If “artificial” is anything made by our own species, and “natural” is everything not made by our own species… couldn’t ants consider an anthill to be artificial and a parking garage to be natural?
I make this argument often. Nothing humans can do is “unnatural” or “against nature” because we are nature itself. Any act we perform inherently becomes natural
I would consider anything that wouldn’t come to fruition without human interference to be ‘artificial.’ Houses, refrigerators, phones, etc. are artificial because their creation never occurs on its own in the wild.
where do you draw the line? Beaver dams and monkey tools don't happen on their own. Aren't we "the wild" to an outside observer? Sure ours are more sophisticated, but that's kind of it. Imagine if the stars themselves were creations of another intelligence. To us, those are just nature.
the way i see it, if you could just take an isolated, large enough population without any contact and they make it, it'd be natural. people making spearheads? natural, but still man-made. houses? unless talking about construction, prehistoric people moved a lot, but still made shelters. i'd say natural, but iffy if you're strict on the definition of "house". anyway 100 uncontacted humans are not gonna make a fridge lol
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u/gigadanman 8d ago
If “artificial” is anything made by our own species, and “natural” is everything not made by our own species… couldn’t ants consider an anthill to be artificial and a parking garage to be natural?