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

[Maxperson]

A thing is natural if it is the result of natural processes. Humans are the result of natural processes, and so anything that is the result of humans is also a natural process.

You can either agree with this or explain when, why, and how a natural thing stops being natural. For example, is an iron atom selected at random natural? If it is, does a natural animal interacting with it cause it to stop being natural, even though the iron atom is unchanged? If so, why, and what is the mechanism which causes it to stop being natural? Also, given any iron atoms, how shall we distinguish between an unnatural and natural one? That is, what must be true about an unnatural iron atom, and what must not be true about it? What do we expect to observe, and not to observe? If these questions can't be answered, then the word "unnatural" fails to convey any information.

It stops being natural when it fails to occur all by itself in nature. If something requires humans to create it in order for it to exist, it's unnatural.

 

[gatorized]

This is not what is meant by unnatural, though. A car is made up of things found in nature. A car itself, though, will never be found occurring naturally. Hence it's an unnatural creation.

A car occurs naturally when humans make one. The natural process in this case is amino acids > proteins > cells > humans > car. (a lot left out for conciseness, of course.)

 

[gatorized]

It stops being natural when it fails to occur all by itself in nature. If something requires humans to create it in order for it to exist, it's unnatural.

Is an anthill or a beehive unnatural?

 

[Maxperson]

A car occurs naturally when humans make one. The natural process in this case is amino acids > proteins > cells > humans > car. (a lot left out for conciseness, of course.)

That's a load of philosophical BS, though. You wanted to know when the car stops being natural, and that's at the point where it doesn't occur in nature all by itself. That's how the world defines it outside of philosophy. You know the, practical, real world.

Amino acids occur in nature all by themselves. Proteins occur in nature all by themselves. Cells occur in nature all by themselves. Humans occur in nature all by themselves. A car doesn't. Full stop. It's unnatural.

 

[Maxperson]

Is an anthill or a beehive unnatural?

An anthill is just a pile of dirt. Piles of dirt are natural. A beehive is a construction and isn't natural. It can't occur in nature outside of being built by the bees or perhaps humans trying to make one.

 

[gatorized]

An anthill is just a pile of dirt. Piles of dirt are natural. A beehive is a construction and isn't natural. It can't occur in nature outside of being built by the bees or perhaps humans trying to make one.

Are bees natural?

 

[Maxperson]

Are bees natural?

Are your toenails natural?

 

[Umbran]

While you rightly criticize [MENTION=6966901]Mike R[/MENTION] for being unable to put down a particular philosophical lens when evaluating a fictional fantasy game, I have to muddy the waters a bit. The naturalism he is espousing has a very long pedigree in philosophy, with origins in Classical India and Greece. Both the Epicureans and the Stoics were naturalistic, making naturalism arguably the dominant view among thinkers in the West until Christianity changed the game.

Well, Stocism, at least, does not serve you here. "Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature," is a basic Stoic tenet. However, this admits that human will can be in *disagreement* with nature.

Similarly, with Epicurians, we have the idea that there are three kinds of desires: the natural and necessary, the natural but not necessary, and those that are neither natural or necessary. This, again, admits to humans having unnatural desires - there is something about humans that is not natural.

So, I say both of these early philosophies fall rather short of the idea that anything that humans do is natural, by definition. Rather, both accept that humans have issues when they step away from their natures - though they have *major* disagreements about what those natures are

In general, once we've hit the Christian era, we have the three major religions of Europe and the Middle East all claiming that humans, as created by the divine, have a special place in the universe, outside of the natural order. And, since the highest accomplishment of these cultures was iron, that iron becomes symbolic of mankind's special status. The Western World doesn't make major steps away from that until after Darwin, IMHO.

Yes, "cold iron" plays a prominent role in European folklore warding off fairies. But a nature-vs.-technology conflict does not satisfactorily explain why. Remember, too, that iron also supposedly wards off evil spirits, witches, bad luck, and so on.

Iron is seen as anti-magic at least as far back as Pliny the Elder, in the First Century, AD. We may note that it is during Pliny's life that the Romans come to the British Isles - bringing with them wealth and relatively advanced technology. The idea that iron and human works are inimical to the fae powers probably has a lot to do with Roman occupation of Britain. Romans were all about taming the lands around them - roads, aqueducts, and so on....

 

[Umbran]

T Humans occur in nature all by themselves. A car doesn't.

Um....

Humans only occur by action of humans. We do not spontaneously generate and spring forth from spoiled meat, or something - it requires human action to create a human. And even more human action to craft another human that talks and does mathematics and engineering...

Cars only occur by action of humans....

I agree with the general posit that there is a practical dividing line between natural occurrences and the actions of sentient beings. But this logic doesn't hit the mark.

 

[CapnZapp]

Stop feeding the troll.

It's a philosophical troll, but a troll nevertheless.

If he can't see that D&D cold iron is a pop-culture appropriation of an ancient mythical concept, he's either arguing in bad faith or genuinely new to role-playing.

Given his eloquent argumentation, I'm inclined to guess the former - hence the troll label. (It is at this stage a good-natured conversationalist removes his fake troll costume and says "You got me; yep, I was only trying to trigger y'all with philosophy. Ha ha. No harm, no foul."

If it is the latter, my apologies. Then my answer becomes: "Because. Next question?"