The line between Nature and Artificiality

[Quantum Perception]

I agree. I think that humanity is an outgrowth of the living organism called Earth. When did we cease to be in a 'state of nature'? As the Garden of Eden story metaphorically illustrates, I think it happened at the point where we realized we could take control of the growth and lives of nonhuman life for our own ends, i.e. agriculture. This alienation from nature, which is the basis of the natural/artificial dichotomy, is indeed problematic, or at the very least a Faustian bargain. But that may be beyond the scope of this thread.[/QUOTE]


Have you heard of a book called Pandora's Seed?

 

[Quantum Perception]

Lol I knew u just read some Allan Watts and posted this. Could just tell.

If you read it closely you would see that the first thing he said was that talking about Zen is meaningless, but alas you paid for me to talk about Zen so I gota come up with something!!

He would call him self a psychedelic spiritual entertainer.

His purpuse is not for you to intellectualy understand anything bro. Hes trying to get you aroused so that you take the dive and see what he means with your own eyes, not your intellectual eyes.

He himself is using the intellect to convey meaning. I'am trying to-do the same thing here. I thought this topic would be a good way to start to think how we are an expression of nature. Just like Alan when he uses metaphors to communicate notions.
And I been reading and listing to Alan for 4 years.
I'm sorry if I offended you, but I don't agree with your point of view.

The intellect is not bad...

 

[IamMe90]

Right, the term might not inherently rest on that assumption, but the way that it is used does. If we were to consider anything that was a deliberate artifice of a creature artificial, then there'd be no problem, but common usage dictates that only humans are capable of creating artificial things. I suppose that the relevant case with your analogy would be if we were to call the phase change from liquid to solid in all other materials than water something other than freezing, then that usage would rather imply something special about water.

I also feel like you may be ignoring the complex interactions between humans and other organisms:

I don't think it is so clear cut as you suppose, nor that the way you use the term "artificial" is typical. For instance, many consider GM foods to be artificial, and organic foods to be natural. However, organic chicken is, by your definition, artificial- there is no such thing as a chicken without the artifice of humans. I agree, however, that the term can be useful, for instance, if we are talking about chemical substances that are found in nature, it is unhelpful for the semantic pedant to insist that all chemicals that exist are found in nature. I think my problem stems from people trying to force the concept onto the world and divide it neatly in two.


Quite.

A small quibble not really relevant to the debate- what is "artificiality"? Doesn't "artifice" express the same concept rather less clumsily?

Artifice is an object noun or w/e (I'm not great with formal grammatical terminology) and artificiality is a concept. that's pretty much how they differ.. you can't say "that's an artificiality" (or rather, you wouldn't) in reference to an object, you would call an object of artificiality an artifice.