What is "Unnatural?"

[These thread takes into account the pretty well proven theories of evolution and such - if you don't actually believe in any of that, your input is welcome - but let's not turn this into a debate about if God exists, please!]

Recently I became a vegetarian, which led to a discussion with my family about the need to eat meat, eventually leading to the idea that it is 'natural' for us to eat meat - a fair point, yes, but this led me to discus the idea of what is 'natural' and 'unnatural.' I quickly regretted the decision to start this conversation, for you see - having a deep conversation with my parents is about as rational as jumping into lava.


And so I turn to you guys to discuss, what is 'unnatural?' Is it even possible to have something that is unnatural?


The way I see it is a pretty plain and simple explanation - if something exists, it is natural, therefor anything that exists cannot be unnatural, as it exists in the natural world. Of course, in primary schools, we are taught something different, and this view is never really expanded upon as we grow up. We are taught this definition of nature;

Natural: Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.

Something about this definition made me question previous arguments against being a vegetarian. "It is natural for a human to eat meat? But surely this definition of natural shows us that anything caused by mankind, including the slaughter of animals, is unnatural?" That's exactly what that definition states, right? That anything caused by mankind is unnatural. For some reason, we are implying in this definition that we, as humans, are not natural. That I don't understand. Why is it that just because we have a higher intelligence capacity and an ability to apply science to our lives, the things we create become unnatural? I was given a quick list of things my family deemed 'unnatural,' I rattled these off one by one.

"Humans have emotions - clearly not natural!" Chemical reactions in our brain react to stimuli, triggering hormones and reactions to stimulate our feelings, complex but natural indeed.

"Humans make atomic bombs, surely these aren't natural?" Why not? When an atom is split, the natural reaction is a huge explosion. Not very nice, no, but still a natural process.


Is there something fundamental about the definition of natural I am missing? Do we have more than one definition of natural, and am I just confusing these different definitions? Is there such a thing as 'The Laws of Nature' we must abide by to be considered natural?

As far as I am concerned, there are no laws of nature, as for there to be laws of nature, we would have to personify nature into some sort of entity - giving it thoughts and ideas just like us that would allow these 'laws' to exist. No, to me, nature is anything and everything that exists. Despite all this, why is that people believe when a human creates a home out their available materials (stone, glass, etc) it is unnatural, but when a rabbit burrows into the ground for shelter, it is the epitome of nature?


That was a mess of questions, so here are some key questions to start us discussing in a more clear direction:

What is YOUR definition of 'natural/unnatural?'
What is it about humans that makes everything we do apparently unnatural?
Is the idea of nature subjective or objective?

Nowadays, the meaning of "natural" is twisted to mean "the status quo" or "the norm" in everyday language.

You know, I think that the issue of what is unnatural and natural are really kind of meaningless discussions to have. Because after a while what happens is people tend to equate on or the other with good and bad and then start to make value/moral judgments based upon the words usage, and that is where the real issue is.

Originally Posted by The Blake

What is YOUR definition of 'natural/unnatural?'

the definition necessarily depends on the context. From an anthropocentric perspective, natural is anything that happens or exists without the influence of humans. From a broader perspective, though, natural is just anything that exists in nature, which humans are necessarily a part of.

What is it about humans that makes everything we do apparently unnatural?

merely the definition. "Natural", in this sense, is defined as "not artificial" and "artificial" is defined as "caused or created by humans." There's nothing inherently special about humans in this sense, it is just sometimes useful to distinguish between things that we as a species are responsible for and things which we are not.

So today, I asked my father about his stance on gay marriage legalization. He was vehemently opposed to it. Now, disregarding his blatant religious bias, I asked him what constituted this decision. He told me that marriage is to be between a man and a woman for the sole purpose to procreate, and gay marriage is a direct violation of that unalienable right. We also discussed the ability of a gay couple to raise a child. He simply told me that they have no right to raise one and are an abomination to society.

After that, he told me that his decision was based on his beliefs of what he thought was natural and unnatural. His definition of "natural" is "something that continues the existence and longevity of the human race" which I find incredibly ignorant. I asked him whether or not we should ban condoms, the Internet, or anything that doesn't involve procreation, as that seemed to be the only thing he cared about. He did not answer.

According to Wikipedia, "natural" refers to the phenomena of the physical world in general, and to life as a whole. Since homosexuality is a trait shared in many mammals (something else my father refuses to believe), it is therefore something that is natural in this definition of the word. Therefore, in my opinion, gays and lesbians should be viewed as human as any of us. We are all just bits of matter glued together, after all.

Sorry if this post didn't have any direction. I dunno where I was planning on going with it. :I

To me, behavior is natural if it's ever been recorded by non-human animals.

That's it.

The word "unnatural" is many times used as insubstantial evidence against activities not considered normal. Homosexuality, for instance, is constantly labelled "unnatural", despite the fact that biologist Bruce Bagemihl asserts that it's been reported in about 1500 different species. Murder is also considered unnatural, even though the act of killing a member of one's own species is hardly exclusive to humans. All or most primates, particularly chimpanzees, are known to kill each other for various reasons.

The word "unnatural" is basically meaningless when describing human behavior, and its use is a big red flag in any serious discussion.

Depends, really. From one point of view everything is natural, even things we cause and create, because we ourselves are natural.

This is also a completely useless definition, so might as well not bother with it.

Generally, then, it means things that are created or occur without human intervention. But that doesn't quite work either. Human babies are natural, but also occur exclusively from human intervention.

So perhaps more accurate would be: Things that are caused or created by processes that human intelligence has not influenced.

This is all a question about definition. The best definition of "unnatural" would probably be that something exhibits a trait which is alien to that thing. This of course can be interpreted in different ways: a square circle, for instance. It's unnatural because it has a characteristic it could not possibly have. By this definition something unnatural cannot exist.

It all boils down into how you define "natural". I define everything in nature as natural.
If anthills and bird-nests are natural, then so are human-built houses.

Natural nowadays usually means the norm or something everybody does. Unnatural by people could mean the someone is different or not natural.

I apologize as I do not believe in macroevolution, but I still wish to post on this thread if I may.
I agree with John about the whole we come from nature, so what we make comes from nature subsequently. I also agree that this seems slightly silly. Very easily simply based on what the word says of itself, naturally, being of nature, anything that is natural yields only natural things. However there should be something that changes things from natural to unnatural.
Things yielded by human intelligence are not necessarily in themselves unnatural. farms are made by human intelligence, yet their crops are indeed natural. You could try tools, but once more farms fall into play. Perhaps......
Combinations of natural things in ways which they are not combined in nature?

Actually, it's fair to argue that crops are not natural. Domesticated plants are very different from their wild counterparts and cannot effectively survive without extensive human intervention.

Beginning ones weren't as much so.
Also, some are probably still at least very similar, especially fruits/nuts, right?

Does this mean domesticated animals, like dogs and house cats, are unnatural? We meddled with their evolution (?), yet they still have instincts that are in tune with nature.

The way I see it, everything around us could be seen as natural. Computers and Big Macs and Whoppers and musical instruments and synthetic drugs, etc., didn't just suddenly appear out of a vortex and into our hands. They're all made of things found on this planet, and us humans have just cleverly changed and morphed them into what you see today. Pepsi may not be something you can find just by going for a walk like you can for water, but the things in Pepsi are all things found on the Earth. Humans just took things and went "let us combine these things!"

Perhaps there are different levels of what's natural, i.e. water is more natural than Dr. Pepper.

But I feel this is all just taking something miniscule and trying to make a big deal out of it.

Originally Posted by Variant Knight

Beginning ones weren't as much so.
Also, some are probably still at least very similar, especially fruits/nuts, right?

Originally, no, but modern ones are very different from their wild progenitors.

And most fruits are fairly different from their ancestors. Bananas, for example, literally cannot survive without human intervention. Every banana shrub in existence are clones of each other and cannot reproduce.

Originally Posted by Gamzee

The way I see it, everything around us could be seen as natural. Computers and Big Macs and Whoppers and musical instruments and synthetic drugs, etc., didn't just suddenly appear out of a vortex and into our hands. They're all made of things found on this planet, and us humans have just cleverly changed and morphed them into what you see today. Pepsi may not be something you can find just by going for a walk like you can for water, but the things in Pepsi are all things found on the Earth. Humans just took things and went "let us combine these things!"

Perhaps there are different levels of what's natural, i.e. water is more natural than Dr. Pepper.

But I feel this is all just taking something miniscule and trying to make a big deal out of it.

What we are trying to do though is figure out a basic definition for measuring how natural something is and decide at what point you have to quit saying that an object is natural. People don't want to be at the store buying something that says 100% natural and paying twice as much for it when in fact the entire thing is made in a lab.
I suppose that maybe one partial definition of how natural something is is how much people have meddled with it. It sounds good, but It feels as though we may be leaving things out. I can't think of anything, but it just feels like there is.

I think human kind for a long time have desired to separate herself from nature. Some things, some aspects of our lives, are therefore categorized as natural, and others are categorized as human. To me, the confusing part is that neither category is the preferred one. They are fairly distinct (although in the discussion above, we have seen that there are several ways of judging whether something is human or natural, where to draw the line is definitely not obvious. Some do not even think that a line should be drawn) and are often weighed against each other, but none of them is at every occasion preferable.

"Natural" often has a healthy glow to it. On the other hand, it can serve to classify something as brutish (and therefore unwanted). "Human" can carry the connotations of intelligence, compassion and general excellence. On the other hand, the advancement of human kind is at various times pictured the major threat to nature. So we have Good Nature - non-modified fruit and greenery, as opposed to Bad Human - filthy factories, concrete and outfishing the seas. We also have Bad Nature - killing the babies of our rivals and eating a partner after mating (all things "savage"), as opposed to Good Human - turning the other cheek and be kind also to those we do not like, table manners, washing our hands before eating.

I would like to say that "unnatural" simply is BAD, and that all bad things (such as rape and cancer) could be classified as "unnatural"; but as I tried to demonstrate above, there are at least four sides to the story. I will therefore conclude my slightly confused post by saying that "ok, separating "nature" from "human" is ok, but A) please don't use them as synonyms for "bad" or "good" and B) please be consistent in your argumentation if you decide not to go with A)".

I am glad to see someone newer than me posting on here, especially with an intelligent argument.
I think ultimately the easiest definition to prescribe would be on a conditional basis based on what item we were attempting to define, though you still end up with things that fall into both sides in some way or another. One example is food. Almost all foods have some part of them that is inherently natural, even twinkies probably have some sort of flour that makes up the cake. Or maybe it would be easiest to go with definition where something can be partially natural but not completely, like the dog breeds mentioned earlier, or even guinea pigs. Even rape, as horrible as it sounds, has components of it that are partially natural in some way. While these things may have been made entirely by human hands, they have part of them that exists outside of human intervention, and thus I don't think can be considered entirely unnatural.

I'm going to use your examples

"Humans have emotions - clearly not natural!" Chemical reactions in our brain react to stimuli, triggering hormones and reactions to stimulate our feelings, complex but natural indeed.

Emotions clearly are natural. Humans did not manufacture them; they would exist without our intervention. However what would not be natural is the feeling you get when on LSD or any other substance for that matter. While some drugs are "natural" in the sense that they're made in plants or whatever, they are not "meant" to be taken by us. They disrupt the careful chemical balance that we as organisms maintain.

"Humans make atomic bombs, surely these aren't natural?" Why not? When an atom is split, the natural reaction is a huge explosion. Not very nice, no, but still a natural process.

But it is not a process that will occur on its own. An atom will not split under normal conditions. It is only our interference that causes it to split.

Now the reaction after the split is a natural reaction. But the split itself is not.


Anyway I guess my definition would be anything that can occur without our interference is a natural process. Fire is a completely natural construct. But an engine is a completely artificial construct. It uses natural laws and constructs to function, but the end result is something nature would not have ever made on its own.

Now with things like gay marriage, the definition is a little tougher. Some argue that we only evolved sex for procreation with genetic diversity. I would argue back saying that at done point the evolutionary goal changed. Like other animals with long gestation periods, humans stop procreating after a couple children, and instead they devote their time to rearing the few kids that they do have. It's only more primitive animals that have sex with everything that moves.

So with gay marriage one must ask - what is the purpose? It does occur in animals, so it is probably not a choice (for most anyway... I know of a couple people who seemed to "switch" out of the blue...). But is it intended by nature? Or is it the result of something going wrong during gestation? I personally am leaning towards the latter. But even if it is due to an error, homosexuals shouldn't be denied happiness IMO

Originally Posted by terraphantm

But it is not a process that will occur on its own. An atom will not split under normal conditions. It is only our interference that causes it to split.

Natural nuclear fission reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia