IF "paranormal" was observed, would it be parnormal?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Musicat]
Of course I accept that some things are beyond human understanding – where did you get that idea?

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Maybe because you reject the definiton of paranormal ? You know, beyond the explanation of science, science being a completely human endeavor, limited by the human brain and consciousness ? If you believe that some things are beyond human understanding, you believe in the paranormal. You just don’t like the word because it has become associated with frauds and such. They have at least succeeded in scaring you out of owning your vocabulary.

42

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Well, this is what I’m talking about. We could say “energy is still conserved except in the case of telekinetic reactions” or whatever the situation would be. If we can still formulate rules to describe the new phenomenon, it seems just as good as any other phenomenon in science.
Sure you can; you did just above. Energy and mass are individually conserved except where you have mass-energy conversion, in which case you have a conservation property only for the two as a whole. Now, I don’t know how our hypothetical telekinesis will work, but we’ve stipulated that it’s governed by some simple rules, even if they’re not rules in line with our current scientific understanding. Great; so then science will be augmented with these new rules, and telekinesis becomes a scientific phenomenon on the same level as any other.

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I think you’re confusing the extension of a theory with the refutation of a theory. The whole point of E=mc**2 is that matter and energy are equivalent, and that energy conservation laws only were not representing the complete picture. Rephrasing “energy must be conserved” with “matter/energy must be conserved” removes the “except”.
Similarly, if we find a source of psychic energy, we can rewrite the rule “matter/energy/psychic energy” must be conserved, everything is scientific, and we can say there is nothing paranormal here. But what if no such energy is found, and telekinesis is truly in violation of the conservation laws. I’d say that then we have something paranormal. This goes even if there are rules - people named Joe are better at it than people named Sam, and seventh sons of seventh sons are real good. It’s still orthogonal to science.

I see science as a unified explanation for the universe. Unified in the sense that biology and physics may look different, but when you dig deep enough it is all atoms. Your examples don’t violate this. Based on dna, and using the same principles for man and woman, you can explain everything. There are choices and diversity, but there are no special cases. Now, if someone found a gene that caused magical ability, and if someone invented a meta-science that explained both science and magic from some first principles, then I’d agree that they are basically the same. While the laws of physics work for wizards (otherwise they wouldn’t be able to breath) Not vice versa, or at least not in the books. If some muggle scientist invented a magic extraction machine, that would prove they were equivalent.

New discoveries do what you say - cause the augmentation of laws. And of course the issue is not unwillingness to admit to observed phenomena. The problem would be the willingness to junk the unity of science in order to maintain the faith that science is all encompassing. Right now there is an apparent disconnect between gravity and the quantum world - the attempts at ToEs are motivated by the belief that there is a unity of laws, if we just could find them. . (This is well justified in my opinion.) I think you give up a lot if you give up this principle of unity. I always say I don’t believe in science - I provisionally accept things, given the strong evidence for them and lack of falsification. Science doesn’t assume physicalism - it accepts it since it works. If you start saying that science will always cover everything, even if you have to add special cases which contradict known laws, then you’ve shown the anti-science faction to be right. Science is great since it allows me to have zero faith.

They would never mean the end of science - science works. if no unification of spirits and science is possible, they’d be orthogonal to science - not anti-science but non-science.

43

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
You just don’t like the word because it has become associated with frauds and such. They have at least succeeded in scaring you out of owning your vocabulary.
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I had a good friend in high school. When we went to bars and such, I said he was “my partner”, in the buddy-cop sense. Tragically, it was the late eighties and a short time later, the phrase became a euphamism for “the person of matching genitals with whom I share in a not-entirely-socially-accepted relationship.” I adapted.

I never got to try the AYDS diet pill, either.

44

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
I had a good friend in high school. When we went to bars and such, I said he was “my partner”, in the buddy-cop sense. Tragically, it was the late eighties and a short time later, the phrase became a euphamism for “the person of matching genitals with whom I share in a not-entirely-socially-accepted relationship.” I adapted.

I never got to try the AYDS diet pill, either.
[/QUOTE]

Again, a very nice phobic reaction. Congratualtions. When I perform with another musician as a duo, I still introduce them as my partner. Cause they still are.

45

Here is a great piece of scientifc theory that black holes are dense enough to destroy information . The information is supposedly transcended to a paralell universe.

I gues this means that paralell universes aren’t paranormal either. We already have scienctific theories to explain them. I’m feeling more comfortable and normal than ever.

46

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Not at all. Just because I’m never going to get pregnant, being a man, doesn’t make pregnancy a violation of science. I would regard Muggles as the equivalent of a human subspecies born without hands, who cannot therefore use most tools. That doesn’t mean that tools are a violation of science either.

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I don’t get a unified set of laws encompassing both magic and science. Given such laws, scientists should be able to build magical machines - just like your subspecies could get artificial hands. If that were possible in the HP universe, I’d agree that there is no paranormal there. If it were not possible, if the principles of magic and science were orthogonal, then I’d disagree.

Knowledge, being always incomplete, has nothing to do with it. We don’t have a ToE yet, but there is nothing paranormal about that level of physics. You can apply the scientific method so lots of things that have nothing to do with science - literary criticism, finding a girlfriend. It might not work very well for some of these! The difference is that science, so far as we know today, covers everything in our universe. The question is what would happen if we found things for which no unified theory was possible. That’s purely speculative, since there is almost no chance of finding such a thing, but you shouldn’t have faith in science, no more than you should have faith in evolution. You should accept both because they work, and be open to changing your mind based on new evidence. I don’t need to argue about faith in science, all someone has to do is given me valid and irrefutable evidence that science doesn’t cover something. I ain’t holding my breath.

Thus I conclude I have less faith than you do. :smiley:

47

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
Congratualtions.
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Tanhks.

48

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Tanhks.
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no porblem.

49

[QUOTE=Voyager]
I don’t get a unified set of laws encompassing both magic and science. Given such laws, scientists should be able to build magical machines - just like your subspecies could get artificial hands. If that were possible in the HP universe, I’d agree that there is no paranormal there. If it were not possible, if the principles of magic and science were orthogonal, then I’d disagree.
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Speaking of being able to build artificial hands is a red herring; one can understand the principles underlying something without having the capability to make that something from scratch.

You are very concerned with a unified set of laws. It’s not clear to me what makes a set of laws count as unified or not. It may or may not be the case that gravity and telekinesis are both derivable from the same underlying mechanism. What does it matter? Why should we say gravity is scientific and telekinesis not, in that case, rather than saying telekinesis is scientific and gravity not? I don’t think science would cease being science if there were found to be two phenomena within it without the same underlying mechanism, as long as there remained clear, experimentally derivable rules for understanding the two, both separately and in conjunction.

For elucidation, let us consider, say, the Mario universe. (Not in the TV screen of someone playing a Mario game in our universe, but, just, in a self-contained universe that happens to follow the rules depicted in Mario games). If I lived in one of these universes, I might discover that certain equations governed motion, the way my speed changed, the way I fell. I might also discover certain reliable, testable phenomena, such as that eating red mushrooms enlarged me, hitting bricks with my head would destroy them if and only if I was enlarged, if damaged while enlarged I shrink back to small size, etc. All kinds of rules I might discover by the means of the scientific method, and, indeed, in the end, if I was meticulous enough about it, my predictive powers would be quite good. Is the study of the properties of such a universe science, or must some aspects of that study be considered to fall outside of science? For example, would the rules governing mushrooms be non-scientific because they don’t have the same underlying mechanism as those governing gravity?

My position on the usage of the word “science” is clear: any study carried out by the scientific method deserves to be called science. Yours seems to have further conditions, and I’m not sure why.

50

Isn’t science based on some axiomatic presumptions about the very nature of observation and evidence? I would suppose these to include that an objective physical universe exists, there are no privileged observers, there are no intelligent hyper-agencies deliberately trying to deceive us, etc. Suppose a phenomenon apparently violated one of those presumptions?

51

[QUOTE=Lumpy]
Suppose a phenomenon apparently violated one of those presumptions?
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I assume the phenomenon would be repeatedly (if not obsessively) tested by anyone seeking to defend the old paradigm and if it survived, eventually the old defenders would die off and be replaced by people who would accept the new, altered axioms.

52

[QUOTE=DSeid]

<SNIP>
What if there were indeed individuals who could manipulate a particular force of the universe in ways that most others did not understand to accomplish things that others could not accomplish. Some one who could harness a force such that they could say some words and kill some one or something else from Potterverse or otherwise often thought of as “magic” or “paranormal” … would it be “magic” or just another force of the natural world that needed to be understood?
<SNIP>
The basic concept: if something exists in this universe then isn’t it is a natural phenomena even if it is beyond our understanding? What defines something as supernatural? (Other than positing a mechanism without evidence?)
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DSeid
My own view is that anything that can be observed is a natural phenomena. If scientific theory doesn’t include what’s happening, then scientific theory must be modified to take this into account. That’s what’s so nice about science.

The hypothetical case quoted above where someone could repeatably* make dice land in a certain pattern is a good example. If they can do this trick reliably then it can be studied. If no cause is found then either someone is using the wrong instruments or they are insufficiently sensitive to detect what’s happening.

Another good example is “alternative” medicine. If something is shown to reliably work for a given condition, then it ceases to be “alternative” and becomes a part of real medicine.

Regards

Testy

53

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
If you believe that some things are beyond human understanding, you believe in the paranormal.
[/quote]
No, and I refer you to your own list of definitions. “Not knowing the answer right now” does not equate to “Never, nohow, noway” and it does not default to the supernatural.

Did you read my list of possibilities in a previous post? Paranormal may be one explanation for something unknown, but it is not the only one, and given our historical experience, the least likely one.

Let me construct an example. I once saw a trick where a performer, locked in a box, had her head turned around 720 degrees. I know it happened, I saw it with my own eyes (I wouldn’t lie to you), and she didn’t die or have her head twist off from her body. Impossible? Of course it is, and I will readily admit that anyone whose head rotates 720 degrees will die. Absolutely.

But she didn’t die, although she looked a bit dazed afterwards. All the evidence points to a paranormal event, right? I’ll bet that nearly 100% of the audience could not give a reasonable alternative explanation. And given the facts as I just presented them to you, we have insufficient information to say otherwise.

But a magician could explain it. It takes special knowledge to know that critical facts were not presented, i.e., [ul][li]When you thought you saw the back of the performer’s head as it went around, you were only seeing a wig, and [*]The performer’s head was obscured by the apparatus several times, giving her time to rotate her head back into a normal position while hidden.[/ul][/li]So if you never had access to that special knowledge, you would firmly define this event as paranormal? Nonsense.

Another example. The Black Death in the Middle Ages was credited to what went for paranormal in those days, or demons, or the wrath of god(s), the Devil or bad air. At one point in time it was [ul][]Impossible to explain scientifically: unable to be explained or understood in terms of scientific knowledge (Encarta)[]Supposedly beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. (Oxford)[]Not scientifically explainable (Webster)[]Impossible to explain by known natural forces or by science (Cambridge)[*]Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation (American Heritage)[/ul]…all your definitions. I’m very glad that a paranormal explanation was not satisfactory for some people, or we’d still be dying from the Black Death.

54

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
As for something paranormal to sink your teeth into, (although I suspect your all bark and no actual bite) consider human consciousness or life on earth. Ask yourself, “self, what is the normal condtion of the known universe ?” Self replies "Why the normal condition of all 170 glalaxies, all charted planets and stars is exactly lifeless. That is exactly what we know…well except for us. Kinda like that one in a million disappearing tumor, we are at least one in a million and nobody can explain why. Another question to ask yourself: “Self, I don’t know of any other life in the universe but I think there must be, would they be paranormal ? If the UFOs did come, would they be paranormal ?”
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A little curious as to what the Hell you’re talking about here. Are doing some kind of satire, or actually positing as ridiculous a straw man as this? (And are you in fact utterly innocent of modern astronomical knowledge, or just goofing around. I don’t want to waste my time responding to this if you’re just goofing around.)

55

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
If you believe that some things are beyond human understanding, you believe in the paranormal.
[/QUOTE]
Nonsense.In some cases, whatever-it-is may simply beyond human understanding because it’s too complex or alien; we’ve yet to run into such a thing, but that doesn’t make it impossible, nor does it make it “paranormal”. Just complicated or weird.

And there are any number of things we can’t know, for the simple reason that the data isn’t available. The vast majority of events in history, for example; the evidence has long since been reduced to dust. Other universes, if any exist, are likely forever inaccessable to us, as is anything beyond what our telescopes can see; that’s hardly “paranormal”.

And as pointed out, labeling something as “paranormal” is useless at best. It’s a label that tells you nothing; it’s the same as saying “I give up !” or “I don’t want to know !”; just less honest.

56

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Nonsense.In some cases, whatever-it-is may simply beyond human understanding because it’s too complex or alien; we’ve yet to run into such a thing, but that doesn’t make it impossible, nor does it make it “paranormal”. Just complicated or weird.

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That’s nonsense. Anything that is too complex or alien for humans to understand is unexplainable. Unless of of course, you consider “it’s too complex for human comprehension” a valid explanation. Otherwise, you are relying on faith that there myst be an explanation, we will just never understand it, which again, falls under the heading “unexplainable”.

I concur that the term is useless, however, as evidenced by a couple different threads here.

57

[QUOTE=Iknewit]
That’s nonsense. Anything that is too complex or alien for humans to understand is unexplainable.
[/QUOTE]
That doesn’t make it “paranormal”; “paranormal” is a nonsense word, in essence. In practical terms, “paranormal” means “Our beliefs have no evidence and make no sense, but we don’t want to admit it, so we’ll call them ‘paranormal’ and claim they deserve to be taken seriously with lower standards of proof.”

58

[QUOTE=Baldwin]
A little curious as to what the Hell you’re talking about here. Are doing some kind of satire, or actually positing as ridiculous a straw man as this? (And are you in fact utterly innocent of modern astronomical knowledge, or just goofing around. I don’t want to waste my time responding to this if you’re just goofing around.)
[/QUOTE]
Did you read the other thread? “Goofing around” comes pretty close. What he is doing is assigning certain definitions to certain words and referring back to those definitions in an endless loop whenever he gets called on it. "Since ‘unexplained’ means ‘unexplainable,’ and ‘paranormal’ means ‘unexplainable,’ any phenomena he introduces that no poster can explain to his satisfaction must, by definition, be paranormal.
Or, simply ignoring the posts that out the lie to his position.

59

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
That doesn’t make it “paranormal”; “paranormal” is a nonsense word, in essence. In practical terms, “paranormal” means “Our beliefs have no evidence and make no sense, but we don’t want to admit it, so we’ll call them ‘paranormal’ and claim they deserve to be taken seriously with lower standards of proof.”
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You fail to accept the meaning of the word and instead, insert a meaning you can accept. This is why we have rules for words. So that people can understand one another. You don’t understand so you change meanings to fit your reality.

60

Thanks, Der Trihs, to tackling the same Iknewit quote I did, but giving a better refutation. :slight_smile:

I think the problem here is more one of definition. Most of the dictionary definitions Iknewit supplied can be reduced to (1) “paranormal = unknown”. However, I would like to propose a new definition based on the word’s usage on SDMB and most other modern scientific venues I have seen:

(2) Paranormal: an event or phenomena requiring the invocation of supernatural or imagined powers to explain.

I can’t explain exactly how my video camcorder works. Therefore, by definition #1, it is paranormal. By def #2, it is not.