[Mongoose]

Y'know, I agree that it's possible to extend the term "atheist" to infants based on the basic definition of the word itself, but doesn't that wind up making it essentially useless as a functional term?  Expanding it in that sense has almost the same result as saying, "All humans start out as humans."  You're then forced to add the "implicit/explicit" modifier to specify whether you're talking about the usual sense of the term we use in daily conversation, or the term encompassing anyone/thing who hasn't thought about deities at all, which doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know.

[MP-Ryan]

Y'know, I agree that it's possible to extend the term "atheist" to infants based on the basic definition of the word itself, but doesn't that wind up making it essentially useless as a functional term?  Expanding it in that sense has almost the same result as saying, "All humans start out as humans."  You're then forced to add the "implicit/explicit" modifier to specify whether you're talking about the usual sense of the term we use in daily conversation, or the term encompassing anyone/thing who hasn't thought about deities at all, which doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know.

For me, the useful meanings of the words theist and atheist are derived from the fact that people self-declare as such. Unless you are telepathic (or God), you have no way to knowing whether someone is lying to you about their beliefs (knowingly or unknowingly), whether they actually understand the issue, etc. All you have to go by is their word.

If you are willing to unilaterally name all undeclared persons (as well as animals, inanimate objects, whatever) atheists without knowledge of what is going on in their heads, I'd argue that you're doing as much damage to the word as a theist would be if he claimed them all as theists, just with varying levels of ignorance regarding God's truth. It's kinda presumptuous where it isn't totally ridiculous (as in the case of the atheist sea slug), and it dilutes the meaning of the word.

I agree wholeheartedly with both of you.

[karajorma]

There's one thing all the people on this thread are forgetting. The second you say "I'm an atheist" you're obviously an explicit atheist.

So in practical terms there's actually very little dilution of the word. Pretty much every time you're talking about atheism, or dealing with atheist issues, you'll be talking about explicit atheism.

Implicit atheism only really is an issue when you're dealing with definitions. The rest of the time, it's there, but you don't particularly need to worry about it. We only need to worry about goldfish atheists once Christian goldfish start turning up.



However saying "I'm an agnostic" is not as simple. It doesn't resolve the question of whether or not you have faith in anything since you could be a theist agnostic or atheist agnostic (if you agree with MP-Ryan's definition you might even be a haven't decided agnostic).

If I label myself as a theist but I am not thinking about God this precise moment, where my thought processes could be labeled as absolute materialist, am I being a theist or an atheist right now?

If I label myself a conservative but right now I'm thinking about hamburgers. Am I still a conservative?

This is really a philosophical question with roots much deeper than the mere theist/atheist debate. As I pointed out above, the second you try to debate the issue, it goes away. If I ask you if you are a conservative or an atheist, you'll immediately start thinking about it again.

If I am unsure what or if to believe, even despite the fact that I go to Church and pray and what not am I being an atheist or a theist?

Depends on whether you're switching faiths or switching from having faith to not having it. Quite a few people lose faith in there being a God without losing faith that there is a higher power. I'm assuming you mean someone who doesn't believe in God any more but still goes to Church, etc. At that point you're probably an atheist pretending to be a theist. Most theists will agree that the rituals are fundamentally unimportant as to whether or not you have faith.

You're going to have similar problems no matter what definition you use for atheism. Even if you use the most narrow definition for atheist. What if I'm someone who says I'm an atheist but prays for my family's health every night? I've rejected the existence of God so I'm an atheist (by either definition), but I have made a decision that a higher power must exist if I'm praying to one so I'm obviously not agnostic (by MP-Ryan's definition or mine).


The problems with definitions is that humans are capable of strongly professing one belief and then acting completely out of sync with it. Are you going to say that a Christian that murders someone stopped being a Christian because they broke a fundamental rule of Christianity? What about someone who takes the Lord's name in vain and then repents? Did he stop being a Christian for the moments he was cursing God and saying he didn't believe in him? Definitions are black and white because they have to be. Trying to make definitions that fit actual human experience is a path to madness.

Take the average and call it good enough.

[Luis Dias]

Karajorma, I was railing against this "implicit atheism" concept, and pointing out the issues one comes up with if one thinks there's a hidden objective reality that is absolutely true and within which one is an atheist or a theist, irrespectively of one's actions and words.

If one dismisses this notion not as untrue but as impractical, then my points are irrelevant.

I also think that there's an assumption that is unjustified when one says that the "standard" position is being an atheist. I don't know if this is true. If one could reach a complete description of the brain of people and animals, I don't see as implausible the idea that what we call being a "believer" is something traceable to a specific state of mind, and that such a state of mind was actually the common state shared by animals and human beings, and atheism was precisely the exception, not the rule. I am not saying this is the case, just that I don't really believe the opposite case to be sufficiently justified and proven.

Finally, the whole shebang that came about between agnosticism and atheism I think it sums up as this:

• Atheism and Theism is the lack of belief and belief of God respectively;
• There's a multitude of different states of belief between atheism and theism (deism, pantheism, panantheism, etc.);
• Agnosticism is the epistemological conclusion one must arrive scientifically;

The first and second points are in a different state than the third one. The third one is the objective scientific point of view, but we do not function like a machine, we are humans, and so we do *decide* (even if unconsciously) with our emotions which metaphysical truth we think corresponds to the world we inhabit. In this sense, it is *wholly* different one person having spiritual vague beliefs and being unsure about it all emotionally, and the scientific rigorous agnosticist position. I argue they should even be named differently and that this difference is what sparked this heated discussion until now.

[karajorma]

I tend to agree with you that it is rather silly to call someone who believes in God but doesn't know what it is, and someone who doesn't believe in God and thinks we'll never know what God is by the same name. But that's the definition we've been given so we're stuck with it.


As for the problems with implicit atheism, it goes both ways. Take a baby who was born to a pair of atheists and raised without hearing about God much if at all. At what point do you call the kid an atheist? If this happened in a country where atheists were heavily in the majority the kid could be pretty old before he hears enough about God to be an explicit atheist. Hell, he might even be a Asanta clausist first.

[Herra Tohtori]

Agnosticism is the epistemological conclusion one must arrive scientifically;

No! Agnosticism has nothing to do with science. It's a position that opposes gnosticism, mainly in that it acknowledges that there MAY be something supernatural/divine, but that we cannot get information out of it, and thus it is not greatly relevant for our mundane lives.

In other words agnosticism makes a statement that there may be something that is beyond the reach of science; whether you call it supernatural, divine, god, heaven, afterlife - up to you.

One of the key definitions of "divine" is that it is something "outside" nature, or not governed by the laws of nature; ie. supernatural. And when we label something as "supernatural", we put it in a box that says on it "we cannot know how, why, or even what is happening here". To call something "supernatural" is to give up finding an explanation, or to find out the rules that make it tick.



The scientific method does not acknowledge that there may be some things that could not be experimented and explained. If you can observe it, you can do science about it.

Hence, by definition, science does not acknowledge the possibility of supernatural things. In the scientific view point, everything is a part of natural world; therefore is some apparently divine entity were to be encountered, science would attempt to research and analyze it, rather than giving up.


In short: For scientists, there is no division between "natural" and "supernatural". There is a division between "known" and "unknown".


On a conceptual level, a scientific position would be to say that we have no evidence of god-like, powerful entitites existing, but it would be unscientific to categorically deny their existence because clearly, we don't know everything that exist in the universe(s).

However, again on conceptual level, a scientific position regarding apparently supernatural or apparently divine phenomena is that they are all natural processes that we simply don't know enough to make educated statements about.


So, on a conceptual level, everyone who subscribes to the scientific method is by definition at least an a-supernaturalist.


Agnosticism, by definition, says that we cannot acquire information of the divine / supernatural. This makes it a thoroughly un-scientific point of view.


Now, if there's some definition of "divine" in which it doesn't have any supernatural characteristics, then I guess it would be possible for a scientist to acknowledge a possibility of "divine" things existing.

However, personally I think if you remove the "supernatural" from "divine" you just end up with a really powerful, possibly intelligent entity that exists as a part of natural order.

This applies whether said entity created the rest of existence, or if said entity exists as part of rest of the universe.


NB: As an example that I'm sure will pop up: An afterlife that you can only observe after you have died is an unscientific hypothesis. It is a claim that cannot be falsified. Technically, science cannot disprove it either, so completely denying the possibility entirely.

However, a scientific viewpoint would also declare that if such a thing exists, there's nothing supernatural about it...

Hence, we will simply postpone our research until such time that we can gain information on it. We should have ample time after we are dead.

[Luis Dias]

Agnosticism is the epistemological conclusion one must arrive scientifically;

No! Agnosticism has nothing to do with science. It's a position that opposes gnosticism, mainly in that it acknowledges that there MAY be something supernatural/divine, but that we cannot get information out of it, and thus it is not greatly relevant for our mundane lives.

The bit where you say "cannot get information out of it" pressuposes quite a lot, and is basically a derivation from scientific empiricism epistemology. IOW, Agnosticism is the end result of metaphysics once you assume the scientific method and put Empiricism as the biggest source of knowledge.

So, on a conceptual level, everyone who subscribes to the scientific method is by definition at least an a-supernaturalist.


Agnosticism, by definition, says that we cannot acquire information of the divine / supernatural. This makes it a thoroughly un-scientific point of view.

These sentences contradict each other. Let's be clear here, the scientific method does not deal with these supranatural things, thus it is agnostic about it. It is agnostic in the sense that it precludes the existence of non-natural things by its very nature (we agree here). However, it cannot deny its Truth in an absolute sense, for if science cannot study this "field" it does not mean that this field does not objectively exist, just that the scientific method is incapable of dealing with it.

Now, we can be full-blown scientists and say "if science cannot deal with it, it does not exist or it does not matter", etc. Or not. But that's a different question.

However, a scientific viewpoint would also declare that if such a thing exists, there's nothing supernatural about it...

It seems to me that there's here a fundamental equivocation of what "supernatural" means. I do not resent the word, but apparently you do. You seem to say that supernatural never exists, even if it does, for if it does it becomes natural at the spot. I think this is a simplistic take on the word and its meaning.

[Herra Tohtori]

TL;DR version:

NIHIL SUPERNUM


...and then the proper response.


It's a conceptual thing. "Supernatural" is a bad term because it implies something happens "beyond nature" or "over nature", meaning it's not suspect to same laws of nature as "natural" things are.

But here's the logical disconnect. If we assume that a supernatural thing exists, it becomes observable, it influences nature, and it changes the rules of nature to include said "supernatural" phenomenon. Because, if we can observe something happening, clearly it is possible for it to happen, ergo; it is a natural part of the universe.

I don't see any obvious way how this thinking is flawed. Please demonstrate it to me if you do. Maybe my definition of "natural" is wider than yours, but here's the logical equation I'm working with:

1. Universe == nature
2. All that exists == universe (see etymology of the word)
3. All that exists == nature


Note that this does not exclude the possibility of things existing outside universe and being supernatural in that sense. It does, however, prevent these things from interacting with OUR universe in any meaningful way, because that interaction would instantly meld ours and their universes together as a wider entity... and then all things that exists in both parts of the universe are again natural.

These sentences contradict each other. Let's be clear here, the scientific method does not deal with these supranatural things, thus it is agnostic about it. It is agnostic in the sense that it precludes the existence of non-natural things by its very nature (we agree here). However, it cannot deny its Truth in an absolute sense, for if science cannot study this "field" it does not mean that this field does not objectively exist, just that the scientific method is incapable of dealing with it.

No. Scientific method is not agnostic. And you can't "be agnostic" relative to something specific.

As we've discussed, agnosticism is antithesis of gnosticism. Gnostics believe that a "spiritual" or supernatural world exists and that it is more important than natural world.

Agnostics, at the very least, acknowledge that there is a possibility of such a "spiritual world" existing. Contrary to the Gnostic position, however, Agnostics take the stance that the natural world is more important to concentrate on than spiritual world, because we can't acquire reliable information about said spiritual world.


This is incompatible with scientific method in two ways. First, the acknowledgement of "spiritual", or supernatural things (as opposed to all things being part of nature), and secondly, by the view that this supernatural world is something that is impossible to acquire information of.


And no, insides of black holes are not supernatural. Acquiring information from inside an event horizon is impossible, but caused by natural processes we actually have fairly good understanding of. We don't exactly know if our hypotheses for what is inside event horizon are right, but they're not called bubbles of supernatural - it's just something we do not know.




The whole basis of my argument against Gods and Theism is that if there are gods, there's nothing divine in them simply by virtue of their existense.


After all, what basis is there to assume the universe would consist of natural things and supernatural things, and that these two types of things would be somehow fundamentally different? And, on conceptual level, wouldn't both of them still exist as part of the same universe?

There's a difference between "supernatural" and "unknown". Calling something "supernatural" is saying that we don't know what it is, AND that we either cannot or shouldn't research it for various reasons.

Calling something unknown is just saying we don't know what it is.


And what happens when scientists notice a phenomenon they don't quite know what to make out of? They observe it, document it, experiment with it, until they get an idea about how it works, and then start formulating hypotheses to form theories about what's going on. Hence the inverse of Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.


I don't resent the term "supernatural". I reject it as a logical impossibility.

Note that I'm not rejecting any particular, specific things that are branded with the logo "supernatural". Ghosts, afterlife, gods, angels, demons, afterlife... I'm not categorically saying none of these exist, despite having very little reason to believe in them, due to lack of evidence.

I'm saying, if they do exist, that makes them part of the natural order of things in universe.




I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot in this post. I should pay more attention to grouping my thoughts before posting, but this will do for now.

[BloodEagle]

TL;DR version:

NIHIL SUPERNUM

That troll didn't know what hit it. 

[Luis Dias]

TL;DR version:

NIHIL SUPERNUM

I googled this. Still don't know what to do with it, something about Harry Potter? Or just a general statement about heavens and all?

Anyways.

It's a conceptual thing. "Supernatural" is a bad term because it implies something happens "beyond nature" or "over nature", meaning it's not suspect to same laws of nature as "natural" things are.

But here's the logical disconnect. If we assume that a supernatural thing exists, it becomes observable, it influences nature, and it changes the rules of nature to include said "supernatural" phenomenon. Because, if we can observe something happening, clearly it is possible for it to happen, ergo; it is a natural part of the universe.

I don't see any obvious way how this thinking is flawed. Please demonstrate it to me if you do. Maybe my definition of "natural" is wider than yours, but here's the logical equation I'm working with:

1. Universe == nature
2. All that exists == universe (see etymology of the word)
3. All that exists == nature


Note that this does not exclude the possibility of things existing outside universe and being supernatural in that sense. It does, however, prevent these things from interacting with OUR universe in any meaningful way, because that interaction would instantly meld ours and their universes together as a wider entity... and then all things that exists in both parts of the universe are again natural.

You don't get to say that a metaphysical term is a "bad term" because its concept doesn't behave accordingly to a specific metaphysics, namely, the materialistic line of reasoning you just outpoured above. Now, you might disagree that "Supernaturalness" as defined does not properly exist, that you do not believe in such things, etc. However, that is amazingly different than saying that the concept itself is a bad one. I get it, it does not mesh well with the rest of your own philosophy, but then again, it doesn't have to mesh with your philosophy because it wasn't created with your particular philosophy in mind.

With this very important caveat in mind, we should therefore state that a scientific philosophy *must* then be completely agnostic about a kind of a "Order" where its methods are absolutely worthless. This is not a philosophical strenght of "Supernatural" itself, this is precisely one of the biggest criticisms one can inflict on the religious mode of thought, however, the points I made stand.

As we've discussed, agnosticism is antithesis of gnosticism. Gnostics believe that a "spiritual" or supernatural world exists and that it is more important than natural world.

That's somewhat not very rigorous. What Huxley meant was more about the lack of certainty of the gnosis of the world, that is, that we do not really know what is the absolute truth, and that such problem seems "insoluble" (by his words). It's not just that they don't "believe in it", they just think the problem is insoluble, in the good tradition of Hume and Kant.

This is incompatible with scientific method in two ways. First, the acknowledgement of "spiritual", or supernatural things (as opposed to all things being part of nature), and secondly, by the view that this supernatural world is something that is impossible to acquire information of.

Yeah, that's what happens when you substitute actual historical sources for the origin of words and their actual meanings for your own personal dictionaries. Of course that if you misdefine something then you'll find lots of errors in the connections other people make with those same words. However, I am afraid to tell you that you got your own definitions wrong. Agnosticism is not just about "being uncertain", it's about judging the problem insoluble. Read Hume on this, he's actually very very good at this point (especially about miracles and so on).

IOW, "Agnosticism" is a manifesto about Relativism wrt to the questions of God and the spiritual world. And this is absolutely aligned with the scientific position. Science cannot deny the possibility of God. It doesn't even have the capability of denying the existence of Realms that are just beyond its means of probing. Science *is* relativistic in this sense (always tentative, never absolute, always contingent on assumptions and data, etc.,etc.).

The whole basis of my argument against Gods and Theism is that if there are gods, there's nothing divine in them simply by virtue of their existense.

Again, easy thing to do when one just changes words to fit your attacks... A God by definition *is* divine. Look I can see you are having deep troubles with words here.

After all, what basis is there to assume the universe would consist of natural things and supernatural things, and that these two types of things would be somehow fundamentally different? And, on conceptual level, wouldn't both of them still exist as part of the same universe?

It depends on what you mean by the words you are using I guess, I can't trust you anymore on semantics, you keep making words up.

Less jokingly, you are either being trollish or just blissfully ignorant of the history of philosophy. These troubles you outlined are aligned with the very big problems of Free Will, of the Descartian duality (which is the basis of the scientific method, how about that one to mind blow you?), of determinism, etc.,etc. This is a very deep philosophical issue since Plato, and to just dismiss it as a "non-problem" is not enough.

There's a difference between "supernatural" and "unknown". Calling something "supernatural" is saying that we don't know what it is, AND that we either cannot or shouldn't research it for various reasons.

Calling something unknown is just saying we don't know what it is.

Sorry to make these random comments, but then again I'm just responding to your random comments .

There is no equivocation between supernatural and unknown. You are here trying to state that the problem is one of such equivocations. Well then, if you want to develop this thought a bit further, then I advise you to read Kant on this thing. He dwelled on this particular problem some 200 years ago.

And what happens when scientists notice a phenomenon they don't quite know what to make out of? They observe it, document it, experiment with it, until they get an idea about how it works, and then start formulating hypotheses to form theories about what's going on. Hence the inverse of Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.

This is abductive induction. You cannot make this induction. Yes, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, but the reverse does not follow from that same sentence. It does not matter how amazing the scientific method is, it can never even state anything about any *thing* that falls beyond its probing capabilties (either technical or theoretical). So you cannot ever say it is a "logical impossibility". That's just pure nonsense.

What you can do is just disbelieve in it, trust no one who talks about it, etc.,etc. That's what I just do. I am a total atheist here. I don't buy any of that crap. However, I am also pretty aware of the metaphysical limits that the human condition seem to impose me. And they tell me that the things you are saying are just way beyond what we can say.

IOW, you are uttering more metaphysics that you can possibly do.

[Herra Tohtori]

You don't get to say that a metaphysical term is a "bad term" because its concept doesn't behave accordingly to a specific metaphysics, namely, the materialistic line of reasoning you just outpoured above.

I don't think I ever said I was treating supernatural as a metaphysical concept. I was treating it as a physical attribute of things that hypothetically influence the cosmos (like gods).

In that context, I just think "supernatural" is a needless complexion and, divine being a subtype of supernatural, that falls into same category.

The whole basis of my argument against Gods and Theism is that if there are gods, there's nothing divine in them simply by virtue of their existense.

Again, easy thing to do when one just changes words to fit your attacks... A God by definition *is* divine. Look I can see you are having deep troubles with words here.

You have, correctly understood my point that gods can not exist when you reject the concept of divinity (along with supernatural) because then the god-entity stops being divine, which is what is supposed to make it god.

It's then just an entity. Ergo, no gods can possibly exist.

Whether people choose to address such an entity as a god is a completely different thing.


My problem with the concept of "supernatural" is that most everyone has their own idea of what it's supposed to mean, and furthermore as an adjective I seriously assert that nothing in existence can be supernatural, by virtue of existing, since existence is synonymous to universe and that makes them part of the universe - and that makes the rules governing the "supernatural" thing part of the universe as well.

Of course that if you misdefine something then you'll find lots of errors in the connections other people make with those same words. However, I am afraid to tell you that you got your own definitions wrong. Agnosticism is not just about "being uncertain", it's about judging the problem insoluble. Read Hume on this, he's actually very very good at this point (especially about miracles and so on).

Thank you for making the point for me.

Agnosticism can not be compatible with scientific method, because scientific method does not accept judging a problem "insoluble".

In science, that is called "giving up". There are no fundamentally insoluble problems, just problems that have not been solved for now.

As for reading Hume, to be brutally honest I have better things to do with my time than read about how some individual person thought a long time ago. I prefer to do my thinking mostly myself, for better or for worse.

I can freely disagree even with the original meanings of words. Everyone else seems to have no problem having their own definitions to choose from, why should I refrain from this wonderfully vitalizing conversational tactic?

This is abductive induction. You cannot make this induction. Yes, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, but the reverse does not follow from that same sentence. It does not matter how amazing the scientific method is, it can never even state anything about any *thing* that falls beyond its probing capabilties (either technical or theoretical). So you cannot ever say it is a "logical impossibility". That's just pure nonsense.

That's why science doesn't make statements that are beyond the probing capabilities (technical or theoretical).

You don't seem to be understanding the core of my argument. If something claimed to be supernatural (or divine or demonic or whatever you pick) exists, it is already within technical probing capacities of scientific method. You can look at it, you can record what it's doing, you can poke it with a stick and see what happens. You can measure it. In other words, by existing, supernatural thing has become a natural thing that can be analyzed.

It might not be understood, but your argument would require it to be beyond the probing capabilities of science to remain supernatural.

Which means it does not exist. A thing separate from universe functionally does not exist; it is irrelevant to us. On the other hand, if it interacts with universe in some way, then it exists and the universe is that much bigger place.


Hence: If a thing exists, science can analyze it.

If it's still being called magic, science has not sufficiently analyzed it YET.

This is related to the God of Gaps. The fact that we don't understand something now doesn't make it supernatural.

Even if we currently have no way of probing it with science, that doesn't mean it's a fundamental property of the thing to be un-probeable. At some point it may become a viable science. There are several examples of this, and I'm sure you're aware of at least a few of them.

In other words, it's not a very safe place for supernatural things to hide in the ever-receding gaps of scientific knowledge. Ignorance does not make things supernatural, and I fundamentally disagree with any assertion that some things could possibly be beyond any kind of scientific analysis, or as you said, "unsolvable problems".




Nihil Supernum is a quotation from a work of fiction that uses elements from the Harry Potter canon. It means, roughly translated, "Nothing Supernatural".

It makes more sense in the context. If you have the time, go read it.

[Luis Dias]

You don't get to say that a metaphysical term is a "bad term" because its concept doesn't behave accordingly to a specific metaphysics, namely, the materialistic line of reasoning you just outpoured above.

I don't think I ever said I was treating supernatural as a metaphysical concept.

Well there's your problem then. You keep doing this: you mistreat words and concepts, distort their contextual references, etc., and then proudly proclaim they don't work. Well yeah.

You have, correctly understood my point that gods can not exist when you reject the concept of divinity (along with supernatural) because then the god-entity stops being divine, which is what is supposed to make it god.

It's then just an entity. Ergo, no gods can possibly exist.

Whether people choose to address such an entity as a god is a completely different thing.

Stop throwing that thing to me, and especially don't quote Shermer on a philosophical discussion about metaphysics, epistemology and so on.

My problem with the concept of "supernatural" is that most everyone has their own idea of what it's supposed to mean, and furthermore as an adjective I seriously assert that nothing in existence can be supernatural, by virtue of existing, since existence is synonymous to universe and that makes them part of the universe - and that makes the rules governing the "supernatural" thing part of the universe as well.

Again, mistreating words. No, you don't get to play the relativistic card of "this is just a word people use" in this particular case, because this word isn't that badly defined at all. You misuse it, but that's all it is. You are not even, I think, making any effort to discuss these ideas, you are only trying to shovel your own particular philosophy and dictionary where these words have no place. If you deem these words to be useless, it's because you yourself made them behave in this particular fashion. It's not how they are properly used in philosophy.

Thank you for making the point for me.

Agnosticism can not be compatible with scientific method, because scientific method does not accept judging a problem "insoluble".

In science, that is called "giving up". There are no fundamentally insoluble problems, just problems that have not been solved for now.

You didn't get it, but I understand your problem. For you, there's nothing else but scientifically verifiable truths. If something hasn't been solved, it is bound to be so, or at least, it is possible for it to be so. What you do not understand is that this is a statement that is inherently Absolutist, and thus inherently anti-scientific! (science is not absolutist in any philosophical sense. It is relativistic, a point that you, because you apparently don't care about history of philosophy do not grasp at all)

You cannot possibly deny the possibility of actual things actually existing but being beyond any scientific method of probing. This is a logical argument that is just not up to debate. Now, given this brute true fact, you can do two things: either accept the contingency of science and turn yourself humble at the human condition of not ever knowing the "Absolute Truth" of the cosmos, or just stop caring about the "Absolute Truth" in the first place and become a Relativist (which is what I do). However, nowhere you are allowed to speak for this numenous state of affairs of the "Real" universe. You can only speak about the apparent world, the world of phenomena, of events.

As for reading Hume, to be brutally honest I have better things to do with my time than read about how some individual person thought a long time ago. I prefer to do my thinking mostly myself, for better or for worse.

It's very hard to discuss philosophy with people who think they have sussed out everything but are merely making very basic semantical errors, and dwelling in philosophical mistakes that have been solved for two hundreds or more years ago, and further that they think they outsmart people like Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, etc. Really.

I can freely disagree even with the original meanings of words. Everyone else seems to have no problem having their own definitions to choose from, why should I refrain from this wonderfully vitalizing conversational tactic?

You can argue that Agnosticism should be something it is not, but then do not pretend that it has always been so, etc. As far as I know, Huxley didn't mean it the way you wrote it, and you were just being all original about it. We discussed the meaning of the word "Atheist" between two different definitions that were not only both present in every dictionary, but also present in our cultural awareness of the world. You, OTOH, just made that up because it sounded smart. Not problematic in itself, but then you cannot criticize my text because my "agnostics" do things that your "agnostics" don't. To do this, you have to make me agree with your definition first, which is something you clearly haven't.

That's why science doesn't make statements that are beyond the probing capabilities (technical or theoretical).

Exact-the-****in-ly. Precisely.

You don't seem to be understanding the core of my argument. If something claimed to be supernatural (or divine or demonic or whatever you pick) exists, it is already within technical probing capacities of scientific method. You can look at it, you can record what it's doing, you can poke it with a stick and see what happens. You can measure it. In other words, by existing, supernatural thing has become a natural thing that can be analyzed.

Not at all, it is you that are just rehashing very basic arguments without any serious attempt to understand what I am trying to get through to you. You are speaking here about phenomena, events, empirical observations, etc. Of course you can do whatever you feel like to with all those things. Those phenomena are not supernatural. What is supernatural is always what is beyond the scope of scientific understanding.

Even basic "supernatural events" that are thought by many people to happen do not happen without material contingencies and scientific study, however, the point is that there's something that is by definition unstudiable in such an event, even if just partially. It's this surplus that is beyond scientific means.

I am not saying I believe in any of this. What I am telling you is that these concepts are not a contradiction and they *do* work.

It might not be understood, but your argument would require it to be beyond the probing capabilities of science to remain supernatural.

Which means it does not exist. A thing separate from universe functionally does not exist; it is irrelevant to us. On the other hand, if it interacts with universe in some way, then it exists and the universe is that much bigger place.

Again, making the wrong invalid induction. You cannot ever say that because you cannot "probe it", it does not exist. In a sense, it does not. For instance, in the scientific sense, it does not. But unless you are going to equate Reality with the big R with "scientific truth", with all its contigencies and conceptual limitations (which would be a terrible mistake on your part), it's simply an incorrect logical step.

Hence: If a thing exists, science can analyze it.

It's so easy to demonstrate this is even untrue today. I mean, you can say that those unstudiable things now will be studiable tomorrow, but that's hilariously confusing the contingent with the necessary, the temporal with the eternal, the absolute with the relative.

This is related to the God of Gaps. The fact that we don't understand something now doesn't make it supernatural.

This has nothing to do with the "God of Gaps". Nothing. This has nothing to do with the obvious fact that "if we don't understand something now doesn't make it supernatural". Nothing. It has to do with the abductive reasoning you are making, an invalid induction.

That is all. And that's enough.

Even if we currently have no way of probing it with science, that doesn't mean it's a fundamental property of the thing to be un-probeable. At some point it may become a viable science. There are several examples of this, and I'm sure you're aware of at least a few of them.

Again, you make the same mistake on and on and on. Here's a clue. If you say "A does not mean B", it does not follow that "if A, then not B". Your reasoning is insufficient. Of course, if you have no way to probe it, it does not follow it's magic. But you cannot do the reverse, which is to say that because of that last sentence, then magic does not exist.

In other words, it's not a very safe place for supernatural things to hide in the ever-receding gaps of scientific knowledge. Ignorance does not make things supernatural, and I fundamentally disagree with any assertion that some things could possibly be beyond any kind of scientific analysis, or as you said, "unsolvable problems".

That's fine, but that's just faith on your part. Many scientists would even disagree, they do worry that there are many things that may prove impossible to solve.

And no, I won't read Harry Potter. Perhaps it's just me, but I rather spend my reading time with actual literature. Like IDK, Hume, Nietzsche, etc.

[Herra Tohtori]

Luis, we're arguing from different directions.

I see the universe in a holistic way. It does not make any sense for me to artificially divide it in "natural" and "supernatural" (or mundane and divine). That's what I've been saying here.

The concept of supernatural is not relevant in this reference frame. In fact it's incompatible term and you saying that it makes sense in your reference frame doesn't make it so in mine.


Regarding absolutist statements: You're putting words in my mouth. I did not say that science will always find a way to solve a problem, or that it will eventually arrive to "absolute truth" about anything. What I'm saying is that if something is fundamentally observable, then science can make statements of it. It can make measurements and hypotheses and theories; how well these actually work to describe the phenomenon is subject to incremental improvements, and like you said, scientific knowledge is never absolute but relative.

What I was trying to point at is that if something physically exists and influences the world as we know it, then we can obviously make scientific statements out of it. Even if it's just "this happened and I have no idea why".



For things to be truly, fundamentally beyond any scientific understanding, they would have to be un-observable, and that means they can not influence our reality in any measurable way with current or any future measurement techniques. To me, this suggests something that does nothing. And something doing nothing strikes me as very irrelevant.

This is the basic reason why I don't think supernatural things exist. And yes, as I am a physicalist, my position is that no thing is more than the sum of its physical characteristics.

Even if we suppose a one-way interaction where supernatural spirits can observe our universe but not influence it in any way (and quantum mechanics would like to have a word with these spirits), they would still fundamentally be part of everything that exists, and they would have some sort of rules governing their existence.


Please stop talking about metaphysics and stop your condescension about reading philosophy. I don't presume to be smarter or dumber than any person in the history of the world who wrote something, and in some cases I do find it helpful to look how other people have thought of something relevant to me. But I honestly prefer to do my own thought work about certain things, and I don't see what relevance other peoples' thoughts have when we're discussing our opinions.

If there has been some misuse of words, then that would be a failure in communication. But that's why we're having this discussion - to share our perspectives, what our thoughts of these concepts are, and how we define them. If I have not been clear enough in my posting, I suppose I will have to use less words that you already have a prescribed definition for.

We can discuss to the end of the world what Hume said and what Locke thought and who does passive-aggressive condescension best but I really think there are better ways to use our time.

[Luis Dias]

About condescendence, you are the one being absolutely condescending towards the use of words, their meanings and the philosophical backgrounds I have brought here as arguments against your view that everything can be summarized the way you are doing here. Again, you present your views without confronting them against what I said. Did you even register what I tried to tell you about induction here? I think not.

For instance, when you say "stop talking about metaphysics" I really think you have no idea what you are talking about, because this is what you have been doing here for too damn long now, perhaps without conscience of it. If you are a physicalist, then that's your metaphysical position. You can't both try to shove your metaphysics down this thread's throat and demand others stop talking about it.

Thing is, such a belief isn't exactly grounded in the most rational approach to the universe. It's basically saying "All that exists is what I see and nothing more". Which is an obvious fallacy. Now, one should also be careful not to open up our minds to crazy woo, and so on. The correct path here is to forgo the notion of an objective reality and stop trying to speak for the entire universe what it can and what it cannot do. Agnostics are "positivists" (in the Stephen Hawking sense), in the way that we use terms and concepts in science that do not explain the objects in themselves, but rather patterns and symmetries that we detect, where what matters is how predictive we are and not the final words about what things like "Time" really are or not.

This means forgoing any claims about the Real World, and that includes the supernatural. We cannot say whether really magical realms exist or not. The best we can say about the subject is that we have no means to discuss it other than a scientific, rational way, and that if such realms escape this kind of description, then we should just better not talk about them at all. This fundamental gap between the supernatural and the natural is not something that I invented. Again, if you had read any material about the subject, you'd see that this gap is pretty much established as such by most theologians through time. (What christians did regarding this subject is a wholly different beast, that we could eventually discuss in other venues).

Regarding absolutist statements: You're putting words in my mouth. I did not say that science will always find a way to solve a problem, or that it will eventually arrive to "absolute truth" about anything. What I'm saying is that if something is fundamentally observable, then science can make statements of it. It can make measurements and hypotheses and theories; how well these actually work to describe the phenomenon is subject to incremental improvements, and like you said, scientific knowledge is never absolute but relative.

I am really frustrated at this conversation. I have said again and again that supernaturality is something that is just beyond the scientific method. Of course that if this is the case, then you cannot just "observe it". And of course that the parts of it that you can, then we will deal with them "scientifically". However, the idea that science can "make statements about it" is somewhat vague and really not promising. Everyone can make statements!

What I was trying to point at is that if something physically exists and influences the world as we know it, then we can obviously make scientific statements out of it. Even if it's just "this happened and I have no idea why".

Hardly a scientific statement. It is barely scientific in the sense that it merely does what it can against the impossible, which is nothing.

Even if we suppose a one-way interaction where supernatural spirits can observe our universe but not influence it in any way (and quantum mechanics would like to have a word with these spirits), they would still fundamentally be part of everything that exists, and they would have some sort of rules governing their existence.

Says who? You? Who are you to demand such things? Don't you see the arrogance of these statements? And what "rules" are these, why are we even calling them "rules", etc.? The thing is, you imagine that any other realm that exists is just barely similar to ours and it follows "rules" that are just as logical as ours, and thus potentially understandable, and so on. It never even crosses your mind that it is indeed possible that such realms follow a completely different way, and that such "way" may well be indeed beyond any scientific reasoning.

This is about unintelligibility. We should admit that science might indeed be barred from understanding certain things about the cosmos, and perhaps even definitionally.



The whole religious discussion about the divine and the supernatural is of course something much more subtle, more intelligent and rich than the discussion we are having, but going to those more interesting places is just impossible since you just dismiss the whole notions from the outset. What it really has to do is with the Human being, what is special (or not) about us, what is Conscience, what is Free Will (and do we have it or not), what it means to be within a stream of consciousness and how necessary it is (from the logical standpoint) that science outright fails us when we reach this conscience question. The basic reason is, of course, that it is founded under Descartian principles, and one of those principles, the division between the subject and the object, now comes to bite everyone back.

[karajorma]

Herra, while I fully understand where you're coming from, I don't think you're in the right about this. I think a good way to show why is rather than arguing definitions and philosophy, to give you an example that doesn't fit with your reasoning.


Right now, computing is still in its infancy. As computers become more powerful the simulations we can run on them will become more and more powerful. It's even possible that one day we may be able to create a simulation that is self aware. Where this becomes interesting is that there is a possibility that this has already happened and we're living in it.

Let's suppose a scientist in the future wants to study the effects of global warming in his planet distant past. He programs a simulation of a planet called 21st century Earth and makes it as detailed as he possibly can in order to get the best simulation of what Earth would have been like*. The simulation is good enough that some of the objects created by the code become self aware (i.e us).

Basically at this point the scientist is a supernatural entity. He obviously exists but he is completely outside of our universe and science. It's possible that he can update the simulation while it's running, ask it to change variables, etc. but if there are no functions allowing things inside the simulation to interact with his world, and no functions that allow us to hit the hardware directly, science in the simulation has no possible way to interact with his world. In fact it's probably not possible to even know that his world exists. Depending on what is being reported back to him, there might not even be any way for him to realise the simulation is self aware. All he might see on his screen are temperatures and CO2 levels.


Now bare in mind that I've told a story about a creator who exists in a universe that is basically the same as ours, and has made a simulation of his own universe. There is no reason to believe that this is true. Since the laws of physics we know belong to the simulated universe we live in, it's an enormous and incorrect assumption that they have to be the same in whatever universe the computer exists in. They could be completely different. Calling the Real Universe supernatural is therefore perfectly valid. There's no way to reach it and study it. And even if we could break the barrier between the simulation and the Real Universe, there's no reason to assume our rules would work in that universe.




*there is however a rather large bug in the Socks.wash() function that leads to the pointer to the object being randomly overwritten.

[Herra Tohtori]

About condescendence, you are the one being absolutely condescending towards the use of words, their meanings and the philosophical backgrounds I have brought here as arguments against your view that everything can be summarized the way you are doing here. Again, you present your views without confronting them against what I said. Did you even register what I tried to tell you about induction here? I think not.

You're posting so many things I disagree with that I have to pick the parts I disagree with most, otherwise my posts will end up looking like a demented quote ladder.

But I'll  bite. For now.

And what happens when scientists notice a phenomenon they don't quite know what to make out of? They observe it, document it, experiment with it, until they get an idea about how it works, and then start formulating hypotheses to form theories about what's going on. Hence the inverse of Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.

This is abductive induction. You cannot make this induction. Yes, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic, but the reverse does not follow from that same sentence. It does not matter how amazing the scientific method is, it can never even state anything about any *thing* that falls beyond its probing capabilties (either technical or theoretical). So you cannot ever say it is a "logical impossibility". That's just pure nonsense.

It's not abductive (in that it doesn't involve guessing). Here's the logical chain:

-let us assume that Magic can be observed
-observed things can be scientifically analyzed
-Magic can be scientifically analyzed

In the last line you have something that contradicts with the classical definition of magic, which implies it being something supernatural.

Excluding pure chaos, there is always some kind of underlying ruleset behind things, and scientific analysis is the best utility to uncover said rules.

Hence, after sufficient analysis, magic loses its supernatural apperance, and becomes an applied science - although it probably still would be referred to as magic, due to legacy reasons.


The stage at which this transition can be said to happen depends on what this particular species of magic can do and how easy it is to analyze and predict.


I truly don't see what's so complicated about this.

For instance, when you say "stop talking about metaphysics" I really think you have no idea what you are talking about, because this is what you have been doing here for too damn long now, perhaps without conscience of it. If you are a physicalist, then that's your metaphysical position. You can't both try to shove your metaphysics down this thread's throat and demand others stop talking about it.

No, it's my physical world view. Hence my arguing from it to show that in my view, agnosticism is not a scientific world view and DEFINITELY not a "natural result" of scientific method. I'm less interested in discussing the actual metaphysics than the consequences of a metaphysical position that I think best adheres to scientific method.

See, the consideration of metaphysics as an actual thing is fully dependant on your view on physics. It's in the etymology of the word - metaphysics means, approximately, "after physics".

If, like I, one considers everything that exists to be firmly in the realm of physics, there is simply no relevance in discussing metaphysics.

Thing is, such a belief isn't exactly grounded in the most rational approach to the universe. It's basically saying "All that exists is what I see and nothing more". Which is an obvious fallacy.

It's also incorrect definition of physicalism. Physicalism has nothing to do with "what I see and nothing more".

It merely states that, to quote wikipedia, "everything that exists is physical, that is, that there are no things other than physical things." Or in my words earlier in the thread, everything is no more than sum of its physical characteristics. There's nothing about subjective observability in physicalism - perhaps you mixed it up with something else?

Now, one should also be careful not to open up our minds to crazy woo, and so on. The correct path here is to forgo the notion of an objective reality and stop trying to speak for the entire universe what it can and what it cannot do. Agnostics are "positivists" (in the Stephen Hawking sense), in the way that we use terms and concepts in science that do not explain the objects in themselves, but rather patterns and symmetries that we detect, where what matters is how predictive we are and not the final words about what things like "Time" really are or not.

This means forgoing any claims about the Real World, and that includes the supernatural. We cannot say whether really magical realms exist or not.

Sure we can. Easiest way to do so is simply state that if the supposed magical realms exist, then their magicality is a perfectly natural part of universe (ie. not so magical after all).

Nihil supernum.

The realms may exist - of THAT we can have no opinion for or against without information -  but they are not magical.

Or, the whole universe is magical. Take your pick.

Otherwise you'll have to create all sorts of definitions that specify which things are mundane and which things are magical...

The best we can say about the subject is that we have no means to discuss it other than a scientific, rational way, and that if such realms escape this kind of description, then we should just better not talk about them at all. This fundamental gap between the supernatural and the natural is not something that I invented. Again, if you had read any material about the subject, you'd see that this gap is pretty much established as such by most theologians through time. (What christians did regarding this subject is a wholly different beast, that we could eventually discuss in other venues).

Theology is another topic I really have very little interest in.

Regarding absolutist statements: You're putting words in my mouth. I did not say that science will always find a way to solve a problem, or that it will eventually arrive to "absolute truth" about anything. What I'm saying is that if something is fundamentally observable, then science can make statements of it. It can make measurements and hypotheses and theories; how well these actually work to describe the phenomenon is subject to incremental improvements, and like you said, scientific knowledge is never absolute but relative.

I am really frustrated at this conversation. I have said again and again that supernaturality is something that is just beyond the scientific method. Of course that if this is the case, then you cannot just "observe it". And of course that the parts of it that you can, then we will deal with them "scientifically". However, the idea that science can "make statements about it" is somewhat vague and really not promising. Everyone can make statements!

Yes. What makes a statement scientific is that it includes some empirical data.

If you think you're frustrated, try me. I have been saying the whole conversation that it is impossible for something to exist without being subject to measurements and other tools of scientific method, and that's my main argument as to why I think supernatural is, in itself, a contradiction.

The quality of observations usually determines how accurate the hypotheses made from them are.

What I was trying to point at is that if something physically exists and influences the world as we know it, then we can obviously make scientific statements out of it. Even if it's just "this happened and I have no idea why".

Hardly a scientific statement. It is barely scientific in the sense that it merely does what it can against the impossible, which is nothing.

It's certainly more scientific than saying "this happened, and no one can ever know why because it's supernatural".

And it's infinitely more scientific than saying "ok, this thing exists, but it cannot be observed, and it cannot ever be understood by science"... which is, of course, much more common approach to claims of supernatural things existing. It is the core argument of both gnosticism and theism.

Even if we suppose a one-way interaction where supernatural spirits can observe our universe but not influence it in any way (and quantum mechanics would like to have a word with these spirits), they would still fundamentally be part of everything that exists, and they would have some sort of rules governing their existence.

Says who? You? Who are you to demand such things? Don't you see the arrogance of these statements?

Yes, I say so. It's not a demand, it's a logical conclusion of the premises I'm working with.

The simplest definition of universe (or cosmos) is that it includes everything that exists.

And, since I'm arguing from physicalist point of view, to me existence is something physical; an interaction or substance. This means, again from physicalist point of view, that if we imagine an entity "outside" universe suddenly starting to interact with our universe, then suddenly you can draw a bigger Venn diagram circle around the universe AND that entity, and re-label that as "the universe".

By interacting with the universe, hypothetical extra-universal beings would incorporate themselves into our definition of existence.

And no, I don't really see what's arrogant about that.

And what "rules" are these, why are we even calling them "rules", etc.? The thing is, you imagine that any other realm that exists is just barely similar to ours and it follows "rules" that are just as logical as ours, and thus potentially understandable, and so on. It never even crosses your mind that it is indeed possible that such realms follow a completely different way, and that such "way" may well be indeed beyond any scientific reasoning.

It truly doesn't matter whether we are or aren't capable of comprehending the rules of potential other "realms", or, in case of nested universe, "levels of existence". It doesn't even make a difference whether or not we're capable of understanding the rules of our own observable universe. Being unable to understand something doesn't make it fundamentally impossible to understand.

But what you're saying is pretty close to another description of God that was used in a thread on this very forum years ago - I forgot exactly who it was, but I think they described God as being "outside logic".

It made no sense then and your argument that something could be fundamentally beyond any scientific reasoning makes no more sense now.

Your argument seems to be tied to human ability to perceive reality.

However, no one ever said that humans had a monopoly on practicing the scientific method.


What prevents gods from being scientists?

This is about unintelligibility. We should admit that science might indeed be barred from understanding certain things about the cosmos, and perhaps even definitionally.

Never. Never, never, never ever should we admit that. It's the end of the road for scientific development, and it will never happen in science. If you label something as impossible to know, you are giving up. The answers may never come, but you can not know that.

The whole religious discussion about the divine and the supernatural is of course something much more subtle, more intelligent and rich than the discussion we are having, but going to those more interesting places is just impossible since you just dismiss the whole notions from the outset.

I disagree. Religions are fundamentally uninteresting to me, and claims of supernatural equally so.

What it really has to do is with the Human being, what is special (or not) about us, what is Conscience, what is Free Will (and do we have it or not), what it means to be within a stream of consciousness and how necessary it is (from the logical standpoint) that science outright fails us when we reach this conscience question.

I find those questions discussed from physical standpoint infinitely more interesting than saying that there are spirits, supernaturalness, divine influences or other such goddidit arguments involved.

We do not yet understand how consciousness becomes a thing. However, we have a fairly good idea where to start (hint: it's the brain), and that start is not to say "it's forever beyond our understanding" or invoke the existence of spirits (souls, in this example) to explain something. It is exactly the God of the Gaps argument, with slightly different formulation.

Personally, I'm fairly sure we will start to understand consciousness more as we start engineering conscious entities ourselves - AI's. Ethical or not, we can then actually research on what makes an AI conscious or sentient being, and even if we don't use our own brain structures as a template, it will certainly help on the abstract understanding of what is required for consciousness to form.


karajorma:

The example of a simulation and an Admin entity was discussed some days ago at #hard-light, and there's nothing fundamentally divine about such an Admin entity.

The interesting thing here is that it's a (very strange and particular) example of a nested universe, in which an universe (simulation) exists within a bigger whole. But of course, the actual universe (etymologically, everything-that-exists) includes both the parent and child realms.

At this point, same simple premise can be applied to both the parent and child realms: Everything that exists is, obviously, a natural phenomenon (meaning, it's possible for it to exist in that universe).

For the parent universe, we can make a statement that clearly in that universe, laws of nature allow for running a simulation that is in fact our world. The same laws of nature in that universe also clearly allow for the existence of the Admin entity, and the server infrastructure, and what have you.

This doesn't make the parent universe in any way fundamentally supernatural in my view. And it certainly doesn't make the Admin entity "divine". This, regardless of the level of interaction between the running simulation and admin personnel.


But, of course, nested universes tends to be another iteration of turtle on top of elephants on top of elephants... it's elephants all the way down. And then more elephants. It's a rabbit hole I don't feel particularly inclined to jump in. And particularly a nested simulation type scenario has several issues which are problematic in the view of our current knowledge of physics - such as theory of relativity, particularly the concept of simultaneity and universal reference frame (what kind of in-game coordinate system could produce all the effects of special and general relativity...). On the other hand, some parts of physics are eerily reminiscent of digital computation anomalies (quantum mechanics) and mathematical abstractions like singularities, so who knows.

[Luis Dias]

It's not abductive (in that it doesn't involve guessing). Here's the logical chain:

-let us assume that Magic can be observed
-observed things can be scientifically analyzed
-Magic can be scientifically analyzed

In the last line you have something that contradicts with the classical definition of magic, which implies it being something supernatural.

Excluding pure chaos, there is always some kind of underlying ruleset behind things, and scientific analysis is the best utility to uncover said rules.

Two big mistakes here. First you assume that Magic can be observed. This is gruesome, especially since I have already stated that the supernatural part of any magic is precisely the one that escapes scientific methodologies, ergo, it is unobservable, etc. Multiple times. Yet, you keep on pounding here, dunno why.

Second, for you either something is "pure chaos" or it has some "underlying rulesets" behind them. This is a metaphysical belief, pure and simple. This idea that there is something "orderly" and then something "chaotic" and the world is perfectly divided between these two is just a metaphysical statement proclaimed by faith. I have a completely different meaning of "chaos" and "order". To me, order is everything we understand, while chaos is everything we don't. Everything that we fail to understand seems utterly chaotic to us.

However, this does not mean that everything that we fail to understand (or even that the scientific method fails to understand) is "pure chaos", whatever that can mean. Such a state of affairs is possible, but it is not necessary. You have failed to prove this point.

I truly don't see what's so complicated about this.

I'm less interested in discussing the actual metaphysics than the consequences of a metaphysical position that I think best adheres to scientific method.

Of course you are. I mean, you would just love for everyone to just accept your metaphysics without discussion. Wouldn't that be easier? However, you are absolutely wrong here. Physicalism may well prove to be the correct metaphysics, but you simply do not know enough to make that conclusion.

See, the consideration of metaphysics as an actual thing is fully dependant on your view on physics. It's in the etymology of the word - metaphysics means, approximately, "after physics".

If, like I, one considers everything that exists to be firmly in the realm of physics, there is simply no relevance in discussing metaphysics.

If you continue to make **** up like this I will just stop replying to you. YES, Metaphysics means "after physics". Do you even know why? Do you even know the meaning of the words we are using in this discussion at all? "Metaphysics" was the name of the writings that Aristotle wrote after his teatrises on Physics (thus its name). Thus why it is called like this. HOWEVER, you cannot "derive" its meaning in that way, just like you cannot derive the meaning from Agnosticism from the historically ignorant manner that you pulled some comments ago.

BACK to the discussion (sigh). If you state something like "Everything that exists is in the realm of physics", then this is Physicalism. This is a metaphysical position. To say "IF I believe X, then there's no point in discussing beliefs", you are either not understanding your own words or you are just bullying me into accepting your metaphysics by fiat. That's not how I roll, sorry.

It's also incorrect definition of physicalism. Physicalism has nothing to do with "what I see and nothing more".

It merely states that, to quote wikipedia, "everything that exists is physical, that is, that there are no things other than physical things." Or in my words earlier in the thread, everything is no more than sum of its physical characteristics. There's nothing about subjective observability in physicalism - perhaps you mixed it up with something else?

No, I was making a general commentary about your limited metaphysics. You only see physical things, therefore the cosmos is only about physical things. I was commenting on the attitude that concludes Physicalism, not physicalism itself.

Sure we can. Easiest way to do so is simply state that if the supposed magical realms exist, then their magicality is a perfectly natural part of universe (ie. not so magical after all).

That's absurd and contradictory. "If magical things exist, they aren't magical". If X then X <> X.

Yes. What makes a statement scientific is that it includes some empirical data.

If you think you're frustrated, try me. I have been saying the whole conversation that it is impossible for something to exist without being subject to measurements and other tools of scientific method, and that's my main argument as to why I think supernatural is, in itself, a contradiction.

Again, two very wrong things. No, a scientific statement needs more than "include some empirical data". Science is not only about "empirical" stuff. The other very wrong thing you said is that something cannot exist without being "subject" to measurements. If such were true, then singularities (a quite physical thing, not even in the supernatural realm) and other kinds of "unmeasurable" objects wouldn't exist. But that's obviously absurd. The reductio is flawless here.

It's certainly more scientific than saying "this happened, and no one can ever know why because it's supernatural".

Tu Quoque is not an argument. I agree that what you just wrote is silly, however the original "scientific statement" makes it abundantly clear that it is quite possible for there being limits to the scientific method. Just the fact that they are contingent on so many levels, how accidental the method is, etc., should give you the clue.

And it's infinitely more scientific than saying "ok, this thing exists, but it cannot be observed, and it cannot ever be understood by science"... which is, of course, much more common approach to claims of supernatural things existing. It is the core argument of both gnosticism and theism.

And this is a bad argument. What this quoted paragraph says is basically that "Sciency stuff is more sciency than non-sciency stuff". That wasn't the point.

Yes, I say so. It's not a demand, it's a logical conclusion of the premises I'm working with.

The simplest definition of universe (or cosmos) is that it includes everything that exists.

And, since I'm arguing from physicalist point of view, to me existence is something physical; an interaction or substance. This means, again from physicalist point of view, that if we imagine an entity "outside" universe suddenly starting to interact with our universe, then suddenly you can draw a bigger Venn diagram circle around the universe AND that entity, and re-label that as "the universe".

"from physicalist point of view" you conclude that the world is physical and nothing non-physical exists. How's that for an argument. It's brilliant. Wait. No, no it's not, it's just concluding what you assume. The arrogance is saying that nothing that you do not assume exists exists. As if your assumptions had the seal of God printed on them. No, they just haven't.

But what you're saying is pretty close to another description of God that was used in a thread on this very forum years ago - I forgot exactly who it was, but I think they described God as being "outside logic".

It made no sense then and your argument that something could be fundamentally beyond any scientific reasoning makes no more sense now.

Again, let's deconstruct this idea. There's this God as being "outside logic". And then you say that it makes no sense. What kind of sense? The logical one of course. But wait, hadn't we assumed that God was "outside logic"? So what is really here the controversy when we reach the conclusion that "it makes no sense"? That should have been obvious from the get go. Now here's the bottom line: it may make "no sense" (to us or to anyone but god), it may not follow logic, and still exist.

You haven't shown *anything* against this idea other than stating the opposite case as a brute fact. That's the arrogance.

Never. Never, never, never ever should we admit that. It's the end of the road for scientific development, and it will never happen in science. If you label something as impossible to know, you are giving up. The answers may never come, but you can not know that.

What the hell are you on about? How is it the "end of the road for scientific development" to have the insight that some things might be completely outside even our senses of "blind spots"? Your ideas are all over the place and utterly confused. No, humbleness is not "the end of science", it might be precisely its beggining. Nowhere did I write that we should "give up", where did that even come from? Jesus.

I disagree. Religions are fundamentally uninteresting to me, and claims of supernatural equally so.

I won't ever force anyone to have a clue about anything really, so don't worry too much. Being ignorant is sometimes useful I guess.

[karajorma]

The example of a simulation and an Admin entity was discussed some days ago at #hard-light, and there's nothing fundamentally divine about such an Admin entity.

The interesting thing here is that it's a (very strange and particular) example of a nested universe, in which an universe (simulation) exists within a bigger whole. But of course, the actual universe (etymologically, everything-that-exists) includes both the parent and child realms.

From the point of view of the parent universe, yes. But from the point of view of the simulation, no. The parent universe is completely closed off to us. There might be no way to even know it exists. As far as the simulation is concerned, the simulation is the entire universe because there is nothing else that can be observed.

For the parent universe, we can make a statement that clearly in that universe, laws of nature allow for running a simulation that is in fact our world. The same laws of nature in that universe also clearly allow for the existence of the Admin entity, and the server infrastructure, and what have you.

This doesn't make the parent universe in any way fundamentally supernatural in my view. And it certainly doesn't make the Admin entity "divine". This, regardless of the level of interaction between the running simulation and admin personnel.

What makes them supernatural and divine is the fact that

a) The parent universe is unobservable from the point of view of the simulation.
b) The scientist can affect the simulation without leaving any trace of how it was done. To all intents and purposes, a miracle.

You've claimed that since any deity/supernatural entity's effects on the natural world can be studied with science. I pointed out the nested universe as an example of a time when it can't. It's not simply that we can't understand the results of trying to do science on the parent universe, it's that we physically can't do science on it.

If you say science can measure everything, you're obviously incorrect. So the only scientific possibility is to say that "Maybe there are some things which science can't measure" which is pretty much what everyone but you has defined as agnosticism.

[watsisname]

Two big mistakes here. First you assume that Magic can be observed. This is gruesome, especially since I have already stated that the supernatural part of any magic is precisely the one that escapes scientific methodologies, ergo, it is unobservable, etc. Multiple times. Yet, you keep on pounding here, dunno why.

For things to be truly, fundamentally beyond any scientific understanding, they would have to be un-observable, and that means they can not influence our reality in any measurable way with current or any future measurement techniques. To me, this suggests something that does nothing. And something doing nothing strikes me as very irrelevant.

[Luis Dias]

"Irrelevant" is something that does not equate to "unreal". It's also a bizarre qualification, since I did not say that the entirety of "miracles" would occur in a non-observable way. I did take my time explaining how the supernatural portion of a miracle is precisely the surplus that goes beyond material explanations, or scientific probing. It does not mean that the entirety of such miracles must be unobservable.

I can really easily imagine a miracle that just goes against any fundamental law of the universe, its fundamental properties unavailable to any observer, however they give rise to really big observable phenomena. Kara's analogy is perfect as an illustration on how this is possible as a proof of concept. The admin decides to change parts of a simulated world by his own whims, and to the conscious observers inside this simulation it appears as if things came out of nowhere without any intrinsic logic, going against any laws they were aware of that ruled their world.