Political Crossfire Forums

[The Impeacher]

yeah, it's clear you dont understand anything i am saying, or for that matter what you are saying. try to respond in one post, without the ad hom's and character assasination from now on, thanks...

the "natural rights" are not wrote in stone, they are products of reason and consent and are AMMENDABLE.

secondarily, you seem to think man is not more than a salmon swimming upstream, which seems to conflict with the concept of the human ability to reason. a different animal, yes?

thirdly, it is the unique nature of man that provides that intrinsic "nature" of his labor, and thus the external world does not define our nature for us, WE DO.

give me an example of man's labor that is "natural," without you falling under the spell of your "arts." what i am saying, in your words, is that man's art is natural to him, and thus is the product of his art. art is labor.

alternately and directly stated, it's in man's nature to make man-made things!

Quote:

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

artificial
5 entries found for artificial.
To select an entry, click on it.

Main Entry: ar·ti·fi·cial
Pronunciation: "är-t&-'fi-sh&l
Function: adjective
1 : humanly contrived often on a natural model : MAN-MADE <an artificial limb> <artificial diamonds>
2 a : having existence in legal, economic, or political theory b : caused or produced by a human and especially social or political agency <an artificial price advantage> <artificial barriers of discrimination -- R. C. Weaver>
3 obsolete : ARTFUL, CUNNING
4 a : lacking in natural or spontaneous quality <an artificial smile> <an artificial excitement> b : IMITATION, SHAM <artificial flavor>
5 : based on differential morphological characters not necessarily indicative of natural relationships <an artificial key for plant identification>


http://www.webster.com/dictionary/artificial

[Cato]

Quote: . . . "natural rights" . . . are products of reason and consent and are AMMENDABLE.

Why would we want to ammended our 'natural rights'?

Quote: you seem to think man is not more than a salmon swimming upstream, which seems to conflict with the concept of the human ability to reason. a different animal, yes?

Why does man have reason, if not to survive?

Quote: it is the unique nature of man that provides that intrinsic "nature" of his labor, and thus the external world does not define our nature for us, WE DO.

Explain 'intrinsic nature of his labour'. Are you saying 'to labour is natural for man'?

Quote: give me an example of man's labor that is "natural," without you falling under the spell of your "arts." what i am saying, in your words, is that man's art is natural to him, and thus is the product of his art. art is labor.

Okay. So, I take a paintbrush, and I paint an impressionist piece of artwork. Now, my impressionist style, is that innate?

Let's look closer at your argument:

Quote: . . . art is natural to man, and thus is the product of man's art. art is labor.

Okay... So, art is natural to man, so man's art is produced by man's art... Therefore, art is labour... I don't understand. I don't think this makes any sense. Let's try again...

1. ART IS NATURAL TO MAN; I am a man, I therefore have art.

2. SO MAN'S ART IS PRODUCED BY MAN'S ART; I have art, so art is produced by my art. (What?!)

3. THEREFORE ART IS LABOUR; art is produced from me, so art is creating...

I'm really trying to understand, believed me, but I don't think you're making any sense.



Look at my argument:

1. art is man-made.

(Art is the way that we create; that is, the method, or technique by which we create; for instance, I am an impressionist (my art) painter, I paint impressionist artwork. I am not born with my impressionism, it is not innate within me. Since is it not innate within me, it is put there. Since it is put there, it was either put there by me, or by somebody else. Therefore, art is man-made.)

2. Since what I make is a product of my art (which is man-made), what I make is man-made (artificial).

[The Impeacher]

Cato wrote: Quote: . . . "natural rights" . . . are products of reason and consent and are AMMENDABLE.

Why would we want to ammended our 'natural rights'?

Quote: you seem to think man is not more than a salmon swimming upstream, which seems to conflict with the concept of the human ability to reason. a different animal, yes?

Why does man have reason, if not to survive?

Quote: it is the unique nature of man that provides that intrinsic "nature" of his labor, and thus the external world does not define our nature for us, WE DO.

Explain 'intrinsic nature of his labour'. Are you saying 'to labour is natural for man'?

Quote: give me an example of man's labor that is "natural," without you falling under the spell of your "arts." what i am saying, in your words, is that man's art is natural to him, and thus is the product of his art. art is labor.

Okay. So, I take a paintbrush, and I paint an impressionist piece of artwork. Now, my impressionist style, is that innate?

Let's look closer at your argument:

Quote: . . . art is natural to man, and thus is the product of man's art. art is labor.

Okay... So, art is natural to man, so man's art is produced by man's art... Therefore, art is labour... I don't understand. I don't think this makes any sense. Let's try again...

1. ART IS NATURAL TO MAN; I am a man, I therefore have art.

2. SO MAN'S ART IS PRODUCED BY MAN'S ART; I have art, so art is produced by my art. (What?!)

3. THEREFORE ART IS LABOUR; art is produced from me, so art is creating...

I'm really trying to understand, believed me, but I don't think you're making any sense.



Look at my argument:

1. art is man-made.

(Art is the way that we create; that is, the method, or technique by which we create; for instance, I am an impressionist (my art) painter, I paint impressionist artwork. I am not born with my impressionism, it is not innate within me. Since is it not innate within me, it is put there. Since it is put there, it was either put there by me, or by somebody else. Therefore, art is man-made.)

2. Since what I make is a product of my art (which is man-made), what I make is man-made (artificial).

and what is art without labor?
please, agriculture and the invention of tools is no less as powerful as any notion of "art".

art and the products of labor are BOTH man-made, and BOTH ARE NATURAL TO MAN.

and the point is not that reason exists as part of our survival, the point is the FISH is not reasoning about what to do, and thus MAN must be evaluated in terms of his innate "nature" and abilites relative to what makes him a UNIQUE animal!

how can man's natural ability to reason not alter the critieria for what it is NATURAL for him to do!? your reasoning is completely invalid and illogical.

further, that i still have to point out to you that natural rights are the product of reflection and reason and thus are only meaningful in a compact, could be debated and changed at any time, only points out that you have no understanding of what natural rights are...

[Cato]

Quote: art and the products of labor are BOTH man-made, and BOTH ARE NATURAL TO MAN.

What does 'natural to man' mean? Innate? or something else..?

[Roy L]

The Impeacher wrote: i am not dodging, you are uniformed and are a poor rhetoritican. "rhetorician"
Quote:
case in point, you have called out Locke, who is well known as being an Empircist, as for being a form of utilitarian. ?? He did no such thing.
Quote:
that's just nuts. i am done with you. :rofl: You're done, all right. Like dinner.

[The Impeacher]

Roy L wrote: The Impeacher wrote: i am not dodging, you are uniformed and are a poor rhetoritican. "rhetorician"
Quote:
case in point, you have called out Locke, who is well known as being an Empircist, as for being a form of utilitarian. ?? He did no such thing.
Quote:
that's just nuts. i am done with you. :rofl: You're done, all right. Like dinner.

shoo fly, dont bother me.

[The Impeacher]

Cato wrote: Quote: art and the products of labor are BOTH man-made, and BOTH ARE NATURAL TO MAN.

What does 'natural to man' mean? Innate? or something else..?

have you not ever heard of the concept of "human nature"?

[Cato]

Do you make a habit out of answering questions with questions? Please, respond appropriately. everybody seems to have their own definition of 'human nature' anyway.

[Roy L]

Cato wrote: everybody seems to have their own definition of 'human nature' anyway. Yes, the main problem here is that there are numerous competing definitions in play. In economics, it is crucial to distinguish the natural world from human beings and the products of their labor. In metaphysics, human beings may be considered either a divine creation separate from nature or just another part of nature.

On the question of natural rights, if one side says rights are a social construct, not part of nature, and the other side says human society is itself part of nature, just like chimpanzee societies, there is obviously a lack of communication. They are using the words in different senses, so they may sound like they are disagreeing, but are just talking about different things.

[The Impeacher]

Cato wrote: Do you make a habit out of answering questions with questions?

:lol: do you? :lol:

Quote: Please, respond appropriately. everybody seems to have their own definition of 'human nature' anyway.

yeah, rather liberal of those people...

when you can explain to me why it would be "natural" for man to not think, and to not act on those thoughts, i will then consider what it is in our nature to do.

until then....

[Cato]

Cato wrote: What does 'natural to man' mean? Innate? or something else..?

Answer the question, Impeacher... Or shall I take the rest of the argument upon myself, like Socrates in Gorgias?

[Cato]

Quote: On the question of natural rights, if one side says rights are a social construct, not part of nature, and the other side says human society is itself part of nature, just like chimpanzee societies, there is obviously a lack of communication.

Yes, but if somebody proposes that art is innate, I will take up issue with him. Is art intrinsic and natural, or is it extrinsic and acquired? Admit that it is extrinsic, and you admit that it is artificial. To argue that it is intrinsic is to argue that man has one art, one necessary impulse, like bees that build hives, and hives alone. Is this what evidence tells us? Or do man's arts evolve and change independently of his physical evolution?

[jawsome]

Cato wrote: Quote: On the question of natural rights, if one side says rights are a social construct, not part of nature, and the other side says human society is itself part of nature, just like chimpanzee societies, there is obviously a lack of communication.

Yes, but if somebody proposes that art is innate, I will take up issue with him. Is art intrinsic and natural, or is it extrinsic and acquired? Admit that it is extrinsic, and you admit that it is artificial. To argue that it is intrinsic is to argue that man has one art, one necessary impulse, like bees that build hives, and hives alone. Is this what evidence tells us? Or do man's arts evolve and change independently of his physical evolution?

I think it's easy to determine if it's instrinsic (I don't think it is) by noting that, whereas humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years, no forms of art were created until (relatively) recently.

[The Impeacher]

you are overlooking the development of the "environment" of man.

societies, which are not innate to any ONE person, become a determining aspect of the environment in evolution themselves. in this sense, even the simplist form of social interaction of "ancent humans" would have had the mechanism of social interaction playing a role in determining a reproductive or adaptive advantage. aka, human development.

in other words, art evolves just as anything else does - and has society and human interaction has evolved so has man's mind. the idea that "art" is only a recent appearance is, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely incorrect.

the same process that caused man to pick up a club, throw a rock, or hunt in groups is the same process of art - creation from abstraction and trial and error.

i am not aware of any human activity in anthropology that does show signs of "art."

can any of you point to a group that had no art, and is also still essentially a modern "homo sapien"?

to wit:
Quote: Like most primates, humans are by nature social. However, humans are particularly adept at utilizing systems of communication such as language for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex social structures composed of co-operating and competing groups, ranging in scale from nations to individual families, and social interaction between humans has established a variety of social norms, rituals, traditions, values, laws, and ethics which form the basis of human society. Humans also have an innate appreciation for beauty and aesthetics which, combined with the human desire for self-expression, has led to cultural innovations such as art, literature and music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens

Quote: Art, music and literature

Artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind, from early pre-historic art to contemporary art. Art is one of the most unusual aspects of human behavior and a key distinguishing feature of humans from other species.

and pray do tell... from whence did these "natural gifts" spring, if they were not the natural product of both our individual and our social evolution?

[Cato]

Quote: the idea that "art" is only a recent appearance is, to the best of my knowledge, absolutely incorrect.

I agree with you.

Man is a creature that naturally creates art. But arts themselves are not natural, that is, they are not innate. That I create art may be based on natural impulse, but is so far as that art is of the impressionist school, it is artificial. I'm not born an impressionist, nor do I naturally form into one. The style was created for me by my culture, and is acquired by me in life. If humanity creates it, it's human made, and therein artificial.

What is impressionism if not artificial? Hrmm?