(August 28, 2012 at 4:58 pm)Welsh cake Wrote: An automobile manufactured by humans, a dam constructed by beavers, a mound built up by termites are all just that, easily identifiable, and therefore unnatural. It is the end product of living organisms changing and manipulating their environment. None of them occur naturally.
Why does the association of the two terms bother you?
Two reasons. One is that most people do not define the term as you do and classify as natural anything not made by people. The second is that the term 'unnatural' carries negative connotations, often without a good reason.
Quote:Depends in what context you mean and apply "natural" in. Of course it has a meaning that we've ascribed to it, but the limits and square-bounds of these labels, including 'physical' are often vague and not well established. Hence why silly misnomers like "supernatural" exist to start with.
"Physical" is not a totally clear term, either, but I do think it is harder to confuse, and there is no negative/positive paradigm between "physical" and "non-physical".
