, animals, fossilfuels etc). As long as we have respect, we could do fairly any thing we need to do.

 

[farmermike]

I think we can explore these 3 key areas.
(1) Respect.
(2) Inter-dependency for Survival
(3) Balance within an environment.

The lack of respect, shown in the thinking that a hunter have the right to hunt a species to extinction, is bad. The actual hunting of the animals for food isn't as bad as the arrogant attitude to think we have the absolute right to do what we want.

There has to be understood that there are inter-dependency.
If we hunt and eat all the deer in an area we depend on without letting it's population recover, we would have run out of food and starve to death.

To take a step out, if all hunter hunts many species to extinction, the diversity of species will be compromised and the chance of our survival as a planet filled with life will be dim.

Natural always finds balance and equilibrium. The more disruption to the cycles of processes, the more likely the chance of imbalance. With balance and dynamic equilibrium, the community of interdependant participant has a chance of continued survival.

Any actions that threatens the equilibrium and balance will accelerate the demise of the system.

Considering that roughly 99.99% of al the different species of animal life that has ever existed on earth is now extinct.extinction from predation or climate change is certainly a natural thing.Humans of course are the only species that can contemplate these things and outsmart mother nature from time to time.

 

[Atlas]

Respect can be used to explain many things in nature.
...
Humans are NOT always a master in our strategic alliance with our "partners-of survival". (plants, animals or resources)
...
We need to respect, that our ally, can turn their back on us easily.

We need more respect, not just for gods, but for simple daily relationship with our environment. (plants, animals, fossilfuels etc). As long as we have respect, we could do fairly any thing we need to do.

I don't want to be in opposition to the notion that man's existence is enhanced by living in harmony with his environment. I believe that harmony contains what you are calling respect and I agree it can be a very good thing. I can even agree that for man it is natural. But only man. Pigeons and rats do not exhibit this respect. Trees don't. Man does. It is something, well this is odd to say, like murder. It is natural to have respect or to commit murder by some not all human beings.

More natural than respect is stupidity. This is something we all exhibit right down to the lowly amoeba. I think you are making a plea to understand the natural in terms of the good. It is definitely the way I would raise my kids if I had any. But murder and war come very natural to man. It is done with little respect or regard for the enemy. It is understood in terms of the good only by later generations, well after the death and destruction has healed.

Jyera, you sound like a good person. You have brought that perspective into this argument. That is a good thing except that it tends to confuse much of what is natural with that which is preferred and unpreferred. Again, I'd like to say, I certainly respect that way of thinking in living life, but I think it is an abstraction of Natural... what humans and rocks and plants and animals do is, for me, that which is natural.

 

[Igopogo]

Re: Re: What's Natural ?

Natural is what happens.

Man is a subset of nature, not the other way around. It is natural for man to alter systems that evolved under the chance conditions that were/are found, if we want to. It's also natural for a rebalancing by life systems that may not be in man's favour.

Thank you all for your input.

What would be the difference (in being natural) if lightning strikes some trees in a dry forrest causing thousands of acres of damage as opposed to someone deliberately setting fire to them? True, the individual has the 'choice' of doing it or not, but I don't see either one being more natural than the other. (No, I am not endorsing such behavior.)

I find this point to be at the heart of something that I find flawed in many a 'skeptics' argument around here. The two instances above are clearly different. Lighting strikes starting fires happens when a set of conditions are present. The human setting a fire may happen under a different set of conditions.

An analogy I would make is that when I water my garden, it is not the same thing as it being rained on. Try as I might, I cannot with my garden hose dupicate what can be called 'the same thing' as precipitation. The conditions are different, and I can assure you that the different results are are very noticeable.

To me, it is poor science when one cannot recognize such things as;

breeding is not the same thing as natural selection, gene splicing is not the same thing as breeding, controlled burns are not the same thing as lightning strikes, etc...

 

[farmermike]

Re: Re: Re: What's Natural ?

Natural is what happens.

I find this point to be at the heart of something that I find flawed in many a 'skeptics' argument around here. The two instances above are clearly different. Lighting strikes starting fires happens when a set of conditions are present. The human setting a fire may happen under a different set of conditions.

An analogy I would make is that when I water my garden, it is not the same thing as it being rained on. Try as I might, I cannot with my garden hose dupicate what can be called 'the same thing' as precipitation. The conditions are different, and I can assure you that the different results are are very noticeable.

I would say that a forest fire is a forest fire no matter how it's started.when conditions are right they're bound to happen.From the perspective of a lowly dirt farmer,I can respond to the analogy of your garden as I've heard this before.Assume a garden is 30'by30'.An overnight rain of 1.5"would be a good soak.This represents approx 750 gals of water spread evenly over the 900 square feet.If you're using a garden hose imagine filling a 50 gal drum 15 times.After a good rain in a dry time you'll also notice that the grass and trees are a little greener from the dust being washed off of them.

 

[Just thinking]

Re: Re: Re: What's Natural ?

I find this point to be at the heart of something that I find flawed in many a 'skeptics' argument around here. The two instances above are clearly different.

Just because two things are different should not make one more natural than the other -- just different.

 

[Igopogo]

I think you folks have missed my point.

My point was that if conditions are different for two events, then the same thing didn’t happen. If I wash a shirt in formula A, and an identical shirt in formula B, and formula A is different than formula B, then washing a shirt in formula A is not the same thing as washing a shirt in formula B.

Originally posted by farmermike:

“I would say that a forest fire is a forest fire no matter how it's started.when conditions are right they're bound to happen.”

Yes, but they are not identical. That is my point. If scientist is able to study the aftermath of a forest fire, and deduce the cause of the fire, then they clearly are not the same thing.

Originally posted by farmermike:

“From the perspective of a lowly dirt farmer,I can respond to the analogy of your garden as I've heard this before.Assume a garden is 30'by30'.An overnight rain of 1.5"would be a good soak.This represents approx 750 gals of water spread evenly over the 900 square feet.If you're using a garden hose imagine filling a 50 gal drum 15 times.After a good rain in a dry time you'll also notice that the grass and trees are a little greener from the dust being washed off of them.”

In the above statement, you have calculated volume of water in comparing the two. However, I would argue that conditions for rainfall are different from conditions for irrigation. Of the top of my head, here’s a few different variables that can enter into the equation; barometric pressure, distance fallen and chemical composition of water, blocking of sun from cloud cover.

Originally posted by Just thinking:

“Just because two things are different should not make one more natural than the other -- just different.”

I never said or implied they were. Please don’t read into posts conclusions or viewpoints that aren’t there.

 

[farmermike]

Originally posted by farmermike:

“From the perspective of a lowly dirt farmer,I can respond to the analogy of your garden as I've heard this before.Assume a garden is 30'by30'.An overnight rain of 1.5"would be a good soak.This represents approx 750 gals of water spread evenly over the 900 square feet.If you're using a garden hose imagine filling a 50 gal drum 15 times.After a good rain in a dry time you'll also notice that the grass and trees are a little greener from the dust being washed off of them.”

In the above statement, you have calculated volume of water in comparing the two. However, I would argue that conditions for rainfall are different from conditions for irrigation. Of the top of my head, here’s a few different variables that can enter into the equation; barometric pressure, distance fallen and chemical composition of water, blocking of sun from cloud cover.

[/B]

But the end result is that to a plant water is water.The only variables that could matter are water temp,and concentrations of disolved salts.I was only demonstrating how it would be hard to mimic the quantity of a rainfall from a garden hose,and why it might seem that rainwater is somehow different than irrigation water in the(eyes)roots of a plant.

 

[Just thinking]

I think you do not mean it.
But NO, I don't think the ability to hunt a species to extinction is what brings us here today.

Well, first off I did mean it -- but not offensively.

Since the overwhelming majority of species that ever existed are now extinct (and for the record, extinction is a natural process), I find it quite easy to believe that some species have hunted others to extinction -- and man (with even primitive weapons) could easily have been one of them. If prehistoric man did not hunt for all he could need I doubt that we would be here today arguing the point. True, it seems sad that some species are no longer with us, and that we have probably in the past had a great deal of input to those ends -- but I do not think that that action alone disqualifies something from being natural. I also will argue that it is to our benefit (and that of other species) if we try to do things in a way that injurs the environment (including all animals) the least. But this thinking, along with understanding the environment, is really a recent event in Earth's history.

I also am not sure if "Respecting" the environment is the correct term -- perhaps being "Responsible" for what we do (and understanding the consequences) is more apt. Just because we have the ability for an emotion does not mean it is the correct one. A farmer could never yield a crop if all he did was respect the land and considered it untouchable -- but if he was responsible for what he did (and understood how to work with it) he could benefit much and change the terrain only modestly. Note, it is possible to farm an area to death -- I'm sure Farmermike will agree to that.

So to get back to the point, all we do is natural -- it just seems (from all I'm reading) that we also have the ability to place judgement on what we do. This has given some of us the feeling that we are somehow removed from the processes of natural actions within the envoronment and must forever judge everything we do as an unatural act upon it. This may give some a brief moment of pause to consider the outcome better, and perhaps give them a change of plans, but I feel it does not disqualify them from being 100% natural in all they do -- even in what they believe.

 

[chance]

Just thinking

Well, you see he point I'm having thoughts about is that man, which is just as 'natural' to this planet as anything else, can only do 'natural' things. Of course, they may be very destructive, and harmful to many species -- even over many years. But it's still very 'natural' in that an organism which evolved entirely on and from this planet did it. Certainly our brains are natural -- and its products, even computers, are natural. And if computers and robots were to someday become the sole inheritors of this planet, then that too is natural.

Perhaps you can explain why man must be given special treatment over any other form of natural entity on this planet when it comes to defining natural behavior. Thank you.

The reason why things done by man are considered ‘un-natural’ is because they are not found elsewhere. It really a bit of a semantic question however, a better term may be artificial.

Didn't our prehistoric ancestors hunt species to extinction? The Giant Mammoth as one example? And don't we today owe our existance as a species to such hunting?

That’s why I put a qualifier that the un-naturalness requires speed faster than evolution (if you get my drift).

 

[Igopogo]

But the end result is that to a plant water is water.The only variables that could matter are water temp,and concentrations of disolved salts.

But how do you know?

In your previous post, you offered the observation that "After a good rain in a dry time you'll also notice that the grass and trees are a little greener from the dust being washed off of them." So clearly you've observed some kink of different result yourself. Does it mean anything important? Your guess is as good as mine.

One thing I've noticed in my garden is that many plants reposition their leaves when it rains. Perhaps they are acting in a way to channel water where they want, triggered by a myriad of stimulus that have repeated themselves for millions of years, I don't know. So far, I haven't seen them act in the same wayl when they are watered by a sprinkler.

I am not arguing that when something happens without man's help that it's somehow ethically better or whatever, just that when life forms evolved under a certain set of predictable happenings, we shouldn't be shocked when things don't happen the way we expect when we change the rules. I’m a fan of scientific discovery & research, but not of human arrogance & hubris when applying our preconceived notions to our environment.

 

[Jyera]

Just thinking The reason why things done by man are considered ‘un-natural’ is because they are not found elsewhere. It really a bit of a semantic question however, a better term may be artificial.

If two different gun makers start to make guns, does that make gun a natural item or is it still artificial?
Secondly, most things in nature are almost always not found elsewhere. Each individual animal and human is unique, and not found elsewhere. Does that make us artificial?

That’s why I put a qualifier that the un-naturalness requires speed faster than evolution (if you get my drift).

I understand what you mean. But we have to get over the debate about what is "speed faster than evolution" ? Extinct within 1 year is fast? Extinct in 1000 years is fast or slow? This could be hard to pin down.