Also, in Star Wars the Force is explicitly not supernatural. Even before the midichlorian nonsense the Force was the natural life energy of the universe. It was never ever throughout the entire canon stipulated to be supernatural. It was in fact just the opposite, it was explicitly stated to be very natural, the very essence of nature in fact. The X-Wing didn’t rise in an uncaused fashion. Yoda lifted it with the force, no more uncaused than lifting it with a crane.
This I totally agree with. I don’t think it even has to be just the default stance - thousands of years of finding physical causes for what seemed to the ancients to be supernatural events have given us a really solid foundation for the hypothesis that there are no supernatural things.
One possible solution to the Yoda problem - Yoda knows that the fighter is going to lift itself up, and so waves his hand and furrows his brow at the same time. That doesn’t explain how a Jedi can deflect blaster bolts, though. In any case, I wouldn’t worry about causality. Uncaused events at the quantum level are totally natural, and our entire universe might be the result of one. But the problem of how to have a caused event be supernatural is a real one. L. Sprague de Camp didn’t believe in ftl travel and never wrote about it, I can kind of justify that, given the right universe, but I couldn’t write about supernatural stuff and work out the justification to my own satisfaction. The Unknown writers of the early '40s - Hubbard, de Camp, and Heinlein, used a kind of non-supernatural magic, subject to its own laws. That I can see.
Agreed.
I missed it sorry.
No I don’t think that nature fundamentalist is accurate. I just think that this is one of the places where our model breaks down. I only say nature fundamentalist is inaccurate because by naming me as such you have opened the door to all kinds of implied baggage that I may or may not agree with. I am a monistic fundamentalist, all things are manifestations of one infinite unity.
Yes, I think this problem is insoluble as long as we insist on canonizing the word supernatural. By using the word supernatural you are specifically defining something as, “That which does not exist within nature.”, and then anything you say about it existing or not becomes tautological. From a natural perspective anything that is separate and distinct from nature for all intents and purposes does not exist.
I think the term supernatural has been used and abused as a clearinghouse for, “All the woo that I deem to be complete nonsense.”, thus the confusion about the Force, which in the course of the films is explicated as being entirely natural, nature itself in fact.
This illustrates my point. You are using supernatural as a synonym for nonexistant.
Even then, I think the issue remains – how did Yoda know this? Via some supernatural channel? If his mind then is supernatural, how did it make his hand move? Via some natural channel? But then, did anything supernatural occur at all?
Sorry for harping on about this so tediously, but I think this point is somewhat overlooked, usually (or it’s just so trivial to everybody that noone bothers mentioning it); the prevailing attitude on both sides of the discussion seems to be something along the lines of ‘it’s magic, it can do that’, so it’s just glossed over, but I think close examination reveals that there’s actually a purely logical problem hidden here that at least to me seems hard to crack, if it’s possible at all.
I used to take the same stance, but I’m not actually sure if our present understanding is sufficient to be very certain about the existence of uncaused events – there exist other possibilities (Bohmian mechanics, too, I believe), and even if the quantum world is subject to true randomness, I’m not sure whether that’s actually the same as uncausedness. I mean, it’s true that nothing causes an unstable nucleus to decay at whatever time it does, but nevertheless, its state determines that it decays.
But, in general, I have no problem with uncaused events, I just think there’s some work left to do to ascertain their actual existence. My point in bringing it up was merely that if some effect (like the levitating X-Wing) is the result of something uncaused, then the supernatural has no claim to agency, and might just as well not be there at all.
Outside of the scientific method, with both its limitations and continuous self-correction, what other method is there to test claims of supernatural occurrences? Seems to me that decrying the limitations of science (a given) in no way validates claims made outside its purview. If so, all else is conjecture.
OTHO sustaining beliefs that has been proven to be false, again, by the only valid system we know, falls into the area of confirmation bias as it [them] validates a set of beliefs not in evidence: duality of self, gods, after-life etc.
Surely these thoughts are comforting, but as I’ve been saying all along, the degree one indulges in fantasies is inversely proportional to our grip of reality. Ironically enough, I also think that we set those degrees subjectively – unless it is proven that we’re hardwired; in which case we don’t really makes any choices.
Kinda. The acupuncturist’s explanation for acupuncture is scientifically invalid. To the best of our knowledge, that’s not what’s happening. Placebo effect and endorphin release explain an acupuncture session relieving pain much better than anything acupuncture claims. In fact, I don’t even have to bother to mention endorphins, as fake acupuncture using needles that don’t really insert or needles in the wrong places have been found to work just as well as the real thing.
Certainly, but by science. Mystical energy has been the explanation for however long and that’s been it as far as acupuncturists are concerned. Their explanation is based on something that hasn’t even been verified to exist.
The characteristic of a religious fundamentalist is that he believes and maintains faith in spite of the evidence; he rejects the evidence. In my hypothetical there is a substantial amount of evidence for the supernatural. If you reject it despite this, then I think the fundamentalist label has some validity. Now, I agree it is a bit unfair because the religious fundamentalist has the evidence available, and all I’ve got is a hypothetical. Faced with an actual situation you might well change your mind. Hundreds of years ago most believers were convinced that the new science would never contradict their beliefs in a basic way. The popularity of science among the clergy in the early 19th century was due in no small part to the belief that the findings of science would strengthen their faith. The test came when this turned out not to be true. We’re both in the position of those clergymen, both convinced that future discoveries will strengthen the purely scientific view.
If by nature you mean all that exists, then a supernatural entity would be within nature and yet not bound by the laws of nature. And I agree that anything outside of and not interacting with the natural world (like the God outside the universe where his actions can’t be examined) effectively does not exist.
Yet another sin of the prequels, where the Force goes from “a religion” to something that is measured using meters. The Force in Ep. 1 is no longer supernatural, true. I also agree about the woo. Since there is no reasonable evidence for the existence of anything supernatural now, anyone yammering about it is deluded or worse.
That’s a good point. It would only be reasonable to accept a supernatural explanation if that was the best explanation after the scientific method were used and all alternate explanations were falsified. I strongly reject the contention that science cannot be used to measure God. If God exists, and interacts with humanity in any way, that interaction can be measured in the same way we measure cosmic rays.
If God interacted with the physical world, we should see traces. If God inspired prophets to predict the future, we should have unambiguous records of the predictions, and not generic Nostradamus like blathering. If God talks to someone, the effect should not be just like well known brain disorders and the deity should give some information or insight that can’t be picked up from the latest self-help book.
We could use trigger instead of cause if that helps. Mickey waved his wand and a bunch of brooms start moving and replicating and carrying pails, all totally in violation of natural laws. Working by a set of rules - it seems so. Working by any natural law we could expect to determine - not a chance.
I’ve seen but haven’t read “The Science of Harry Potter” but that seems very sad. The science of Star Trek, sure, but magic is magic, even when it works under its own set of rules.
Yes, I agree. There is no scientific basis for Qi.
Right, but that’s still a pseudo-scientific answer. It is the most plausible explanation so it’s just accepted but even there the studies have not concluded that endorphin release is the actual culprit.
Right, well the rebuttal to that would be that acupressure is just as valid as acupuncture. (From the standpoint of TCM) However, you are talking about only the study of pain relief, which is the only thing that science has attempted to credibly study as far as I can tell.
Right. But as Maeglin pointed out, it was developed over thousands of years through observed trial and error. Yes, the mystical energy explanation has no scientific basis, but in terms of the overall argument regarding prior forms of modelling, trial and error isn’t a completely useless methodology, even if it is inferior to science. As Maeglin has pointed out, medical science has been unable to relieve his wife’s pain either.
Right and classifying me as X is an ad hominem. As we are not having a scientific debate, we are having a semantic one, the rules you are applying are out of place. (I do not think your ad hominem is malicious you are just trying to put me in a box)
What would constitute ‘evidence’ of the supernatural? I am contending that the very nature of evidence is a natural phenomenon. So how could you come up with evidence for something that is beyond nature? My point is that if it is beyond nature then it cannot be described using physical evidence.
You are right though with your view of how we are treating science. Though, as I briefly described earlier, I think there is a point where science may be superseded by some other as yet uninvented method of knowing that is superior and makes science seem like a relic of a darker age. Lets call it the Hoofletypoof method. (because I like the silly name) And somehow it has a method of verification for the supernatural that integrates the findings of science with that which exists outside of the prescribed limits of the universe. Maybe we will stop talking about the ‘known universe’ and the real questions will regard that which is beyond it. Again though I think this relies heavily on a
Well it depends upon what you mean by the laws of nature. Maybe there are as yet undescribed laws that supersede what we think of as the laws of nature. For instance, if we accomplished anti-gravity it would seem to violate a fundamental law of physics, but maybe it doesn’t. Maybe anti-gravity will work in terms of a focused gravity, where within a particular focus the gravity working in one direction is greater than the gravity from the other direction. For hypothetical sake lets say a propulsion system can amplify the gravity of the moon as it acts ONLY upon the ship that is being lifted, while limiting the gravity of the Earth’s impact on the ship. This would cause levitation, but it wouldn’t actually be a violation of the law of gravity. On the contrary it would be using the law of gravity to accomplish its goal. The end result is that the ship moves away from the Earth and toward the moon.
No, I think in the prequels the Force is still described in natural terms. It’s more of an old school nature religion, but it’s still fundamentally natural. Even in the original trilogy the force is considered to be an intrinsic part of nature. It’s just a force, as opposed to particles (midichlorians).
I think that it is a conceit of your particular semantics that you view ‘The Force’ or ‘Magick’ as being supernatural in origin. Generally as I understand magick to mean amongst modern occult circles, it is the idea that ‘Will’ can itself exert influence over the natural world. Whether or not the idea that this will is supernatural is a question for theologists and hermeticists really. 
It’s not pseudo-scientific, it’s the most plausible explanation based on the evidence we have. That’s exactly how science works.
Um, huh? Pain relief is the only thing science has attempted to credibly study? Not sure what you’re trying to say here.
So was the 4 humours idea, as I pointed out earlier. This doesn’t make it correct.
Trial and error is only a useful methodology when errors are discarded as trials are conducted. As science has shown, acupuncture has not done this.
You’ll have to point me to a study that shows that then. As far as I have seen studies do not really refer to what mechanisms acupuncture acts upon, but merely focus on whether or not acupuncture works. As Maeglin pointed out pain gates are as plausible a hypothesis as endorphins. For the endorphin explanation I am pretty sure the needles would have to actually hurt for it to make sense. Aren’t endorphins only released if acute pain is caused?
As it regards acupuncture. There haven’t been studies regarding kidney treatments on urinary tract infections for instance. As far as I am aware scientific studies regarding acupuncture are limited only to its utility as a pain relief treatment.
Yes, you pointed this out. But the point is that trial and error can be empirical but not necessarily scientific.
No offense, but I am not sure that you have really done that much research on the topic. I believe this because of your implicit assumption that endorphin release is the primary explanation for acupuncture and pain relief. You might be right, and you might have studied it more than I have but we’re at the point of ‘cite’ I need to see clinical studies regarding acupuncture and endorphin release. As I understand it acupuncture studies are extremely underfunded and are hardly done at all, so there isn’t much that is conclusive regarding what it actually does. In this regard what I am saying is it might not even release endorphins.