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Author | Topic: Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed? | |||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jumped Up Chimpanzee writes:
Yes, that's precisely what happens.
Is "supernatural" just a word meaning "something we don't understand at this time" and if we ever do understand it, then it becomes re-classified as "natural"?
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Straggler writes:
I am not sure what you find confusing about this. You yourself say that gods are cultural constructs. Where else do you expect to find the evidence for cultural constructs, other than in the myths, stories, etc that are told within the culture?
He has cited the myths and stories pertaining to gods as evidence of gods. jar says: I consider all Gods and gods to be evidenced. The evidence is the stories themselves
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Straggler writes:
If he happens to consider the supernatural to be a cultural construct, then that would not be an issue, either.The only thing I am "confused" by is jar's refusal to clearly state whether or not he considers these cultural constructs to be evidence of the supernatural. I am not saying that is jar's view - I don't read minds. But it is a possibility to consider when reading his posts.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Golden Ratio writes: First perhaps you can show me the physical detection of something a little less supernatural, say dark matter perhaps?Straggler writes:
It is being postulated as a possible way of explaining some otherwise unexplained observations. That does not mean that it has been detected.Well why do you think dark matter is even being postulated but for detectable physical effects? In the past, science has postulated a luminiferous ether to account for observations. That was eventually abandoned. Before that, there was phlogiston. I don't believe that there is anything within science that could be considered to be "the supernatural hypothesis." So I don't see that anything has failed. Perhaps one could say that there is a supernatural hypothesis within religion. But in that case, it has surely been quite effective (from a religious point of view).
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Straggler writes:
Then either we are already dead, or we soon will be.POSITED SCENARIO The universe was supernaturally created fully formed, including our memories, two nano-seconds ago. It was created in such a way that things will behave very differently from the universe we falsely think we experienced. Natural laws as we know them do not apply. If the world will behave in a very different way from the kind of world we are adapted to, then we won't last long. There's no point in worrying about pens.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Straggler writes:
It seems to me that it is your post (i.e. Message 366) that is evasive.
Stop being evasive.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes:
So mathematics is supernatural! Who'd have thunk it?
Claims about the natural world are natural. Claims that do not involve the natural world are supernatural
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes: Claims about the natural world are natural. Claims that do not involve the natural world are supernatural nwr writes: So mathematics is supernatural! Who'd have thunk it? Jon writes:
You are making excuses to try to evade the obvious fact that your earlier statement was silly.Math, however, is a system of description; when it is used to describe things of the natural world, its claims are very much natural and thus subject to scientific investigation. Significant parts of our lives are spent with cultural constructs. Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Little Red Riding Hood, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy - those are just a few examples. It makes no sense to say that they are supernatural. The idea of supernatural is itself a cultural construct. But not every cultural construct counts as supernatural.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes:
The only way people know about it, is via the culture. There is no natural source of evidence.In what way do you consider the supernatural to be a cultural construct? In my view, that makes it a cultural construct.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Jon writes:
There actually are groups that study Sherlock Holmes, though I would not call it a scientific study.If it's clear that Sherlock Holmes is simply a fictional story, is it proper to investigate on it using the scientific method and then draw conclusions on it based on whether or not the things it contains are evidenced? When I used "cultural constructs", I was not limiting myself to fiction. The games of golf, football, baseball, chess and many others are also cultural constructs. Sure, they also have a physical footprint, but there is a lot more involved in the games than the physical events. I would guess that anthropologists and psychologists do have reasons to scientifically study some cultural constructs.
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