Speaking in 'tongues'

[jeremyp]

'Supernatural' is a just term given to something for which science hasn't yet discovered a natural explanation at present.

No it isn't.

That would imply that many supernatural phenomena are just waiting for a scientific explanation. For example, Jesus was resurrected but it was a natural process we don't understand.

It would also imply that every phenomenon we don't understand is classified as supernatural. For instance, we don't know how life first started on this planet and there are people who think it was supernatural but scientists classify it as a natural event that we do not yet understand.

[Andy]

There's no way to tell that this is merely a natural universe.

There are several people here, Vlad who believe that it is

Why don't you name who they are so we can see if you're correct, cos as far as I'm aware, there are plenty who are misrepresented even though they have categorically stated, more than once, that they don't believe this.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Religious knowledge is intuited

So it is just guesswork.

Also once the ''supernatural'' has been accessed or revealed

The problem with that is, by your own admission, there's no way to tell whether the supernatural has been accessed, revealed or just imagined.

No I have said that if there is no naturalistic explanation for something experienced then we have experienced the supernatural.

You said you didn't have a methodology for telling if something is supernatural earlier, so you can't tell if any experience you have is supernatural.

No, let me make this clear Jeremy,

I am answering two questions

How does one know if something is supernatural? and How do I know that I am not mistaken, deluded or illuded about supernatural things.

The answer to the first thing is, of course, if it is not 'natural' then it is 'supernatural'.

The answer to the second is that I cannot think of science in any other context than matter/energy and therefore I cannot offer anything like it.

I also have to add that that therefore is not a serious limitation of the supernatural but a serious limitation of science.

Philosophical naturalism is an attempt to big science up beyond it's limitations.

[Leonard James]

Wouldn't it? Before the telephone was invented, talking with somebody on the other side of the planet would probably have been considered a 'supernatural' ability, men walking on the moon even moreso.

I would question whether they were even considered, other than by the scientists of the day, let alone considered 'supernatural'.

Just so! The majority of ordinary people, if told about such a thing, would have considered it an "unnatural" event, either a lie or due to some power beyond natural.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

'Supernatural' is a just term given to something for which science hasn't yet discovered a natural explanation at present. Things which we take for granted these days, like being able to talk to people the other side of the world instantly, or sending people into space, for instance, would have been considered supernatural 200 years ago.

No.....Science is a methodology which is tightly defined.
The supernatural is anything beyond those definitions. It deals with the unfalsifiable.

You are confusing the undiscovered with the supernatural.

[Leonard James]

'Supernatural' is a just term given to something for which science hasn't yet discovered a natural explanation at present. Things which we take for granted these days, like being able to talk to people the other side of the world instantly, or sending people into space, for instance, would have been considered supernatural 200 years ago.

No.....Science is a methodology which is tightly defined.
The supernatural is anything beyond those definitions. It deals with the unfalsifiable.

You are confusing the undiscovered with the supernatural.

Am I? Tell me how YOU distinguish one from the other?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

'Supernatural' is a just term given to something for which science hasn't yet discovered a natural explanation at present. Things which we take for granted these days, like being able to talk to people the other side of the world instantly, or sending people into space, for instance, would have been considered supernatural 200 years ago.

No.....Science is a methodology which is tightly defined.
The supernatural is anything beyond those definitions. It deals with the unfalsifiable.

You are confusing the undiscovered with the supernatural.

Am I? Tell me how YOU distinguish one from the other?

Sorry I should perhaps have differentiated the scientifically undiscovered (things made of matter/energy)and the scientifically undiscoverable (things not made of matter/energy).

Any basic science education distinguishes scientific questions not yet answered and questions which cannot be answered by science.
(source BTEC Level 3 Applied science).

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad:

Me:

I'll take that to mean:

1. You'll never answer the question.

2. You'll never tell us why you won't answer the question.

3. You have no understanding of the question, and no of why it causes "assertion as fact" schtick such a problem.

Ah well.

You:

or 4. positive assertions come with burden of proof. There is no hierarchy of response.

5. I don't know that I can give you anything that you will recognise as a method and therefore I am not actually offering one.

6. You claim that philosophical naturalism is the established truth. The burden of proof on that positive assertion is yours
therefore points 4 and 5 considered it is up to you because you seem to be the only person claiming something.

4 is incoherent.

5 is at least a response of some kind, but your problem isn’t finding a method that I would recognise, it’s finding a method of any kind. “Intuiting” something isn’t a method – it’s just a feeling, and anyone can have them about anything at all. Not only does your claim give nothing to anyone else to make them think you might not be wholly wrong about that, it gives you nothing either for you to test your feeling against the possibility of mistake, delusion etc.

6 is a straw man. No-one claims that philosophical naturalism is the established truth. This is where you keep going off the rails because of your failure to comprehend what it does entail.

Philosophical naturalism is the belief that there is no means to test or examine or verify claims of the supernatural. It does not assert that there is necessarily no such thing as the supernatural (that’s just your straw man version of it) but it does say that those claims are incoherent unless they can be verified and so can safely be ignored. Methodological naturalism is just the application of that, for example in the working methods of science.

The resulting findings are a provisional truths, but no-one claims the absolute truth. Thus the claim that jumping out of the window will make you hit the deck shortly after can be tested, and when you do indeed hit the deck – and so does everyone else who tries it – then gravity is accepted as a provisional truth.

By contrast, someone else may claim that if he jumps out of a window a god will lower him safely to the ground. The problem though is that, unless he submits to have the claim falsified, then all he has is a claim. Now that claim may be true - as may any other clam anyone else thinks they “intuit” – but that helps you not a jot.

What you’re actually saying here is effectively, “OK, I’m guessing but so are you”. It fails because it’s dishonest, (equivalent to one four-year-old saying to another, “you smell” and the other replying, “well you’re fat” as if that were in some way relevant), and because it fundamentally fails to understand that naturalism provides enough inter-subjective commonality of experience to enable a probabilistic assessment of truth, whereas claims of the supernatural offer nothing at all.

You’ve been corrected on your going nuclear approach several times now, but here once again is the Stephen Law's essay that will explain it to you:

http://stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/going-nuclear.html

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No I have said that if there is no naturalistic explanation for something experienced then we have experienced the supernatural.

It's been a while since you attempted the god of the gaps fallacy. Congratulations.

[Leonard James]

Sorry I should perhaps have differentiated the scientifically undiscovered (things made of matter/energy)and the scientifically undiscoverable (things not made of matter/energy).

I'm still in the dark. Can you give me an example of something that is not made of matter/energy?

[jeremyp]

The answer to the first thing is, of course, if it is not 'natural' then it is 'supernatural'.

That's not really an answer. "How do you tell if something is not natural?" is really the same question as "how do you tell if something is supernatural?"

The answer to the second is that I cannot think of science in any other context than matter/energy and therefore I cannot offer anything like it.

So you can't tell if your supernatural experience is really just delusion.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Len,

I'm still in the dark. Can you give me an example of something that is not made of matter/energy?

Gods, ghosts, spooks, ghoulies, pixies, Jack Frost, you name it. Curiously those who believe in these things tend to privilege their own “intuited” belief in one of them over the intuited beliefs of everyone else in all the others, albeit with no method of any kind either to verify their own or to invalidate the others. Seems to me to be a sort of Messiah complex – “obviously a god has paid a visit to little old me, but all the others are mistaken, delusional etc” but there it is. So far as I know Vlad doesn’t plan to hole up in a compound with his followers while the feds lay siege though so he seems to me to be harmlessly daft rather than dangerously so 

[Leonard James]

Hi Blue,

Gods, ghosts, spooks, ghoulies, pixies, Jack Frost, you name it.

But these are not examples of phenomena that have no matter/energy, as he was claiming. They are simply due to the workings of the human imagination. Surely he must realise that.

Curiously those who believe in these things tend to privilege their own “intuited” belief in one of them over the intuited beliefs of everyone else in all the others, albeit with no method of any kind either to verify their own or to invalidate the others. Seems to me to be a sort of Messiah complex – “obviously a god has paid a visit to little old me, but all the others are mistaken, delusional etc” but there it is. So far as I know Vlad doesn’t plan to hole up in a compound with his followers while the feds lay siege though so he seems to me to be harmlessly daft rather than dangerously so 

I find such an attitude unworthy of a rational adult. 

[Hope]

As one who has probably experienced more so called 'supernatural' events of the 'haunting' kind since I was born, you would expect me to be a believer in other worldly experiences. However, I always look for the natural explanation, and in some instances have found it!

Can you be sure that you found the 'natural explanation' in those instances?  Or was this just your gut opinion?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No I have said that if there is no naturalistic explanation for something experienced then we have experienced the supernatural.

It's been a while since you attempted the god of the gaps fallacy. Congratulations.

Golly Blue I can't believe you have made an elementary howler like that.

There are matters which science cannot deal with (source BTEC Level 3 Applied science).

It gets worse for you since any scientific conclusion doesn't actually exclude the possibility of God being involved in some way through his will, purpose etc.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The answer to the first thing is, of course, if it is not 'natural' then it is 'supernatural'.

That's not really an answer. "How do you tell if something is not natural?" is really the same question as "how do you tell if something is supernatural?"

The answer to the second is that I cannot think of science in any other context than matter/energy and therefore I cannot offer anything like it.

So you can't tell if your supernatural experience is really just delusion.

a delusion of what?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

No I have said that if there is no naturalistic explanation for something experienced then we have experienced the supernatural.

It's been a while since you attempted the god of the gaps fallacy. Congratulations.

Since you are being so dense Hillside. Your accusation is firmly based in promissory scientism. The belief that science will solve everything............that's a fallacy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad:

Me:

I'll take that to mean:

1. You'll never answer the question.

2. You'll never tell us why you won't answer the question.

3. You have no understanding of the question, and no of why it causes "assertion as fact" schtick such a problem.

Ah well.

You:

or 4. positive assertions come with burden of proof. There is no hierarchy of response.

5. I don't know that I can give you anything that you will recognise as a method and therefore I am not actually offering one.

6. You claim that philosophical naturalism is the established truth. The burden of proof on that positive assertion is yours
therefore points 4 and 5 considered it is up to you because you seem to be the only person claiming something.

4 is incoherent.

5 is at least a response of some kind, but your problem isn’t finding a method that I would recognise, it’s finding a method of any kind. “Intuiting” something isn’t a method – it’s just a feeling, and anyone can have them about anything at all. Not only does your claim give nothing to anyone else to make them think you might not be wholly wrong about that, it gives you nothing either for you to test your feeling against the possibility of mistake, delusion etc.

6 is a straw man. No-one claims that philosophical naturalism is the established truth. This is where you keep going off the rails because of your failure to comprehend what it does entail.

Philosophical naturalism is the belief that there is no means to test or examine or verify claims of the supernatural. It does not assert that there is necessarily no such thing as the supernatural (that’s just your straw man version of it) but it does say that those claims are incoherent unless they can be verified and so can safely be ignored. Methodological naturalism is just the application of that, for example in the working methods of science.

The resulting findings are a provisional truths, but no-one claims the absolute truth. Thus the claim that jumping out of the window will make you hit the deck shortly after can be tested, and when you do indeed hit the deck – and so does everyone else who tries it – then gravity is accepted as a provisional truth.

By contrast, someone else may claim that if he jumps out of a window a god will lower him safely to the ground. The problem though is that, unless he submits to have the claim falsified, then all he has is a claim. Now that claim may be true - as may any other clam anyone else thinks they “intuit” – but that helps you not a jot.

What you’re actually saying here is effectively, “OK, I’m guessing but so are you”. It fails because it’s dishonest, (equivalent to one four-year-old saying to another, “you smell” and the other replying, “well you’re fat” as if that were in some way relevant), and because it fundamentally fails to understand that naturalism provides enough inter-subjective commonality of experience to enable a probabilistic assessment of truth, whereas claims of the supernatural offer nothing at all.

You’ve been corrected on your going nuclear approach several times now, but here once again is the Stephen Law's essay that will explain it to you:

http://stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/going-nuclear.html

How do you do it Blue? What's the methodology for getting from methodological naturalism to philosophical naturalism?

[jeremyp]

There are matters which science cannot deal with (source BTEC Level 3 Applied science).

Does it give a list? Can you tell us what those matters are?

[jeremyp]

a delusion of what?

Of a supernatural experience.

With such incredibly stupid questions, one might think you are running away again.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Hi Blue,

Gods, ghosts, spooks, ghoulies, pixies, Jack Frost, you name it.

But these are not examples of phenomena that have no matter/energy, as he was claiming. They are simply due to the workings of the human imagination. 

Evidence Len.....of a degree in psychiatry or psychology that is.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

a delusion of what?

Of a supernatural experience.

With such incredibly stupid questions, one might think you are running away again.

How can an experience not explicable in terms of the natural possibly be er, natural?............What is the matter with you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There are matters which science cannot deal with (source BTEC Level 3 Applied science).

Does it give a list? Can you tell us what those matters are?

Why,......are you on the brink of writing a stern letter to somebody?

[jeremyp]

a delusion of what?

Of a supernatural experience.

With such incredibly stupid questions, one might think you are running away again.

How can an experience not explicable in terms of the natural possibly be er, natural?............What is the matter with you?

Why do you think delusion is not natural?

[jeremyp]

There are matters which science cannot deal with (source BTEC Level 3 Applied science).

Does it give a list? Can you tell us what those matters are?

Why,......are you on the brink of writing a stern letter to somebody?

No.  I think you read that somewhere without understanding it and now you carry it like a talisman hoping it will prevent people from realising you are an empty vessel.  That fact that you, yet again, evade answering the question confirms my thought.