Howdy. This thread is to allow people to offer their best case establishing the existence of supernatural things, forces, phenomena, et hoc genus omne, without completely hijacking another thread. Please, if you choose to play, play by the rules:[ul]
[li]Coherent, well organized, and clear entries only.[/li][li]Please try to get into one post, if possible; if not, please write it before hand and paste to keep them together as a group. (Or however that is done.)[/li][li]Please do not provide links to other threads that you feel are similar.[/li][li]Please make your entry a complete, stand-alone argument (or arguments). Pretend you are a lawyer or philosopher or scientist or whatever, and lay down your arguments as a cohesive whole.[/li][li]Please take time to think about it and organize your thoughts.[/li][li]Please provide the relevant links to references and data. If referencing a book, please link to its page on an online book store or library catalog if possible.[/li][li]In spirit this is not to be a debate, but a half of a debate. Imagine that you are the affirmative team and your resolution is: Resolved: Supernatural, non-material, or spiritual forces, entities, or effects exist. I would like to have a clean collection of your opening arguments without the clutter of rebuttals.[/li]If you feel you must post a rebuttal, then the first person to do so will please start a rebuttal thread.[/ul]
Every human language has a word meaning “ghost”.
Not to be a wiseacre and hijack your thread, JS, but would you provide a working definition of “supernatural” to guide us. I’m relatively sure of what you mean and what you want, but consider: if I define “God” as “a conscious benevolent entity undetectable by scientific instruments which created the Universe and which causes it to operate as it does solely through natural forces,” have I defined something you’d class as “supernatural” or “non-material”? (I’m assuming “material” includes energy for purposes of this thread; otherwise a magnetic field becomes “supernatural.”)
First of all we must acknowledge our limitaions in intelect, in isnstruments and in experiences. For instance a 50 year old persoin has more material to work with in the area of memories than lets say a 10 year old. Someone working at ILM has more equipment to work with than someone with a mac and some simple commericial sofware.
And thanks for giving me the opportunity to organise my recent and perennial thoughs on this matter since I have spent enough time dwelling on the subject, but no one is an expert or an authority in something that will always defy present knowledge.
The case of the supernatural is for some the most obvious thing that exists and for others the most obviously false, but I beg you be open and aproach it for now without any preconceived attitudes,and really think deeply about this.
A)What is natural?
B) Who are we?
C) What is this expansive universe we live on?
D) What is life?
E) How long has this been going on?
F) How many levels of intelligences is possible?
G) What have we learnt in the time that we have been in H)comparision to what more is there to learn?
H ) Who among us can detemine the limitations of this universe and reality?
I) Can we that have not experienced the supernatural easily dismiss the accounts of those who have without a fair trial?
J) Why have there been so many accounts throughout history in all countries and no foreseen end to it?
K) Can we easlily dismiss those accounts as false?
L) In which way has material and technical progress improved our communication or happinness?
M) Is it possible to be scientific,skeptical and still believe in the supranatural?
O) What do we stand to win by entering into the discovery of the supernatural?
P) Should technology make us more closed- minded or open- minded to more undiscovered mysteries?
Q)Should our existence as children of an unfathomable universe be diminished in our minds for simple lack of humilty?
R) me heartys! R! R!
How is this for a defence:
By definition, the “supernatural” is everything that cannot be rationally explained by current science.
Also by definition, current science is imperfect in its explanatory power and always will be. Those things which were a total mystery yesterday are explained tomorrow, but there will always be further misteries to explain.
So, one has no choice but to believe in the “supernatural” - you must either believe that there still exist some things which science cannot yet explain, or believe that science is currently perfect - and the latter cannot be defended.
The “supernatural” is merely the sum of all that cannot be currently explained. So long as our explainatory powers are not perfect, there will always be some things which are “supernatural”.
There could be semantic arguments for the whole night, but we all know what he is asking for:
Proof that a ‘spiritual world’ or ‘ghosts’ or ‘telepathy’ or ‘aliens’ or any of the millions of other ‘junk science’ targets actually exist. We can easily qualify them out of existence by chatting about the definition of words, but I think that we all know what he is seeking.
My wording probably would have been ‘postulate proven: that there exists a force or set of forces - physical, mental, or otherwise - that accomplishes any of the varied ‘supernatural/paranormal/psychic phenominon’ and that is not adequately explained by science or logic. Theory must account for lack of witness objectivity.’
This means that lekatt’s dissertations would not, by and large, be acceptable, since his refusal to accept ‘cold readings’ is covered by ‘adequately explained by science or logic’. If it can be done with the present set of theories, there is no reason to change the theories.
I have no such proof. There are plenty of anecdotes, none of which are particularily convincing to me, as I know how often people lie, exaggerate, and misinterpret phenomina.
Addendum: forces much, by their nature, exert a force. This means that a force which has no effect on reality is not, in any sense, a force.
Js-africanus wrote:
Thank you for this opportunity. I will pretend to be a philosopher.
Resolved: Supernatural, non-material, or spiritual forces, entities, or effects exist.
Definitions:
Material existence: existence of the actual world.
Supernatural existence: existence outside the actual world.
Actual existence does not imply necessary existence: [symbol]Ø[/symbol]([symbol]f ® [/symbol][symbol]f[/symbol])
Proof:
- [symbol]f ® f[/symbol] [Modal Axiom]
- ([symbol]f ® [/symbol][symbol]f[/symbol]) [symbol]Ú[/symbol] [symbol]Ø[/symbol]([symbol]f ® [/symbol][symbol]f[/symbol]) [Excluded Middle]
- [symbol]Ø[/symbol][symbol]f ® Øf[/symbol] [Modus Tollens on 2]
- [symbol]Ø[/symbol]([symbol]f ® f[/symbol]) [Distribution on 3, Contradiction of 1]
- [symbol]Ø[/symbol]([symbol]f ® [/symbol][symbol]f[/symbol]) [Law of Noncontradiction on 2]
QED
Necessary existence does exist: [symbol]"f[/symbol][symbol]$g/symbol
Proof:
- [symbol]f[/symbol]=[symbol]f[/symbol] [Identity Axiom]
- [symbol]"g/symbol [symbol]®[/symbol] ([symbol]f¹f[/symbol]) [Quantifier Axiom]
- [symbol]f[/symbol]=[symbol]f[/symbol] [symbol]®[/symbol] [symbol]Ø"g/symbol [Contrapositive on 2]
- [symbol]f[/symbol]=[symbol]f[/symbol] [symbol]®[/symbol] [symbol]$g/symbol [Existential Quantifier on 3]
- [symbol]$g/symbol [Modus Ponens on 1 and 4]
- [symbol]$g/symbol [Rule of Necessitation on 5]
- [symbol]"f[/symbol][symbol]$g/symbol [Rule of Generalization]
QED
Therefore, existence outside the actual world exists.
QED
So will I.
Definitions:
Term to be defined = undefined term.
Term to be defined = undefined term.
Theorem = undefined symbol.
Proof:
- (undefined symbol) [undefined reference]
- (undefined symbol) [undefined reference]
- (undefined symbol) [undefined reference]
- (undefined symbol) [undefined reference]
QED.
Thank you, Desmostylus. Saved the rest of us the typing.
Lib, speak English. Please. With actual words.
And for the love of He Who is Called, “I AM”, define necessary existence. Again in words.
Materialism, and the abolishment of the supernatural, seems to rest on using Ockham’s Razor, or some bastardization of it, as a metaphysical principle.
The trick goes like this:
I) everything is material
II) if you want to disprove that, show me something immaterial
III) since you can’t show me, everything must be material
Once this speciousness has been pointed out, it is time to pull out the bastardization of Ockham’s Razor and say
- everything that affects me is material
- whether there are things that exist that do not affect me materially is irrelevant since I can’t know it
3a) so who cares
Also pulled out sometimes (and I’ve read it here by posters who participate in such things) is
3b) so their existence and non-existence are equivalent
Of course, (2) should be rephrased as “whether there are things that exist that exist that do not affect me materially is irrelevant since I can’t know it materially”, but that would give away the trick: we are only willing to consider this narrow band of evidence.
That was my beef mentioned in the other thread. I don’t know whether it belongs here or not. I also have a sneaky suspicion that many materialists do not apply the same level of skepticism to their own assertions about knowledge and existence as they do in critiquing others’. I cannot say this is always true, or even mostly. Just my suspicion.
But the question I am not trying to answer is whether there are supernatural forces, events, etc, but rather that I think a great many skeptics use a line of reasoning that
A) begs the question
B) cannot be applied to their own musings without tearing them down as well (a skepticism of evidence is quite damning)
C) causes damage to water pipes and we all run to Opal’s board.
In an effort to avoid begging the question some may retreat to a priori truths. And then I would ask them: how do you come to this knowledge? Was it through material affects? Or is there something about it that transcends material forces and acts themselves in order to speak of all them so clearly?
Finally, I would like to note that an argument dictating that all things that happen are the will of God has the same consequences materialistically as asserting there is no god. A materialist might take this as evidence or at least a good reason to say there is no god (see 3b above). Perhaps the counter would be there is no material? In fact just such a counter exists (though not in the way I’ve presented it).
This is why I hate matters of ontology.
R) Realise that you do’nt know everything.
S) Stupidity can easily be classified as narrow-mindedness and conclusive opinions based on limited data.
T) Time is the best medicine for half-baked theories.
U) Universally speaking, nothing is impossible.
V) Vision is the cure for the lack of it.
W) Wait till you yourself experienece a new idea about what is and is’nt,and dont rush to classify as impossible what is still to come.
X) Xpect the unexpected always.
Y) You are more than what you think and less than what you can imagine.
Z) Zoos are for the beasts but also the freedom of great jungles.
You’re right, erislover, as far as you take it. There can be no proof of supernatural here that I can concieve of unless it takes the following approach:
I will predict that tomorrow the seventeenth word of the first column in The Onion will be ‘human’.
Or some other prediction based around the actions of a neutral, unaware third party. It would also be possible to prove it with demonstrations of telekinesis or cryptovoyance (Yaay! I can make up words too!), but these do not lend themself to a forum such as this.
If I assert there is no music and demand you let me touch some to get the same effect, do you suppose I would be laughed at? I do not know whether supernatual “things” exist. I don’t know how I would go about finding it out, or if I did to my satisfaction, what I could do to demonstrate it. I am pretty skeptical about specific claims against and for the supernatural. A good example is the one you give: a supernatural or mystical effect that is manifested materialistically. This is of course open to material inquiry; specifically, the material affect is open to material inquiry. But that was never in doubt.
I’ll do my best. The purpose of logic is to avoid semantical entanglement, to clarify, and to provide a rigorous and testable method of drawing inferences. I don’t think it would be a service to you or to anyone else here at Straight Dope (except maybe a few) to reduce everything to fifth-grade language. It might make for a challenging read, but I believe that you are up to the challenge. The symbols actually are ordinary symbols of everyday algebra.
Necessary existence is extistence in every possible world. A possible world is a world with at least one true statement. For example, if it is possible that in any world some cats are orange, then a world of some orange cats is said to be possible. But if there is the possibility of some orange cats in every world, then a world of some orange cats is said to be necessary. The world that comprises true statements that are known to us is called the actual world. The actual world, then, is considered to be a possible world.
Note that in our actual world, some cats indeed are orange. (Our cat, Jane, is orange.) But that does not mean that some cats in every world are orange. In a world, for example, with no red light, orange cats would not be possible. That is what is meant by “Actual existence does not imply necessary existence”.
The proof, in English, goes like this:
-
If something exists in every possible world, then its existence is possible. [That’s called the Modal Axiom, or sometimes, the 5-Axiom, since it is used to define S5 level modal logic from K logic.]
-
Let’s assume that “Actual existence does not imply necessary existence” might be false. [That’s called the Excluded Middle — assuming your hypothesis to be false for the sake of argument. It’s a time honored technique that allows you to prove something is true by proving its opposite false. For example, you can prove that a number is odd by proving that it is not even. A statement is either true or false, but not both.]
-
If it is not necessary that something exists, then it is not possible that it exists. [That’s a Modus Tollens. A modus tollens says that if A implies B and B is false, then A is also false. Note that we already know that statement 3 is not true, but we can’t prove that until the next statement.]
-
It is not the case that “If something exists in every possible world, then its existence is possible”. [That’s a distribution of the NOT operator over the two terms in inference number 3. And now we can show in our next statement that inference number 3 was false.]
-
Actual existence does not imply necessary existence. [That’s an application of the Law of Noncontradiction, which prohibits two statements from being both opposite and true. Note that in inference 2, where we had our excluded middle, we said that either one or the other of the two opposite statements was true. We showed in inference 4 that the first of those two statements is false. Therefore, the second one must be true. And the second one coincides with our hypothesis. Thus, we have proved our hypothesis to be true.]
Now, you’ve learned what necessary existence is: existence in every possible world. But can it be shown that necessary existence indeed does exist? Yes, it can, and that’s the purpose of the second proof.
(You can find these proofs, by the way, in one form or other on nearly any decent website that goes into depth on HOL, or Higher Order Logic. Contrary to what Demostylus and Paper Geek have implied, I am not making this stuff up out of the clear blue. It’s a sad thing when people so proudly and unabashedly declare their ignorance on matters like this at StraightDope of all places.)
The proof in English goes like this:
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A thing is always equal to itself. [That’s the Identity Principle. For example, A=A, or 5=5. If that principle weren’t true, then systems of deduction would not be possible.]
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If it is true that for any arbitrary variable, the variable has no equivalence, then the identity principle fails. [That’s the Principle of Quantification applied to 1. To say categorically that a variable has no equivalence is to say that it is not even equal to itselt.]
-
If a variable is equal to itself, then it is not true that for any arbitrary variable, the variable has no equivalence. [That’s called the Contrapositive, and is applied to 2. Contrapositive just says that if A implies B, then NOT B implies NOT A. For example, take the statement “If a number is even, then it is divisible by 2.” By contrapositive, we get “If a number is NOT divisible by 2, then it is NOT even.”]
-
If the Identity Principle is true, then there does exist some variable that is equivalent to some other variable. [This is Existential Quantification, and allows things like algebra where we can say X=5.]
-
There does indeed exist some variable that is equivalent to some other variable. [By using the Modus Ponens, we can state this with absolute assurance. A modus ponens just says that if A implies B and A is true, then B is true. For example, take the statement, “If 4 is divisible by 2 then it is even. 4 is divisible by 2; therefore, 4 is even.” That’s a modus ponens.]
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It is necessary that there does indeed exist some variable that is equivalent to some other variable. [This is the Rule of Necessitation applied to number 5, and is a bit difficult to describe without very specialized vocabulary, but suffice it to say that anything that can be derived from a necessary truth is necessarily true. It is THE critical axiom of modal logic, and asserts that any inference developed modally is necessarily true. In the plainest possible English, think of it like this: if you have played the game perfectly and the game is winnable, then victory was the necessary result of your play.]
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For every variable, it is necessary that there does indeed exist some variable that is equivalent to some other variable. [This is the Rule of Generalization applied to number 6. And it says basically that there must be at least one intensional variable (variables that are indexible) for every variable that is assignable. In other words, there must be variables that span the worlds we mentioned above — sets of statements — such that one variable may represent all possible expressions of equivalence. For example, if X=5, then X also equals 10/2, SQR 25, 2+3, and even Y-9, and so on. That is necessary existence by definition.]
So, necessary existence does indeed exist, and actual existence does not account for all existence. Therefore, there must be some existence above and beyond actual existence. Or, there must be existence outside our actual world. Such existence would be supernatural by definition.
I hope that helps.
The following is not intended to be a “proof,” but rather a summary treatment of how such a proof might proceed.
“Resolved: Supernatural, non-material, or spiritual forces, entities, or effects exist.”
I will assume the equivalence of “exist” and “to be real.”
-
The Real is The Knowable.
Every thought has a referent, that which it is a thought “of.” To know a referent is an instance of “to know”; therefore the referent is by definition a “knowable.” We can in no way think of that which would be an instance of: the negation of knowability. Therefore each and every claim or act of reference is about one or more members of the set of knowables; and “The Real” is the total set of possible referents (NOT “references”!). Therefore etc. -
The Referable is The Knowable.
Per 1 preceding. -
The Referable is The Meaningful.
By the equivalence of “meaningful” and “knowable” in the sense that “to know X” is always equivalent to “to know the meaning of the thought (of) ‘X’.” (One could take a different tack and note that the assertion “this is a reference to R” is logically incompatible with " ‘R’ has no meaning." A pseudo-reference may have the form of a reference, but is not in fact a genuine reference.) -
The Meaning of an act of reference is: that meaning discerned by the agent in connection with that act.
One knows immediately and directly THAT one has a thought, and WHAT the thought is a thought “of.” (Here’s the “summary” part!) -
A “Concept” is a thought constituted of two or more distinct thoughts understood as a unity.
Definition. -
(Expressly) mutually exclusive thoughts cannot be understood as a unity.
I do not mean “square circle”, but impose an even more stringent restriction of express mutual (or “cross”) negation, as in “the square nonsquare.” -
“The Natural” and “The Supernatural” are concepts prima facia.
By common understanding of those terms, and thence by 5 preceding. -
“The Natural” and “The Supernatural” (individually) present no express mutual negations.
Roughly, “The Natural” equates to “the compendium of phenomena that are consistent with the lawlike conditions of interaction understood through the science of physics, or any presently conceivable elaboration thereof.” “The Supernatural” equates to “the compendium of phenomena that are NOT consistent with the lawlike conditions of interaction understood through the science of physics, or any presently conceivable elaboration thereof.” Nothing in (each of) those descriptions involves expressly mutually negating descriptors. -
Therefore, “The Supernatural” is a genuine concept, does have a meaning, can be referred to, is knowable, and thus is real.
Lest this be thought a sterile or vapid exercize-- I think it well worth pointing out that the existence of The Supernatural cannot be ruled out a priori. It is a question of the ultimate persuasiveness of the evidence, if there is any; not a matter of “logic” per se.
I’ll answer to that as soon as m y head STOPS SPINNING.
Lib:
Or, X != X?
Also, you refer to “other worlds” several times in your definitions. Can you clarify your usage of that term, please?