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Let's define the word "natural"
    #1127246 -

The word "natural" seems to be redundant any way it's used. The dictionary defines it in all kinds of ways:

"Expected and accepted" "Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature"
So, if something is unnatural, then it's simply ironic?

"Present in or produced by nature"
Well, this is where things get really problematic, because everything is produced by or in nature. LSD is natural because it was made by a human who is, yes, natural. Even if you believe God created us then aren't we still natural because isn't God all of nature, or if he's a man in the clouds, then natural?

Let's either destroy or redefine this word, people. The way most people off-handedly use it is "not artificial" but then at the same time these people would consider a gun less natural than a pointed stick. Beware! thinking about this can put one in an endless brain loop with the only exit being.. insanity!

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127370 -

Yeah...........brain loop.  :crazy:


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127392 -

I say destroy it. I always thought that word was unnatural and a nuisance.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127417 -

I have dealt with this argument before. Look at it like this. Does it occur in nature without manipulation by man?

Let's take cocain for instance. By your reasoning it is natural because man made it. But you will NEVER find cocain growing on a bush or just laying on the ground (unless someone spills it but then who spill cocain?)

SO, if you need a lab.....it ain't natural.....

It's kinda like "orgainc" eh? what isn't organic? It's just how much you manipulate the "natural" environment.....


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

Edited by upupup (12/10/02 12:35 AM)

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127577 -

I have to go with the Zen Buddhist philosophy of everything being natural.


--------------------
Shroomalicious - :smile: I love you and in doing so I love myself, because we ARE all one :smile: - "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the whole world blind and toothless". - Mahatma Ghandi

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Shroomalicious]
    #1127584 -

"Doesn't making nature against the law seem a bit, I don't know, unnatural?" -Bill Hicks


--------------------
Alice came to a fork in the road.  "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127620 -

Well, this is where things get really problematic, because everything is produced by or in nature. LSD is natural because it was made by a human who is, yes, natural. Even if you believe God created us then aren't we still natural because isn't God all of nature, or if he's a man in the clouds, then natural?

So true!  To me, something natural is anything that is created by God (or Nature) and not modified by human hands.  I think that Native Americans lived so much more naturally than us because they took from nature what they needed, but did not change or modify it to make it "better" in their eyes.  They simply took and used what nature had to spare for them. 

But look at modern day humans.  Look around you right now.  Everything near you is probably completely and utterly unnatural.  For some reason, we cannot leave nature in its original form.  We feel the need to take from nature more than what we need, and to change it and make it "better". Perhaps it is because Nature is God and by modifying Nature we are playing God. 
If you tell me you wouldn't like to be God for a day, you'd be lying.  But by creating our own little worlds within the one that we've been given (like politics and TV and video games and computers), we can be Gods everyday.

Anyway...

I think what I'm trying to say is that things that have not been created or modified by human hands are natural! :smile:


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Namaste.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1127666 -

uh oh, I was afraid of this!

Does it occur in nature without manipulation by man?
ay ay ay! holay-molay! This thread is going to become an endless loop!

Let's take cocain for instance. By your reasoning it is natural because man made it. But you will NEVER find cocain growing on a bush or just laying on the ground (unless someone spills it but then who spill cocain?)
But here's the problem: Trees make oxygen, mushrooms make psilocybin, cattle make methane, humans make cocaine. humans are just another animal, just like cows. Is oxygen unnatural because it's made by a life form? In my view humans are equal with all other life, so why should something we make be declared unnatural? See what I mean? Hear what I'm saying? Smell the  MADNESS of it all?

Does it occur in nature without manipulation by man?
Uh oh. Does man occur in nature?
:crazy:

Edited by Dogomush (12/10/02 01:55 AM)

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: RebelSteve33]
    #1127673 -

I say, once the human hands manipulate the structure of the atom. Than it is unnatrual, until then. Everything is natrual.


--------------------
Peace out my brothers, for everyone has a bit of insanity in them

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: GrowingVines]
    #1127692 -

I say, once the human hands manipulate the structure of the atom. Than it is unnatrual, until then. Everything is natrual.
Hmmm. See, I always imagined people from the future sending back emissaries in time machines. Who would have thought they'd send words?

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: RebelSteve33]
    #1127693 -

We need to get over this obsession that if something is "natural" it must be the best.

Nature has mad a ton of mistakes. There is nothing wrong with improving where mother nature left off. All of the genetic diseases that are due to "slip ups" on evolutions part (nature) are very likely going to be cured or treatable in the next thirty years.

Just because humans manipulate nature doesn't make it cursed or malevolent.


--------------------
An open mind is the greatest journey of all.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: chemkid]
    #1127700 -

Just because humans manipulate nature doesn't make it cursed or malevolent.
Wait a minute.. who sent you?

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1127707 -

nothing is wrong in changing the bad things earth has to give us into good things...its the good things that we destroy that pisses me off.


--------------------
Peace out my brothers, for everyone has a bit of insanity in them

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: GrowingVines]
    #1127754 -

But man is only doing what is in his nature to do. Why doesn't it piss you off when an elephant destroys a bunch of trees and shrubs? Everything has it's consequences: good and bad.

Don't get me wrong.....we do have brains and it is simply illogical to dump concentrated toxins into our drinking water, so I hear you on these issues but overall man does what man does best.....find, consume, find more, improve ways on how to find more and make it last longer and support a larger population, force ourselves toward extinction or move to new area. So what is wrong with this?? :grin: 


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An open mind is the greatest journey of all.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1128115 -

The only problem with your arguement is that man has to be defined as being somehow outside of nature. We are just one "natural" element involved in the process of creating cocaine.

Just as the right soil is one element that has to be present in the growing of a cocoa bush.

That plant wouldnt grow in the desert, does that make it unnatural when it grows where the conditions are right??

We are nature so when we change things it is only nature changing nature. It is an ego affectation to see ourselves as outside of nature. Thats why much of our technology seems intrusive and bad. But thats the way it is supposed to be. When we modify genes it is a process that has been going on for millenia. Nature has now found away to manipulate itself quicker and quicker. We are just the agent of this change. That is all.


--------------------
Always Smi2le

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: chemkid]
    #1128212 -

Nice to see you posting with us again.  You were missed.

Have a Happy Holidays. :smile:

Cheers,

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: ]
    #1128504 -

AHHHHH shucks......you're so sweet. Has Swami been bad mouthing the newbies? I have come to take their beatings for them!!


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An open mind is the greatest journey of all.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: chemkid]
    #1128746 -

Persons of reason are always welcome in this forum as are people who are compassionate and kind. When a person is both they make the world a better place to be. Swami is Swami. (no correlation meant between the last sentence and any other)

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: chemkid]
    #1128781 -

Remember, Swami backwards is: I'm a w--s.. No wait - that can't be right!


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The proof is in the pudding.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1128895 -

So true! To me, something natural is anything that is created by God (or Nature) and not modified by human hands. I think that Native Americans lived so much more naturally than us because they took from nature what they needed, but did not change or modify it to make it "better" in their eyes. They simply took and used what nature had to spare for them.

When I read this I came to the realisation that human's give themselves WAAAAY too much credit. By your statement about "anything that is created by god or Nature and not modified by human hands" you basically imply that human hands are unnatural. Granted, this has been pointed out with previous arguments, but if you think of the connection with this phrase and the common ideology of society, to come to this conclusion one may have taken the following path --> group 1 doesn't agree with group 2's way of doing things, whatever the reason may be: they term this way of doing things wrong, and therefor against the ways of nature. This implies that they know what's "right", and this goes back to the racism/homosexuality post, which is stated there as a tad arrogant.

I think "wrong" can be defined as anything that produces more loss than gain for the benefit (sp?) of the global population. By population I mean everything. Rocks, trees, spiders, humans and the like. When trees are cut down and mountains are excavated, When there is not more taken than needed - a.k.a. clearcutting and burning as an example, where's the problem with 'nature evolving' itself to do different things? The problem is, people in power are the ones who decide what is best for the whole, and without approaching problems from every possible angle and without the consideration of personal gain, the decisions made are always going to be biased.


--------------------
No one knows the worth of innocence till he knows it is gone forever, and that money can't buy it back. Not the saint, but the sinner that repenteth, is he to whom the full length and breadth, and height and depth, of life's meaning is revealed. Good and evil loose all objective meaning and are seen as equally necessary and contrasting elements in the masterpiece that is the universe.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Swami]
    #1129468 -

W.S. = Wang Sucker?

(Just joking, Swam).  :grin:


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: GazzBut]
    #1129560 -

This is not just to you Gazz but to anybody who is supports the idea that because man is part of nature that what we do is just a part of nature too (sounds like a love and rockets song).

That argument is mere sophism. If by breathing you can make cocain then do it ( a refernce to the poster who equated respiration with gross manipulation of the environment). A story to expound-

A young man goes off to University from his small town. He comes back years later and says to his Rabbi "Rabbi, I don't know what to think anymore. I am so confused. In University I learned so much and now can argue any point equally as well. I don't know what is what?" The old Rabbi thought for a moment, then punched the young man squarly on his nose breaking it. The young man screamed in pain "Rabbi, you just broke my nose!!!" the old Rabbi said "What nose?"......


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1129597 -

If by breathing you can make cocain then do it

I was about to say something about this too.  :wink:


--------------------
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know,
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection,
Is it all you want it to be?


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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Murex]
    #1129632 -

not really good advice though I must say...cocain = bad....or at least not good...


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1129671 -

I agree with you. But if we are just nature changing nature.....hasn't nature gone a tad bit suicidal?


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Without everything wouldn't nothing be everything and without nothing wouldn't everything be nothing.I am the beginning and the end,the source and the void, the light and the darkness,i am but a small drop of the ocean yet i am an ocean unto myself

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: 3eyedgod]
    #1129688 -

if we are just nature changing nature.....hasn't nature gone a tad bit suicidal?
I believe algae was the first being to produce oxygen. All other life on the earth coming in contact with this oxygen died because it was a toxic gas at the time, so its happened before.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1129700 -

This is not just to you Gazz but to anybody who is supports the idea that because man is part of nature that what we do is just a part of nature too (sounds like a love and rockets song).
That argument is mere sophism. If by breathing you can make cocain then do it ( a refernce to the poster who equated respiration with gross manipulation of the environment). A story to expound-

How is respiration not equal to gross manipulation of the environment? What's the difference? Is a chimpanzee using a stick to gather termites any different from a human using a nuclear bomb? Why?

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: chemkid]
    #1129983 -

yea, i agree, but do keep in mind that humans have a tendency to fuck shit up bad, and cause irreversible damage.


--------------------
"I think it's time we stop
Children, What's the sound,
Everybody look what's going down"

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1129996 -

isnt coke natural? or mebbe coke is synthetic chemical of something natural... not sure. just wondering :-)

anywho, everything is derived from something natural... does that make it natural tho... question i been asking mahself forever now, heh


--------------------
"I think it's time we stop
Children, What's the sound,
Everybody look what's going down"

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1130250 -

Good questions...this is tough stuff but it's important I think because the position that a person comes to affects how they interact with their environment. I am not sure I can logically put this all into words as the rabbi in my above post was trying to convey to the young man.

There are cultures where it is beleived they understood the difference between consuming more than what you needed and understanding their role in the cycle of things. There is evedience (check out the book called "voices of the first day") that aboriginal tasmanians at one point REJECTED fire technology and would only use fire that occured naturally or if they allowed their fires to go out which I would guess they did not without some kind of major accident, they would borrow it from a neighboring clan.

I guess the difference is in a level of how much the environment gets manipulated. To me the measuring stick is "can I produce this thing if I were in the middle of the forest?" Breathing I can do in the forest without using anything but my lungs. Using a stick to gather termites requires no lab or displaced energy (using more energy than I can as a human body, produce in one day) as it would to make the bomb.

I hope that made some sort of sense....


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: SnuffelzFurever]
    #1130275 -

That's the subject of this whole thread eh?....

To me coke is not natural because you can't just go out and find it. My mother chewed coca leaves as a little girl and said it was like having a can of pop that had a bit of caffiene in it...


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1130451 -

upupup your definition just doesn't work man.

I guess the difference is in a level of how much the environment gets manipulated.
I think that releasing a poisonous gas which ends up killing all life is a manipulation of the environment greater than anything mankind has done, and that was done by algae. Is a comet that stirs up dust which blocks out the sun and destroys millions of species unnatural? I don't think so. keep trying.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: upupup]
    #1131115 -

And to all thiose who think we are not part of nature - not just you upup

Are we supposed to stop evolving? stop making mistakes? stop progress? Obviously not, that would be bucking the trend of the whole of time.

How can we be outside of nature? take some shrooms and think about this hard. Remember we arent special, remember we are just DNA replicating itself over and over again. Some of the things we do may look real bad close up but in the bigger picture theres nothing wrong! Did you know that Oxegyn was a threat to the planet before gaia evolved herself to use it effectively?


--------------------
Always Smi2le

Edited by GazzBut (12/11/02 04:22 AM)

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: GazzBut]
    #1131363 -

Great stuff to think on, I wish I could do a vulcan mind meld with you guys...

to me it just seems simple and that may be my problem with understanding the perspective that whatever man does is just a part of nature. I maybe trying to simplify it too much. Hell, I am a huge hypocrite anyway for if I were to put into practice what I am saying then would I even be communicating with all this technology?


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: nubious]
    #1132307 -

I think everything is natural, some things are just considered more natural. Things that take less interference, ingredients, processes, etc to create are considered the more natural. For instance, you can make tea easier than you can make coke, therefore tea would and is considered more natural. The things we consider most natural like mountains, land, rivers,etc.. were all created by luck, chance, coincidence, whatever word you want to use so there was greatly small interference involved.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: ]
    #1132327 -

I agree with you in that things are considered more "natural" when they involve less interference. It's kind of like we have the choice to swim against the current or with the current; either way it's "natural" but going with the flow is more natural because there is less struggle and a minimum amount of energy is wasted.


--------------------
:heartpump: { { { ṧ◎ηḯ¢ αʟ¢ℌ℮мƴ } } } :heartpump:

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Adamist]
    #1132359 -

well put....


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1132386 -



Dogomush, hat is a good friggin' point!!

I like it! I have never heard that argument before. I see what you mean about this Thread leading to insanity!!


--------------------
---Still Searching---

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Adamist]
    #1132565 -

Thats a good explanation of the theory..thanks adamist

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1133479 -

OK how bout this. Because I don't see how even primitive man came up with metal, unless it was naturally occuring as it has been found from meteorites and such, I say technology that took people to that level did not evolve on this planet....

There, that explains why further manipulation of things that exsist in nature is not natural. It is because the technology to manipulate the environment came from off planet....

BUT if you really wanted to then you could just ask if the universe is not a part of nature thus anything, even off planet resources would still be a part of nature....there really is no end to this.....


--------------------
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.

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Re: Let's define the word "natural" [Re: Dogomush]
    #1133863 -

Sorry for not being able to express all my thoughts in a proper way, since I'm Italian and it's so difficult to speak about "philosophy" even in our own language...

What we must consider is that the category "nature" is always being considerate as opposite to "man" concerning the classical philosophy.
So it means that everything that relates to man cannot be "natural" because it belongs to a different category.
It doesn't mean that man is unnatural... it's a kind of a mind trick. It's a way to looking at things giving a name, a class to which belong...
In this way anything that is created by man is unnatural...
Consider this -> trees produce oxigen: natural process
-> man produces oxigen: unnatural process
oxigen is neither natural or unnatural... it simply exists.
LSD doesn't exist in natural form... you must produce it. So it's unnatural.
Psilocybin exists in natural form in mushrooms.
LSD isn't better than Psilo... nor the opposite.
Natural isn't better than unnatural... they must live together in armony.
Man needs to live in armony with nature.
It doesn't imply that he can't manipulate it.
Only that he should know honestly the reason to do it.
And then do it for the good of mankind.

Thank you for your patience,

Love,

Andrash


--------------------
--- Who am I, where is me, when I' am away from myself? --- F. Battiato

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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