1. Most basically, desire for survival is natural --few will debate that-- as is breathing, eating, sex, going toward pleasure and from pain, and caring for the young. We can be assured of this by the observation of other, simpler animals, less modified by culture. Also, we can feel assured by our high interest in seeming exceptions--in other animals--to the rules we seem to have.

   That brings up another caveat. We must still be cautious; the other apes have cultures too, so there is a matter of degree here. Separated twins are much alike. Just as all humans are related, we do & feel things alike. (No, "think" is different.) So too, we are related to other primates, & yes, all other life on Earth. The other ape species have told us (thru sign-language) enough to know that they have feelings much like ours--as well as DNA. Some scientists are ready to change our denotation to "Pan Sapiens".

   They, as we, are somewhat changed from their pure nature by their culture. Even birds do not behave entirely by instinct, and we'd like to know if insects do.

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2. Second: nature demands maximum procreation of all species.

   That's part of the method of balance--to make up for all the creatures eaten by Lions and Tigers and Bears. (Oh, No!) To enforce nature's reproductive "demand", she's made it very very pleasurable to try to procreate. (Thanks, nature!) It makes a straight connection with the pleasure center of our brains. The pleasure helps get the job done. This seems especially true in us mammals, mostly apes, and most of all in the Homo Sapiens and Bonobo varieties.

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3. Pleasure is a universal good; it would be perverse to go against such an obvious "design" of nature. (But be careful of what seems obvious! That, e.g., the sun moves around the flat Earth.)

   However, in the recent and present circumstances, unlimited procreation of humans is an obvious evil; our brain --whether you believe it God-given or not-- can easily see that it would be perverse and counter-productive to go against the dire consequences of over-population. ...unless you'd prefer to return our predators to their former power over us.

   (If you believe that God designed our body, then that body includes the brain. He no doubt thought that giving you that brain took care of us overdoing that "be fruitful" phrase. If we assume His omniscience and goodness, then He obviously didn't mean to let us destroy the Earth with it!)

   Yet, some people do commit maximum procreation, in ignorance of the evil. They avoid looking at consequences. They believe what they want to be true, in order to deny the damage they cause.

   Incredibly, some people even avoid the ah... procreative-type pleasure, in spite of their normal human nature. The weirdest of them are guilty of both. They procreate to an evil extent, and at the same time, are against the associated pleasure that is their natural birthright. This is the crime against nature, and is most often committed by the people who exclaim loudest about actions against their strange conceptions of nature.

   Today, cars and cigarettes have taken the place of lions, but in spite of their best "efforts", they cannot do enough to keep the number of humans in a natural balance. Apparently, our population is going to expand until pandemic diseases become the means to bring our rampant expansion under control. Unfortunately, it will be too late for the millions of other species that went extinct under our teeming feet.

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4. Other than man's wholesale slaughter, death is part of nature. Is there anything other than a death by natural cause? All causes are in the flow of things happening. What our culture means by "natural cause" is that one of our vital organs quit. For other animals, isn't a cheetah catching an antelope... a death by a natural cause? It is time to re-examine and redefine the assumptions of our language, and the connotations of commonly-used phrases.

   Here's the hard part. When we say we love nature, we can't separate it, and mean just sunsets and beautiful vistas from the mountaintop. Not just colorful birds on the wing. We must love also--and equally--the part of nature that is red in tooth and claw. The balance of nature includes also... the predator-prey ratio... that one creature feeds another by its death at the point of that creature's deadly weapons.

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5. Is nature "red in tooth and claw"? Sure. "Where there is something to eat, there will be something to eat it." This is a law of nature. Some of those things to eat are living animals; so they will be killed for food. But while nature provides for you (& all other life), it also provides of you. Think mosquitoes and bacteria!

   Part of the historic drive away from nature was to get away from the predatory aspects of it. Humans were once common prey for larger animals (& much smaller ones), and we can forgive primitive people for killing off their predators as much as they could. It was a life-and-death situation.

   Today, no species kills more other animals than humans. No other animal kills to eat more than we do. We even raise them in great numbers, for the express purpose of killing them. No other species kills more by accident, or peripherally to his activities. And, lamentably, none kills more for "fun". That aspect of a few of us is not natural, because, if done by all our present over-population, it would extinguish all life on Earth, including ourselves.

   It doesn't sound so dramatic, but many more teeth are green (herbivore) than red, and they feed on other life too. Each creature of the Earth represents Gaia like one note represents a Beethoven symphony. The study of just humans or just one other animal would tell a visiting ET-biologist very little about the intricate and vast set of interrelationships that is Gaia. Could you hear one note of a symphony, from one instrument, and give an opinion?

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6. Is clothing natural? What is that power a clothed person feels over an unclothed one? Perhaps: less vulnerability. More protection. Yet, to be civil/civilized (as we commonly take the word to mean) is the opposite of need for personal power. Does this mean that clothing is for the uncivilized?!

   Obviously, we're not born with clothing. It was not physically necessary in the warm climate where we first evolved, and could've stayed. Therefore, it is not natural, but it is a beneficial adaption when warmth or some other physical protection is necessary. To avoid the discomfort of cold is natural. It is not natural when mere hiding of the body is in mind. That's ego.

   Obviously, shame isn't natural. So... a compromise is necessary. Use clothing for physical protection; against the extremes of environment and society.

   The protection afforded by furs, hides, and fabrics, was later modified by ego: the fear of loss of a mate because another possible mate was visibly more attractive. Clothing was also amplified by the seemingly-natural desire for style.

   It then became an area for the competitive natural-selection show, like a peacock tail. Before clothing, the skin was the focus of adornment, and, perhaps, of competitive show. Likely, this is the biological basis of "style". The more stylish of our ancestors "showed" better, and had better success with the other sex--more often and at a younger age. That equals more reproduction of those stylish few, and becomes a factor in their evolution.

   If we all but ignore skin now, what about beards and long hair and our nails? Don't we even purposely defeat their existence and/or their "natural" length? To be natural, are we never ever to cut them? On some things, a compromise with nature seems unavoidable. Or maybe nails would wear away at just the right rate; and each hair follicle does quit every so often, and let the hair fall out. (It starts again, after a rest.) Hair would be a short blanket of "removable fur", to tie back or drape over us --it made primitive man more adaptable to temperature extremes. Then we found we could drape/remove some other animal's fur!

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7. I think it safe to say that we all want to be known; to be understood. Yet, ego and fear too easily override basic desire.

   Communication is not limited to thoughts, but best includes the other half... feelings. It's a universal need to be near someone you love, and to want --sometimes-- to show your feelings. It brings us closer. To hug, caress, slap on the back. Babies without skin-contact die; and in experiments, young monkeys without contact went "insane" (Harlow). Therefore, communication is natural.

   Most communication is nonverbal. It used to be 100% of it. But our current cultural inertia still tells us not to touch. There are at least two main reasons we give for this. (A reason and an excuse.)

   One: bugs; literal bugs, micro-insects. Diseases from littler, figurative bugs: bacteria, parameciums, and viruses. This one is a reason, not just an excuse. It may sometimes be physically unhealthy to touch, even tho it is psychologically healthy to. (This is a double bind, of which my favorite example is: "Support Ship to deep-sea diver... surface at once. The ship is sinking!")

   The second "reason": paranoia; that a contact means more than simple niceness. This example is just an excuse for not working through our cultural baggage. It's heard generally as: "What'll they think?" ("S/he's easy. I'll tell all my friends." On the other hand: "This means we're together forever, whether he/she says it out loud or not." etc.) Fear of being known. To be known, or even partially-known, causes some people "trouble". Ergo: a tendency toward non-communication.

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8. How long is a natural life? Is old age natural? Our life-span used to be half what it is now, but that's due to science; we haven't evolved that fast. Animals that aren't capable of surviving well... don't pass on their maladaptive traits to another generation. Predators test animals on their adaption --or rather, their forebear's adaption-- and those animals survive till they can reproduce... or, they don't survive and don't reproduce. The remaining prey runs faster, or sneaks away better, than the previous average. Then the slower predators go hungry and starve till their average is faster, or their sneakiness (Camouflage, stalking ability) improves.

   The evolutionary pressure is toward the survival of the fit... but only till we pass our age of reproduction. What traits work toward survival get passed on. The environment changes, making some no longer fit; they die out, and the traits of different individuals get passed on. Creatures who happen to have the least adaptive traits don't survive to pass on any traits at all. Obviously, evolution --change-- is continuous.

   But, on the personal level --after childbearing years-- then what? We're evolutionary leftovers. Evolution is done with us, individually. Doesn't care. Let me explain.

   We are healthy only to a certain age, and fertility stops then. Only the people able to bear children in healthy old age would pass on those characteristics to their next generation. This includes those traits that might help us survive to that healthy old age. Kind of a circular argument. (One that science might someday break!)

   To put it another way, there's no environmental effect that would cause us to evolve toward healthy old age. If we stop our reproduction at a time when we begin to lose our physical abilities, then there is no way to carry an evolutionary effect past that age. (Yes, males can reproduce at an older age, and this does carry the effect --for both genders of offspring-- into a somewhat older age than would be the case for women alone.)

   Therefore, extended old age --as we know it today-- is not natural. That's not to say it's wrong for us to try for it!

   But wait. Are there factors that work to the advantage of creatures after their childbearing years? None, for all creatures except the primates and, to a lesser degree, all other social mammals. Foremost among the primates in longevity is man. Why? The invention of society. Besides our recent advances in science, society is the factor that gets us so far past our reproductive "usefulness". It is the way we get evolved toward a longer life.

   Here's how: it's useful to the survival of the young to their own childbearing years that older people --Gramma and Grampa-- help with their education, defense and feeding. Small primitive societies prospered better whose older folks lived longer and healthier. Societies that didn't have so many grandparents didn't survive quite as well, and tended to die out, leaving the other societies. That made a feedback system that tended to evolve the human form somewhat toward one of elderly health. Therefore, society is in that way, for one, beneficial.

   From the observation of other primates, it seems that society, on several levels --mate to tribe/city to nation to world-- is natural, as well. Primates, at least, seem to have a need for contact, as we saw concerning babies, above. Raised without intimate personal contact, monkeys show pronounced neurotic tendencies, and it's thought that we do too. I suspect that rarely-touched infants grow up to be out of psychological contact in some way; liars, psychopaths, serial killers.

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9. I must throw in a thought that fascinates me. What are natural dreams? For the "civilized", how does the construction of movies and TV affect the construction of our dreams? Movies change their point of view; they shift timing and sequence. Do we construct our dreams in that fashion, or did the original movie directors follow the example of our natural dreams?

   For an experiment: (Here, we will mean people who never saw a movie or tv) Are the dreams of primitive people exclusively from a first-person view? (i.e., as would be seen by that person's eyes, as one would experience in daily life. Or can they observe their own faces and bodies from other viewpoints?) Is it real time, or can they skip along? I've never heard, but I would love to know.

   A book, too, would influence dream-style, but differently. A book seems to change "camera angle" very seldom, and dictate the picture less.

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10. You may have noticed that I've put the word "civilized" in quotes, like that, and qualified it with something in parentheses. I wonder, here, if to be civilized is natural! I think so, in spite of the common practice that takes civilization to mean obvious progress. Perhaps this is too picky, but "civil" means "city". To be civilized is to be "citified", and the farther into a city you get, the farther you are from nature. Those in the biggest cities see almost nothing of nature, and might (almost) be forgiven for caring less, and understanding less about it.

    Perhaps we could use the terms "naturalized" and "socialized" instead of "civilized".

    However, I'd like to keep the technology, thank you. There are many things I want not to give up, from penicillin to computers. I see no reason to give up hi-tech for the contact with nature. Wasteful technologies are usually those that are nascent, like vacuum-tube TVs, and what we need in those cases is more technology, not less. We can live close to nature and still have hi-tech. Communication satellites can beam right thru redwood trees.

What else do you wonder is natural or not? Write to me (or post on the Yahoo Club) with your thoughts, questions and/or answers. Please be concise.

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