Saturday, October 29, 2016

Is Intent the Problem? How about scope?

As we scramble to find ways to distinguish artifacts that other forms of life create such as beaver damns or anthills, we search frantically for distinctions so we can say "Well, there's the difference!" This is actually a feeble minded attempt to maintain one's un-examined worldview rather than a serious attempt to understand the underlying issue. Nonetheless, it does crop up. So we must deal with it. 

We might try to forgive the creation of artifacts in nature by saying that even though things are created in nature that impact the environment of the species that created them, any bad things that happen were not intentional. The were just by products of the species' attempt to survive. So, for example, when a mutating virus creates a virile new copy of itself that wipes out a population, we might say that it didn't really mean any harm. Or when a beaver builds a dam that floods a field near the dam, they didn't do it just to be mean.

 But, if intent is the distinction, then it doesn't get us anywhere. When the automobile was invented, for example, nobody said "let's invent and then mass produce an internal combustion engine that uses fossil fuels and see if we can heat up the planet". I feel fairly confident, that this outcome never occurred to anyone. And, nobody is saying now, "let's burn as much fossil fuel as we can and see how hot we can make it". Granted that there are some unfortunate side effects of the things we do. But, to suggest intent is to way overstate the case.

Even the characterization of "unfortunate" is a matter of perspective. If you were part of the next species waiting to dominate the planet once the humans had driven themselves into extinction, your might find some of these side effects to be very promising. And, as you saw repeated attempts by humans to prevent or postpone their extinction, you might think - "How selfish!"

If intent doesn't get us anywhere in making distinctions between the things that humans do which we call artificial and the similar things that other life forms do, then maybe we can think of it as a difference in scale rather than a difference in kind. After all, a beaver damn is not going to flood the planet or cause the sea levels to rise. And an anthill is unlikely to destroy other species. But, is it really true that only humans can do real damage? Aren't don't locust plagues create devastation on a very large scale. How about army ants that eat everything in their path. Or what about mutating viruses, such as the flu, which routinely (in geological time) wipe out other species.

Let's say that the planet heats up causing the sea levels to rise until it creates a massive extinction event. What happens next? Well, new species will arise and life will go on just as it has done in any number similar events of varying magnitude to life on this planet since life first came to the planet. Granted there might be a few less humans.  And their beach front properties aren't worth a dime any more. But, in the cosmological scheme of things, it is business as usual. So, even the attribute of scale will not give us a meaningful distinction.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Are Anthills Artificial?

After challenging notions of what is natural, let's turn around and look at it another way and ask - what is artificial? Most people would be comfortable saying that cars, airplanes, factories, cities and the like are artificial. When questioned as to why, they would probably mutter something like - they are man made. They don't occur in nature. We already have a problem with that, though, because it is very unclear what nature is, let alone what occurs in it. But, for the sake of argument, let's assume that we all know what nature is and what occurs in it.

Is this a fair assumption? If we got rid of cars, airplanes, factories, cities and so forth, would the world be free free from artifacts? Don't animals create artifacts as well? What about anthills, beaver dams, bird nests, bee hives, hornet nests, termite mounds and so on? Aren't they artifacts as well? And don't they occur in nature?

As one scrambles for a defense on this point, they might try to make a distinction between human and animal artifacts by saying that these examples are all of animals creating homes and their creation of homes is not dangerous to the environments in which they live. But, this does not hold up under inspection. Beaver dams, for example, can cause flooding. And insects are inclined to defend their homes with may cause damage to intruders. To be fair, one must recognize that there is a difference of scale in the impacts of human and animal artifacts. But, a difference in scale is not a difference in kind. 

Pushing this point a little further, it isn't just animals creating homes that we need to worry about. Animals, indeed all life forms, create new copies of themselves. And those new copies may introduce new problems. Mutating viruses, for example, provide a constant threat of a pandemic. And, further up the complexity chain, all animals are in a constant state of evolution. As they make new copies of themselves with new evolutionary advantages, these new creations present increasingly greater threats to the environments in which they live.

So, this notion that artifacts do not occur in nature is misguided and simple minded. We need to look further than the natural vs. artificial distinction to get to the root of the problem.