Can anything be supernatural?

If something effected some data in a way indistinguishable from randomness, the existence of that something would be unobservable in the data.

edited 9th Mar '11 1:17:55 AM by Tzetze

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Science accounts for randomness, and so forth.

Things like mathematics and even meta-physics deal with these.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

There is no such thing as the supernatural. If ghosts exist, you bet your ass we'll find a way to make it logical and explainable.

Read my stories!

What if we find something that's unobservable, even if we know it exits. Yes, that sounds weird, but we are exploring hypothetical situations here.

You can't know it exists without observing it somehow. (or observing its consequences, as with more esoteric Quantum Mechanics.)

edited 9th Mar '11 8:14:29 AM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Like I said, things like metaphysics can deal with the unobservable as well. There are many scientific facts that are considered facts even though we can't observe them. We know by looking at other things, and by looking at other things we can see the impact of the unobservable, and give it a logical form.

Relevant.  ^*

edited 9th Mar '11 9:30:50 AM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Anything that exists exists IN nature. The very idea of a "supernatural" thing is absurd.

That we don't understand how or why something happens doesn't mean there is no "how" or "why".

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Dear Beholderess,

This is a case of terms leading to confusion.

You ask "If something that we consider outside of physical law turns out to be existing, wouldn't it mean that we are simply wrong about laws of nature?" Here you use "laws of nature" as a synonym for "laws of physics". Now the laws of physics are either caused or uncaused (eternal). If caused, their cause must be metaphysical, from the Greek meta (beyond) and physika.

Our empirical data about the laws of physics remain the same. "Wouldn't it mean that we are simply wrong about the laws of physics?" is false. Unless you mean "we materialists", materialism being an ontology (branch of metaphysics, or "first philosophy" as Aristotle called it) claiming the material is the only thing that exists. The empirical data physicists collect is not dependent on the truth claim "matter is all that exists" being true.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Unless the universe is actually uncomputable. In which case almost all bets are off.

The laws of physics can't be caused, because the very act of "causing" implies an external sense of time, which would obey its own set of laws, which we might as well label "physics." (Unless the universe is actually uncomputable and/or inconsistent.)

edited 9th Mar '11 12:26:42 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Not so. Go read Aristotle.

Correct, which is why philosophers strive to elucidate a consistent metaphysics.

... or we might use language sanely. Physika refers to the underlying rules of that part of reality that can be observed with the five senses.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Well, if "Supernatural" can mean not abiding by the laws of our universe, but instead another one, then yes, I believe the Supernatural can exist.

If one means all Universes and all possible laws and reason, then no, I think that would be as silly as saying Causality does not exist.

edited 9th Mar '11 12:36:35 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

Actually, I do not mean specifically laws of physics. But if only other set of laws was proved to exist - say, if world really runs on Theory of Narrative Causality - then it is how it works, and it is natural, can be studied, codified and used.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

The very definition of causation requires (or possibly implies) time

It's changed meaning extensively since then, then. We can only observe a very very small portion of reality with the 5 senses, and you have to have machines to fill in the rest. "Laws of physics" should refer to our best model of all of reality, including any gods or other "supernatural" entities.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

facepalm

If you want to redefine terms such that first philosophy shall now be called "physics".

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

I was not aware that philosophy was a model in the same way that M-theory is.

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Well, primitive people worshipped thunder because they couldn't explain it by what they thought were the laws of nature. So I suppose if something new turned out, we would simply need to redefine "laws of nature".

That said, I don't believe in anything conventionally supernatural (ghosts, vampires, fairies etc).

edited 9th Mar '11 3:34:36 PM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

You know I had heard about strange things that I had happen to people or even miracles that happen to people. In a real life case of the complainer is always wrong, we find that most people who are grounded in logic don't seem to believe in the supernatural until someone's testimony usually dispels that notion. This may be strawmanning but wouldn't be just as unscientific or illogical to assume that these things cannot happen? And when they do happen how can we with all our logic explain it? Strawmanning is not a good idea for any topic, I keep seeing on television how a guy who supossedly a scientist learns to accept that osme things cannot explained. While there are matters that cannot explained currently, that doesn't me that they can never be explained.

Then comes that all too familiar armor piecring question, "Prove it!" or "How do you explain this supernatural feat?" Sadly, I cannot find an answer for those questions. I am not sure how even explain without saying, "God did it" or "It was magic" as anything supernatural seems to defy all logic and we as humans aren't really bound by logic either.

What if something is beyond logic and causality and all that other stuff we're "certain" of in conventional metaphysics?

Fuck it. We'll never truly know shit about existence and non-existence and whatnot. All we can do is make retarded guesses at how our own little corner of reality works.

It's not rational to assume that these things cannot happen, but it is rational to not accept that they did happen without evidence extraordinary enough to match up to the extraordinaryness of the claim.

Also, it's important to note that humans are not logical in the game theoretical sense, in that they will not always weigh the pros and cons of decisions. However we are logical in the mathematical sense; there is plenty of reason to think that there is a single, consistent, exact description of a given person's thought process.

You can't be more certain than mathematics. Is that part of metaphysics?

edited 13th Mar '11 12:44:42 PM by Yej

Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.

Probably not, if you think about it.

Too bad though, it's my favorite subject.

Can anything be supernatural?

Briefly, no, nothing can be supernatural. The word "supernatural" is little more than a buzzword. I've discussed the notion on the forums here, as well, and we came to the same conclusion. Note that this is not an argument that things traditionally labeled as "supernatural" (God, ghosts, souls, etc.) don't exist. Rather, it is a reason not to label them as "supernatural" in the first place and not to have one's arguments hinge on the notion.

edited 9th May '11 11:45:17 AM by Arthur

Not exactly, but mathematical realism certainly is.

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Well, sure, if we define "nature" as "everything that exists" then if follows that everything that exists is natural.

I am not sure why one would want to do so, though, since we have such a nifty term as "everything" already.

It seems to me that "supernatural" refers to all that does not belong to the observable universe, or at least not totally so; and, leaving aside the question whether there exist such things or not, the assertion that there might exist something that is, in part or in whole, unobservable does not strike me as inherently false.

Also,

Which mathematics, precisely? From some axioms and inference rules we can derive certain conclusions, and agree over them — as long as we have a shared corpus of implicit rules and axioms which allows us to interpret the rules and axioms in the same way.

But you can create some downright freaky mathematical systems, if you feel like doing so; and finding out which sort of mathematical structure may be applied to model which aspect of reality is, of course, far from being a certain business ;)

It's not the case that one apple plus one apple makes two apples because I can prove that 1+1=2 from the axioms of set theory; rather, these axioms, and the definitions of natural number and of sum used in set theory, have been given in that way because one apple plus one apples makes two apples.

edited 9th May '11 1:05:54 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Would an object or entity that is the only exception to an otherwise universal law of physics be supernatural?

Would "not being that object or entity" be an otherwise universal law of physics?

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.