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Isn’t everything naturally occurring? It all originates from earth, where else would it come from?
by chasd00 2y ago
Isn’t everything naturally occurring? It all originates from earth, where else would it come from?
- sunnybeetroot 2y agoSolar power isn’t naturally occurring, originates from outside of earth.
- edf13 2y agoIt is naturally occurring though.
- sunnybeetroot 2y agoBut does it come from earth?
- throwuxiytayq 2y agoBut earth doesn’t come from earth. It comes from interstellar gasses formed from stellar nuclear fusion and afterwards emitted when the stars turn into supernovae.
- sunnybeetroot 2y agoThen earth isn’t naturally occurring I’m sorry
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoSome elements don’t occur naturally and need to be formed artificially / by force by smashing together atoms that would never smash together in nature (in some cases because those atoms in turn also don’t exist in nature).
- n4r9 2y agoI suspect chasd00 is making a pedantic point that the atoms are smashing together in nature. Because nature is just everything that happens. Although pedantic, it does challenge what we really mean when we say "natural". Just like what we mean when we say "chemicals". Everything is chemicals.
- nkrisc 2y ago> Everything is chemicals. No, not everything. Atoms, subatomic particles, light, electromagnetism, etc. are not chemicals. There are many things we experience in everyday life that are not chemicals.
- toast0 2y ago> Everything is chemicals. Free electrons and neutrons aren't chemicals. Free protons are Hydrogen ions though. With the exception of protons, isolated subatomic particle in general aren't chemicals.
- n4r9 2y agoNicely up-pedanted. Ultimately I meant that saying stuff like "I don't want food with chemicals in it" is sloppy, because food itself is made of chemicals.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoAs a presumptive juror I was once asked how I felt about "chemical evidence". I responded by arguing that pretty much all evidence is chemical evidence. I challenged the room to contradict me (which they could've, but nobody did). I ended up on the jury, so apparently this performance successfully masked my pro-defense bias. "Chemical evidence" turned out to mean measurements of pupil dilation as evidence of an inability to drive safely.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago“In nature” means “it would not happen if humans weren’t around”. So no, nature isn’t “everything that happens”. Calcium and californium atoms smashing together to form oganesson would never happen “in nature” without humans using a particle accelerator to drive the process.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sweezyjeezy 2y agoThey did specify "molecule". Certainly not every pharmaceutical occurs naturally, and other materials such as Teflon don't either.
- criddell 2y agoWe're part of nature and so everything we do is occurring there. Is the real distinction things that wouldn't exist without human intervention? So, like Teflon and plumcots wouldn't be natural but water and plutonium are. Things that aren't naturally occurring would be supernatural, no?
- lores 2y agoThat's the original meaning of "artificial", something that occurs through art or skill. Humans have always distinguished themselves from the rest of nature, it's part of that. It's not a useless distinction, but it breaks down when 'natural' is considered healthy or otherwise good, and 'artificial' unhealthy or otherwise bad, when that's a non-sequitur.
- sweezyjeezy 2y agoNow we're arguing semantics. "Naturally occuring" in English means not synthetically produced / found naturally in the environment outside of human influences.
- Willingham 2y agoThis makes since, but I do like the idea presented before you, that humans are natural, and our evolution is natural, therefor the things that we make are natural too. But then where do you draw the line? If an alien drops a new element on earth, would this then be not ‘natural’? Or is it impossible for anything to not be natural?
- pjerem 2y agoExcept the definition of natural is a human made concept which means "anything non-human made/consequence" ;)
- nkrisc 2y agoSuch a definition of “naturally occurring” is useless, and thus pointless to entertain. Besides, it doesn’t “all” originate from Earth. If you want to be really uselessly pedantic, nothing on Earth originated on Earth.
- genewitch 2y agoWhat percentage came from the sun and what percentage came from without the sun?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- timbit42 2y ago"The unnatural, that too is natural." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)