LogFAQs > #975609420

HaRRicH posted...

Is "creating plastic" the line here? Just trying to get a feel for when the human species began doing unnatural things.

Oh hardly, but the OP took a stance that it was all or nothing. I wanted to give an obvious example rather than something more questionable like "invented agriculture" or "created a code of laws." It's natural for humans to congregate into groups, but what they do in those groups is usually not. Tool use is not unique to humans, but forging those tools using metallurgical alloys not so much. One could also argue that this isn't limited to construction of objects, either. Humans are the only creature that hunts for sport. They fight wars. They do many things that you might be able to argue are a natural consequence of sentience, but I would argue that it's the sentience itself that leads to the divide between natural and man-made/artificial.

So if you want a line, I would say any act performed as a result of sentient thought rather than instinctual (or whatever it's called) is not "natural." That might be too harsh a stance, and I'm willing to shift it, but you seem to want a starting point, so here ya go.