mechanicalism----when the mind identifies with its logical function to te sole exclusion of othe deeper forms of sensual experience this goes againt our nature because beliving in this ideology, we become more like mchines than natural organisms in relation with organic environment
Anything which doesn't come spontaneously to us. For which we have to be 'trained' and pressurised and prodded.
I don't think so. Especially the first sentence. Our nature is what comes spontaneously to us. (the second part is only an explanation, but is definitely not vague, if you don't want to understand, no one can make you understand.) Similarly, the general definition of what is natural is: Anything which happens spontaneously, by itself, is nature.
allright, I will test if it is obvious: Anyting that comes spontaneously to us: teaching to kill is normal? teaching to rape is normal? teaching to deceive is normal? teaching to lie is normal?
a. We're not talking about normal or abnormal here. We're talking about natural and unnatural. b. We humans have been so removed from our nature, that we don't always know what's spontaneous for us. To get to know what comes naturally to us, we will have to work through a maze of social influences, training and biases ingrained in us since childhood. Especially in the case of men, we are often unable to know what is 'natural' to us. Our emotions/ feelings are our connection with our nature. They tell us how we really feel. And men have lost the power to feel. That's part of social masculinity.
Budda1 seems to have a very valid point. It seems to me that the debate relating to the importance of genetic heritage and environment became an issue when those with political agendas tried to impose the concept that a new born infant is a blank slate on which environment writes. Budda1 is stating that such is not the case and I agree. There actually were those who claimed that with the proper environment practicaly anybody could be Einstein, Neils Bohr, Ted Williman or Michael Jordan. When these claims were made (in the early days of the civil rights movement), a controversy arose, which seems to crop up again and again. While there have always been fanatics on both sides of the genetic heritage versus environment controversy, I think there was a time when there was a consenus in the scientific community that genetic heritage established limits on the potential abilities of an individual and that environmental factors could have a profound effect on how close one came to the possible limits. This seems to me to be a very apt point of view supported by a lot of observational evidence. It is obvious that a disasterous environment can make a mental retard or a physical wreck out of anybody. It is obvious that a good environment has positive effects. There seems to be good reason to believe that the best possible environment cannot make a Michael Jordan or an Albert Einstein out of a person born without some very special genetic heritage. I think that liberal bias has emphasized the effects of a bad environment and overlooked the limitaitons imposed by genetic heritage. The fact that bad environment can ruin a person's potential does not imply the converse: That there is no limit to what can be accompliished by some perfect environment.
No, but nurture can either respect what nature has provided for and actually "nurture", or it can attack and be indifferent to what nature has given, and so not be so nuturous ( is that a word?) You can be raised in a manner that's actually consistent with your natural identity, or you could also be raised in the manner of your natural identity being something it's the object of your upbringing to thwart. However, whatever happens, it doesn't happen outside of what nature provides for, like all the natural consequences of making choices in conflict to one's actual nature. So nurture can't create something that's not there, or it can't create something from something that's not. It can only destroy or deny what's there if it's a refusal to respect it. What nurture can "create", which is not true to one's nature, is a misrepresentaion of oneself to oneself, from one's "Nurturers". In other words, you can be treated as if you are not what you are, and expected to accept it. The acceptance of oneself then as such is enforced, or "nurtured" by both disapproval/ punishments and indiffernece. One can be "nurtured" into a false self-image by the refusal of those whom one is dependant upon to emotionally or practically support a genuine self-image along with genuine self-interests. Nurture can create misidentifications of oneself, by providing the context for only misidentifications, where true identifications on principle are neither honored or taken seriously. It's like only one of your "selves" gets to "breath" and it's not the real one. So nuturing is only nurturing when that in fact is what it is. There is also what takes the place of nurturing and is destructive or negates one's nature, and that is the pretense of nurturing. For instance a parent can love a child for what that child is, or love an artifical idea of what that child is, so the child will have to satissfy that false notion of itself in order to recieve the parent's acceptance. So then love is a pretense, or the love of something not real, because it's only offered on the terms of the child's self-denial. For instance the child's expression of a real need may be met with coldness or disapproval, while when the child learns to avoid that reaction by supressing it's needs, that choice is met with warmth and approval. A child has to find some terms on which to have peace with it's parents. Those terms can either be realistic or unrealistic False nurturing aims to invert a child's natural inclinations.
Jumping off a roof? Ah, chewing on a rock? You'd break your teeth, so you could put that on your list of 'against my nature'. Slitting your wrists? People do that because they want to die. Again, slashing of the wrists, something that goes against one's nature, which is why it kills you. I mean people don't tickle themselves with a feather to commit suicide. There's a good reason. If nothing goes agasint your nature, then how do you explain pain? Or even how do you explain roadkill, if getting run over by a semi-truck doesn't "go against the nature" of the armadillo? What goes against your nature is whatever has some actual harmful consequence to you, something that causes you harm. You can be harmed because you have a nature. You could also be helped for the same reason. If nothing went against your nature, ther'd be no such thing as mistakes either. Or you could survive under water deprived of oxygen. There'd be no such thing as murderers, because there'd be no means of killing anyone, since even a machete to the head wouldn't go against anyone's nature.
I think what you say is true, but are men more removed from their nature than women, or are they each just as far removed from it in different ways? I personally think men and women each have just as much of a problem, albeit they each have different parts of it, like men are undersensitive and women are oversensitive. Men typically overstate their strengths while women tend to downplay theirs.
pain isn't going against your nature....pain informs you. imagine if you walked about bumping into thingsand didn't have pain so as to not do so. you'd be coverd in cuts, bruises, and worse emotional pain is't going against your nature. really, emotionalpain istelling us that things aren't right......what IS unnatural when then ths mechanilized culture tells you your emotional pain is a biological illness, and is diseased nd wrong and must be 'medicated' away so, mechalized ulture makes out our bodies are nothing but biologicl machines, and if they 'break down'--such as with emotional pain, then this means to them disease also very much disagree with Dinosaur's 'genetic heritage' theory too. tis idea of geneticism is the cornerstone of all forms of racism. it can then say certain pople are genetically superior and some genetically inferior. there is no proof whatsover for these assertions.
Hi, yeah. That's kinda my point. I didn't mean pain isn't natural. I meant pain is felt when something contravenes with your nature, so yes that informs you, as you say, to take a different course. It's my whole point: cuts and bruises and worse happen because there are things that go against are nature and so cause damage to it. Right. Pain, either physical or emotional, is a function of our natures. However, it has no function, no purpose, if nothing can hurt us, which I take "goes against our nature" to mean. I don't believe emotional pain is a biological illness at all.
I think both Dinosaur and Cross have brought up extremely valid points here, and have put things in a clearer perspective. And thank you Duendy for further elaborating. I think what you're saying pretty much gels with what Cross has said. So our pain is not 'unnatural' in itself but is a signal that something against our nature has taken place. I hope you guys will continue to add your knowledge/ views on this important topic here. Meanwhile, let me add another dimension to it (though not intending to stop the original discussion). Notwithstanding what has been said so far, there is a further complexity to the issue. When the environment of an organism is changed gradually (in the negative direction) for a long enough period --- through its numerous generations, the biology of the organism may itself undergo change, in order to cope with the hostile situation. This is called 'artificial selection'. And most definitely this evolution has negative side effects. I know of the following two evidences of this (and I remember them only vaguely, but I guess others would have known about them too): - As per a discovery channel programme on elephants in a particular region of Africa, Elephants have now started to be born without their tusks, because it has resulted in their large scale poaching for centuries. - As per a study reported by the media last year, Jews in America who migrated from Europe carry a particular genetic defect which was caused by socially restricting them into certain white collar jobs for centuries. (don't have much information) So things, after a heavy human intervention, now become a strange mix of 'natural' and what is apparently 'against nature'. What is for sure is that it is all negative.
Nature doesn't make statements of changes being negative or positive. That's just us. Indeed the distinction between natural and artificial selection is becoming more blurred because of our general impact on worldwide ecology, but I think we maybe should reserve the term artificial selection for desired changes in species. Your elephant example I would classify as natural selection. The yew example is an example of a genetic bottleneck or 'inbreeding'. The yewish population already had the mutation which restricted them. There was no change at that point. And therefore not an example of what you are referring to. The classic example of artificial selection for me is pigeons. If you don't know what the hell I am talking about you haven't read a certain book that changed the way we think about the world.
Of course. Nature has no language. We percieve them as negative and positive and term them as such. Just like nature doesn't distinguish between science and philosopy, we do. Do you have any examples of artificial selection which does not have side effects. Why would you do that? If you don't want to share what you've read, I'll have to reamin clueless.
