Is technology unnatural?

[Shrooms00087]

A human city is not a tool for survival, we don't go to wars for reasons of survival (yet), we go to wars for things of substance. Each part of the anthill and octopus or hermit only live within the means of survival. Like I just stated, ours is completely different which wouldn't be interactive with the law of predictability. There are still instances of natural societies though, that will thoroughly differ from modern societies, and that would be the indigenous tribes. Outside of pleasure technology they survive in predictable circumstances.

Intent? No. Laws and math, yes. Do dolphins base their lives around pleasure, or survival? Am I saying that no animal has pleasure or momentarily pursues it? Not at all. Rather the animal that escapes the laws of survival and enters technology where worry is based on material goods made from technology.

Like I said before, just because humans can't predict it does not mean it can't be predicted (which could extend to humans-technology but it still does not escape it's materialistic qualities which escapes the sphere of circumstances which spurned humans arrival (survival)). Regardless of that, trees are almost completely predictable, they grow towards the light, their size is based on nutrients and genes from surrounding climates (etc). As far as determinism it's less about humans being separate and more humans previously being within the paradigm and now their own existence revolves around changing the very surrounding that gave raise to its existence, through technology, outside of survival.

Which would be natural out of these two?
A) Alpheidae (pistol shrimp)
B) A pistol

One was formed through evolution naturally, the other, manufactured externally.

 

[Raw Evil]

A human city is not a tool for survival, we don't go to wars for reasons of survival (yet), we go to wars for things of substance. Each part of the anthill and octopus or hermit only live within the means of survival.

Is an apartment building not shelter? Is a road not essential for the supply of nutrition to the populace of any agricultural society? These things are critical to the survival of modern humans. Don't discount that simply because recreational facilities are included.

Like I just stated, ours is completely different which wouldn't be interactive with the law of predictability. There are still instances of natural societies though, that will thoroughly differ from modern societies, and that would be the indigenous tribes. Outside of pleasure technology they survive in predictable circumstances.

And these indigenous tribes are natural? Or only the parts which exist purely to serve some utilitarian function?

Intent? No. Laws and math, yes. Do dolphins base their lives around pleasure, or survival? Am I saying that no animal has pleasure or momentarily pursues it? Not at all. Rather the animal that escapes the laws of survival and enters technology where worry is based on material goods made from technology.

But we haven't escaped. We still need to eat. We still need water and shelter. We still need to reproduce to keep the species in existence. All we have done is make these essentials trivially easy. Were the city's plumbing to fail, its inhabitants would be in trouble.

Like I said before, just because humans can't predict it does not mean it can't be predicted (which could extend to humans-technology

You just contradicted yourself. If human technological progress is predictable, then by your own definition (which I still find to be a dubious claim), should it not be called natural?

but it still does not escape it's materialistic qualities which escapes the sphere of circumstances which spurned humans arrival (survival)).

Slow down and explain that again, please. I don't understand what you mean by "escaping the sphere of circumstances which spurned humans' arrival". How is "circumstances after something resembling a modern human was born" differ from "circumstances before this event"?

Regardless of that, trees are almost completely predictable, they grow towards the light, their size is based on nutrients and genes from surrounding climates (etc). As far as determinism it's less about humans being separate and more humans previously being within the paradigm and now their own existence revolves around changing the very surrounding that gave raise to its existence, through technology, outside of survival.

Are you trying to tell me that the body of a healthy, regular, home-birthed, organic-food-eating modern human is somehow unnatural today, despite the same not being true of a genetically-identical human in, say, a tribe in the Amazon?

Which would be natural out of these two?
A) Alpheidae (pistol shrimp)
B) A pistol

One was formed through evolution naturally, the other, manufactured externally.

I would say that one was made naturally by a process of attrition and gradual improvement and refinement, and the other was made naturally by the hands of an Earth native species that covers a significant portion of the Earth's land mass. I would call both natural, and neither moreso than the other.

But of course, one is still a horrific weapon of killing.

 

[B9]

Ooops

 

[Vader]

^For its own sake, I would say.
This all really hinges on the sense in which we use "natural". On one understanding of the term, yes, everything that exists in the natural world is natural. Is this the only sense in which it can be used? We use "natural" to distinguish man-made substances and objects from those that occur without man's intervention in the world, and it's a perfectly good and useful way in which to use that word. If someone asked me to get them clothes made of natural fibres and I turned up with a nylon shirt, telling them "But everything's natural!", they'd be (righly) cheesed off at me. If you're cleaning a room and ask someone to pass you the chemicals, and they say "Everything in the room is made of chemicals!", you would respond "Don't be an idiot, you know what I mean". Do such uses of the words strictly align with etymology? No. Are they arbitrarily defined? Yes. Does that make them wrong or useless? No.

 

[slimvictor]

^For its own sake, I would say.
This all really hinges on the sense in which we use "natural". On one understanding of the term, yes, everything that exists in the natural world is natural. Is this the only sense in which it can be used? We use "natural" to distinguish man-made substances and objects from those that occur without man's intervention in the world, and it's a perfectly good and useful way in which to use that word. If someone asked me to get them clothes made of natural fibres and I turned up with a nylon shirt, telling them "But everything's natural!", they'd be (righly) cheesed off at me. If you're cleaning a room and ask someone to pass you the chemicals, and they say "Everything in the room is made of chemicals!", you would respond "Don't be an idiot, you know what I mean". Do such uses of the words strictly align with etymology? No. Are they arbitrarily defined? Yes. Does that make them wrong or useless? No.

Excellent post.

Let me just point out that there is another way in which we often define or understand "natural": minimally processed.
Therefore, cannabis and mushrooms are natural, since they are just dried (and cured), whereas coke is not due to the fairly intensive processing it must undergo to be transformed from bean form.

This merges with the "human-made and synthetic vs. occurring without human intervention" definition, and so LSD is "unnatural", even though there is minimal processing required once it is synthesized.
Ayahuasca is "natural", even though it must be boiled and drunk according to specific instructions, but DMT is not, since it is extracted.
(Vanilla extract, however, is "natural", compared with the artificial flavor vanillin".)

Our definitions are open-ended, and no good for mathematical purposes, but this is how we create and understand meaning through language. They work just fine for most of our purposes, until someone gets on a philosophy thread and begins questioning them....

 

[Changed]

For those of you interested in this topic, you may want to check out this book: The Spell of the Sensuous

 

[Shrooms00087]

Raw you missed just about every point I was trying to make, with little tid bits. Suffice to say I'm just going to default out and give up. I'm with Vader on this, if there is no distinction between definitions and anything is plausible why even have distinctions? For this cup of orange juice is neither a cup nor orange juice. It's just atoms.

But I do want to add one thing amidst the fact you've missed every point, cities aren't meant for survival because not everyone gets to survive. It's based on money, it's based on the material goods you can provide for yourself. If cities were meant for surviving then I'd assume we'd be surviving. Instead, it's based on something else. But that loops back to my initial point several arguments ago.

 

[DJ 303]

What do you think about this? Where goes the line where the use of technology becomes too "unnatural" to be ethical?

we've all gone a bit off topic granted. so back to the op.
accepting that unnatural is an ambiguous definition meaning too much human meddling or synthetic/technological advancement.

I would say the line becomes too unatural when we use technology to harm others directly or indirectly. That is to say, cause significant physical or mental suffering to any living thing.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

I haven't read the whole thread, but OP, I say yes. In fact, I really think technology is not far off from the very definition of unnatural. Unnatural just means made by people.

If you're asking if technology is good, well that all depends on the intentions of the inventor and the users. All technologies are made and disseminated with the intention of getting something done. Whatever that something is, the possible consequences of its availability are worth discussing in depth long before it's planned or built.

Is a going back (or closer to) a state of nature something worth aiming for? I think we need to back up a step and ask if our ancestors who had no technology at all (i.e. they used everything they took from nature completely as is, with no pre-modification), can really even be called human. Because doubtless we've had technology since deep into prehistory, possibly millions of years. It just wasn't of the same complexity as today's. Anyhow, if technology is one key component of what makes us human (which I suspect it is), then there's no going back.

We just have to be moderate and compassionate in how we use technology. Before I shell out lots of money for some gadget, I always try to ask myself: What ways will having this thing REALLY enhance my quality of life? (Versus just trading old problems for new ones, or picking up some new piece of dead weight that I won't really use). There are pieces of technology most people around me have, that I just don't, because I just don't need them. Other technologies just make sense to use, and make me happy to live in a place where they're available to me.

 

[Raw Evil]

Yeah I guess you're all right; I'm reacting more to the baggage attached to the word "unnatural" than any useful distinction. In my experience the word seems most used by outspoken Christians as an argument against homosexuality - as a synonym for "unholy", "corrupt", or "sinful" - which I am utterly sick of hearing.

I feel disgusted in myself for allowing such hateful, bigoted people to distort my perception of language.

May all find peace in playing their part in nature

P.S: Shrooms, I'm disappointed. It was just getting good :D

 

[purplelights]

Humans are a part of nature, so I believe that anything that humans do is natural. I think that many humans believe that they are somewhat "above" nature if you will, especially the modern generations of people. This may be due to perhaps monotheistic traditions, for example Christianity. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it is in Genesis 1:26 of the Bible:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

If you look at past histories of civilizations, e.g. many Native American traditions, they believed that they were "one" with nature and they respected nature by giving thanks to whatever they used from it. After the industrial revolution it seems apparent that humans tend to exploit (for lack of a better word) natural resources to gain economic benefit. Perhaps this is a result of human nature in itself.

After the industrial revolution the human population began growing exponentially. It took around 250,000 years for the population to reach 1 billion. In the last 60 years it has increased by 4 billion to reach about 7 billion people today. It is still largely growing and is expected to be about 12 billion by the year 2050 (or 2075, can't remember ). I think it's possible that overpopulation of human beings on the planet combined with scarcity of natural resources will lead mother nature to repair the problem herself in order to restore balance, whether it be by natural catastrophe or technological catastrophe.

End of rant.

 

[MrRoot]

Natural resources are not scarce. There are plenty of food for everyone and pure water for everyone even in the situation that our amount will reach 12 billion. Also not to speak about the slate gas that will provide energy for the next coming 200 years with the discoveries done this far. The problem is just distributing it equally for everyone.

There is no sentient mother earth that would cause some kind of catastrophy with the means that it does not have. Same is with the global warming. That has not actually been proven because the graphs that show global warming from the start of industrial era just happens to correlate with the activity of the sun. There have been a lot of studies that the temoeratures have also been on a rise in other planets and they correlate with the same graph that has been shown us to be scared about global warming. Those all correlate with the activity of sun.

What does not correlate with it is the rise in surface temperatures after 1991 but that is just because that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the data from remote locations on Siberia etc. have not been available.

Also we are in verge of suns cycle where there are not as much of sunspots which correlate to the output power of the sun as there have been before. Last time it was few hundred years ago during the era that was been named as Maunder's minimum when for exanple the river Thames got a 1 meter thick layer of ice and starting of spring went too late to get good crops in for example Finland and Sweden and population nearly halved because of the starvation and immigration to a warmer place like USA.

So instead of preparing to a global warming we should prepare to a minor ice age by investing for example GM food species that survive and yield more crop in cold environment and safely dump co2 and methane into our atmosphere to prevent our planet getting colder. Also we need more practical solutions of nuclear power to sustain use of greenhouses.