***MAY TRIGGER*** What is normal/natural?

Hi all,

First of all I'd like to emphasise clearly that this thread will attract a variety of opinions, many of which will be at odds with one another. Some of the opinions expressed may serve to 'trigger' individuals. As such, if you feel you might be triggered by any aspect of such a discussion (which is intended to be theoretical but will no doubt spill over into what people feel) then please respect the ***MAY TRIGGER*** warning and feel free to browse other topics elsewhere.

Disclaimer aside, let the discussion commence.

Natural
This term is often used in a variety of senses, and is often used casually to mean normal (normative thinking) or right (moral thinking). I use it in a much narrower sense to mean that which occurs in nature. And as I am of the opinion that humankind is not separate from nature (i.e. not extranatural, supernatural, etc.), I believe that anything that occurs in humans (including all varieties of sexuality) is natural. To say otherwise is to either posit that humankind is outside of nature in some way or to conflate the term natural with such terms as normal or right.

Normal
Again, in practice and common parlance this term is used variously, being frequently conflated with right (moral thinking) or frequent/commonplace (as in the statement 'it's not normal to sleep during the day'). It also implies norms or standards, which may be explicit or ideological. These norms could be cultural, moral, dictated by a religious code, dictated by a legal code, specific to a particular community, etc. I believe to say something is normal or not normal is impossible without an appeal to a norm (be this appeal explicit or implicit). Working out what a person means by 'normal' or 'abnormal/not normal' is a question of uncovering the normative framework from which they are operating. And as I believe these are relativistic, I don't believe the terms 'normal' or 'abnormal/not normal' make sense without qualification from such a framework. To take an example:

A: 'Homosexuality isn't normal.'
B 'Why do you think that?'
A: 'Because it's just wrong.' (Conflation of normative thinking with moral thinking.)
B: 'Based on what?'
A: 'I don't like the idea of two men together.' (Based on a norm created by one's own tastes and desires.) Or:
A: 'The Bible says so.' (Based on a norm founded in a relgious code.) Or:
A: 'It's not natural.' (Conflation of natural with normal - see above.)

So, hopefully that'll get some discussion going.

I would have replied sooner, but you're so eloquent, GinaSmith, that I had to re-read this a good two or three times. This is meant to be a compliment, by the way! Your posts often expand my vocabulary, that's for sure.

What you're expressing about the words normal and natural comes off as very similar to how I feel on the words. In many debates and conversations, such as the one on homosexuality you exampled, the terms come hand-in-hand, or it's hard to make a statement concerning one without the other being somehow illuminated or involved.

GinaSmith wrote:I use it in a much narrower sense to mean that which occurs in nature. And as I am of the opinion that humankind is not separate from nature (i.e. not extranatural, supernatural, etc.), I believe that anything that occurs in humans (including all varieties of sexuality) is natural. To say otherwise is to either posit that humankind is outside of nature in some way or to conflate the term natural with such terms as normal or right.

A sound way to think of it. I like the usage of “natural” in a narrow sense, as it sticks more to the one of the actual definitions, or - “existing in or caused by nature.”

This topic causes me to recall when I came out to my mother. I told her I was bisexual (at the time I thought I might be bi, but I’ve discovered since then that I’m actually homosexual/pedosexual about 99.99%). She responded with something like, “The bible says it’s wrong.”

Another woman, knowing of my sexuality and that I was against attending the church services my parents essentially forced me to go to, asked me one day, “How does it feel knowing that you’re going to hell?” I can’t remember what I responded with - I was still a child.

My mother, thank goodness, has since then changed her own views and beliefs on the matter and now fully accepts my homosexuality. I don’t remember what happened with the other woman, or where her beliefs now lie. What I’ve grown to know from these events, though, is how much outside sources (such as religion) can shape and form people’s beliefs of what is “natural.” Why not simply take it for what it is, in it’s rawest, truest form? “Existing or caused by nature”....

The term “normal” gets a little more complicated, I believe. When considering if something is normal/abnormal, I usually present the question, “Normal for what?” or “Abnormal for what?”

Eating raw meat may be normal for some individuals, yet it may be abnormal for others. I used to see eating raw fish as dangerous and abnormal for humans, yet I tried some sushi one day, loved it, tried some more the next week, loved it, and never got sick or anything, so it became “normal” for me to eat raw fish.

Almost daily I hear the terms “normal” and “natural” being thrown about without consideration for what they truly mean in the context they’re being used. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mind, yet it’s growing into a learning experience, as I sometimes envision scenarios where I confront the people (sometimes strangers I overhear) about what they’re really saying.

When considering my pedosexuality, I obviously prefer the more bare usage of “natural.” So it’s obviously natural for me in my eyes. Why? It’s naturally occurring within nature (me in this case) without any influence of outside sources that I’m aware of. Also, it’s something I discovered about the same time as my homosexuality, is just as strong as my homosexual attraction to adolescents and adult men, and has lasted for multiple years.

If my homosexuality is natural, then I consider my pedosexuality natural for the simple reason that they’re both occurring within my psychology/biology without outside influence, and because of they’ve both arrived at the same time and have been running strong since. Even if they hadn’t “arrived” at the same time, I suppose I’d still consider them both normal. I just find it more than a coincidence that I realized them both very close together versus years apart.

Hopefully some of this is making sense to anyone reading. I’m sleepy. :]

A very interesting interpretation, encephalo. Thanks for the compliment, btw. If I do possess a smattering of eloquence it's like the well-dressed window of an antique shop that harbours a tremendous amount of clutter inside the shop.

encephalo wrote:Almost daily I hear the terms “normal” and “natural” being thrown about without consideration for what they truly mean in the context they’re being used.

I think that's what I'm getting at. One has to exhume the assumptions underlying the usage of these terms in order to ascertain what one's interlocutor's position really is.

encephalo wrote:[I]t’s obviously natural for me in my eyes. Why? It’s naturally occurring within nature (me in this case) without any influence of outside sources that I’m aware of. [...] they’re both occurring within my psychology/biology without outside influence,

The question that raises itself is: outside of what? Nature? And if so, how? (Actually that's more than one question. Doh!)

To the list of normative frameworks in my original post I'd like to add the medical. Medicine is the science of the human body (and as I don't subscribe to a mind/body dualism, I intend this in its totality) and what can go wrong with it. Already inherent in that is something of a normative dichotomy between normal and abnormal. I'm not saying that's wrong - certainly not in clear-cut cases such as when a pathogen attacks an organ, for example. But when it comes to things like sexuality we have to ask who is deciding what is normal and abnormal, and what are they basing their assumptions on?

This is why the authors of the DSM find it so hard to set up universal diagnostic criteria for such things as paraphilias, resorting to the rather unsatisfying criteria: 1) must cause distress to the individual; and/or 2) must result in a danger or threat to others or oneself. With regard to the former, is it not the distress or anxiety itself that is the problem? I mean, to draw an analogy, if a teenager is suffering from depression because they having a hard time coming to terms with their (teleiophilic) homosexuality, would the DSM classify the homosexuality as the illness or the depression arising therefrom? And if it used to be the case that the homosexuality was considered the illness, what has changed? With regard to point two, is this not confusing effect with cause, à la post hoc ergo propter hoc? If a male heterosexual teleiophile is a danger to women (may rape them), we wouldn't consider his heterosexual teleiophilia to be the problem.

I would like to recommend that you read the short story "When three worlds collide".

I intend to use some of the issues brought up in that story, to underline a point.

Interesting story there, Alevi. I'll read some of it when I get the chance.

Btw, did you have that link approved? ( )

encephalo wrote:Btw, did you have that link approved?

It's a sci-fi story, not "links to material that discusses paraphilias".

Why, did:

About lesswrong.com wrote:About Less Wrong

Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how human brains think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use the latest insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.
...
Less Wrong is associated with the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and the Singularity Institute, where Yudkowsky is a senior researcher.

, make you sceptical?

Lol, oh Alevi, you so silly. I was trying to indicate sarcasm with the winky smiley. Did that come through? I just find the fact that we have to have links here approved sort of comical in one light, but reasonable and necessary in another.

But yeah, I can see how that the paragraph or so in your quote from the site would arouse some worry/suspicion. Just looking out for ya, buddy! I really do like the site, though. Love things like this that expand my mind's reaches.

GinaSmith wrote:...I believe that anything that occurs in humans (including all varieties of sexuality) is natural. To say otherwise is to either posit that humankind is outside of nature in some way or to conflate the term natural with such terms as normal or right.

This is wrong.

The definition of "natural" is missing.

"That-which-is", isn't going to cut it as it is a NULL definition.

To put it differently, I'm ignostic to the issue of "god".

Ignosticism wrote:The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless.

EDIT: To further explain, "A theory [Here: definition] which cannot be tested, is not even wrong".

And to give another example of how the definition of "nature" breaks down, besides humans being tool-users and shaping our own nature, take genetic adapters like, gee, the other, OTHER endurance hunter which we coincidentally shaped to become a part of Our Natural World At Present: The Wolf.

Also known as dogs.

BTW a good tune / non-verbal film to listen to / watch whilst pondering deep, upheaving issues as these: Qatsi Triology, Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, "Primacy of Number".

GinaSmith wrote:

encephalo wrote:[I]t’s obviously natural for me in my eyes. Why? It’s naturally occurring within nature (me in this case) without any influence of outside sources that I’m aware of. [...] they’re both occurring within my psychology/biology without outside influence,

The question that raises itself is: outside of what? Nature? And if so, how? (Actually that's more than one question. Doh!)

What I mean here is that nobody is doing anything to make me attracted to who I am attracted to. It's an inborn attraction, I believe. Not inborn as I've had the attraction since I was an infant, but in the sense that it's natural to my individual development. By outside influences, I simply mean anything besides me. The only outside parties I can see being involved are those I'm attracted to emotionally / sexually. Without these persons, my attraction may not have been realized in the first place.

What do you mean by how? If you mean how my sexuality exists without outside influence (besides those I'm attracted to, in this case), I guess I mean it exists this way because I believe it's inborn. How I believe it is an inborn attraction is more complicated.

While discovering my sexuality, both major aspects of my sexuality arrived around the same time, if not at the exact same time. One took me a little longer to realize than the other, and longer to accept. So, if my homosexuality is natural, I believe my pedosexuality is also natural. They came at the same time and haven't shown any signs of disappearing or "wearing off." Also, I haven't been able to find any evidence in my life so far that suggests my sexuality has been a created or artificial thing versus a naturally developed thing.

Sorry if I'm not loading my post here up with heaps of sources and citations. Discovering why I believe my sexuality is natural is something that's in progress. While this is true, I also believe my sexuality to be natural based on some pretty deep experiences and feelings. In this case, it doesn't necessarily matter to me if I ever have it proven natural. It'd be nice if there was some solid evidence that could be applied to my situation, but I suppose I'd find my sexuality just as organic for me even if it couldn't be proven naturally occurring or even if it were caused by some traumatic or otherwise impacting life experience in my past.

In that latter case, perhaps one could adapt to their sexuality to live successfully, as the wolves adapted to being domesticated? I just thought of that off the top of my head.

Alevi wrote:This is wrong.

The definition of "natural" is missing.

It's not missing; it's simultaneously explicit (I started out by defining natural loosely as that which occurs in nature) and implied. I can see how you might be tempted to critique along the lines of a Kantian 'existence-isn't-a-predicate', but that's precisely the point I'm making. I'm deconstructing the term 'natural' and showing the flaws in the term and how we apply it. To take a Saussurean approach to language (as arbitrary, relational and constitutive), the existence of a term such as 'natural' implies and evokes the non-natural, but the non-natural simply doesn't exist (even if a concept of such can be evoked); everything is natural because it's part of nature. These are precisely the notions underlying my exploration of the term natural. The difference between your example (God) and the term discussed here is that God is something for which there is no evidence whereas nature is all around. Thus to take the critique of St Anselm used by Kant simply doesn't transpose onto the current discussion. (I'm trying to keep this non-technical, which may detract from the strength of my point.)

encephalo wrote:What I mean here is that nobody is doing anything to make me attracted to who I am attracted to. It's an inborn attraction, I believe. Not inborn as I've had the attraction since I was an infant, but in the sense that it's natural to my individual development. By outside influences, I simply mean anything besides me. The only outside parties I can see being involved are those I'm attracted to emotionally / sexually. Without these persons, my attraction may not have been realized in the first place.

I think this is creating an unnecessary dichotomy between self and external-to-self. But your body is in constant interaction with it's environment, and you are constantly being shaped by your experience. I find this dichotomy (and thus the nature/nurture one) overly simplistic. Do you see what I mean?