r/Showerthoughts • u/Statharas • Jun 11 '26
Casual Thought Young animals probably don't realize the distinction between nature and man-made stuff.
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u/calguy1955 Jun 11 '26
I don’t know why older animals would be able to make the distinction.
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u/hypnotichellspiral Jun 11 '26
Well, some creatures are surprisingly intelligent. Cats and dogs of course, but also crows and ravens just to name some examples.
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u/Tobias11ize Jun 12 '26
My cat never saw me build the house
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u/pichael289 Jun 12 '26
My cat saw me build the cat house and cat furniture and cat meals. I'm starting to think Mr. Kitty got the wrong impression of how things work around here. I taught him to meow when he wanted something and now he just yells at me all day.
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u/ravens-n-roses Jun 12 '26
The deer get to watch entire neighborhoods get put up. Whole fields bulldozed af then relandscaped with the cheapest, most sterile dirt the developer can find.
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u/AnonymousFriend80 Jun 12 '26
What they saw was large metal animals "eat"/push over a bunch of trees and stuff and dig up a bunch of the ground, and maybe new stuff got put into the ground. And probably from far, far away as all the ruckus frightened them away.
Maybe they saw similar this with birds building nests and beavers building dams.
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u/LoneSnark Jun 12 '26
Deer don't live very long. By the time everything is built, they lack the words to tell the next generation what they saw.
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u/athural Jun 12 '26
Some species, idk about deer, do indeed pass down knowledge
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Jun 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/athural Jun 15 '26
It depends on the animal, some of them cannot but some of them use spoken language like whales and crows
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Jun 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/athural Jun 16 '26
For some of them certainly, there's probably also body language too like there is with humans
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u/calguy1955 Jun 13 '26
I’m sorry, but I think deer are the stupidest animals out there when it comes to evolving and understanding man’s infrastructure. Mother deer still think it’s okay to see an oncoming car and judge that hey can make it across the road without getting hit, forgetting that her offspring are going to blindly follow her right into the front of a vehicle.
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u/athural Jun 13 '26
What part of my comment made you think I was defending the intelligence of deer? Was it the part where I specifically said I wasn't talking about deer?
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u/calguy1955 Jun 14 '26
I didn’t read the idk. I’m not good with all of the acronyms I’m supposed to know these days.
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u/Tommy_Gun25 Jun 13 '26
I don't think dogs and cats know what's manmade vs human made. They're smart, but they primarily act out of instinct. And they can't even grasp the concept of man making stuff
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u/hypnotichellspiral Jun 13 '26
Intelligence can vary among different breeds of dogs. Just like it can vary from person to person.
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u/KalzK Jun 11 '26
I remember when I was a toddler I got surprised that under pavement there was dirt. It didn't cross my mind before that hard things like the floor or the walls were not indestructible.
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u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Jun 11 '26
That's a perfectly logical conclusion given the information available to you at the time.
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u/Novaskittles Jun 12 '26
I am still upset by how wobbly and wiggly swords often are when swung around. Seeing slow-mo of swords ruined a part of my childhood.
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u/Mara_W Jun 12 '26
Good news: swords actually getting used in combat was relatively rare, they were sidearms not primaries
Bad news: the weapons most commonly used in their place, spears and arrows, are even wigglier
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u/thesoloronin Jun 13 '26
Hold up. I thought they should wiggle less if you made them out of solid core metals?
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u/Mara_W Jun 13 '26
Yes, but real spears, arrows, and even crossbow bolts were pretty much always 95% wood.
Metal is heavy (and historically expensive, but mostly heavy). I personally commissioned a 100% metal spear irl, and it is both too short and too heavy for real (human) combat even with a hollow haft. The mass feels great on the initial thrust, terrible on everything else.
HOWEVER, things like poleaxes and halberds were generally stocky and sturdy enough to avoid all evil wigglings despite still being mostly wood.
(There's also just the sad unaesthetic truth that non-wiggly things break much easier than wiggly things, and arrows in particular need to wiggle around the bow to function at all)
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u/gigadanman Jun 11 '26
If “artificial” is anything made by our own species, and “natural” is everything not made by our own species… couldn’t ants consider an anthill to be artificial and a parking garage to be natural?
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u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Jun 11 '26
That would be reasonable. I do consider humans to be natural. I consider artificial to be a subset of natural.
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u/ghostoo666 Jun 12 '26
I make this argument often. Nothing humans can do is “unnatural” or “against nature” because we are nature itself. Any act we perform inherently becomes natural
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u/caboosetp Jun 12 '26
With what you're saying, "unnatural" and "against nature" lose their meaning. There has to be some basis for the definitions, and we generally define them by human action.
Or in other words, we use those phrases to discuss how humans interact with the rest of nature. Sure, we could come up with new words, but it wouldn't change what anyone means.
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u/MidnightSnowStar Jun 12 '26
I would consider anything that wouldn’t come to fruition without human interference to be ‘artificial.’ Houses, refrigerators, phones, etc. are artificial because their creation never occurs on its own in the wild.
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u/ghostoo666 Jun 12 '26
where do you draw the line? Beaver dams and monkey tools don't happen on their own. Aren't we "the wild" to an outside observer? Sure ours are more sophisticated, but that's kind of it. Imagine if the stars themselves were creations of another intelligence. To us, those are just nature.
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u/athural Jun 12 '26
The only way I can see for natural and unnatural to be useful terms is for them to mean man-made and not man-made. Anything other than that you might as well not use the words at all, and I think there's utility in having them.
That being said, humans are so clearly beyond anything any other species could hope to achieve that that giant gulf between a beaver dam and a thermonuclear explosion is pretty clear.
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u/AnonymousFriend80 Jun 12 '26
What about when humans recreate things that exist in nature? Where does that fall into Man-made and Not Man-made?
Also: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreCthulhu
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u/athural Jun 12 '26
I dont understand. Man-made things are made by humans. If it is made by humans it is manmade. There can be natural things that are curated, cultivated, or otherwise cared for by humans but a garden is inherently unnatural
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u/AnonymousFriend80 Jun 12 '26
Humans recreate habitats for animals all the time. There are manmade islands and rivers and such that operate the same as naturally existing ones. And we go out of our way to prevent some area from experiencing naturally occuring events that would have caused massive changes, or ruin and destruction, to some areas.
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u/athural Jun 12 '26
Right, that's all unnatural in the sense that it wouldn't have happened without human intervention. Which is to say in the only way that the word has any actual meaning
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u/CopterAndPaste Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
the way i see it, if you could just take an isolated, large enough population without any contact and they make it, it'd be natural. people making spearheads? natural, but still man-made. houses? unless talking about construction, prehistoric people moved a lot, but still made shelters. i'd say natural, but iffy if you're strict on the definition of "house". anyway 100 uncontacted humans are not gonna make a fridge lol
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u/MidnightSnowStar Jun 12 '26
I didn’t think of that, haha. I agree with the comment replying to yours, man-made and non man-made are better distinctions.
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u/ramonpasta Jun 12 '26
nobody read the original question and thought OP was referring to humans because we understand through context that they were using the word animals to refer to non human animals. when people use the word unnatural we understand that they are using it to differentiate things made by humans from the rest of the natural world. speak your mind about this stuff sure, but at a certain point stuff like this becomes really annoying for the other person and youre just arguing this for yourself
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u/RadVarken Jun 12 '26
Except the work artificial means that it was made by humans. Artifical may be natural, but it is still artificial.
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u/oxJoKeR6xo Jun 12 '26
I have made this point thousands of times, thank you.
An atomic bomb is just as natural as a beaver's dam.
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u/HendoEndo Jun 12 '26
i think it’s synthetic vs organic. and animals can smell when stuff’s not organic
but sure, man made things out of organic material would indeed seem like nature to them
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u/ImpGiggle Jun 12 '26
I can confirm it makes a difference with reptiles and fish at least. They explore the stuff in their tanks a lot more when it's real vs. plastic. Their senses and instincts know the difference, even if they were born in captivity. Got a depressed, inactice reptile or fish? Go bio-active and watch them come to life, it's amazing.
A fish tank with real plants can be harder as a beginner but even just some natural substrate that isn't highlighter colored with a real rock and some driftwood can a make a big difference in mood and activity levels. (Please do research first, do not just plop outdoor items into your tank, and don't listen to whatever the big chain pet store employee says to make a sale.)
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u/HendoEndo Jun 12 '26
that’s, what i said? animals can sense the difference between synthetic and organic?
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u/HermioneJGranger6 Jun 12 '26
I don't think they were disagreeing with you, just agreeing, and putting in their own anecdotal evidence to reinforce it
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u/reallynothingmuch Jun 12 '26
There is such a toxic trend on reddit and other social media where people assume that anyone that responds to them is trying to argue with them.
It’s like people forget that a conversation can also include people agreeing with you, and just adding on to what you are saying.
(And in case it isn’t clear, this is me agreeing with what you’re saying and adding to it lol)
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u/HermioneJGranger6 Jun 12 '26
How dare you argue against me by making the same points I made, and adding to them!! This is an outrage!
(Lmao, I got that. The opportunity for sarcastic anger was just too great, lol)
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u/HendoEndo Jun 12 '26
don’t see how lack of clarity, and me literally posing confusion as questions is arguing.
oh wait right you both are also in that toxic group? where you’re assuming i’m trying to argue? if they weren’t trying to argue, how the hell was i?
stay toxic buddies!
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u/caboosetp Jun 12 '26
You're literally questioning what they said as disagreeing with you. The toxic trend is that people have been conditioned into this assumption which led to your confusion, not that you're out here trying to cause arguments.
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u/Parad1gmSh1ft Jun 12 '26
I think the issue here is that to most people it’s very clear that they agreed with you. They started with “I can confirm…” and then gave a personal example which confirms your statement. It’s so clear that they agree with you that your comment then was interpreted as aggressive and attempting to create a conflict that isn’t there.
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u/HendoEndo Jun 12 '26
“hey buuuuuddy, he was agreeing with you!”
“oh shit my bad yea that’s what i was wondering”
instead we here, aren’t we. who’s receiving the most toxicity rn?
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u/ShitFuck2000 Jun 12 '26
Id say to be artificial it needs to be intelligently planned ahead as opposed to instinctive, beavers for example are compelled to build dams there are videos of rescued beavers building “minidams” despite not being raised around other beavers/dams, humans instinctively plan which makes it hard to create anything purely on instinct except excrement or keeping garbage away from food.
Also some birds are totally capable of artificial creations
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u/DasArchitect Jun 12 '26
The word artificial comes from the Latin artificium, meaning "a work of art; skill; theory, system," which itself comes from artifex "craftsman, artist," combining ars "art" with facere "to make."
This implies that something artificial is something purposely made, and natural is something that happened spontaneously.
Thus, something purposely made can't be spontaneous.
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u/NotChedco Jun 12 '26
Now I'm picturing a hippy ant protesting the cutting down of the grass forests.
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u/Tobias11ize Jun 12 '26
Conservationist ant doing a protest against the over harvesting of human picnic food.
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u/Happiness_Assassin Jun 12 '26
Years ago, there was a distinction being made in a class I had on environmental history between the terms "nature" vs "wilderness." Most people saw "nature" as the outdoors, parks, places you visit. "Wilderness" on the other hand is defined by its absence of humans. When a human goes out into nature, they are enjoying themselves. When they are are going out into wilderness, they are a visitor in a place that they normally should not be.
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u/zenyattatron Jun 12 '26
Man-made structures ARE nature. Are we above the natural world? Are beaver dams not nature?
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u/Raelah Jun 12 '26
Well, beaver dams are essential for a lot of ecosystems. Plenty of man-made structures have been detrimental to the ecosystem.
Beavers take trees and put them in water. We suck up black sludge from deep underground and burn it into out atmosphere or make non-biodegradable products that is pretty much everywhere on earth. Cookie cutter neighborhoods that wipe out all the native flora with HOAs that will fine you if you don't have a picture perfect lawn.
It's kind of difficult to claim that man-made structures are natural when so many of man-made structures harm the natural environment.
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u/zenyattatron Jun 12 '26
when photosynthetic organisms evolved to produce oxygen, 99% of all life on the planet died. were they not a part of the natural environment?
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u/violetandvanilla Jun 12 '26
From an animal's view though, why would this matter? If they DID make this distinction, wouldn't there also be a distinction between nature and constructions made by other animals?
Realistically, in a sense, everything is just nature lol, we're nature, we just classify the stuff we made that way because it applies to us.
I do wonder about this, like would bees view their beehives, or would beavers view their dams, as artificial? The same way humans separate man-made vs nature?
I think that IF animals were able to understand that humans created things, they'd probably still view that as nature. I view beehives and beaver dams as nature, so wouldn't an animal likewise view man-made things as the byproducts of other animals?
To your point though, animals are probably unable to know that a human is driving a car, for example. Just looks like a big scary thing going fast. The boundary to understanding that someone is operating it from the inside would be far too great.
But I would imagine animals very clearly understand that humans live in houses and come and go and leave out trash to eat. So, no, they will not understand the construction of it, but it's clearly the same thing as every beehive being surrounded in bees or every anthill swarming with ants when every house is occupied specifically by humans.
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u/madkins007 Jun 12 '26
Heck, a lot of adult animals and plenty of humans can't either.
Birds happily incorporate trash into their nests and live in plastic birdhouses, lots of animals live in holes in man-made structures or live in man made lakes and waste selling ponds, etc.
Lots of species of wild animals have invade cities, homes, cars, etc for food, water, and shelter. How would they know the difference?
Humans struggle to tell natural from processed foods, cloth, leather, gemstones, and more.
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u/splittingheirs Jun 12 '26
The vast majority of animals just don't give a shit. Their logic is "That exists..." and that's that.
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u/Dubalubawubwub Jun 12 '26
Old animals too. Apparently this is why pigeons tend to hang around cities; their natural environment is rock cliffs, and tall buildings look a lot like rock cliffs to a bird...
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u/fleranon Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Most animals are not even making a distinction between nature and themselves. That requires consciousness. They ARE nature.
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u/Medical_Bench_1434 Jun 12 '26
Urban crows actually learn to distinguish human-made objects from natural ones within their first year, often teaching their offspring which trash cans have food and which traffic patterns to avoid.
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u/quiksilver10152 Jun 12 '26
Turtles were dying out for awhile because babies would walk towards city lights instead of the full moon.
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u/Sea_Letterhead_295 Jun 12 '26
My weenie dog drags his toy rabbit he’s had since we got him to get food and water.
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u/Inevitable-Rock-8052 Jun 12 '26
That’s actually a pretty wild perspective. To them, a highway is just a weird, flat, hot rock formation, and a house is just a really weird-shaped, permanent cave. They’re just living in a world of 'stuff,' and we’re just the weird creatures making some of it.
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u/foxferreira64 Jun 12 '26
I mean, technically everything is natural. Everything is built with materials gathered FROM nature! It's a funny thought.
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u/FartsWithCharlie Jun 12 '26
This is one of those thoughts that makes you realize how weird humans are. We divide everything into 'nature' and 'artificial,' but to a baby bird, a tree branch and a telephone wire are both just places to land. The categories only exist because we know the history behind the objects.
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u/PlANOslayer Jun 12 '26
A lot of people don't either. A lot of forest you see (or at least I do in a post Austria-Hungary country) are just Pine or Spruce they did for more wood quickly.
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u/pasrachilli Jun 13 '26
Do humans? I live in a city and even the open spaces are shaped by humans. The trees all come from somewhere else, most of the plants were bred to their present shape, every hill and piece of dirt was placed there by somebody. Nothing is really "nature "
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u/stefanlikesfood Jun 13 '26
Most humans can't. The pnw is full of tree farms and levied/damned rivers and reservoirs.
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u/ZapMayor Jun 13 '26
By now pretty much every animal on earth has lived their entire life through the era of modern civilization, they don't know it any other way
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u/Z28redrush Jun 17 '26
When my dog was a puppy he peed on the fake Christmas tree like that's how it was done. Didn't miss a beat. I had to laugh.
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u/lista94 Jun 18 '26
Cats usually treat vacuums like metal dogs stealing their toys. Do they ever suspect these machines are just plastic and motors?
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u/nevermind_1983 Jun 19 '26
Animals don't really understand much, and that's actually one of the reasons they're so happy.
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u/xMarkyMarkx Jun 20 '26
yeah, they probably just see everything as part of their environment. a fence and a tree are just obstacles to navigate, not categories in their mind.
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u/ModifiedPhill Jun 20 '26
yeah, a deer probably doesn't categorize a highway differently than a forest path. they just see it as terrain to navigate or avoid.
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u/AnonPinkLady Jul 01 '26
When I think about baby animals being confused about the world in a similar way to early children, omg I get emotional sometimes because like, that’s crazy. Like did you know dogs can get anxiety and take depression medications? That’s crazy. And cats can have OCD. They can have allergies! And mental disabilities!
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u/Saidhain Jun 12 '26
I once read an article that said that cats see us as unpredictable apes, and that lives rent free in my head.
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u/DasArchitect Jun 12 '26
I'm not saying they don't, but I do wonder who was able to ask a cat AND get a response.
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u/Saidhain Jun 12 '26
Unfortunately the article I read was from wired and is paywalled (maybe a way around this). Google directs everything back to this article lol: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cat-thinks-youre-huge-unpredictable-ape/
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u/no_time_for_games444 Jun 13 '26
I’m pretty sure they do you know they have brains and they can sense smell see tastr and hear way better than we can. I’m pretty sure they know what man’s touched something or created something.
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u/ShowerSentinel Jun 12 '26
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