Or, not brought about intentionally. — Yohan
"Nature" is a pretty abstract term. I am not convinced the mind is part of the so called material world.Why isn't the mental natural? The mind is a part of nature. — Manuel
Brains being physical and/or being the source of minds is, to me, questionable. I believe intelligence produces the appearance of so called matter, rather than the reverse.The mental being immaterial is questionable. It arises out of brains, which are physical systems. — Manuel
There is abstract vs concrete, actual vs possible... but 'natural' I think means something else. Nature may or may not be abstract or concrete.Natural denotes, at minimum, not imaginary (or abstract). — 180 Proof
So what would that make anything which is immeasurable, un-calculatable, or non-mathematizable?↪Yohan The natural is what is measurable, calculable, mathematizable — Joshs
I'm not sure what I said makes sense. I guess I think that both the abstract and the concrete are abstractions. But that probably sound nonsensical too.Natural denotes, at minimum, not imaginary (or abstract). — 180 ProofThere is abstract vs concrete, actual vs possible... but 'natural' I think means something else. Nature may or may not be abstract or concrete. — Yohan
"Nature" is a pretty abstract term. I am not convinced the mind is part of the so called material world. — Yohan
Brains being physical and/or being the source of minds is, to me, questionable. I believe intelligence produces the appearance of so called matter, rather than the reverse. — Yohan
Imagine this scenario: You are a conscious robot who spent his whole life on a technologically sophisticated "planetoid" with no organic life. The technologies are capable of self-replication and evolution. You have no idea who created you or the planetoid. For you and the robots, this planetoid may seem natural, rather than artificial.I don't even understand what an alternative to "natural" means. By "natural" I mean belonging to nature, — Manuel
Are dams artificial (in the sense of not naturally occurring) because beavers make them, rather than rivers? — Yohan
Is there a difference in naturalness vs unnaturalness between beavers making dams and humans making dams? — Yohan
I don't even understand what an alternative to "natural" means. — Manuel
But the question is what does natural mean. So I am trying to strip the concept of anything that is not necessary. So far, I not seeing the exact difference between natural and artificial. On the one hand, everyone seems to be saying everything is natural. On the other, there seems to be a consensus that, somehow, some things are more or less natural than other things.I think it is more simple and straightforward to acknowledge that we are part of nature.
Anything else could be the case, but we are just adding unnecessary complications. — Manuel
This leads to intent. A beaver made the dam intentionally. The mountain was formed, perhaps without intention. The more sophisticated something is, the more likely we are to think that thing may possess the quality of having intent.So we can say a mountain pass is much less complex than a beaver. A beaver's damn is more complex than a mountain, but less than a beaver, as this creature consists of billions of particles plus all the relevant biological stuff, which is quite complex in itself. — Manuel
The natural is what is measurable, calculable, mathematizable
We can oppose it to the personalistic , which is perspectival and specific to a contingent context of use. — Joshs
So a computer is natural, because it is measururable, calculable, mathematizable? And my personal experience of the computer is not natural?It would make it the phenomenologically experienced — Joshs
So a computer is natural, because it is measururable, calculable, mathematizable? And my personal experience of the computer is not natural? — Yohan
A beaver made the dam intentionally. — Yohan
We don't know if the beaver builds a dam with intent — Manuel
The question is not 'Is this natural', but 'What is this thing's true nature' or 'What is this things essential nature, if it has one?' — Yohan
I think you lost consistency of definition of 'nature' at this last point.Supernatural is an instance of breaking the laws of nature and the immediate reaction is to ascribe the supernatural event to some kind of being (god/demons/angels/spirits/etc.) — TheMadFool
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