well, firstly, i hate all biological determinism. i thinks mostly bs. theres somethings obviously that are genetic, but generally im a very big nurture over nature kind of person.
but more than that, i just hate it out of priciple. because why does it matter? if we arent born with a gendered soul, or the brain of the other sex or whatever else, then why does it matter? does that make the pain of dysphoria less real? does that make the treatment any different? i dont think so.
its like how i hate gays talking about homosexuality in nature. like cool, but it doesnt mean anything. if humans were the only species on the planet to practice homosexual relations, itd still be okay for gay people to exist.
we dont live natural lives, we are so much more complex than that. if someone isnt hurting another person, then thats all that should matter. the ones who hate us, who hate gay people, they dont care about appeals to nature. its just fighting them on their own terf and conceding to their arguments because they’ll never believe anything but their own reactionary world views anyway.
that’s still all arbitrary. it’s just environmental manipulation and adaptation, something all animals do—just not on the same scale. you still can’t call this transcending nature.
this just feels pedantic but i mean, sure ig? if youre going to define what is natural that broadly then sure, everything is natural. but then the word loses literally all meaning. we arent describing anything then
if you were just going to define nature as “not man-made” i would still have quibbles but i could accept it as a usable definition. but you said that humans were once bound by nature and now aren’t. so what is the delineation of natural and unnatural? why are bronze tools natural but hypodermic needles unnatural? like i get that this is kind of a pedantic “when does a hill become a mountain” thing but that’s what i’m getting at. that there is no meaningful way to define nature.
but again, then theres no meaningful way to define literally anything. all words and definitions are arbitrary. words dont have 100% factual, unarguable definitions. it just doesnt work that way. we made the words up, we get to define what they represent.
if something is natural just because it exists in the real world, then the word natural means nothing. the antonym of natural isnt virtual, its artificial. glasses do not occur in nature, they cannot exist without human intervention. bronze literally isnt natural either, its made by combining two different naturally occuring metals. there are no bronze deposits, and even if there were, they wouldnt form as hammers, weapons, hoes, etc.
theres gradients to all this. humans might not live completely unnatural lives, we still interact with the environment and world around us, but compared to every other species on the planet, our lives are definitely the most artificial.
agreed, but i’m not talking about language and semantics broadly—i’m specifically saying that nature cannot be defined. unless i missed it, i don’t think you’ve given your definition of natural, other than providing some examples, and i’ve yet to see nature defined in a way that doesn’t arbitrarily center humans.
that we know of; there’s nothing uniquely human required to synthesize them. theoretically, some alien species could come down and start making bronze or glass or whatever. or some other species on earth could evolve to do so.
and even if i were to concede that humans are somehow innately unnatural, where did humans come from? were the primates we evolved from also unnatural? humans are so deeply interconnected with everything else in nature that you can’t just remove them from the picture. we’re only biased towards humans because we are humans.
what? if aliens made bronze or glasses itd still be unnatural? isnt that obvious??? why is it so hard to understand that?
then what is your definition of natural?
i dont think youd be happy with any definition i could possibly come up with. because again, words are fluid and trying to assign strict definitions to them is a sisyphean task. i guess as a very rough idea id say it is things that occur without intelligent intervention. im not happy with that definition, but i dont want you to claim that im avoiding the question.
do computers, lightbulbs, etc. occur without complex intervention from an outside force manipulating materials? they work based on natural principles, but the objects themselves that utilize these those principles to function cannot exist just out of no where.
humans are natural. we occured (as far as were aware) without intervention. what ive been trying to say this whole time is that our lives, meaning our lived experiences, are so heavily defined by things that exist outside the bounds of what can occur without our influence.
human lives are not fully dictated by the whims of natural constraints. how is that not true? how is that so hard to understand? the existence of and our reliance on artificial materials is more than enough proof of that. yes, fine, we are still constrained by lifespans and reproduction, but even those proccesses have been artificially adapted and changed.
okay, i think i more see where you’re coming from, thank you. idk i still really dislike the natural vs. artificial framing and don’t think it’s generally a helpful way to view things. but then again i may just be insane/stupid. so apologies for dragging this on so long; i do realize i can be a difficult/annoying person and that my brain is kinda anomalous in how i conceptualize stuff.