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What’s Natural ? What’s Artificial ? A discussion.

[So I saw this graphics with a related hype by some online company. And it spurred me in to have some thoughts . Do read it. It’s not a perfect PhD essay but just a stream of unedited thoughts, written down ..as I thought it. -mani ]

If a Beaver gathers twigs and builds a dam, it’s natural.. but if humans gather stone and make cement and use it to build a dam or a building …it’s Artificial? I asked this question at a social after one of the Halloween bash festival ..way back in 2000. What we call artificial is just a definition of anything man made.

Fact remains…humans are natural part of life.. we grew and evolved on Earth. And like a Beaver or a bird building nests.. with twigs and saliva to cement it, what tools and objects we find to create is..just part and product of our intelligence and evolution.

The only alarming consideration is ..that humans are affecting their environment much much more heavily and dare I say.. more destructively …than other creatures do on Earth.

If a monkey breaks a branch and plops it in mud and the branch then sprouts and grows as a new plant.. is that artificial or natural? Bees have been taking pollens and moving it from flower to flower.. Is that artificial?

So if humans then crate farms and paddy fields and grow crops.. is that artificial or natural..?

And then if humans gather some metal and elements and make circuits and put some electricity and make it do things.. (circuits and screens).. is that artificial?

The difference is the number of steps and complexity. Humans make tools and use it to make others tools.

But ultimately humans, born of earth, are just using their own naturally evolved intelligence, to make things.. just as other animals are doing.

And my startling statement since 2000+ has been, as uncomfortable as it is, what’s born of earth and using what’s found on earth .. is all natural part and evolution of life on Earth.

Now when we get metal from Mars and gas from Jupiter and minerals from asteroids …and start making things out of those ..we can call them Artificial. As that’s not born of Earth.

But that’s still all naturally found in the solar system.. and if we used rockets made of stuff from Earth .. to go get them to make things.. then how non natural is it for solar system as a whole?

It all boils down to a single egocentric self importance thought… Humans are special and anything they create is not natural but Artificial.

But is it?