...
Spiderman:
Hmmm... well, first off, I'm not sure "nature" and "natural" can be used interchangeably. But to answer your question directly, of what is nature vs unnature (very weird word, by the way), thinking about it right now, I would have to say that pretty much everything is "nature" since they... exist. Whether they are "natural" is a slightly different matter... some things exist now that have been "artificially" made, such as clones. Something occurring in "nature" yet is not "normally expected", such as a mutation of a gene, could be considered unnatural simply because it's in the minority, but still "nature" because it did occur in the regular scheme of life. So I'm not sure if I came across clearly there, but I guess I'm trying to make a subtle distinction between "nature" and "natural". The latter is more perception, of what society has decided (which is most likely arbitrary
)
But as for the separation of genes and nature, the way you seem to be using them, genes are the foundation in one's self, what one possesses when they come into being. And you can look at such a gene under a microscope, say. Nature is how one develops in their environment, making use of those genes or building blocks (or not, in some cases), but cannot be "seen" or touched.
You say that the mutation of a gene can at least be viewed as "unnatural" since it's in the...
minoirity? Can we even make such logic? Pretaining to the notion that whatever the majority is, it necessarily means that
they are the rule and the "natual"? Does that begin to touch any sense of logic whatsoever?
Why is the the norm necessirly, or more likely, "natural"? Why is it not the other way around? Or yet, why is it necessary to make such a distancing distinction, to the extent that whatever
belongs to the majority and common practice must by that mass-accepatance and practice be natural? and everything else is merely...an accident, or an invention, or in any case unnatural?
Who are you, or who am I, to make such a precise judgements? without reason, I should add? Maybe out of fancy?
We should always be reminded that who we
are today, what we have become, must necessarily appear "unnatural" to someone from an eariler time, especially a presocratic era. But do you say that we are
unnatural today? That's quite absurd. We are of nature, and we are as natural as nature itself. We
have been of nature, and have always been natural. Even today, even the minority, the majority, all rules and exceptions, "errors" and "flaws," as you are willing to accept, are of nature. I add to it that they are also
natural.
You say some things as naturalness derives from the more probable and accurate expectancy
we can make - otherwise, in the cases where a thing is not "normally expected," it can rightly be declared unnatural. But were
we, as the human beings that we have
become today anything that can be expected or fathomed two-thousand years ago? Maybe so, but surely not by what was the average expectancy.
You'll find my flaw here is the use of the word "become." We have not
become - nature does not become. Life does not become. We
be, and we have been, and will always be what is
possible to being. What Nature endows is what we can be, and perhaps, what we will be. You or I have no control, not even a choice, not a single Yes or No in what we
can and cannot be. Our nature insofar has been from the very beginning seconds of existence of the type-being “man” or “to-be-man,” till this very moment – as for our “naturalness,” that’s a fancy, a judgment, or to reduce it completely, a mere opinion.
Unless you can state an ideal way of being to which other being can be viewed as an antithesis, a reprehension, an inferiority, and so make the call of “natural” and “unnatural,” you cannot use such language as "natural" and "unnatural" and still expect to be taken seriously, not on a profound level anyway.
Reason, science, philosophy, psychology,
mutation, retardation of life...are all symptoms of Nature and naturalness - are
instincts of how a life will
be. A retarding life form, a retarding humanity, as I view it, is instinctive and natural. I don't commit the error of mistaking cause for the effect: a life is degenerate, hence it is
sick and sickened...it is not sick and hence degenerate. No. It is being its nature: degenerate. It is feeling the side effects: sickness. Oh yes, science is an instinct, and not some objective reason. You have to have a certain type of being for science. And a world heralded by science while disregarding any other life-shaping and changing forces, is bound to mutate in any of many different ways, perhaps more quickly than it would otherwise. The “center of gravity” of our being shifts constantly with the shaping environment, and even more with the way
we shape our environment. It goes from
mutation, to
our mutation – our preference of mutation…and science enables preference of mutation. Not to say without cost! Oh, we pay dearly for our preferences and choosing – our
Nature overrules our science, Nature overrules all…science by itself cannot begin to hope to become the objective little creature that it always wished to be. Science adds to man what man prefers and “needs,” Nature laughs in return and
takes away from man to keep the eternal balance and type “man” in being. Science tries to
give to man, but Nature takes away and keep man a…man. I venture to be humorous a little, while making a point: supposing man wished for a third arm, eventually Nature will take away, say, a leg.
Now if we can say that homosexuality is unnatural, yet is genetic, then perhaps we should be able to find a certain preference or addition, or subtraction, whether voluntary or involuntary that man has made on behalf of his species, in order to have Nature
add to him the instinct of homosexuality, or subtract from him "something" so as to enable him to have such an instinct.
However, the tediousness and subtlety of such task is unspeakable. Where to look for? What to look for? Man has changed remarkably…so we stand where we stood in the beginning: if homosexuality is, as you claim, genetic, than we cannot figure out if it’s natural or unnatural – and so we revert to
our preference of “natural” and “unnatural.”
Did cavemen have the capacity to be homosexual?
(Now this is a late question, but Spiderman, are you sure homosexuality is genetic?)
