Question for Atheists...

[nPeace]

Exactly. Ask for more than a statement and how they arrive at the statement, seems like it's trouble.

Wait. Were you reading my post as I wrote it.

 

[Yerda]

You would say that. But so what? There is nothing to support you other than your handsome mug and winning smile.

I would say that. I think the definition of epistemic possibility would be in support, would it not?

Go us handsome mugged people.

That was what I was getting at: "the natural" isn't defined prescriptively; it's defined descriptively based on what we observe. Anything that isn't "natural" is, by definition, not anything that we have evidence of.



But this conflates two different questions:

- is there good reason to believe that (purported "supernatural" thing) is real?

- if (purported "supernatural" thing) were real, would be natural or supernatural?

I'll consider any "supernatural" claim on its merits, but any that I accept I'll consider natural, not supernatural.

Cool. I'm in a similar boat. You would agree though that the supernatural thing is not a logical impossibility though, right? I mean if you think "if it does exist it's natural" then you would have to think it is possible that it does exist, yes?

No it's not.

In fact, I would say the contrary.
The "supernatural" are generally those things that violate / suspend the laws of nature.
When we say that some occurance is "impossible", what we really mean is that the laws of nature don't allow for it.

ie: floating off into space instead of falling back to earth when I jump up, is "impossible".
Meaning that it would violate gravitational laws etc.

As such, the supernatural would be impossible by definition, as it REQUIRES the "impossible" to happen anyway.

No. I think you're all wrong here.

The statement "x is real and doesn't obey the laws of nature" isn't a logical contradiction. It isn't impossible to float off into space when you jump - just contrary to expectations. It might be that there are things that don't obey gravitational laws. It might be that gravitational laws aren't what we think they are. In neither case are we talking about impossibility.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Cool. I'm in a similar boat. You would agree though that the supernatural thing is not a logical impossibility though, right? I mean if you think "if it does exist it's natural" then you would have to think it is possible that it does exist, yes?

Depends on the thing, but I don't automatically think that a thing can't exist just because someone considers it supernatural.

 

[Yazata]

I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, but I'll barge in where I'm not wanted...

What caused you to stop believing in the supernatural?

I don't think that I have stopped believing in the supernatural. Of course, the whole question revolves around what we mean by "supernatural".

Believing in the supernatural is not rational but at one time, I couldn't see that.

I disagree with that. Explaining why would require a whole philosophical dissertation, but in a nutshell...

I perceive myself surrounded by mysteries at every moment. To take your word, what is 'rational'? Conforming to reason? What is 'reason'? Why does reason (whatever it is) seem to be necessary for proper understanding? What is 'understanding'? What is 'evidence' and what is its relationship to 'truth'? How do we know about logic in the first place? Merely by intuition? And why does reality seemingly conform to it? And on and on... we can do the same thing with any of our concepts.

We go through our lives convinced we have it all figured out, but any time we question any of our seeming certainties, any of them at all, we almost immediately slide down a rabbit-hole. (I expect that paleolithic people sitting around their campfires in the old stone age thought that they had it all figured out too.)

I try not to confuse our human understanding at any point in time with reality as it is in itself. Our understanding, with science as perhaps its foremost example, is just a model of reality. And given the finite nature of the human situation, (we aren't gods with a god's-eye perspective) and given the historical contingency of the concepts that we use, it's almost inevitably going to be imperfect. Hopefully in the future, scholars will have improved our understanding and brought it into increased conformity with the reality that it seeks to describe.

So given the incompleteness of the models and the ever-present likelihood of error and misconceptualization, I think that it's a deep and fundamental error to confuse our understanding of reality with the reality that our understanding seeks to know. Which suggests that reality will always exceed our understanding, will have the ability to surprise us and produce phenomena that are totally unexpected.

I'm inclined to believe that our understanding is an approximation, a work-in-progress, just as it was in ancient or medieval times. We have no problem laughing at medievals for dismissing things that we believe in today, just because those things contradicted their medieval expectations. We imagine that we are oh-so-superior to those benighted fools (whose intelligence was probably just as great as our own).

It seemed the most rational thing in the world to believe in the supernatural. I did so without question. Rational meaning to develop your thoughts based on reason and logic. I suppose I lack a rational mind but didn't know it. The only requirement to be rational, I thought, was to have a brain.

Or perhaps you never believed in them. Good for you. You were born with a more rational mind.

I suspect I kept asking why and how. Perhaps that simply causes one's mind to become more rational overtime.

So getting back to the question I asked at the beginning: What does "supernatural" mean?

I guess that if we define "natural" to mean something like 'In accordance with our current expectations of how reality behaves' (whether our own expectations personally, or those of scientists) and if we define 'supernatural' to mean something like 'How reality really is, even the countless unknown-by-us bits', then I'm a huge believer in the supernatural.

It could also be said that I'm very much a naturalist, except that I have a far more expansive and transcendant concept of 'nature'.

 

[ppp]

Exactly. Ask for more than a statement and how [ atheists claim] arrive at the statement, seems like it's trouble.

Well, considering that the majority of Christians in the world accept the things that you say "atheists claim", your contention seems more than a little self deceptive.

 

[Nakosis]

I'm an agnostic, not an atheist, but I'll barge in where I'm not wanted...



I don't think that I have stopped believing in the supernatural. Of course, the whole question revolves around what we mean by "supernatural".




I disagree with that. Explaining why would require a whole philosophical dissertation, but in a nutshell...

I perceive myself surrounded by mysteries at every moment. To take your word, what is 'rational'? Conforming to reason? What is 'reason'? Why does reason (whatever it is) seem to be necessary for proper understanding? What is 'understanding'? What is 'evidence' and what is its relationship to 'truth'? How do we know about logic in the first place? Merely by intuition? And why does reality seemingly conform to it? And on and on... we can do the same thing with any of our concepts.

We go through our lives convinced we have it all figured out, but any time we question any of our seeming certainties, any of them at all, we almost immediately slide down a rabbit-hole. (I expect that paleolithic people sitting around their campfires in the old stone age thought that they had it all figured out too.)

I try not to confuse our human understanding at any point in time with reality as it is in itself. Our understanding, with science as perhaps its foremost example, is just a model of reality. And given the finite nature of the human situation, (we aren't gods with a god's-eye perspective) and given the historical contingency of the concepts that we use, it's almost inevitably going to be imperfect. Hopefully in the future, scholars will have improved our understanding and brought it into increased conformity with the reality that it seeks to describe.

So given the incompleteness of the models and the ever-present likelihood of error and misconceptualization, I think that it's a deep and fundamental error to confuse our understanding of reality with the reality that our understanding seeks to know. Which suggests that reality will always exceed our understanding, will have the ability to surprise us and produce phenomena that are totally unexpected.

I'm inclined to believe that our understanding is an approximation, a work-in-progress, just as it was in ancient or medieval times. We have no problem laughing at medievals for dismissing things that we believe in today, just because those things contradicted their medieval expectations. We imagine that we are oh-so-superior to those benighted fools (whose intelligence was probably just as great as our own).



So getting back to the question I asked at the beginning: What does "supernatural" mean?

I guess that if we define "natural" to mean something like 'In accordance with our current expectations of how reality behaves' (whether our own expectations personally, or those of scientists) and if we define 'supernatural' to mean something like 'How reality really is, even the countless unknown-by-us bits', then I'm a huge believer in the supernatural.

It could also be said that I'm very much a naturalist, except that I have a far more expansive and transcendant concept of 'nature'.

Supernatural would be anything that is not physical since at this point in time everything that affects us has a physical explanation.

 

[Yazata]

Supernatural would be anything that is not physical since at this point in time everything that affects us has a physical explanation.

Logic and mathematics? The observed regularities that we think of as physical law?

 

[ppp]

I would say that. I think the definition of epistemic possibility would be in support, would it not?

I don't see how. You don't have epistemic warrant. You only have logical possibility. If logical possibilty is actually your foundation for accepting a claim is true, then you ate a basket of live human infants in your sleep, with relish. It's not logically impossible, therefore, by your standard, it is something you should accept.

 

[ppp]

Logic and mathematics? The observed regularities that we think of as physical law?

THe logical absolutes appear to be an attribute of all things. Mathematics is a human constructed language that decribes physical and conceptual relationships. Physical laws are just our observations about the way things work.

 

[Nakosis]

Logic and mathematics? The observed regularities that we think of as physical law?

Logic and math are information. Information that is physically stored. In books, in physical media, in our brain. We take this physical information and use it as it corresponds to physical reality so we can physically catalogue and store that information back on to
physical media.

What's not physical?

If you understand computer science then you understand the entire physical process. There is nothing unique to our human ability to do this.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Logic and math are information. Information that is physically stored. In books, in physical media, in our brain. We take this physical information and use it as it corresponds to physical reality so we can physically catalogue and store that information back on to
physical media.

What's not physical?

If you understand computer science then you understand the entire physical process. There is nothing unique to our human ability to do this.

Can you give a defintion of physical or rather how you know something is physical?

 

[nPeace]

Can you give a defintion of physical or rather how you know something is physical?

They don't mind leaning on philosophy when they need help.

In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality as opposed to a "two-substance" (dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) view. Both the definition of "physical" and the meaning of physicalism have been debated.

 

[Audie]

They don't mind leaning on philosophy when they need help.

In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality as opposed to a "two-substance" (dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) view. Both the definition of "physical" and the meaning of physicalism have been debated.

Science needs "metaphysical" .

Right.

 

[nPeace]

Science needs "metaphysical" .

Right.

A scientist said there seems to be agreement by those studying these things - Among the scientists (not philosophers) who actually study how the brain works - that consciousness is a physical process.

So you are saying science needs Metaphysics - a branch of philosophy? When does science need it... When it agrees?

 

[Audie]

A scientist said there seems to be agreement by those studying these things - Among the scientists (not philosophers) who actually study how the brain works - that consciousness is a physical process.

So you are saying science needs Metaphysics - a branch of philosophy? When does science need it... When it agrees?

" A" ( unnamed) scientist says...
That is a useless statement.


Metaphysics is useless to science

 

[Yerda]

I don't see how. You don't have epistemic warrant. You only have logical possibility. If logical possibilty is actually your foundation for accepting a claim is true, then you ate a basket of live human infants in your sleep, with relish. It's not logically impossible, therefore, by your standard, it is something you should accept.

I don't accept claims are true based on possibility. Not sure where you've got that.

 

[nPeace]

Emergent properties. That is what thoughts and consciousness is. Radio waves are physical, they can interact with other physical things.
Quite simple.

I have met many, walls and not-walls. I do not deny a small number of not-walls in each religion.

God just sent me a message. Is that physical?

Albert Einstein famously said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Through imagination, people can explore ideas of things that are not physically present, ranging from the familiar (e.g., a thick slice of chocolate cake) to the never-before-experienced (e.g., an alien spacecraft appearing in the sky).

 

[nPeace]

" A" ( unnamed) scientist says...
That is a useless statement.

Sorry.

Metaphysics is useless to science

Oh, Okay. I didn't understand you.

 

[Yerda]

" A" ( unnamed) scientist says...
That is a useless statement.


Metaphysics is useless to science

The foundation of science is in metaphysics. It can't exist without it.

 

[ppp]

I don't accept claims are true based on possibility. Not sure where you've got that.

From this.

I would say that the supernatural is epistemically possible.