But is the Eiffel Tower natural? I mean, maybe it is. Maybe 1000 philosophers will tell me why, and maybe I will be impressed enough by their reasoning to throw in the towel. Is it? — ENOAH

Is it made of unnatural materials? No. Was it made by unnatural means? No. Does it follow the laws of nature? Yes it does.
Prehistoric humans built out of stone, mud and sticks which formed the base for architectural constructions of all types. The adaptions from one type of material to another and from one design to another came from the natural processes of the human brain.
What could be unnatural about the Eiffel Tower?

But is a marriage certificate natural? — ENOAH

A social construct is different thing from a physical construct, while both are results of human brains they serve different purposes. A marriage certificate is unnatural because it inhibits the natural freedom to choose how and with whom you share your life. It limits what you can do with the things you own or create.

An article of clothing? — ENOAH

The need to protect yourself is natural, dress yourself up to attract mates is natural. Trying to please everyone by dressing like them or trying to be like everyone to fit in is natural.

A condom? Etc. — ENOAH

The desire to be safe from disease is natural, the need not to have more children than you can feed is also part of nature.

What could be unnatural about the Eiffel Tower? — Sir2u

Ok, but that's actually my point. What do you think of this? Yes the materials are Natural, it complies with the Laws of Nature. But it is the Eiffel Tower that has displaced those natural "things" with something artificial. The nature of course still is, but for us, and our perhaps inescapable condition, we see only the artificial form*.

How's that my point? Because same goes for human sexuality. The procreation/organic arousal/drive part are Natural, and that Nature still is, but for humans with our presumably unique Mind, that Nature is displaced by something artificial. And my point is that artificial nature applies to so called hetero-sexuality and so called LGBTQ +, alike.

I mean, alternatively, all sexuality is Natural. But I am more persuaded its all similarly artificial.

the need not to have more children than you can feed is also part of nature. — Sir2u

Ok, I was wondering, as I descended your stairway of responses, now I am more certain, it's possible I have an idiosyncratic way of defing Natural. I agree the need for shelter/cover, to attract mates, to bond, and survive are Natural. I think the Eiffel Tower, an Armani suit, and vaccines are human made.


*(Yes, we can look and see steel, but if one must stretch it that far, then really? Is that steel what was Natural to the earth or has it been manipulated into something so human-made tgat you're not seeing steel? And let's not forget, this was an analogy)

But it is the Eiffel Tower that has displaced those natural "things" with something artificial. — ENOAH

How so?
I never said that things were or were not artificial, I simple said that they were natural. Artificial things (artifacts) are made by natural beings out of natural material, could that be counted as unnatural?
It is just metal in the air instead of in the ground. Man used fire to reshape iron ore and create it. Just because its particular form is man made and not found in nature does not mean that is any more unnatural that a piece of tree that a caveman used to help him get around after breaking his leg. I think that we could possibly go as far as saying that a natural piece of matter has been used in an unorthodox, non-natural way.

Because same goes for human sexuality. The procreation/organic arousal/drive part are Natural, and that Nature still is, but for humans with our presumably unique Mind, that Nature is displaced by something artificial. And my point is that artificial nature applies to so called hetero-sexuality and so called LGBTQ +, alike. — ENOAH

You have basically confirming what I said earlier, that the wrong words are being used to refer to the wrong things. If we use the words in the sense that I specified earlier then there is no problem at all.

Sexuality: A person's tendency of sexual attraction, esp. whether heterosexual or homosexual

Gay, lesbian, unisex, polisex would then become only the handles for your particular brand of sexuality. — Sir2u

[opinion]There are lots of types of sexuality, but (from my point of view) only two genders or sexes. And anyone that says there are more are using those word incorrectly. [/opinion]

Ok, I was wondering, as I descended your stairway of responses, now I am more certain, it's possible I have an idiosyncratic way of defing Natural. — ENOAH

It is always possible I suppose, but do not let that worry you. You are certainly not alone in the world where so many want the words to mean what they think they should mean.
This whole conversation is only possible because so many people want "sexuality" and "gender" to mean something other than they were originally intended. If their meaning had stayed as a synonym to sex we would have nothing to talk about.

Nature is the world, the universe, everything is part of nature. If we decide to call everything that is constructed by mankind as artificial and therefore in some way wrong, then maybe we should not have this conversation. Because language would also have to be classified as artificial.

This is really just a lot of hullabaloo about something that is not going to change in the near future. For as long as mankind has had the capability to use words he has also had the ability to twist them to suite the circumstances.
If people want to run around saying that they are this or that gender(out of the 300 that they claim exist) or even gender fluid that is their problem. I for one am just going to sit back and watch them. And maybe have a laugh at the same time. The only thing I am sad about is that I will not be around to see them deal with their off-springs, if they ever figure out how to have them.

*I know, some think animals have "souls" — ENOAH

Maybe you would like to come and tell my dog that I might have to have put to sleep next week that she does not have a soul. Or maybe your "diosyncratic way of defing" soul is different from mine.

This is interesting. Assuming that what I'm really getting it is that Nature is (ultimately) Real, and Mind is artificial (formerly Fictional) [this part I am not elaborating on at this moment]. In that case, then Mind is Super natural. But you don't mean supernatural in the conventional understanding. You mean "exterior to" Nature, right? And yet, throughout the history of metaphysics, and one of the things I grapple with, Mind has been associated with spirit or soul--for dualists, at least. — ENOAH

I think that the issue which arises from your op, is that ultimately it is the mind which decides what is good or bad, needed or not needed, morally or socially acceptable or not, and the judgement of "natural" need not be relevant to the judgement of "good". So a natural activity might be just as likely to be bad as an unnatural activity. For example, it's natural to pollute the environment, as creatures naturally dispense their waste in a convenient and efficient way. This occurs generation after generation, until the waste builds up to a point of being detrimental to the species. It's very clear that a judgement of "natural" is not an adequate indication as to whether the activity ought to be classed as good.

Since we cannot distinguish morally good from morally bad on the basis of a judgement of natural or artificial (fictional in your words), this is why I suggested something supernatural, as outside of those categories, to be the basis of such a judgement. I propose that the mind is supernatural, and here's the reason why I say this. Some would say that mind is natural being a part of a natural being, but as you can see from the discussion in this thread, it's really the case that the mind is what decides whether something is natural or not. So "natural" is actually just a category created by the mind. Because it is the mind which makes this category, along with its criteria and all similar judgements, we must allow that the mind is outside of this category which it is judging, in order to ensure that it makes a fair and unbiased judgement. So we need another category which is neither natural nor unnatural, to place the mind in, to make sure that the mind can make a fair and unbiased judgement about things, when placing them in these categories. This third category is supernatural.

The Body responds to certain natural drives which are tied to procreation. The soul, a thing, we think of as -unique to humans*-has displaced Body's procreation with its multifarious made-up forms. Some individual souls believe their made-up forms to be Natural to the Body, and accordingly "right." But they are the workings of the soul, supernatural, made-up. Their form has no better claim to natural than those of other souls. — ENOAH

According to the above, these multifarious forms which are property of the mind, are neither natural nor artificial, they are supernatural, as attributes of the supernatural mind. And, what the mind has learned is that natural/unnatural does not provide appropriate grounding for the required distinction between what ought to be sought, and what ought to be avoided, as explained above. So the mind uses a more appropriate distinction, good and bad. Further, I would propose that a judgement of truth or falsity is the principal tool for determining good or bad. This leaves the judgement of natural and unnatural as completely irrelevant to this issue, because the mind is dealing completely with forms which are supernatural, neither natural nor unnatural.

I think that the issue which arises from your op, is that ultimately it is the mind which decides what is good or bad, needed or not needed, morally or socially acceptable or not, and the judgement of "natural" need not be relevant to the judgement of "good". — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that is what I have been--apparently ineffectively--saying. That Mind decides what is good or bad; [that such a process is ultimately artificial--square bracketed because I almost dare not repeat that]; and that accordingly on issues like the one at hand, we have no business bring natural into the equation.

I never said that things were or were not artificial, I simple said that they were natural. Artificial things (artifacts) are made by natural beings out of natural material, could that be counted as — Sir2u

The Eiffel Tower is made of iron, this we know. But it appears to be something other than iron, right? Otherwise why call it the Eiffel? Why not just some Iron. If a Chimpanzee looks at it, she doesn't see Eiffel or Iron. Both in fact are "artificial" whatever that word means. In whichever way a hypothetical we, in mutual agreement define artificial, we see Eiffel as something other than what it "was" in Nature. If we can't agree on that, I'm either having a brain freeze or am just so inaccessible to the information you have, that I can't see why Eiffel is not other than iron.



So like I said, call that "other" artificial. My original point is that for humans now, and arguably since the dawn of culture, sexuality is something other than what it was in Nature. Even whatever we hypothetically agree is normative.

Therefore the normative are in no position to say "yes but our sexuality is what it was in Nature, yours isnt, therefore...and so on."

If it was just that last statement, we might be on the same page?

So the question is what do we mean by artificial? Or what does being artificial mean? Does it make the thing unnatural? No. You're right. It remains natural. And I've said that all along regarding sexuality--procreation, if that's what ee want to call it, for lack of a better word, was and remains Natural. But romance, marriage, condoms, and fetishes, etc. etc. etc. are not. They are other. They are artificial.

Or hetero-sexuality falsely thinks it has exclusive claim to the Natural, when it too is other than natural. While, yes, procreation--whatever you wish to mean by the natural sexuality--remains what it is, present and natural, hetero-sexuality is something other than that.


But, even if you say hetero-sexuality, is, by definition that: procreation or natural, at least if isolated from all of those things I listed which are incidental etc., that is, in essence, I still say "hetero-sexuality" whatever it is in its essence is, the instant we think or speak of it, a concept invented to serve a uniquely human function. It is still as other from what I'm calling procreation, as Eiffel is from Iron. And so "hetero-sexuality" has no justified claim to being Natural in its hypothetical opposition to other artificial human sexualities.

The physical act triggered by the Organic drives might be immutable. But to simplify it (at the risk of wandering away) all of the "associations" humans have with the word "sexuality," everything beyond organic stimulus/organic response, aren't these, to use Metaphysician Undercover term, "artificial"? — ENOAH

That may be true. It's not exactly clear what the lines in this distinction are, though. It seems probably to me that gay men, are, on average, more naturally feminine. Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense, and genetically, even more so. But, i am absolutely on board with this being something hard to prize apart from socially enforced (even to a benefit) behaviours supposedly associated with sexualities. Definitely.

As for "fight for rights" I don't follow. If you mean taking the position that non-normative sexuality must be "naturalized" to be accepted; that's the very thing I'm liberating. "Accepted," for an artificial existence, has proven many times over to be artificial. Why in this unique category do we insist on natural? — ENOAH

What i mean is that I would not have the zest I do for the right to express one's sexuality (though, apparently I'm on the outs with many others here who have the same zest... oddly enough...) responsibly (this might be the kicker :P ) If I thought sexualities were mutable, in the sense that one can adjust their sexuality somehow. I do not have any legal respect for people's personal choices of that kind. It is the immutability that, to my mind, requires the protection of fairly strong law. General protections from abuse and what not are sufficient for other types of lifestyle choices. It's not hate speech to call someone a POS for driving a Taurus :)

If a Chimpanzee looks at it, she doesn't see Eiffel or Iron. — ENOAH

If she looks at you she does not see ENOAH or human either.

Both in fact are "artificial" whatever that word means. — ENOAH

You are the one that is using "artificial", so I supposed you knew what it meant.

My original point is that for humans now, and arguably since the dawn of culture, sexuality is something other than what it was in Nature. Even whatever we hypothetically agree is normative. — ENOAH

I believe that if you think about it you will see that it is the words and their usage that has changed not what people do to each other. In nature there is no normative, nature does not need nor care to judge.You do the wrong thing and you die, simple as that. And if we use nature as the norm, then pretty much anything goes.

Therefore the normative are in no position to say "yes but our sexuality is what it was in Nature, yours isnt, therefore...and so on."

If it was just that last statement, we might be on the same page? — ENOAH

Here you appear to be saying that discrimination is wrong. You are correct because all types of tastes in sexual gratification are present form the dawn of humanity. None should be discriminated against unless what they want to do is harmful to others.

I think that if everyone just stopped talking about their "sexuality", (their personal taste for sexual indulgence) and just had sex without causing any harm, the would not need to worry about what gender they were.

It is all about the words used(unnatural socially constructed utterances used to indicate or communicate some idea) and nothing about what people do to make themselves happy. The only thing I would count as unnatural is harming others intentionally for ones own benefit.

A thought, what makes a plastic flower artificial? Is it the fact that it is made of plastic that is a man made substance or the fact that it only has the appearance of a flower without the feel and smell of a flower.
Is the form of petroleum called plastic unnatural because it does not appear in nature naturally, then so is life. Life is only a combination of materials from nature so we must be artificial also.

That Mind decides what is good or bad; [that such a process is ultimately artificial--square bracketed because I almost dare not repeat that]; and that accordingly on issues like the one at hand, we have no business bring natural into the equation. — ENOAH

The problem I am pointing to is that we cannot designate this, judging good and bad, as something "artificial". This is because artificial is contrasted with natural, and if human beings are natural beings, it may also be natural for them to make this type of judgement.

So what I am saying is that just like we have no business bringing "natural" into the equation, we also have no business bringing "artificial" into the equation, because we are talking about a type of judgement which transcends the judgement of natural or artificial. That's why I proposed "supernatural".

Most of the problems I have found in discussions on this topic seem to stem from the way people use words and the fact that the words themselves having so many ways to use them — Sir2u

I've learned a lot of valuable things to help guide my thinking from these posts.

None as compelling as your quote above.

I'll be more careful.

Thank you

Thank you — ENOAH

You are welcome. :wink: