Does the Supernatural exist?

Originally Posted by mack

So basically Twain, your theory is: we havent discovered it all, but its all there for the discovering?

More or less. But I don't presume to believe we WILL discover it all. Our knowledge of the universe is woefully incomplete and will never be complete.

Of course they are natural occurences. They occur in nature. But, again, clearly the "occurrences" are deviant from the normal plodding everyday occurrences of life. What are we saying - that these oddities can be explained away?

Not necessarily. They may never be explained. But retreating to a supernatural explanation may be premature.

Supernatural being?

Beyond the natural. A "magical-like" influence upon nature. Contrary to the laws of physics. Or was "being" a noun? In that case; a god, demon, angel, fairy...an entity not bound by nature or the laws of physics.

All you seem to be saying is that everything is "natural," apropos, there is no "super" natural. Kind of puts the cart before the horse, yes? Very circular reasoning, seemably.

Saying everything is natural is putting the cart before the horse? Well, you got me there. I don't quite see your reasoning.

Here's an example of circular reasoning: The Bible says we are made in God's image.

...How do you know?

Because the Bible says so.

It's not circular reasoning to presume things and events are natural but are sometimes interpreted in a supernatural way. That's merely a natural interpretation of phenomena as opposed to a supernatural one.


Supernatural is:

1. Greatly exceeding or departing from the normal course of nature: preternatural, unnatural. See USUAL. 2. Of, coming from, or relating to forces or beings that exist outside the natural world: extramundane, extrasensory, metaphysical, miraculous, preternatural, superhuman, superphysical, supersensible, transcendental, unearthly. See SUPERNATURAL.

So to the point: I think the "everything is natural" argument/vantange point falls squarely within definition 1 of "supernatural," which leaves definition 2 open for argument.

I have no evidence that the supernatural doesn't exist. It's merely an opinion. But then, there's no real evidence that the supernatural does exist either. It's more of an interpretation or perception of a "realm" that can't be scientifically observed. For that reason, it can't be proven or disproven and will forever exist or not exist on the whim of the "observer."

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Just for fun, I'm going to throw a wrench in the discussion.

Two plus two equals four, right? How do we know that? Because we can plainly see that if you put two objects together with two more objects, you end up with four objects. But what if I said that two plus two equals five? Would I be wrong?

"Two," "four," and "equals" are terms invented by humanity to designate words to specific numbers and concepts. They aren't physical truths. So, two plus two equals four because someone said so. Years from now, someone can come around and say "two plus two really equals five," and who are we to argue?

And before you say that no matter what we call numbers, a certain number plus a certain number will always yield a certain number. But that's a result of how humans process and organize information. Other beings process organization differently. Computers, for example, process information in binary. For them, nothing is tangible. And for an amoeba, there are no numbers, and everything is tangible.

(God love Orwell for screwing with my head.)

If the simplest equation - two plus two equals four - isn't even a constant truth, then what does that say about the existence of everything else? Again, I concede to my point that truth and belief, supernatural or not, stems solely from human perception. The real truth escapes us, because we can't be anything other than human. They say dogs see in black-and-white. If this is true, then grass must appear greyish to them. Is that no less true than the green grass we see?

We can perceive phenomena, but the supernatural is what we attach to it - not what is necessarily there. Dogs have better senses than we do. We can't see electromagnetic waves, but perhaps they can - and perhaps, for them, it's no less normal than perceiving a mailbox.

Are you saying amoeba's are innumerate and Godless? My lord! Can we not establish some kind of schooling facility to correct this?

Erm, mainly bugger all. It says more about our perception of things, as you go on to say.

But that does not mean underlying realities do not contain consistancies etc - regardless of the extents to which we can or cannot perceive them. (And the boundaries to our knowledge have proved at least slightly mutable as time has gone by - that's always an intriguing thing)

Well, we could apply that to maths too, or vision, or any perceptual construct, as you've shown. But i'm sure you'd agree that to blur the lines too much wouldn't be that useful. We could perhaps just say that there are things which we are 'closer' and 'further' from our understanding (and we're liable to put 'perceptual spin' onto all of those things).

Yup. And perhaps we should keep up our intriguing ties with them - and keep extending them - as the people who have discovered dogs that can 'sniff out' tumours have done, for example

Seems there's lots of cheeky ways to gain curious little insights

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Right. We perceive the world, and we categorize in terms of 'truth' and 'untruth' according to the understanding of truth we have created for ourselves. What exists outside our realm of understanding is beyond us. Things may exist, or they may not. But looking at and interpreting existence through the human filter is like looking through a cardboard paper towel tube. Which is the higher understanding I think we have to achieve: that perspective is a relative thing; that what seems to exist (or not exist) for us may not be the case; that we may not be as complex and enlightened as we like to think we are.

It's hard to guess either way. One could argue that reality is created by the senses. After all, one possesses no way to interact with the outside world, then does the outside world exist. For the deaf, does sound exist? And just because we can say yes, does that make it true? If everyone in the world is deaf, that truth would be much different. So, how can we step outside and understand that which we cannot perceive?

Yeah, I read that article last week. Interesting stuff.

Or 'more true'/'less true' - or even 'conditionally true' etc . Ain't context a bitch

I think we might as well settle on saying something(s) exist. Makes things easier

Sure - but it can't just stop there. If it's to be a higher understanding then there's a load of challenges to be faced up to - IE we need to refine our knowledge of...

a) the nature of reality
b) the limits of our perceptions

(duh )

The two intermingle and inform each other soooo frequently. (That's why study of the mind is such a interesting area of study too - coz it sits on the crossroads. I stumbled onto this slightly flatulant but interesting overview of theory of mind - and the difficulties it faces. It's worth a read. Plenty of 'psy' phenomenon mentioned too)

By learning about the limits of our perceptions we can sometimes step outside them. The dog example is one form of this. The fact that we're getting down to the 'quantum' level - and fathoming aspects of space which we can never visit, shows this. Many of these discoveries have evolved from attempts to explain the gaps in what is perceivable, as much as the gaps in what is known.

Here's where a lot of the problems are. Human nature. No matter what potential steps forward we can make in understanding, there's the problem of daily application and communication. Every new day is an increasingly weirder one in this world - whether it be because people have become entrenched in: an old rut in a new world; a whole new rut; a whole new potential 'world'; or whatever.

Even before we get to psy-phenomenon etc - there's a load of 'magical' new skills that are gonna become available - and are available now - which make the nature of perspective and approach even more important. Do we want people to have DIY genetic modification kits? Will we skewer reality into a butterfly bow while searching for the Higgs Boson? Who knows. It's all worth keeping an eye on tho.

There's lots of interesting games to be played out. And lots of potential for us to actually end up looking down a narrower cardboard tube, simply because of being overwhelmed by the mass of information around us - or by habitualisation to a few successful perception techniques.

So, yeah, to this, conditionally. But it seems we're still able to shift the boundaries of what we can't know at the moment. And there's still knowledge 'within us' that is yet to be tapped in the modern world. I'd say many things that are currently unknowable will slowly sift into being merely 'unknown' (and from there, potentially become 'known' ). But that some things are ultimately unknowable - i think we should take that as read. (And then read 'around' them anyway - what else can we do?)

Bah. Always disliked this one. Used to drunkenly argue a lot with my mate who would say the world would die when he died. Bah.

With difficulty, and often not at all. But nevertheless... it is possible. Some deaf people can now hear, because of the shared experiences and knowledge increases of both the deaf and hearing. Some blind people are getting closer to seeing thanks to various work (including this
tongue device i linked to elsewhere). And all of these 'leaps into the dark' help us understand ourselves, our limitations, and our potential, a whole lot more

I think referring to truths as "more" or "less" true, depending on from where you're looking, muddies up the understanding of truth. It seems like it can get really confusing designating degrees of truth, especially when our very definition of truth really doesn't allow for the understanding of degrees to begin with. Remember, the understanding of "context" you mention also comes from us. We can try to think like a dog (context), but what we're really doing is thinking like a human thinking like a dog. Who knows how a dog really thinks? Again, we can't step out of the human filter.


Everything stems from our perceptions, though. We can't step outside them unless we cease to be what we are. We can never understand the "true nature of reality," because we can only experience reality through the human filter.

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

It sounds stupid, but how could you prove otherwise? You'd be dead. You'd no longer possess the capacity to perceive the "outside world." Is it still there? Who knows? Perhaps living is nothing more than a condition of the brain...

A: well to be blunt, the supernatural is a very generic term...in this thought you must decide what it means to you; either scientific-being able to touch it and say it's real, matter or energy, or is it is spiritual...If scientific, then you'll probably say no, simply because it isn't proven; but you must remember even gravity was supernatural to begin with...Ans if you say spiritual, then my friend that is along the lines of the belief system, which is completely and internal decision unfir to be voted on; and that is not to say other peoples ideas and thought cannot be a powerful determining factor...

B: Do you think if we knew any more that we did about the supernatural, that we would call it that?

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Have you seen What the *bleep* Do We Know? Highly recommended for anyone interested in this sort of thing.

Quantum mechanics is some weird shiite. And probably the closest to the supernatural a materialist like myself will ever get.

It is circular reasoning to say that there is no supernatural because everything is natural, hence, no supernatural. (ok, not really confused! )

Ex:
I saw/experienced something that normally does not occur.
What I saw/experienced was supernatural.
No, what you saw was natural.
Why?
Because everything that occurs IS natural, thus, nothing is supernatural.
.....circular!

Of course! Just tossing another thought into the fray. Actually what I was trying to posit (from a theoretical standpoint - not that I go one way or another), was that according to definition "supernatural" can be (1) EXTRA-natural -which is what it seems you are saying, or (2) UN-natural - being completely foreign to nature.

If you look at it this way, Supernatural encompasses most theories. In fact, if you believe that everything is natural, then odd occurences/experiences are only "natural" experiences that outside the norm (or "EXTRA-natural"). However, it also encompasses the idea that there are experiences and occurences that are completely foreign to nature (or "UN-natural").

Bottom line: the word "supernatural" is expansive enough to cover all of our definitions well. Interesting, no? So then it would not be correct to say you do not believe in "supernatural" occurrences because according to the definition, you do.

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Ah, i was referring to 'objective' variance, not subjective variance, making a truth's truth vary (Subjective issues, like communication, add a whole 'nother level of confusion - as that last sentence proves )

'Truth' is muddy by default. Or at least, if a 'truth' is to in any way reflect the complexities of the universe, it ain't gonna be a clear-cut simple thing.

Out of necessity humans break truths down into the smallest 'clearest' chunks possible. But when applying those truths to the 'bigger picture', we have to factor the messy issues of context and timeframe back in. Even laws of physics have multiple outcomes which are tempered by the environment in which they are operating. On these grounds even they can be 'less' true at certain times than others.

To use a cheeky example, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) is much 'truer' in a closed system than 'out in the real world' (In a closed system, the entropy actually happens).

Most other facts ain't even as clear cut as physics laws tho. The truth seems to be messy. (Quite fun to splash about in tho )

You seem to be talking about absolute Truth rather than the average daily flawed human truth. As you've mentioned, the former is a basically unobtainable thing. Only silly people think they know it

You seem to be being a touch defeatist about this tho. We can find the dog who's willing to do what we can't. Thanks to variance we can learn about things we lack from others (the filter comes in varied forms). Thanks to pooled knowledge, we can learn about things 'beyond the filter' which we can never directly experience.

Who cares if you can't experience what the dog does? Who cares if you can't know God's/The Universes Truths? We can't experience what's 'beyond' the filter, but occasionally, we can still 'divine' something about it

Sure. (Altho, on the 'ceasing to be what we are' thing, change is fairly inevitable anyway. Some day we'll be something else. At the very least, the filter will be slightly different )

I was tackling some subjective/social aspects of dealing with complex 'objective' truths (and how our increased understanding of the universe has increased our ability to affect it - tho not necessarily our subjective and daily ability to handle it. IE We're more powerful now, but we ain't all that much smarter )

Well, i always just think that all of us existing after all those have died before as good a proof as is necessary

It's either that or you buy into some sort Descartes-Devil (or God) thing - where some all-powerful being has created everything you perceive just for you.

And if that were so, i'd still say... so what? Doesn't exactly seem worth worrying about if you can't change it

Nice posts guys

Looks like the supernatural is un-debatable then. It encompasses everything and nothing

Ugh, i've heard it's a bit of a twisty production - and not in a good way. Cult funded, dodgy interpretations of the good science, with some pseudo-science thrown in (the ice-words guy particularly).

Might give it a whirl, but i've been put off by most of what i've read. There's plenty that's fascinating about both quantum physics and self-determination, without people going round saying the two together mean you can walk on water

This is the point I was wondering if someone would bring up. This is most often the end result of my thinking when considering the supernatural.

We either base our concept of reality on what we can detect with our own five senses, or we accept that things can exist outside of that set of limitations.

To go a step further, if one were to believe that the former is truth then does that make humankind the center of the universe since nothing can exist outside of the human experience? That's a slippery slope.

Can't we do both?

Ay. But on the other hand, the people who think they've received information from the unknowable 'realms', for example, are sliding off into a whole world of worryingness n'all

It's so slippy out there it's amazing we can walk upright at all

Everything real has a scientific explanation, we may not know it yet, we may never know it, but it does. The idea that anything lies beyond science is ridiculous as science by definition exists to explain the way things work. Therefore, the answer is no.

Why is it ridiculous? Science is based on the empirical observation of physical phenomona. By definition, then, it can have absolutely nothing to say about the possibility that something non-physical exists. We're left, then, to weigh that possibility philosophically.

This is the reason science and religion do not ultimately conflict, and are very poor substitutes for one another.

That's a pretty large assumption.

Just coz science has helped us delve ever further into the unknown and the previously-unknowable, that doesn't mean it can do so indefinitely - or that its 'tools' of explanation and exploration will be compatible with all the universe's mysterious twists.

After all, we do have plenty of evidence (both scientific and 'philosophical') that human beings operate under various mental/physical limitations.

Those facts suggest that not everything is liable to fall within our ken. Or our barby.1

1 - This was a very poor joke

Ugh, that was horribly 'anthropic' reasoning, and a tautology to boot, so about as redundant as saying 'God exists coz God exists'

Science exists to explain our universe, however it manifests itself. Although I'm not quite sure what you mean by something 'non-physical'? To exist something must have physics of some sort - even a vacuum has physics. I'd also argue that science is more based on explanation than observation, although that doesn't have much relevance in this argument.

Well, no, it wasn't quite that redundant, it was more like saying 'religion explains everything by definition because it's all God's will.' Which is a valid point, if you choose the religious school over the scientific one.

I lived in a haunted house when I was at university, so I definitely believe in ghosts.

I dunno. I reckon your original claim can be reduced to 'science explains everything because science explains everything' - and the above statement can be reduced to the 'God=God' one. In both cases the caveats don't change the fact that the conclusion is the same as the premise, i'd say

Heh, i've tried to persuade Yods that that term is a tad peculiar, but at the end of the day it serves its purpose, which is to draw a line between the knowable and the unknowable - just dressing it up in 'intangible spirit' trappings at the same time

Um, what sort of ghostly activity did you witness Punchy? If it was the 'sensing a presence' kind, you might want to check out my first post in this thread