I have a great hubby, but the one thing we cannot agree upon is whether or not there exists a bona-fide real as can be supernatural world. He believes in past life regression, psychic dowsing, the power of crystals, UFOs, Etc. etc., etc. He has told me of certain other lives he has lived before this one, most of which are un-glamorous and sound very believable, and even though I do not feel that any of these things are real, I just don’t know. He has a number of friends who are, like himself, very intelligent and level-headed in many ways, but that are all into this crazy stuff that just tends to confuse and anger me.
I know that as a people, we are naturally curious and have a need to explain our earthly existence, but why do so many people have to do it in this way? Why is it not enough to say, as I do, that we simply cannot know the reasons for our existence, the origin of the planets, etc., and that we are perhaps, part of an immense and incomprehensible whole, and that the real meaning of our place in the universe might just not be available to us.
Also, the reasons that these people give for our origins do not seem all that helpful because they are so simplistic and far-fetched. Saying that knowledge of the details of a past life explains why we have a particular phobia, skill, or destructive tendency, for example, is certainly an interesting idea, but how does one know that one is not just projecting these beliefs upon ourselves because we desperately need to have an answer to some very big questions.
I don’t know. What are your thoughts on this subject? Am I an extremely narrow-minded individual who stubbornly refuses to participate in the “New-Age” of thinking, or am I a rational, sane, pragmatist who simply needs a lot more in the way of physical proof in order to rethink my entire world view?
“Supernatural” is a null term. If a thing exists, it is governed by the laws of nature.
Monalisa9:You are more than likely a skeptic.One who thinks critically about such existential claims, attempting to see beyond personal and emotional biases to get at the objective truth.
Join the club.
The universe, as yet(or as far as we can determine) does not require any supernatural component to operate as it does.What your husband and others of his position are doing amounts to a violation of Occam’s razor.They are unecessarily multiplying their entities to explain something…It is the equivalent of saying “The Toyota Corolla gets nearly 30 miles to the gallon.There MUST be a genie powering that car!”.We can explain the gas mileage and mechanics of the car without invoking a genie(which if invoked would only beg a whole slew of new questions which could not be answered).
I will tell you right now though that if you plan on trying to get hubby to give an honest look at critical thinking/skepticism then pack a lunch(or two!) because it most likely won’t happen and if it does it will be a lengthy and sometimes painful odysse.People tend to equate “The supernatural does not actually exist” with “There are no mysteries in life and everything is boring from here on out!”.It is a silly notion to be sure but part of a powerful human belief mechnism I suppose.
You might be interested in In Search of the Light by Susan Blackmore. It’s about her adventures as a parapsychologist and why she eventually came to reject paranormal research.
How do you know that to be true? Seems to me that you’re making an awfully big assumption here.
I’ve always been on the fence about that one. I believe in ghosts (don’t flame me - just an opinion here), but I think that crystals, dousing, etc. are bunk. I’d go so far as to say that I could be convinced of psychic ability, but in my mind, that would just mean that someone is possibly using more of their brain, not being endowed with a gift from a higher power. Also, I’m not sure yet if I believe in an afterlife, per se. I mean, yes, I believe in ghosts. But I’m not sure if I believe in Heaven. Or God for that matter. I’m still figuring that one out, too.
Despite my beliefs, I think the “New Age” movement is crap. I may be proven very, very wrong later. And I can honestly say I’m not really interested in finding my place in the universe. In fact, I really don’t think I’m here for any particular purpose - that’s something I have to come up with. As far as the ghosts & ESP go, I usually consider that an extension of the physical and not really anything paranormal. It just is, sort of like the spider making a web in the corner of my office. And no, I don’t sit around and talk with ghosts. No, I don’t think I’m personally psychic. But I’ve had my share of inexpicable, odd experiences. Unfortunately, these experiences haven’t occurred in a sterile, scientific environment, even though they have appeared in front of witnesses. I wish they had. Then I’d know if I’m crazy for believing in ghosts & ESP. 
Anyway, in answer to your question, I don’t think you’re being closed-minded. I mean, if you saw direct, irrefutable evidence, you wouldn’t refute it just because “that’s not supposed to happen,” right? My SO also doesn’t believe in such things, either. He’s the type of person who doesn’t believe until he sees, and so am I. I’ve never tried to convince him otherwise because I know it wouldn’t do any good, and I’m comfortable disagreeing with him on this point. Also, I don’t really care to prove or disprove anybody’s theories. They think their way, I’ll think mine. As long as they don’t push me to think their way, I’ll go along my merry way and be happy.
Bosca, I was using the term colloquialy. I can’t think of a better one for the purpose of my OP, can you?
Godless, Yes, I am a true skeptic, but let me tell you, it is hard sometimes when I am around these people. It is easy to become wrapped up in their belief system, at least for the moment, and also because I am just as curious as they are about life and its meaning.
and Jthunder, I’ll get that book, It sounds really interesting.
I guess what I have a problem accounting for in any way other than re-incarnation, is our very souls…our identity. Why are you who you are, and no one else, why are we ourselves? where does that self-ness come from if not from an already existent self? Of course, it wouldn’t explain where that original self came from, but it helps explain where this life might have come from.
Also, yes, there are some things that have happened to me, too, that I can’t explain in scientific terms, but that does not mean that they aren’t scientific. Hubby is a dowser of such professional status that he is respected in our community and he gets paid for what he does. I have been with him on dowsing jobs and I have seen him stand in a field (with or without a Y-rod) and he has accurately scoped out where a well ahould go, how far down it will be (to a matter of ten feet), and at times, how much water will be the well’s yeild (5 gallons a minute, say), and he is right every time. So what is that? I’d say he is sensitive to something, but it is not extrasensory in nature, but rather a scientific process like anything else.
No, you’re not overly stubborn, Monalisa9. As has been mentioned, you’re just rational. I’m in the same boat as you, for the most part. I think dowsing is crap because there has never been any credible evidence to support its validity. I think astrology is bunk because it’s generally inaccurate and/or vague, and again, there’s no evidence to support its existence. However, some things that many view as “supernatural” I don’t write off out of hand. Heaven? Hey, why not? Ghosts? Could be - who knows what happens to the soul (which I believe in, based on reason) when we die? Extraterrestrials? I doubt any have visited earth, but I certainly don’t think it’s irrational to posit their existence somewhere.
Basically, if something is even remotely plausible, I give it the benefit of the doubt, until I see evidence to the contrary. But if you line up a big heap of evidence to show that a theory is garbage, it seems only a fool would continue to believe in it. Nothing personal against your husband, but he doesn’t strike me as much of a critical thinker if he even buys dowsing. But hey, some of the nicest people I’ve known have believed in some pretty wacky stuff.
Oh, and JThunder, “supernatural” is a meaningless term if you presuppose that there are rules under which the universe operates. For example, if there are ghosts, then those ghosts are existing within the laws of nature, and thus cease to be “supernatural”. You can’t violate the laws of nature, because if you did, they would cease to be laws. If you see an apple fall up, that doesn’t mean the apple violated the law of gravity - it means that what we thought of as the law of gravity is wrong, and we need to adjust it to account for flying produce.
Jeff
Consider an eddy in a river. Where was the eddy before it appeared? Some supernatural pool of eddies off in the ether? Where does the eddy go to after it dissipates? Eddy heaven?
Of course not. It’s a transient side effect of fluid dynamics. It appears to be a THING, but it’s really just a collection of water molecules that happen to be travelling in the same direction.
You can think of consciousness the same way. It feels like a THING, but really it’s just a bunch of neurons that all happen to be “travelling in the same direction”. There is no soul … it’s just the emergent behavior of a particularly complicated network.
Brains (all brains, not just human ones) exist to predict the future. That’s their teleological function, the way that a heart exists to pump blood. They take in sensory input, make a prediction about the state of the world, and output motor responses that will be useful if the prediction is correct.
In lower animals this prediction might be as simple as “there’s food to the right so go that way”. Higher animals like humans are much more complicated. We carry detailed models of the world around in our heads. This means we can predict the future far, far ahead of the present.
For a social animal like a human, a big part of its natural environment are other animals of the same species. So for a social animal, predicting the future often means predicting the behavior of other members of your own species.
That means that the model of the world constructed by a social animal’s brain should include models of the mental states of the other animals around it. And if you’ve gone to the trouble to evolve the neurological hardware necessary to model the behavior of other brains, you might as well go ahead and model the behavior of your own. That way you can factor your own responses into your social predictions.
Oh wait. That’s consciousness.
Pochacco: You said it perfectly!
JThunder: I’ll second ElJeffe’s answer, as well as Bosda’s original point…
Now, some things in life are weird…and some things are hard to describe in meaningful terms such as laws, rules, patterns, etc.
Heck, take beauty. No two people can agree on whether or not certain things are beautiful, let alone on the definition of beauty. You could argue that “beauty” is a supernatural concept…
But when it comes to things that can be measured, the “rules of nature” are mighty hard to get around. If ghosts and spirits and ha’nts exist, and especially if they interact with the world of the living, they had darn well better account for their energy consumption! (Grin!)
Seriously: esp might operate by subtle manipulation of extremely long-wavelength standing waves (Poul Anderson explored that in one of his science-fantasy stories.) This would enable us to get around the problem of energy. (Einstein rejected esp, because he knew that the human body doesn’t have enough energy to broadcast a signal – any kind of signal – over very long distances. But if the brain were merely modulating some sort of signal that already exists…?)
There’s a hell of a lot we don’t know… But if and when we find out, I’ll bet my left foot that it obeys some fairly rigid laws of nature.
Trinopus
Again, you’re assuming that everything which exists must be part of the physical universe – and thus, subject to the laws of nature. This is an assumption, not an argument.
If something is part of the physical universe, then it must certainly be subject to the “natural” laws. This does not constitute valid proof that nothing supernatural exists.
Mind you, I think the vast majority of supernatural claims are utter bunk. I won’t deny that at all. However, it is circular reasoning to suppose that nothing supernatural exists based on the premise that the natural world is all that there is. As I said, that’s an assumption, not a valid argument.
Once again thought, that’s an assumption – not evidence. You are assuming that consciousness can be reduced to nothing but the physical interactions of a bunch of neurons. That makes for an interesting postulate, but it’s not proven or demonstrable, and it’s not evidence.
Who is “Bosca”? 
JThunder–by “natural law”, I am loosely referring to Physics.
If you can name something generally agreed-upon & clearly defined that cannot be described & measured by physics, I’ll sing “I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major General” right here in front of my computer. And I hate Gilbert & Sullivan. 
That sounds really cool. I wonder what makes that happen? How long has he been doing that?
If hubby can demonstrate dowsing in a controlled experiment then he has 1 million dollarss coming to him.So far no one in history has been able to demonstrate dowsing.
Jthunder:It is not an assumption to say that the supernatural/spiritual universe does not exist.The default of such a claim is FALSE until someone shows evidence which justifies said claim.
And to the person who suggested that esp were possible because they may be using some thus far unused part of the brain, let me clear up an old wive’s tale right now:We use %100 of our brains.The myth that we only use %5-%10 is pure bunk.Ask any neurosurgeon if someone he has operated on were so fortunate that the bullet/knife/shrapnel lodged itself in some “unused” portion of the brain and he will look at you like you are retarded.
We do not understand everything about the brain yet(but we are dangerously close) but we do not lack so much information that things like esp and remote viewing are plausible(or even possible scientifically).
Wait one doggone minute.
You’re the one who claimed that “If a thing exists, it is governed by the laws of nature.” I’m just asking you to prove what you said. I don’t have to prove that something supernatural does exist, since I’m merely asking you to defend your statement.
In other words, the burden of proof rests on you, the person who claimed that nothing supernatural can exist. In the course of this discussion, I have made no claims either way regarding the existence of supernatural elements.
Wrong.The burden of proof ALWAYS rests with the one making the POSITIVE existential claim(i.e. “The supernatural exists”), not on the one who dissents from this claim for lack of substantiation/justification.
The statement you are objecting to was that if something exists within OUR universe(the only way we could possibly KNOW of it’s existence in order to state such) then it is no longer “supernatural”.In other words, “supernatural” becomes an oxymoron.
No, it isn’t. The default is to withhold judgment – to say “Maybe, or maybe not.” It’s like asking if alternate universes exist. If there’s no clear proof one way or another, then the logical answer is “Maybe” rather than an emphatic “No!”
Note that in the course of this thread, I have not claimed that anything supernatural does exist. I’m merely pointing out that it’s fallacious to argue that the only things which can exist are things which belong to the natural, physical universe. That is neither evidence nor a valid argument. It is merely an assumption, and invoking it is a clear case of circular reasoning. To wit,
“Nothing supernatural exists.”
“Really? How did you arrive at that conclusion?”
“Because everything which exists are governed by the laws of nature. Nothing exists outside of the physical universe.”
“Really? How do you know that?”
“Because that’s all there is.”
“Again, how do you know that?”
“Because… Because… .Because everything is part of nature! Nothing exists outside of nature. Nothing supernatural exists!”
As I said, that is circular reasoning.
No. The statement to which I objected does not contain that disclaimer. Allow me to re-quote the statement in question.
Nowhere does this statement contain that disclaimer that nothing it only applies to our physical universe. Rather, it is a blanket claim that only objects which are governed by the laws of nature can exist. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, that is merely an assumption, not proof or evidence.