The "science" of Miracles

Hi Tangle, Do a little fact checking before you spout off too loud.There has been 60 airplane crashes with only 1 survivor. Not all have been said to be miracle survivors.That is a long way from many thousands every year.God Bless,

Tangle threw some cherubs in the mix upthread somewhere, as part of demonstrating that this was clearly a proper miracle with divine intervention and whatnot. They're not essential to the point. So it seems to me everyone's still a bit stuck on the actual definition of a miracle. It seems to me that you're saying it's something that's not comprehensible by the laws of nature as we currently understand them, but it's coming across as them being incomprehensible by laws of nature in principle. I think ringo was disagreeing with the latter; since how can you know whether something can be described in terms of laws you haven't thought of yet?

How about you doing a little thinking before you jump up and down in outrage. Yes, not surprisingly, surviving a plane crash is unusual. And also not surprisingly when somebody does, it's colloquially described as 'miraculous'. There are thousands of surprising and unusual survivals; they don't require aeroplanes. Or miracles.Now, if our girl was lifted out of the aeroplane by a naked, winged cherub and flown gently to the ground to choirs of angels sat on clouds while the other passengers plummeted to their deaths, you might have a point.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Hi Tangle, How do you know that was not what happened?She would have hit the ground traveling at 120 miles per hour without something slowing the process.With such an impact she should not have been able to walk (no one else was able to walk away from the site) for many days yet she was able to walk, wade and contend with a very unfriendly environment, with 1 small bag of candy for nourishment for 10 days.And if I did not believe in God I would just say she was one of the luckiest people in the world. As I would not believe in divine intervention.God Bless,

And Tangle mentioned cherubs again in Message 318. I guess some of his examples of miracles have a religious overtone. I think Ringo and Jar's position is that all phenomena obey the laws of physics all the time and that "miracle" is just a term for something that doesn't exist and never happens. That's why I've been suggesting a miracle where the George Washington Bridge moves 50 miles up the Hudson. It isn't a not yet understood phenomenon. I just read about an example of a not yet understood phenomenon last night, where two black holes collided in the early universe but that such an event is so unlikely that it wouldn't be expected to occur in the entire history of the universe (several of these events have been detected by LIGO and Virgo). The bridge miracle isn't like that. It clearly and forcefully breaks several very well understand physical laws (gravity, strength of materials, entropy), it isn't explicable by them, therefore it's a miracle.As Tangle has pointed out, miracles are local. When a miracle occurs the laws of physics are not suspended or altered everywhere, just in the specific area where the miracle occurs. When the George Washington Bridge gently lets loose its mooring and floats up into the sky, the nearby trees and cars and people and buildings and Route 95 (the part not on the bridge) are unaffected. This is consistent with our concept of miracles, even though none of us believe they ever happen or have happened. But I'm just trying to make clear how we think of miracles. For example, when someone with a deadly disease suddenly becomes well, other people the world over with the same deadly disease continue to die. When a woman and a boy are run over by a car and survive virtually unscathed, other people around the world continue to die when struck by cars. I'm not suggesting that people should accept these as examples of miracles, but just to give a general idea why, though it's not part of the formal definition, that the general concept of "miracle" is that they are local.Then there's the question of whether breaking or suspending or inexplicably not following the known laws of nature is science. Our observations and experiments show that the laws of nature seem to apply everywhere throughout the universe across all time, but that's just an observation, not something that has been proven true. Should it be considered part of the definition of science, in which case miracles lie outside of science and are impossible, and all new phenomenon must be considered just science we don't understand yet (this is Jar and Ringo's position)?Or, since science is tentative, must we leave our minds open to the possibility that not all phenomenon follow what we call the laws of nature or even have laws, but that they still occur within our natural world, in which case miracles lie within science and can be studied. We can ask and try to answer the question of how and under what conditions the laws of nature are not followed. This is my and Tangle's position.The obvious rebuttal is that if science studies and comes to understand miracles, don't they become just another law of nature and therefore not miracles? Maybe, maybe not. If miracles are deterministic in the way of sending spacecraft to Mars, then I guess they're not really miracles. But if they're non-deterministic in the way of the two-slit experiment and wave/particle duality, if they occur without cause, then the label of "miracle" seems valid.--Percy

Not to mention that it implies that God Himself favors some and not others. Which opens up another can of worms.

Well it's just a hunch, but if that's what had happened I'm guessing she might have told us. Or there'd be witnesses. Absent that, we have no reason to suppose that is what happened have we? It's very unusual but not unprecedented for people to fall out of planes and survive. So let's see the full story please. What you or I believe is irrelevant. Let's see the evidence.

Yes, "seen as a miracle" is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Jesus' face on a taco is also "seen as a miracle" but what "miracle" actually happened? The story also reinforces my point that there doesn't have to be any breaking of the laws of nature for it to be called a miracle. Yes, indeed. Incidents attributed to "miracles" are pretty common.By the way, you know what "fantastic" means, don't you? Many stories of miracles are fanciful, imaginative, embellished, etc.

No, it's like science. Science is an ongoing process. It's a loop that justs keeps on looking. You could say that there's an escape hatch for, "We've got a pretty good answer so we can devote our time to something else for the moment." But there's no escape hatch for, "We can't figure it out so we'll stop trying."

She failed to report and cherubs, but to be fair she was unconscious:

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I could see the canopy of the jungle spinning towards me. Then I lost consciousness and remember nothing of the impact.

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She claims not to have been the only person to have survived the fall, which is actually slightly horrifying:

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Later I found out that (her mother) also survived the crash but was badly injured and she couldn't move. She died several days later. I dread to think what her last days were like.

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but the BBC article didn't explain how she knew this. She's written a book about it if you wanted to know more, (and speak German) but she's a biologist, so her understanding of events is probably distorted by the satanic dogma they learn in grad school.

You're kidding, right? Do you seriously think science would conclude a miracle? So Tangle and [nobody] are in agreement on this? But you did say, "... a miracle is not explicable by natural or scientific laws...." in Message 296. What's the difference between, "can't be explained by natural causes," and, "not explicable by natural or scientific laws"? There's a difference between a hypothetical discussion of whether or not miracles are possible and making up a hypothetical miracle to discuss. In science, the only thing that's hypothetical is the hypothesis. You don't get to make up the evidence.As I've said, the first step in the scientific study of a flying bridge is to find out if the reports are true. Since they're not, there's no reason to continue with it.

If Phat wants to call "faith" in the only available option a "religion", he's welcome to.

I think this sums up what I see as slightly incoherent about your position. If you are able to answer the question of 'how and under what conditions the laws of nature are not followed', then the laws of nature are being followed, otherwise there would be no coherent answer.And I get further confused by: Does this mean you think the quantum mechanical effects are miracles? If not, why would miracle be a valid label for other, non-deterministic effects?

You've made up examples that have nothing to do with miracles. Those events did not happen. That's where the scientific investigation ends.Miracles are events that are attributed to supernatural causes, such as healings, faces on tacos, etc. The topic is miracles, not fiction. Why can't you talk about real events that are actually called miracles?

Right, so no cherubs then. So rather than what you said....

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She would have hit the ground traveling at 120 miles per hour without something slowing the process.
  —ICANT

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...she actually hit the tree canopy which would have cushioned her fall if she got lucky - which she evidently did.No miraculous intervention then.