There is a trend toward "natural" products. You've seen them touted as superior products to those products which are considered "unnatural." But what exactly do "natural" and "unnatural" mean?
From Wikipedia:
The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord.
Let's focus on a key aspect of the root of the word nature, specifically that the Greek word physis "related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals and other features of the world develop of their own accord." This demonstrates that ancient Greeks had already divided the world into two camps--the world that mankind created, with its culture and related artifacts, and the world not influenced by mankind. We recognize this divide today; when we walk through a forest, most would consider that forest to be natural, while walking through a city is a walk through a man-made landscape, therefore making a city an unnatural or artificial place.
In my previous post I touched on this issue regarding a picture of a fish swimming in an aluminum can. If we surveyed people, I'd expect most would call the fish a natural being, and the can would be a man-made artificial object. I also explained that the can was constructed of aluminum which is found in the crust of the Earth, and can be found in the soil under water. This raises the issue of human exceptionalism. At what point does a "natural" object turn into an "unnatural" object?
The human transformation of natural materials into tools has been going on for millennia. Bone, rock, obsidian, and wood are some of the earliest recognized examples of natural materials our ancestors turned into tools. At what stage in the tool production process has a natural material evolved into an "unnatural" tool? Obsidian must be flaked into an arrowhead; an arrowhead is clearly a tool. Laying about the ground in a manner uncovered by processes of erosion, obsidian in this state would probably be considered in its natural or innate state. Once picked up by a knapper, with the intention of turning the volcanic glass into an arrowhead, the obsidian is removed from this state of being. However without working the obsidian, anyone who held it might consider it to be a natural object (particularly if they had no knowledge that it could be used as a tool). Once worked and shaped into a recognizable arrowhead it is clearly no longer a natural object but a tool. How many strikes on the obsidian does it take for it to be recognized this way? What if the obsidian was found in nature in an arrowhead shape, and did not need to be worked? There are any number of ways to parse this example without coming to a universal answer.
How about wood, then? If found in a forest, a tree is clearly a natural object. Cut a limb from it, and that limb might be called unnatural. Make a tool out of it and its clearly not natural. What of limbs that fell of their own accord, due to weather or the heath of the tree? What if the tree was planted for the purpose of harvesting wood to make tools--is that tree no longer a natural object? There are similar issues of "naturalness" that arise with wood as well. Use a naturally occurring rock to pound a stake into the ground, or even crush another rock. That's clearly using a natural object as a tool, however once discarded and removed from the context of tool use, who else would know that the rock was ever used in an "unnatural" way? Given this, how can we be sure that things labelled as "natural" were not put to some unnatural use, and are therefore not a natural occurrence?
These rhetorical questions lead to this last point. Look around you, sitting in what is probably an unnatural structure, in the most understood use of the term. You could be in a house, a park, a library or classroom, surrounded by a structures that do not occur without human intervention. But look at the material these structures are made from--wood, stone, metals, glass, clay bricks, these materials all existed at one time in an innate state, free from the hand of man. We cobbled these materials to make the "unnatural" world around you right now, but did so with natural materials. When do these materials evolve into unnatural things?
This habit of adapting natural materials to suit particular needs is not solely a human trait. Think of beavers, who turn wood into homes. Think of ants, digging and burrowing into the ground and placing the excess around the entrance to their tunnels. Think of birds, who make nests of sticks, fibers, paper, even rocks, to suit their needs. Think of various apes who use twigs to pull termites out of their tunnels to eat, effectively using a natural object as a tool. How is what we do any different than what they do? Yet when we come upon an anthill, most would agree that the anthill is a natural structure, or a nest is a natural structure, simply because it was made by an animal. That is the key to human exceptionalism--that we are somehow different from the other creatures on the Earth, when clearly we are not.
When does aluminum go from being a natural object to an unnatural can? At what point in the arrowhead-making process is obsidian no longer a natural object? When, during the construction of your home, does your home become an unnatural object? Given the complexity of nailing down the precise moments when these things change from natural to unnatural, it is far easier to recognize the universal answer--they do not change into unnatural things. Never.
Why are we not as much a part of nature as anything else living on Earth? What makes us special? Science has revealed that very little in fact makes us different from animals, despite what we would like to think. A landscape of suburban homes may be considered pollution by some, but now we have to look at things differently. You are natural, and I am natural, and everything we do is natural, under this new concept.
Perhaps the most exceptional thing about us is how unexceptional we really are!
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