WTF is "cold iron", and why's it so special?

[Benjamin Olson]

What foul necromancy is this I see! The arguments of gatorized seem a lot like those gator001 was arguing last year on the previous page of this very thread.

Is this thread to be cursed with some sort of "gator" based character emerging every year to pitch this "everything is natural" line of argument for all time? Is @Maxperson to forever be our gator wrestling champion?

 

[Maxperson]

What foul necromancy is this I see! The arguments of gatorized seem a lot like those gator001 was arguing last year on the previous page of this very thread.

Is this thread to be cursed with some sort of "gator" based character emerging every year to pitch this "everything is natural" line of argument for all time? Is @Maxperson to forever be our gator wrestling champion?

I need a new pair of boots!

 

[gatorized]

Ahh, you're one of those everything is natural and there's no such thing unnatural, despite unnatural things being a fact. That's about as useful as philosophers who think we can't know anything or can't know that we exist.

How do you know that unnatural things are a fact? What experiment would you perform to determine if a thing is natural or not?

 

[Maxperson]

How do you know that unnatural things are a fact? What experiment would you perform to determine if a thing is natural or not?

The word exists for a reason. Go look it up.

 

[gatorized]

The word exists for a reason. Go look it up.

Answer my question.

 

[Maxperson]

Answer my question.

I did. Go look up the word. It will explain it to you.

 

[Umbran]

You can't find skyscrapers in nature. You can't find cars in nature. You can't find steel knives in nature. Most of what we make and do isn't a part of nature.

So, with respect, the statement as presented assumes its own conclusion. You have implicitly defined nature as "not the work of humans", and then use that to show that the work of humans is not in nature - self referential logic, with no rhetorical value.

You need to define "nature" without referencing mankind, and then show that our actions are outside it for this to stick.

This is difficult. There are other animals that build things. Beavers build dams. Termites build mounds that, compared to their body size, are bigger than our skyscrapers are compared to us. There are animals that use tools, and teach their young to use them, and so on. We are just better at it than other animals on the planet.

Is the human race itself natural? Little else we do is natural, though.

So, again, this is a logic trap for you, because he knows you don't have a solid working definition of "natural" except, "that which exists without human intervention".

 

[Umbran]

I did. Go look up the word. It will explain it to you.

The dictionary, alas, has the same rhetorical issue you do. It doesn't define on base principle, but by reference. Using it in your argument becomes self-referential.

 

[Maxperson]

So, with respect, the statement as presented assumes its own conclusion. You have implicitly defined nature as "not the work of humans", and then use that to show that the work of humans is not in nature - self referential logic, with no rhetorical value.

You need to define "nature" without referencing mankind, and then show that our actions are outside it for this to stick.

This is difficult. There are other animals that build things. Beavers build dams. Termites build mounds that, compared to their body size, are bigger than our skyscrapers are compared to us. There are animals that use tools, and teach their young to use them, and so on. We are just better at it than other animals on the planet.



So, again, this is a logic trap for you, because he knows you don't have a solid working definition of "natural" except, "that which exists without human intervention".

When he was discussing this with me in his last incarnation a few pages ago, at some point I defined it for him. It was something to the effect of, "Occurring in nature without outside help." So termite mounds and beaver damns do not occur in nature as you won't find one that wasn't built by termites or beavers. Bees are natural. Beehives are not. Humans are natural. Clothing is not. And so on.

 

[Irlo]

The dictionary, alas, has the same rhetorical issue you do. It doesn't define on base principle, but by reference. Using it in your argument becomes self-referential.

Dictionaries don't define terms on principle. They document how words are used. A frequent usage of natural is indeed that which exists without human intervention. It's seems strange to suggest that we must come up with another definition that doesn't align with actual usage.