Asklemmy

42525 readers

1027 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What’s the difference between natural and man made? (lemm.ee)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

57 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just something I was talking about with the wife this evening. She says that our house is not natural and used the phrase “out in nature”. But lots of animals build nests. And are we not animals just doing the same?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I’m not making a philosophical or physiological distinction.

I’m making a semantic and etymological one.

Nature, as its defined in the English language, is used to describe things that aren’t human creations.

Sometimes it’s used to describe things that, even if manipulated by humans, is distinct from an artificial, chemical or industrial process. Like “natural remedies”. Sometimes it’s just a marketing term, “natural flavors” in a soda brand.

Humans categorically can’t be nature - because we use the word “nature” specifically to distinguish our own creations from the rest of the world.

A human can choose to live in nature, meaning they’re living in a place that is plurality not man-made. An cabin in an unplanned forest, versus Midtown Manhattan. But even then, the human is the not-nature thing. They’re only surrounded by it.