What does 'natural' mean?

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Humans are a bit more sophisticated than beavers lol it is in a beavers genetics to make dams into its home. It's a natural process that beavers do.


Caleb

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Ahh philosophical arguments :)

The same could be said of humans tbh. We posess more complex brains through whatever process you believe in. This gives us a higher capacity for learning and creativity allowing us to create these more complex things than beaver dams.

Biologically speaking, its like we were meant to create these things :)
 
But what is the actual distinction? How is it in their genetics to make dams, but not in ours to make everything we do? It's an artificial distinction.


I'm not a genetic major. But beavers build dams, bears live in caves, bees build hives. Every animal is naturally encoded to survive. Whether this trait is inherited or taught down generations is beyond me. I'm going to leave it at I'm a believer in a "Creator" and be done with it. Humans were made to be more sophisticated and be the caretakers of the earth.


Caleb

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But that doesn't remove us from nature. It still makes us a part of it- being responsible about what we do with the environment has nothing to do with "natural" or "unnatural".
 
On the other hand, heat can be considered by some to be natural, but is it really natural? How many of these fish will get water temps that hit 86 degrees continuously? How is it natural if it's not something that occurs in nature? Salt could be looked at the same exact way.

It's going to be answered in a spectrum based on your personal feelings of what constitutes "natural"
This is how I feel!
Natural or naturally occurring?
People who use salt instead of meds to be "chemical free"make me wonder where they went to school?:facepalm:
 
I'm not convinced that the quest for natural treatments or water adjusters are valid. We keep fish in totally unnatural environments, tanks, fill it with chemically treated water from the tap, which has then been rendered less harmful, again by more chemicals. We feed fish pellets and flakes, a highly concentrated form of food, something not found in the wild. At this stage I would not worry about using natural products but rather look for effective ones.


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I'm not convinced that the quest for natural treatments or water adjusters are valid. We keep fish in totally unnatural environments, tanks, fill it with chemically treated water from the tap, which has then been rendered less harmful, again by more chemicals. We feed fish pellets and flakes, a highly concentrated form of food, something not found in the wild. At this stage I would not worry about using natural products but rather look for effective ones.


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This is true. But unless we have a contained river in our backyard then it's going to be quite hard to actually replicate their environment. And unless it's a biotope tank many of the fish kept in aquariums are from all over the world that in the wild would never see each other.


Caleb

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I agree with Scot. Whether or not something is natural shouldn't matter, what should matter is how well it works.

Open heart surgery isn't natural, but I don't see anybody refusing that when it's needed.

Most of the 'unnatural' things, as far as water chemistry is concerned, are made to be cheap and convenient, and therefore are dosed in bottles. If we manufactured a rock to buffer the water much like coral but more precisely or cheaply, would it still be unnatural? Maybe. Would it be any worse? No.
 
This is how I feel!
Natural or naturally occurring?
People who use salt instead of meds to be "chemical free"make me wonder where they went to school?:facepalm:


Yes, that's it exactly what I struggle with. I don't get the difference. I know we all have our preferences but what the heck is chemical free?

On the other side, I get queries on say salt or limestone use. If it doesn't 'naturally' occur in a fish shop, I've had some very suspicious looks. Almost like 'that's crazy thinking, I'll stick with the fish shop products thank you very much' :)
 
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