Just Curious: What is the logical and scientific basis for accepting physicalism/materialism is fact

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Try taking your neighbour to court for placing a curse on your car and see how far you get. Even our legal system is based on practical materialism.

Yeah... I've thought about that. Intent and capacity doesn't even seem to enter into the equation.

I mean, if I were to try to arrange a hit on someone, I'd be guilty of a crime even if the person I tried to get to do the hit had no intention or capacity to do it.

OTOH, someone with the same murderous intent who asks a god to be their "hit man" hasn't committed a crime.

It's as if the law just takes it as a given that no reasonable person would expect prayer to have a real effect.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The philosophical position is based on the fact that if something is shown to exist, it will be put under the umbrella of the physical. Example; if "X" is believed to be spiritual in nature, once "X" is shown to be real, it will be considered a part of the physical world.

The same thing has occurred to me.

"Supernatural" seems to be defined based on epistemology and values, and not anything else.

AFAICT, something is labelled "supernatural" if:

1. Someone is very invested in the thing being real, and
2. We don't have enough evidence to say whether the thing is actually real or not.

When we get enough evidence to resolve #2, the thing gets relabelled as either "natural" or "non-existent."

I can't seem to find any other common thread among "supernatural" things. There doesn't seem to be anything like, say, an overarching theory (supported or not) of how "supernatural" things work that would let us categorize things we're sure exist into "natural" and "supernatural" other than it's something wishes were true.