Well, I can’t establish the existence of anything, even myself.
But I do offer my handy-dandy quote that I keep here in my pocket for any occasion such as this: ** It is the height of arrogance to presume that the limits of your perception constitute the limits of what there is to be perceived. **
And that pretty much sums it up for me.
That’s right up there with “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” 
Please put it back. First, because it is far more arrogant to assume that personal fiat constitutes proof. You would be the dream juror for any prosecutor: “Proof of guilt?! It is the height of arrogance to presume that just because I produce no proof, that the defendant is not guilty!” Second, because I asked for cohesive arguments backing positive claims, not arguments from ignorance.
I didn’t argue anything at all. Or perhaps you could say that I was arguing that the subject is inherently in arguable.
Everybody has different ideas about “proof” of anything. Just ask Socrates.
—What Js_africanus asked for in this thread was a defense for the idea of the supernatural without further qualification or particulation, and I think I provided that. The metaproof that I gave was not a proof of God’s existence, but merely a proof that there is existence beyond natural existence when material existence is defined as existence in the actual world and supernatural existence is defined as existence outside the natural world.—
No, I know it’s not about God, and indeed my problem is that if all you need to do is prove existence outside the actual world is demonstrate an “outside” to actual existence, then what’s the need of the proof of necessary existence when simply positing any possible existence seems sufficient?
necessary existence = all possible worlds… but even one possible world seems just as sufficient.
Thanks for the welcome, Polycarp. I enjoy your posts. I didn’t clarify myself, but yes, I’m assuming that God is outside of nature and its laws. The I Am is causeless, the Unmoved Mover. My point was that a Naturalistic, Materialistic Universe breaks down at some point. According to our natural laws, it’s impossible for us to exist. To me it is more tenable that there is a causeless entity, the Ultimate Reality, who started the Universe than the belief that we don’t really exist, not to mention the consequences of these worldviews.
When you come down to it, this quote is really quite hilarious. IMO. But then again I just recently laughed at a categorical imperative joke that Lamia made regarding necrophilia, so I suppose I might not have the best perspective on this here.
FellowFolk:
I’ll admit to…well, not exactly a sin, but a “falling-short” nonetheless.
I don’t always do all my fellow posters the honor of reading through their posts with all the care and attention they deserve.
Can you beat that!?!
And more astoundingly, I believe I can make a contribution nonetheless. I guess you could say I’m a sort of “scan and intuit” kind of guy. Not that you asked.
Libertarian’s presentations are wonderful. Yet all those little symbols pass before my eyes and leave no thought behind.
All of which is to say that my occasional responses to well-thought-out counter-arguments may miss a key detail here and there. It’s indefensible. I apologize. I doubt very much that I will cease to do it.
And now here we are at one of those occasional responses.
LIBERTARIAN, I take it we’re talking “On The Plurality of Worlds” by David Lewis. (Hey, maybe you ARE David Lewis.) As I understand that position, everything that is possible-at-all exists as an actuality in at least one World; and indeed, the claim that something is PAA is understood to be logically equivalent to that clause preceding.
As I recall, these Lewisan Worlds have to “really exist”; and yet a the same time they do not “exist-to-us.” They are realities that are permanently and necessarily Elsewhere, big-E.
IF that is what you’re getting at…then it’s not what I’M getting at: the implication being that I disagree.
My own position (Do ordinary people get to have something as grand as a Position?) is along these lines. I maintain that every genuine act of reference is such ONLY if the act is initiated in definite conjunction with the occasion of the actor being engaged in a certain relation between: Self/Mind and the particular Meaning-Object that IS the referent of the reference. Thus ERISLOVER is quite correct to deny that, eg, the referent of my referring to a unicorn is or can be anything other than ( * ) a unicorn.
Now, did you notice that magic asterisk (borrowed from Arthur Laffer)? It serves to modify the phrase that follows it, thiswise: “(what I mean by)”. To utter “unicorn,” or to even think the mentalese equivalent of “unicorn…has one horn” is to be engaged in “thinking of” (having present to my mind) a certain something that is, for me, what the term MEANS. That certain something is a species of Meaning-Object. A Meaning-Object is not a thought, not a concept, not an idea. Thoughts-concepts-ideas are, so to speak, acts of “looking.” The Meaning-Object is the thing looked-at. And that is what I intend when I speak about “what the thought is ‘of’.”
I use “real” and “exist” interchangeably. And anything that is “there” in any sense is definitely–I would think obviously–real. (What is “unreal” isn’t anywhere at all.)
Put it all together and it follows that I cannot even think of what is other-than-knowable. Nor, by the same token, can I even refer to that which is “unreal.” I do not accept that “real” and “nonentity” are compatible terms. (Indeed, I don’t regard “nonentity” as the name of anything at all…just a sound signifying the lack of a subject.)
But real entities need not be actual entities. There are real, existent inactuals. If, as I suppose, the question amounts to “Is the Supernatural actual?”, then one passes beyond logic and into some mode of empirical investigation.
I do not accept the notion that existent INactuals are in some sense existent ACTUALS “Elsewhere”. To even speak of them, in any way at all, is necessarily for them to be Here where I am.
My point was only to proclaim that The Supernatural cannot be ruled out a priori, on purely logical grounds. Some have thought otherwise.
WOW! There are far too many words here to adequately describe what the OP is searching for, I will sum it up in three…
Faith.
Hope.
Love.