"Supernatural" and Naturalism

[Revoltingest]

Defining terms is not a silly game, it's a fundamental and necessary philosophical prerequisite for communication and cognizing.

But it does seem like a game, although I think you &
Poly are sincere. Still, I sense some dismissal of the
meaning & usefulness of the terms under discussion.

Tis almost as though one could treat religion & science
as the same...with artful enuf arguments. I regularly run
across this with my fundie friends.

The term that gets me is "spiritual". The dictionary
definitions don't comport with usages I run across.
I don't grok what anyone means by it.

 

[Revoltingest]

What's with the passive aggression? This is supposed to be fun. Hate the silly, not the goose, friend. Genuinely hope you do have a good one. I'm going to bed soon.

I don't think Fire wasn't "pretending".
Let's all assume that others are sincere.
It looks that way to me.

 

[JoshuaTree]

I've found myself posting this in response to a few things lately, so I thought I would type out a post that I could then later refer to (and discuss the topic here without going off-topic in other threads).

People will ask me if atheists are "naturalists," if I'm a "naturalist," and so on, and I'm never quite sure how I want to answer the question. This is because I'm not sure that the term is useful or even meaningful.

Why? Because the context of the term is in direct opposition to the term "supernatural." But what is the "supernatural?"

Consulting a dictionary tells us something like this:
"(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

But what does this really mean, and how do we distinguish it? There are a lot of things that are "beyond scientific understanding" at any given time. For instance, if I were to go back in time with basically any piece of technology, it might appear supernatural to the inhabitants of that time: but we wouldn't say it's supernatural since we understand it.

What about "the laws of nature?" I'm not sure it's really fair to say that unknown things "break the laws of nature." It seems more fair to just say that if something seems to, then we didn't fully understand the laws of nature.

I am reminded by Feynman's description of how we sometimes learn about new physics. He likens it to a couple of people playing chess in the park while a third person (that does not know the rules of chess) observes.

Over time, the observer begins to pick up what they might call "The Laws of Chess": they learn that bishops move diagonally, rooks move laterally, and so on.

But every now and then, something strange might happen: someone might move two pieces at once, where the king moves more than one space, and two pieces pass through each other (castling)! Our observer might think, "the Laws of Chess have been broken!" But that's not the case: they just didn't fully understand the "laws" in the first place.

So, consider something like a ghost, if such a thing would exist. Ghosts still obey "laws:" they are ostensibly capable of doing some things but not others. Really, if such things exist (I doubt it, but if), then it only means that we had not previously fully understood "the laws of nature."

Whence, then, is there any room for something to be "supernatural?" It must mean something more than the definition provided above to have any use or meaning. And until it does, it will be a meaningless term, and "naturalism" will be too.

From one of my favorite movies, what you wrote made me think of it...

Signs (film) - Wikiquote

Graham: People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. A happy turn of chance. I'm sure the people in group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, this situation is a fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that... fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in the group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that, whatever's going to happen, there'll be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See, what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way. Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

Merrill: I was at this party once... and I'm on the couch with Randa McKinney. She was just sitting there, looking beautiful, staring at me. I go to lean in and kiss her, and I realize I have gum in my mouth. So I turn, take out the gum, stuff it in a paper cup next to the sofa, and turn around. Randa McKinney throws up all over herself. I knew the second it happened, it was a miracle. I could have been kissing her when she threw up. That would have scarred me for life. I may never have recovered. I'm a miracle man. Those lights are a miracle.

Graham: There you go.
Merrill: So which type are you?
Graham: Do you feel comforted?
Merrill: Yeah, I do.
Graham: Then what does it matter?

 

[Revoltingest]

I knew I should've avoided this thread.
But compulsion defeats good judgment every time.

 

[leroy]

Or it means you left something out.

For example, in the early study of beta decay, it was found that conservation of energy was violated. The energy before the decay was always more than the energy after the decay. And, since conservation of energy was well understood and well established, this would make beta decay a supernatural event. Right?

Well, until Fermi came along and proposed a new particle, the neutrino. That neutrino was proposed to be a particle that carried the extra energy away.

Decades later, neutrinos were actually detected. Conservation of energy was saved and beta decays were (once again?) natural.

Or, take the orbit of Mercury as observed in the late 19th century. The planet was simply not obeying the well established and well understood law of gravity. Was something supernatural going on with Mercury?

One option tried was to postulate a new planet. It was even given a name: Vulcan.

But, it was later determined that the well understood law of gravity was slightly wrong. With Einstein's general relativity, the new law was consistent with the observations.

So was the motion of Mercury supernatural or not?

Given that our abilities to observe the outer space and stuff at the quantum lever are limited, its more prudent to say “an unknown natural mechanism did it”

But if you cut my head, and suddenly I resurrect and tell you about heaven and about a conversation that I had with your grandfather where I talk about stuff that only you and your grandfather knew. (you have witnesses and cameras recording this event)

You would obviously conclude that a supernatural event took place.

So my point is that while there are gray areas where it’s hard to tell , there are obvious hypothetical scenarios that would make you conclude that a supernatural event happened.

And, of course,

5. I don't have enough evidence to say.

sure, but you can still make your best effort and try to determine the best explanation based on the evidnece that you have.

 

[JoshuaTree]

@Meow Mix , I think the thread you plan to start on dark energy would have been less work than this thread ha ha. Immgoingnto re read this thread again tonight, looks like things fell apart a little.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Reading through the posts in this thread gives me the sense that defense for the term "supernatural" as having any sort of cogency or even utility boils down to one trying to jump through every hoop imaginable in order to avoid saying that it is the descriptor for things that have no current or evidenced presentation in our reality. Because that could potentially lead to the perception that "supernatural" things are (*gasp!*) not real. And what a "travesty" that would be.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Whence, then, is there any room for something to be "supernatural?" It must mean something more than the definition provided above to have any use or meaning

Agreed. If it exists and is able to interact with physical reality, then it is natural, a part of nature, whether it extends the understanding of the laws of nature or not. We don't need the word supernatural to describe anything that can be detected or experienced by the senses (including things not experienced by the unaided senses, but detectable with assistance such as with a telescope or spectrometer). Whatever is causally connected to nature is also nature, whether beyond our current understanding or the laws of physics or not.

Is God supernatural? Not if He is causally connected to physical reality. Not if he can modify the laws of physics and create miracles or answer prayer. If He can do those things, He is connected to space and matter, making him part of nature, or natural.

The supernaturalist is actually using this category to place the items and places that he wants to say actually exist, but are not detectable to man or science. He wants it both ways, or more properly, he wants causality to be one-way, so that he can say that God can rule our lives without being demonstrable. He wants to say that the supernatural can affect the natural without being detectable by it - no light coming from it, no gravitational effect on matter, nothing for ultrasound or a laser to reflect off of.

This is how he makes the claim that what is indistinguishable from the nonexistent exists nevertheless, like Sagan's dragon in the garage. If the supernatural and the nonexistent are indistinguishable even in theory, they can be treated the same, like the deist god, who is said to have created the universe then decoupled from it and no longer manifests in it. If his god is causally disconnected from reality like the deist god, then it can be treated like all of the other things that never make an impact on physical reality and are never detected, such as vampires. Once again, the supernaturalist wants it both ways. His god can be as undetectable and inconsequential as a vampire, but he wants to say that it is real anyway and can affect our lives.

until it does, it will be a meaningless term, and "naturalism" will be too.

Naturalism takes its meaning from the claims of supernaturalism, which naturalism rejects. As long as there are people talking about supernaturalism, the word naturalism will be meaningful as its rejection, like atheism, which also has no meaning apart from a concept of theism. If theism disappears, then the term atheism will have no use, like avampirist in a world where vampirism is scarce.

But not until then.

 

[Link]

A lot of terms are never agreed upon and half the battle is semantics, between truth and falsehood.

 

[Nimos]

My assumption is that ghosts aren't demonstrable to exist in
the natural world, thus placing them in the supernatural...
according to the applicable definitions.

I see, sorry, can see I misread what you wrote, I do in fact agree with you

 

[Ostronomos]

I've found myself posting this in response to a few things lately, so I thought I would type out a post that I could then later refer to (and discuss the topic here without going off-topic in other threads).

People will ask me if atheists are "naturalists," if I'm a "naturalist," and so on, and I'm never quite sure how I want to answer the question. This is because I'm not sure that the term is useful or even meaningful.

Why? Because the context of the term is in direct opposition to the term "supernatural." But what is the "supernatural?"

Consulting a dictionary tells us something like this:
"(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

But what does this really mean, and how do we distinguish it? There are a lot of things that are "beyond scientific understanding" at any given time. For instance, if I were to go back in time with basically any piece of technology, it might appear supernatural to the inhabitants of that time: but we wouldn't say it's supernatural since we understand it.

What about "the laws of nature?" I'm not sure it's really fair to say that unknown things "break the laws of nature." It seems more fair to just say that if something seems to, then we didn't fully understand the laws of nature.

I am reminded by Feynman's description of how we sometimes learn about new physics. He likens it to a couple of people playing chess in the park while a third person (that does not know the rules of chess) observes.

Over time, the observer begins to pick up what they might call "The Laws of Chess": they learn that bishops move diagonally, rooks move laterally, and so on.

But every now and then, something strange might happen: someone might move two pieces at once, where the king moves more than one space, and two pieces pass through each other (castling)! Our observer might think, "the Laws of Chess have been broken!" But that's not the case: they just didn't fully understand the "laws" in the first place.

So, consider something like a ghost, if such a thing would exist. Ghosts still obey "laws:" they are ostensibly capable of doing some things but not others. Really, if such things exist (I doubt it, but if), then it only means that we had not previously fully understood "the laws of nature."

Whence, then, is there any room for something to be "supernatural?" It must mean something more than the definition provided above to have any use or meaning. And until it does, it will be a meaningless term, and "naturalism" will be too.

The debate is really with how we choose to define the terms supernatural and natural.

The supernatural certainly exists in my experimentations with peering into the unseen dimensions of string theory. But whether or not that is considered supernatural or not is highly debatable. Come to think of it, it IS supernatural. As any occurrence beyond ordinary natural laws can be safely classified as supernatural. Hence without question as science moves into the future it will be indistinguishable from magic in that it will make use of supernatural occurrences. The proof must come before though.

 

[MikeF]

I dont know about that brother. This is way out of scope in my opinion because the OP has a specific topic in mind. Not just the title.
Anyway, whats your topic now? Is it that new definitions for natural and supernatural must be drawn or is it that both terms should be completely abandoned?

Late reply as I had to get some sleep at this point of the conversation. I know this thread has carried on far beyond this point, but I will still address your comment.

Let's first try and establish some common ground. Since academic and technical disciplines try to create narrow and strict definitions for the words that they use, may we select and use words and corresponding definitions found in Philosophy, and avoid any common-use definitions for the the words we discuss?

If we have agreement on that, then can we also agree that it is permissible, from an academic standpoint, to re-evaluate the words and corresponding definitions used in an academic discipline, such as Philosophy, and that such words can be found to no longer be meaningful, or that the definition used can be found to be either wholly or partially inaccurate or invalid, or have some level of ambiguity such that the term is no longer useful and should be abandoned?

If we are on the same page to this point, let's start with the word ‘Naturalism’ and see if we can find a definition that we both agree on and then evaluate it's usefulness.

My first attempt to find a definition for Naturalism under the auspices of Philosophy, I found the following essay on Naturalism found on the website Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Naturalism - Naturalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
First published Thu Feb 22, 2007; substantive revision Tue Mar 31, 2020

The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed “naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).​

So, right off the bat we are getting indications that “Naturalism”, even in Philosophy, is not a very well defined, and possibly un-useful, term.

Wikipedia provides the following definition/explanation of the term:

Naturalism (philosophy) - Naturalism (philosophy) - Wikipedia

In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual ones) operate in the universe.[1] Adherents of naturalism assert that natural laws are the only rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural world, and that the changing universe is at every stage a product of these laws.

Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in terms of nature. Either the limits of nature are also the limits of existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary, has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events, therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning.
— Dubray 1911​

In the Wikipedia explanation, we notice two things, 1.) The definition of Naturalism is dependent on the definition of the word ‘nature’ and that this is an issue as “the terms nature and natural themselves have more than one sense,”, and 2.) This definition explicitly uses the term ‘supernatural’ as a way of clarifying the boundary of what is and is not covered by the term naturalism, and sets up naturalism as an interdependent antithesis of the term supernaturalism. As a further note, the Wikipedia page does not even consider the term supernatural as a term of Philosophy.

From an academic standpoint, given all of the above, I think a strong case can be made for abandoning the term naturalism on the grounds that it is sufficiently ambiguous as to not be academically useful. Would you agree with this conclusion?

 

[Revoltingest]

I see, sorry, can see I misread what you wrote, I do in fact agree with you

Even I misread my own posts.

 

[Meow Mix]

Well I’ve had about five hours of sleep and look at this chaos of a thread. I will try to do some responding in about six hours from this post.

Ooh and kudos to @Revoltingest on the Ardra reference.

 

[Meow Mix]

I knew I should've avoided this thread.
But compulsion defeats good judgment every time.

It’s a Meow Mix thread, you know what kinds of shenanigans you’re going to have to deal with

 

[Meow Mix]

Not at a keyboard so I will say this in general before I am (such that I can post more thoughtfully).

Some posts here are declaring the words in question to be colloquially useful. That has never been the problem. (I for instance enjoy supernatural horror as a genre, and colloquially know what that means).

The problem is when one tries to define their ontology around the words in question (“I am a naturalist”/“are you a naturalist?”)

This requires more rigor than a common parlance shrug.

@Jayhawker Soule posted a thoughtful piece that covers this fact very well: even in philosopher world, the main word in question is noted not to be well defined and few philosophers put stock in it.

 

[firedragon]

Late reply as I had to get some sleep at this point of the conversation. I know this thread has carried on far beyond this point, but I will still address your comment.

Let's first try and establish some common ground. Since academic and technical disciplines try to create narrow and strict definitions for the words that they use, may we select and use words and corresponding definitions found in Philosophy, and avoid any common-use definitions for the the words we discuss?

If we have agreement on that, then can we also agree that it is permissible, from an academic standpoint, to re-evaluate the words and corresponding definitions used in an academic discipline, such as Philosophy, and that such words can be found to no longer be meaningful, or that the definition used can be found to be either wholly or partially inaccurate or invalid, or have some level of ambiguity such that the term is no longer useful and should be abandoned?

If we are on the same page to this point, let's start with the word ‘Naturalism’ and see if we can find a definition that we both agree on and then evaluate it's usefulness.

My first attempt to find a definition for Naturalism under the auspices of Philosophy, I found the following essay on Naturalism found on the website Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Naturalism - Naturalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
First published Thu Feb 22, 2007; substantive revision Tue Mar 31, 2020

The term “naturalism” has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy. Its current usage derives from debates in America in the first half of the last century. The self-proclaimed “naturalists” from that period included John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook and Roy Wood Sellars. These philosophers aimed to ally philosophy more closely with science. They urged that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing “supernatural”, and that the scientific method should be used to investigate all areas of reality, including the “human spirit” (Krikorian 1944, Kim 2003).​

So, right off the bat we are getting indications that “Naturalism”, even in Philosophy, is not a very well defined, and possibly un-useful, term.

Wikipedia provides the following definition/explanation of the term:

Naturalism (philosophy) - Naturalism (philosophy) - Wikipedia

In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual ones) operate in the universe.[1] Adherents of naturalism assert that natural laws are the only rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural world, and that the changing universe is at every stage a product of these laws.

Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a number of philosophical and religious systems; not so much a well-defined set of positive and negative doctrines as an attitude or spirit pervading and influencing many doctrines. As the name implies, this tendency consists essentially in looking upon nature as the one original and fundamental source of all that exists, and in attempting to explain everything in terms of nature. Either the limits of nature are also the limits of existing reality, or at least the first cause, if its existence is found necessary, has nothing to do with the working of natural agencies. All events, therefore, find their adequate explanation within nature itself. But, as the terms nature and natural are themselves used in more than one sense, the term naturalism is also far from having one fixed meaning.
— Dubray 1911​

In the Wikipedia explanation, we notice two things, 1.) The definition of Naturalism is dependent on the definition of the word ‘nature’ and that this is an issue as “the terms nature and natural themselves have more than one sense,”, and 2.) This definition explicitly uses the term ‘supernatural’ as a way of clarifying the boundary of what is and is not covered by the term naturalism, and sets up naturalism as an interdependent antithesis of the term supernaturalism. As a further note, the Wikipedia page does not even consider the term supernatural as a term of Philosophy.

From an academic standpoint, given all of the above, I think a strong case can be made for abandoning the term naturalism on the grounds that it is sufficiently ambiguous as to not be academically useful. Would you agree with this conclusion?

In philosophy, dictionary meanings of words dont mean much. it is the idea or/and understanding of what it represents that means anything. This is the fundamental problem with most of us in our understanding.

Anyway, what you have shown is that there is no exact definition of the term naturalism. As in a set of words or a set of sentences that defines what it means precisely. Naturalism spans legal, ethics, scientific, scriptural, textual, hermeneutics, and even criticism by theologians in theology. It has a particular understanding in all of these fields. This is an idea. An understanding. A methodology. An approach. Even if you change the word, abandon it, the concept and its usage will remain. If you make the word vanish from vocabulary, it will have another word in its place or a phrase.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not at a keyboard so I will say this in general before I am (such that I can post more thoughtfully).

Some posts here are declaring the words in question to be colloquially useful. That has never been the problem. (I for instance enjoy supernatural horror as a genre, and colloquially know what that means).

The problem is when one tries to define their ontology around the words in question (“I am a naturalist”/“are you a naturalist?”)

This requires more rigor than a common parlance shrug.

@Jayhawker Soule posted a thoughtful piece that covers this fact very well: even in philosopher world, the main word in question is noted not to be well defined and few philosophers put stock in it.

I don't see additional rigor being useful even for ontomalogical
purposes in the Philosopher's Union. We'll never establish
"The Truth". But we did explore potential difficulties with the terms.

(Shamelessly taking advantage of your sans keyboard status.)

 

[MikeF]

In philosophy, dictionary meanings of words dont mean much. it is the idea or/and understanding of what it represents that means anything. This is the fundamental problem with most of us in our understanding.

Anyway, what you have shown is that there is no exact definition of the term naturalism. As in a set of words or a set of sentences that defines what it means precisely. Naturalism spans legal, ethics, scientific, scriptural, textual, hermeneutics, and even criticism by theologians in theology. It has a particular understanding in all of these fields. This is an idea. An understanding. A methodology. An approach. Even if you change the word, abandon it, the concept and its usage will remain. If you make the word vanish from vocabulary, it will have another word in its place or a phrase.

We are talking about the academic use of word labels and their corresponding definition used by consensus of the members of an academic discipline. And it seems from the small amount of research that I provided, naturalism is no longer considered a useful term in Philosophy.
Instead of clinging to a flawed definition and it's label, from an academic standpoint of wanting to be as clear and concise as one can in the transmission of our ideas, wouldn't it be better to understand why the word lost value and explore whether there is an improved word/definition that more accurately represents the idea we are trying to convey?

There have always been words that become archaic and fall out of use over time. Surely as our collective knowledge and understanding of the world increases over the centuries, it has necessitated both the revamping of definitions for some word/labels, as well as the creation of totally new word/labels and definitions to accompany totally new and unique ideas.

Would you agree?

 

[Meow Mix]

A supernatural event is just an event that can´t happen according to natural laws.

Every purportedly supernatural thing follows laws, though. Even ghosts have things they can supposedly do and can't do. What's the difference between that an "natural law?"

Some laws are well established and well understood, any event that brakes such law would be likely a supernatural event.

Newtonian gravity was very well understood when Mercury's orbit "broke" it. I don't think this is a good criteria.

Or you can just make a probability argument.

For example if you are in your house and the drawers start to open and close and you hear a voice that says “Boooo”

You can evaluate all possible explanations

1 it is a ghost (supernatural)

2 you are hallucinating

3 it’s a joke

4 the wind did it

Etc.

And determine the best explanation using common criteria like explanatory power , explanatory scope, parsimony, plausibility, consistency with previous knowledge etc.

This is just describing an epistemic process, though. It doesn't answer the question of what being "supernatural" actually means.