I hope I’m not flogging a dead horse but here is a thought or two on the OP.
In asking “are there supernatural events?” we may be asking several different questions.
For instance, Bosda has said that there is no such thing as a supernatural event because all events follow the laws of nature. This may be true but our understanding of the laws of nature change all the time. A radio would look supernatural to a primitive culture but can be well described by a modern engineer. Furthermore, even the most brilliant 19th century physicists were unaware of, say, the strong nuclear force, simply because they couldn’t observe any phenomena that would even lead to questions reulting in modern nuclear physics. It is theoretically possible that some phenomena which we call “supernatural” may 1) exist, and 2) have a natural explanation, perhaps in some force we have yet to investigate.
(Please note I said “possible,” not “probable.” most of the phenomena commonly touted as supernatural either don’t exist at all or have logical explanations.)
However I think that when most people use the word “Supernatural” they mean something that trancends the laws of nature, I.E. some sort of divine being who can subvert the laws of nature by will alone, like Jehovah, or the platonic demiurge, or the Q. Miracles, in other words. There is nothing logically contradictory about this, but, again, evidence of it actually happening is slim to none.
The world seems to operate by natural law, such as conservation of energy, conservation or momentum, natural selection. etc. some important characteristics of such laws are that they are impersonal, and that they are reducible.
Now suppose for the sake of argument a being like Q from star trek exists and visits your apartment. while there you accidentaly knock over a priceless ming vase which acellerates at 9.8mps2 and shatters according to its kinetic energy and molecular structure. Then Q by will alone causes the vase to re-assemble and jump back on your shelf. Q has expended no force and violated several physical laws. I think this would qualify as a supernatural event.
Again I’m not saying that this kind of thing occurs. In fact I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what a supernatural event would be, if one did in fact happen.
I think the dispute boils down to what you mean by law of nature. If you have a broad definition such as “everything that happens” then yes, no supernatural event can occur. But if you adopt a more restricted view of laws of nature, such as scientists have worked with for the past several centuries, the supernatural events, though profoudly unlikely, are not logically contradictory.
In my first post I posited two different views of what a supernatural event might be. The first is simply that a supernatural event might simply be something that our science hasn’t described yet. In that case you are correct, calling this event “supernatural” would be a misnomer.
However I think laws of nature have certain specific characteristics. 1) they are impersonal. That is they do not depend on you me or any divinity for their operation. 2). they are universal. Gravity and thermodynamics behave the same way on Alpha centauri as they do here. 3) they are reducible. That is everything, even the most complex biological processes, can be traced back to the interactions of fundamental physical particles.
Now most reasonable people agree that the Universe and everything in it operates according to laws with the above characteristics. But suppose, just suppose, that there was some phenomena that didn’t. Not a phenomenon that could be explained by some as yet undiscovered force, but a phennomenon which was inexplicable by any natural law whatsoever. This is what I would consider a supernatural phenomenon.
Again I’m not saying supernatural phenomena exist. I’m just trying to figure out what something would have to be to be supernatural.
A phenomenon that couldn’t be explained by any natural law wouldn’t have any properties; if it had them, the description of those properties would be an explanation, which we’ve already excluded.
Such an event not only does not exist in our universe, it does not exist in any conceivable universe. THERE ARE THINGS THAT DO NOT EXIST. This is one of the most important concepts for any budding philosopher to grasp.
Your first characteristic is simply irrelevant (the concepts simply can’t be applied), the second necessarily holds in all cases, and the third again holds in all cases.
Why would events that cannot be explained by natural laws not exist in *any concievable universe[i/]. They’ve certainly been imagined. Tolkien wrote at great length about a world in which supernatural events occured on every page.
Also, why wouldn’t a supernatural event have properties. Assume for the moment that Jesus actually raised Lazarus from the dead. That phenomenon would have had properties, yet it could not (as presented in the Bible) be explained by natural law.
I still think the problem is that we are equivocating about the idea of natural law. Perhaps I should have used the phrase physical law.
But those weren’t supernatural events. They were utterly consistent with the physical laws of his world.
Those events you describe are the result of natural law. It’s just that our understanding of those laws are limited.
We derive our models of natural law from our observations of the universe. Our observations can contradict our models, but how can they contradict the universe itself?
Larry Borgia,
You’re missing something important. You speak of the Laws of Nature as if they could truely be known. As TVAA points out, you can only attempt to describe the world as we experience it.
The Universe is what it is. If Jesus can walk on water, that would (I assume), by TVAA’s definition, constitute a Law of Nature. Your idea that it would not because it is not “reducible” is flawed. Reducability is not a criterion at all. If it was, all Laws would crumble under the weight of infinite regression.
How do you explain the simple logical truth that A does not equal NOT A? Isn’t it the Ultimate Law of any fathomable epistemic system? Can you reduce it? No, it’s self evident, right? It is ia priori, hence irreducible.
What about wavefunctions in quantum mechanics? Are they real? Are they apart of the Laws of Nature? No, they are just descriptions of our sensational domain. Wavefunctions are just squiggles on a mathematicians paper. That is, they model what you and I agree constitutes the “outside” world.
Essentially, the Laws of Nature are purely hypothetical abstracts that by inference of logical necessity can be said to be unbreakable. Supernatural phenomena only “appear” to break them because they pinpoint inaccuracies or outright flaws in our scientific models.
Again, The Universe is not fallible but human minds are. We live encapsulated in our minds, watching shadows of the Great Beyond flicker over the walls…
Ah… the Allegory of the Cave. Perfect for this discussion. All we know is the two-dimentional images we see flickering on the wall of the Cave. There is a whole world outside of this cave that we haven’t seen, heard or experienced in any way. But it isn’t supernatural. It is Natural. Just like the images in our Cave. We just don’t know anything about this world outside. (yet).
the thing is, regardless of how far you want to take it, a “Necessary Being” MUST EXIST. What is this idiot talking about, you say? Well, simply speaking, if you saw a fresh-out-of-the-oven pie on your kitchen counter, and you know you didn’t bake it, then the obvious question follows: Who put it there? The obvious, albeit simplified, answer MUST follow: Someone or something! Whether you believe in the Big Bang or Creation, it all has to be set in motion by the “Necessary Being”. Is this being Jesus? Is it Allah? Is it a Robot? A Benevolant Alien? Whoever or whatever you choose to believe started it all is up to you. But, there remains the truth: IT ALL STARTED WITH SOMETHING OR SOMEONE. So, from that answer, you can rest assured that the supernatural does in fact exist. Now, I know the answer to Who started it all, but I’ll leave that out and not hijack your interesting thread. But, you cannot run from the answer. If you find out that there is a Being that can set the universe in motion, I think it might be in the interest of self-preservation to make friends with that Being. Cuz who wants to be enemies with something that powerful?
Okay, now i know that my brain as well as yours, had a beginning. there was a time in history that you and i did not exist. therefore, as creatures that had a beginning , it is hard to comprehend, (perhaps impossible) a being that never began, but just was, forever. No beginning, just existing, apart from any starting moment or event. Now, to ask the two questions you ask will eventually lead you back to one answer, however hard it is to think about: it all had to start somewhere. something came before everything else. that something is the necessary being. if you want to use your created brain, it is the only conclusion possible. many people prefer not to use their brain when thinking(or not thinking) about this subject. ignore that nonsense. they think that if something can’t fit inside their teeny-tiny little head that it must not be true. well, not everything can be understood by our pathetically small brains.
johnny miles, disregarding for the moment your continued personal attacks against everyone who doesn’t share your worldview, if this “necessary being” can have existed forever, why can’t the Universe?
johnny, if you care to search Great Debates using the word “ontological” you will find this discussion has cropped up many times before.
Logically speaking, necessary existence is true. There must be something, be it a universe, a reality, an entity, whatever you’d like to call it, with the property of necessary existence.
You are positing a “being” with this property. I and many others find this something of an odd step to take, given the accepted definition and commonly ascribed properties of “beings”.
“The universe necessarily exists”? No problem.
“Something necessarily exists”? Agreed.
“A being necessarily exists”? Sorry, you may make that leap but I’ll remain here on the cliff-edge, thanks.
Thanks Blowero.I have a better understadning of the whole mess now.
Lekatt:
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1)Why do you conclude that “skeptical information” is not accurate?Do you know what skepticism is?It is not “taking sides against the supernatural” or any such nonsense.If the supernatural WERE ever discovered to be a real phenomenom it would more than likely be skeptics who discovered it!We are the only ones doing any honest investigation!
2)“In the past only skeptical information was transmitted”?Are you out of your friggin’ skull?!?Try and come up with a few examples of this rampant skepticism in the media!Go ahead adn think of all of the T.V. shows, books, magazine articles etc.
We do not have and have never had much in the way of television and what arguably skeptical shows there have been aired on PBS at odd times and without any promotion.
However the supernatural/paranormal view has ALWAYS had a place on television!I cannot remember a time when there was not a show like In Search Of… or Sightings or Crossing Over with John Edward.Even on the so-called television “News Magazines”(48 Hours, Dateline etc.) skeptics are rarely given equal time with the non-skeptics(the notable exception may have been when Edward and Van Prague were busted cheating but even then if they hadn’t been caught doing that it would have been just another fluff piece for the paranormal).
There are a handful of skeptical authors out there writing a decent selection of books but all of the skeptical literature combined does not equal one one hundredth of the number of pro-supernatural/paranormal BOOKS released(and I am not even including the various magazines and such in that equation).
Movies?We have the Monty Python stuff, Time Bandits and maybe Contact.You guys have Bless The Child(anti-atheist propaganda film staring Kim Basinger), Signs, that crappy Kevin Costner flick(Firefly or something like that.Was about reincarnation or somesuch), Taken, JFK(Okay, that one isn’t supernatural but it is just as wonky!), and the list goes on and on!Notice I only included the relatively recent releases for the pro-supernatural flicks and I did not include stuff like The Sixth Sense which were pure entertainment and did not contain some prevalent anti-skeptic message.
You have just crossed the line from making mere unqualified assertions to outright lieing.
“All research” indeed…
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Been there, done that, and was on YOUR side saying the exact same bullshit years ago before I got honest.ANecdotal evidecne is worthless when discussing extraordinary claims.Nothing as yet has been presented in any of these accounts which suggests anything supernatural is going on.
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AGAIN, there is a difference between ordinary and extraordinaryclaims.
Ordinary claims:
“I had toast this morning”
“There is a tree in my yard”
“My sister is a staff writer for Time magazine”
Anecdotal evidence is perfectly acceptable for these sorts of claims.They are ORDINARY because whether they are ultimately true or false has no bearing on our scientific understanding of the universe.
Extraordinary claims:
“God exists and created the universe”
“The soul exists and is the actual seat of conciousness”
“John Edward can speak with the dead”
Anecdotal evidence is non-admissable for these claims because if TRUE they would have DRAMATIC implications for our scientific understanding of the universe.In fact, for the most part the existence of the supernatural would completely unravel everything we know and leave us in a solopsist hell where we could not say with any degree of certainty what we were doing at any given moment.You might think you are feeding the baby one moment and realize seconds later that you have stabbed your mother and then moments later realize you have never had any mother.Reality would be shifting like an ameoba and that is quite an understatement!
I see no reason to think that reality is some doppleganger which I cannot know.If it IS such a thing then, ironically enough YOU could not know that the supernatural existed!
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Done that.Like the “alien encounter” accounts the only consistencies I see are what have been ingrained into the conciousness of millions of movie-goers and sci-fi tv watchers for decades.
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Then you do not know any researchers…unless of course you define “researcher” as “someone who agrees with me regardless of what the truth is”.You have all but admitted you do not know much about science so what makes you think you are able to distinguish “good” scientists from those who are not practicing the method?
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This is like a less sophisticated version of the “They will never cure cancer because of all the money they take in for research funding” conspiracy theory.
But the images flickering on the cave wall are illusions, mere figments of our imagination. It is those images that best represent superstition, and emerging from the caves of our primative ancestors represents the benefits of Science, the abandonment of our primative beliefs.
It is the people who foolishly cling to caveman beliefs that hide in caves.
Science works! “Magic” & pixies don’t, or we’d be using “magic” instead,
As for the pixies that don’t work… DAMN LAZY PIXIES!!! GET A JOB!
Alongside The Republic, The Essential Husserl and yada yada, I used to devour stuff like From ESP to Newton, The Tao of Physics, etc etc. And walk around at parties talking about “the possibilites of mind control”.
And then I too woke up and got honest…
Wake up Leroy. There’s a perplexing world of logical simplicity right at your feet! Walk with us down the hard path of self-doubt and rejoice in the rewards of the Great Logos. Your spirit will be freed from pointless hope and live in the bewildering dominions of the Now that came as strangly as it will strangely vanish!
I don’t know where you were, but it’s not where I am.
Things are clear, logical and practical in the spirit world. There are no problems without answers or understanding. Sorry I don’t believe you.
And to the others : the cave thing was meant to show the world behind the world. The spiritual.
And as for proof, spirit has it. The skeptics can prove nothing of what they say. Skeptics have only opinions and theories. Yes, theories are unproven guesses. No matter how educated they may be. You wake up. Well you and your friends will in your own time understand.
