"What is it for something to be 'natural'?" One may think that deciding upon whether or not something is "natural" would not normally be a difficult task, yet before we present an answer to what appears this simple question, we must consider what we mean by the term "natural". Do we mean that something is "natural" because it is how it is meant to be, or because of some other reason?Different individuals would assume differing definitions for the term "natural". To list specific examples, "natural" could besomething in its purest statesomething in a state that it was intended to besomething that has been untouched/unaltered by man, as opposed to it being synthetic/man-made/processedsomething that is "normal" in a particular contextNow, what do we mean when we say something is in its purest state? Perhaps we mean that if we find something within a remote location, which has never been exposed to human contact, it would be in its purest state. But then could this also be classified beneath our third definition of "natural", something that has not been touched by man? Then let us take another approach - we could interpret the term "purest" as being in its simplest form; if we examine any object, its purest form would be as a single molecule, compound, we could even go as far to say that it is the atoms that comprise it. Yet everything is made of atoms, so would everything be in a "natural" state? The use of the word "purest" is therefore not suitable for a definition of "natural", and one would have to be more specific with its meaning.If we say that something is "natural" as it is how it is intended to be, we must ask intended by whom. A chair and a table are used for certain purposes, and they serve those purposes well; we can conclude that they are the way they were intended to be, so would we consider the chair as being "natural"? I believe that most would not, as the chair was created by man, which again brings us back to the "untou...
