Well, it certainly does.
And yet the causative agent is external, and not internal, using a method we can not analyze or account for. (My personal mental image is of, say, Bugs at the animation table messing with Daffy… a three dimensional character messing with a two, for a better analogy)
Would that not be a supernatural event?
No, because the “natural” system includes both the animated and the animator. Both Daffy and Bugs exist inside a single cartoon (the feature to which you’re referring), and the ‘rules’ of that universe could not be violated by either character.
This is correct, TVAA, but Chuck Jones, the true animator, did not.
You mean the cartoon and Chuck Jones didn’t exist in the same universe?
:rolleyes:
How did he manage to animate it, then?
Do not question His ways, lest the anvils smite thee.
Of course not. The cartoon exists in a universe with clearly different physical laws than Mr. Jones.
… Analogy. Metaphor. One of those things. With anvils.
Technically, “Bugs” and “Daffy” don’t even exist as entities. The cartoon is just a collection of images and sounds that humans perceive as a series of events when displayed properly.
Let’s say that the cartoon is actually a very complex computer simulation that superfically obeyed rules quite different from our reality. That simulation would necessarily be run by a computer, which itself is utterly consistent with the rules of the reality it exists in. The simulation and the programmer both exist in the same universe; although the things in the simulation can also be considered to be in their own world, it’s a sub-universe of our own.
Okay, right. The simulation is in a sub-universe of the God-person. The God-person is outside the universe of the simulation. Thus, the… oh, nevermind.
What do you consider supern… eh, heck with it.
E-Sabbath, what’s your understanding of system? I model reality for a living and I’m constantly faced with attempting to represent the “natural world” using descriptions. When I do that, I have to artificially decide where systems begin and end.
For example, is a liver and a brain part of the same system? A car and a human? A driver and a road? A road and a forest? A landmass and an oceans? Earth and Neptune? Our solar system and Alpha Centauri? Our Galaxy and Andromeda? Our bubble and…
What is external and internal?
If you define the Universe as everything that is physically tangible, then God is indeed “outside”. If you define the Universe as everything, then how can God be outside? As you can see, it all depends on how you define the limits of the system. And it doesn’t help to pull out a dictionary because words are as fluid as thought itself. Yes, there are standards. But unlike French, the English language has no authoritative Academy. Like all things beautiful in Anglo-Saxon culture, language is left to the “court of the combatants”.
Reality is continuous, ranging from thoughts about God and photons, to my toothbrush, to distant quasars visible as little specks on a computer screen. Only description of these phenomena are clearly discrete.
The supernatural will only be outside the system until we decide to incorporate it by modeling reality differently. What is “in” and what is “out” is purely a question of perspective. And that is important because everything in regards to our epistemic units are built up around our particular position in spacetime.
Leibnitz once said that all things must be observed as existing in relationship to another. Again (and I think I’ve said this before), “reality” is an inter-subjective effort. Do fairies exist? We agree they don’t because we believe with high certainty that no reproducible experiment can measure any phenomena implicated by our thoughts about what fairies aught to be. But did you ever test it yourself? Or even watch anyone test the existence of fairies?
You couldn’t build an epistemic system from scratch. Those day’s when human knowledge was all personal are long gone. And I mean long gone! Maybe early hominids had the luxury of testing everything told to them by their peers. Today, there’s the Library of Congress, thousands of labs across the entire globe and a trillion opinions in the Straight Dope Message Board. What to believe? Well, I assume you start from your little universe of verifiable data. I drink water, I piss in the toilet, my hair grows, birds sing, etc etc. From there on, it’s pretty much hearsay.
Although Lekatt has left her faculties behind, she has a point. Sometimes the fool speaks the truth. People report having NDEs (near death experiences). I haven’t had one, but I’ve heard it so frequently described I have to take it seriously. I see a major characteristic of these phenomena though. I’ve never heard of two persons sharing the same NDE at the same time and being able to corroborate the others story. So, I place such experiences in the same epistemic bucket of mine where I store my youthful past experiments with psychotropic drugs.
Supernatural is only “outside” until you choose it not to be. Lekatt has mindlessly made that leap. S/he probably will believe anything that stands in contradiction to the detested epistemic system of Brights. Politically, Lekatt is on the offensive against those who have belittled NDE. S/he will probably ally herself with anyone who threatens the supremacy of the Brights. Dowsers, Chakra experts, crystal wielders, hand healers, tarot readers and the all the other alternative communities. We are the enemy. And there’s nothing more exhilarating than to have a five fanged devilish unbeliever as your foe. We are the scum of the earth because we believe in nothing, absolutely nothing! Wait a minute…
Luckily, we Brights have one evil malignant ally that out matches them all: The cold, unforgiving and ruthless Reality. The day of Judgment shalt come!*
No, it simply means that those laws do not necessarily apply when a non-physical object (e.g. a spirit or other entity) is involved. As I said before, the laws of physics MUST, by necessity, assume the lack of anything supernatural in order for them to have validity. If something supernatural intervenes, then these laws simply do not apply. Newton’s laws of motion implicitly assume, for example, that there won’t be any supernatural entities intervening to redirect the motion of an object.
As an example, consider the voting laws in the USA. These laws apply only to U.S. citizens; if a person is not a citizen of that nation, then the laws do not apply. This does not render the laws non-existent; it simply means that the laws are not valid in such circumstances. Similarly, the laws of physics would not apply when the supernatural is involved, since they implicitly assume that no supernatural interaction will occur.
… I still don’t like the term “Brights”, mind you.
And you’re right, it is only outside the box until you widen the box to include it. My point… such that I had one, is that we can not fully define all that is. “Supernatural” events are still possible, using the common definition of the term… just that we havn’t found any yet. It’s never wise for a rational person to say something can not happen, when it is simply very improbable and not yet observed.
Isn’t it the Day Of Judgement Shall Not Come, anyhow?
Anyway you like, cause everything is possible right? 
Clarification: Judgment = Reality
It reminds me of the story about some Indian guy who claimed he could walk on water. The media was assembled and the man stepped out onto the surface of the water. Propmptly, he sank…
Not true. Words do indeed shift in meaning, but this does not mean that dictionaries are not meant to capture their definitions. Here is what Encyclopedia.com has to say on the matter.
Additionally, here is an excerpt from the back of my copy of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition:
I daresay that the dictionary’s own writers would be sufficiently authoritative to declare what it’s purpose is. Wouldn’t you?
And in a similar vein, here’s what dictionary.com itself says about its own purpose:
Now, I won’t claim that the dictionary is an infallible source, just as no textbook or encyclopedia is necessarily infallible. However, if we’re going to argue about the definition of a word, it’s only fair to cite the normative text which lists such definitions.
Moreover, even if one ignores the dictionary definitions of “nature” and “universe,” the opposite side has yet to cite any authoritative text which defines these terms to mean “everything in existence.” It’s foolhardy to proclaim “Dictionaries don’t provide definitions!” if you can’t cite any authoritative source whatsoever for the definition that you insist on using.
Lekatt is a he. Interesting post.
Most of the posts here are not serious, just smug playing with the subject and referring to things totally irrelevant, not worth answering.
But the question you raised about two people sharing the same NDE is important. Yes, there have been cases of this. There are a couple on my site. The best case was of a mining accident years ago. Elizabeth Keubler-Ross investigated this one and became a believer in the spirit world through it.
http://www.edconrad.com/lifeafterdeath/index.html
If you want to read about it the link is above.
Now the evidence shown in the Reader Digest article comes from the Lancet. It is solid. The great thing about the article is that for the first time millions of people will be hearing accurate information about NDEs. It is the beginning of “test reality” time.
Love
Leroy
I wish the English language had a neutral personal pronoun.
Anyway, your sources are so low on my trust list I don’t know what to say. If you told me a paper had been published in Scientific American regarding corroborated NDEs, I’d give it more time and consideration. How shall we approach this Lekatt.?
You seem to think of papers published by the scientific community as narrow-minded and I think of them as following the hisghest standard. You think of Reader digest as an authoritative source, I take it with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately, the burden of proof is on your shoulders since you are making a claim about how NDEs not being just imaginary thoughts. There’s a saying in Swedish: With peasants, speak like peasants. Think of me as a fool. The only way you can convince me is on my turf, using my language.
Since you have rejected logic and scientific modelling as valid languages, I can’t imagine how we will come to agree. You essentially refuse to speak these languages since you think they are somehow nonsensical.
I’m at a loss here. No common language, opposite ranking of source material…
JThunder:Again, dictionaries provide usages not meanings(Note that I said nothing about definitions).
According to some dictionaires atheism is defined as “wickedness” or “Working against God”.To the religionists who hold such views these are the correct meanings of the word atheism.In more secular dictionaries we get something closer to what the actual word literally means( it is a Greek word meaning “without gods”.The prefix ‘a’ means without and ‘theos’ = gods or belief in gods) but these usages do not serve the hardcore fundementalist in the context of one of theire anti-atheist crusades or “revivals”.Similarly the word Black can mean “evil”, “the darkest color in the spectrum”, or “a member of the negroid race of homo sapiens” depending on context.
If some neo-nazi comes here arguing that “Blacks are evil” then he can cite the dictionary oin support of this conviction but he is incorrect in doing so.
Flailing around with “according to the dictionary” arguments is silly. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, JThunder, but this thread is already creating a microcosm of language. Adapt to the usage of the others.
If someone asks “how can something be outside the Universe”, then you pretty much can inferre what meaning that person attaches to the word:
Universe = Everything
So you go with the flow. What is important is not the terminology, the symbols, the signifier. What is important is what intentionality those signifiers have. Yeah, standards are good. But let’s not get anal about it.
Stop grand standing and adapt to the language of the thread. Otherwise, you’re just throwing out red herrings…
Well, he later posted this:
So I guess:
**YOU.
WERE.
WRONG.**
Neener, neener, neener.
What do you mean again? You did NOT cite my exact words the first time; first, you cited a strawman version of what you wished I had said, and then you deliberately left off a crucial sentence.
The Snopes account demonstrates that the NASA story has little merit. YOU are the one who is creating the strawman position that it proves the event is impossible, and trying to attribute such a position to me. What I am saying is that it is extremely doubtful that a NASA employee discovered a “missing day”; doubtful to the point that I feel confident in stating that it didn’t happen. If it gives you satisfaction, we can say that it’s not impossible that a NASA employee found a missing day, just highly unlikely. That has NOTHING to do with trying to falsify the unfalsifyable statement that “An all-powerful God could make the sun stand still if He wanted to”. Such semantic quibbling may give you pleasure, but I fail to see the point. And your ad hominem addition that I am “desperate” only weakens your case. How is it that everyone else understood what I meant except you?
“The phrasing clearly implies…” - Get out of here with that garbage.
So now, if you’re quite through telling me what I said, could we please move on to a real issue?
Again, I refer you to my earlier posting. I cited three sources; two of them said that the dictionary provides definitions, and one said that it provides meanings. So either way, your claim is incorrect.
Moreover, you are making a false distinction between “definition” and “meaning.” Again, let us see what the dictionary has to say.
So we see that definitions are meant to convey meanings. (Duh!) It is therefore pointless to concede that dictionaries provide definitions, while denying that they provide meanings.
Besides, please do remember the claims being made. Two of your comrades claimed that nature and/or the universe are, by definition, “everything which exists.” Definitions are therefore the relevant matter under discussion – and as we’ve seen, they are not defined in any such matter.
But for the sake of argument, let us grant your claim. Let us pretend that dictionaries do indeed provide usages, but not meanings or definitions. Nobody has yet to cite any authoritative text which says “Nature is defined as everything which exists” or “The universe is defined as everything which exists.” So even if your claim were correct, the aforementioned statements would still be nothing but unsubstatiated assertions.
Am I being whooshed? Did JT just seriously respond to an allegation that dictionary definitions have little relavence with a dictionary definition?