Do we have evidence against the supernatural?

Do we have any evidence against the supernatural?Now, I don't mean evidence against any specific claim about an event that may or may not have happened on this earth. I mean, do we have any evidence to counter the claim "there is a nonphysical afterlife." or "After death my soul will live on." ?I don't see how it's even logically possible to provide such evidence. And just to take a pre-emptive strike against those who might want to claim parsimony or Occam's Razor... parsimony is a made-up, ad-hoc principle in creating scientific models. It itself is not a form of evidence, and it does not apply in any way to metaphysical "truth."I would appreciate to know this, because I've seen a fair number of claims about how the supernatural is "unlikely", we have "evidence against it", or that it's just "unnecessary." (Being generous,) It's been unnecessary in creating models for describing the physical world. Certainly it's an unwarranted step to go beyond THAT and claim "truth."I'd like to finally face this issue. If possible.(AbE: I'd also like a place where I can ask people to go if they make these claims within another thread. Rather than pull a discussion OT, I can ask this question and ask them to respond in this thread.)(maybe "Is It Science?")This message has been edited by Ben, Sunday, 2005/10/02 09:13 AM

The principle of parismony is a principle for the natural world. As far as anything is purported to exist in the natural world, I don't have a problem with applying the principle of parsimony.In what way are fairies, elves, or Invisible Pink Unicorns supernatural?

Actually, I think it's like asking "Do we have any evidence for ANYTHING in the natural world". When you use "ANYTHING", it means bring your OWN qualifier. Sure. We have evidence for the existence of Lam. Please see my previous response. In what way is the IPU supernatural? Invisible doesn't mean not part of the natural world. It just means it has specific properties with respect to electromagnetic radiation.I've never heard somebody talk about an IMMATERIAL pink unicorn. What would that mean? That IS the other question. As in, a question that's not part of this thread. If there's no reason to believe in something and no reason to NOT believe in something, ... then there's no REASON involved in the decision. It's a topic for threads that build off the result of this one (if I can establish the result that I think I can).

Gee, and the last time I saw someone make a half-assed wrong accusation, they were told by AdminNosy to apologize. You proposed 3 creatures that are part of the natural world. Is air not part of the natural world because it's invisible? Elves are not part of the natural world because... they have pointy noses? Fairies not part of the natural world because.. they fly?If we can supposedly interact with them physically, then ... it's part of the natural world. So... how are those things supernatural? They seem natural to me. And I'd really appreciate if you answer the question in the same way that I asked it--honestly. In the way that it has absolutely NO effect on any natural thing. In other words, it's not measurable in any way, at least as far as I can see. It seems really that simple--definitional. Maybe one step, a simple syllogism.But I could be wrong. It happens much more often than I'm right, that's for sure.Ben

Here's some evidence FOR the supernatural:

• The concept of no afterlife has a human origin;
• There was no empirical evidence to support that concept;
• It is known that scammers offer that seem too good to be true.
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(I don't see how that last bullet point fits in at all yet...)
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Ben

Lam,I was trying to separate between two things: invisible pink unicorn(natural) and immaterial pink unicorn (something I've never heard of before).How do you test for an invisible pink unicorn? Try and kick it.How do you test for an immaterial pink unicorn? That's not natural, you can't test for it. It is untestable; you can't have evidence for it or against it (as far as I can tell)....As for the other part of your post... if that resolution wasn't satsifactory to you for now, let me know. But that's the approach I am trying to take to this--break it up into small pieces, see what can be (or cannot be) established, and then move forward off of that.

That was supposed to mean it is "of the natural realm." You can test whether one actually exists in the room by trying to kick it.By being part of the "natural realm", it's testable. Just as whether air exists or not is testable. It's just an invisible object. Devise a test and test for it.My claim has nothing to do with things of the "natural realm", only things of the supernatural realm. Those things which are supposedly "not of this world". For example, an immaterial pink unicorn.

Call me smiley impaired, then. I did mean to be a dick about it, but I didn't mean to piss you off. You're a good poster, Chiro, and I respect your thoughts. I apologize for being a dick, it's silly to piss you off for nothing. So, I'm sorry. And I'd always appreciate your comments.As for your post... I saw your smiley, and it didn't make any sense to me. You said I dodged your comment, then didn't answer my question at all. THEN asked ME a question. The only inconsistent thing about the entire post was the smiley itself.If it was a joke, you should have addressed my question. At least, that's how my little brain works.Ben

OK, I think I see it. Here was my argument:1. All "things" in the natural world must be able to interact with at least other "things" in the natural world.
2. Fairies, elves, and invisible pink unicorns interact with things in the natural world.
3. Therefore, they are all in the realm of the natural.But those things could be supernatural and interacting with things in the natural world. That is the error?Then I would qualify it like this: we don't have any evidence against supernatural things which don't interact with things of the natural world.(Note that I think the last part can be qualified in some way; maybe "don't interact with things of the natural world in predictably measurable ways", but I'm not ready to make that qualification.

This is Lam's objection, not mine. It means, IF THEY EXIST, fairies, elves, and invisible pink unicorns interact with the real world. Ever read Peter Pan? Lord of the Rings? Fairies and elves are suggested to be visible. If they exist, you can see them. If they exist, they are part of the natural world.Invisible pink unicorns, if they exist, can be kicked. If they exist, the are part of the natural world.All I'm saying to Lam is that I'm NOT addressing these creatures at all in my opening post. Those things are within the realm of judging based on evidence. I'm talking about things like "afterlife" or "beings which do not interact with the natural world."Am I really being that unclear?

That's the best I can do. Why is it suddenly so hard to separate between "natural" and "supernatural" ? You're approaching the question backwards from my original question. I asked if there's any evidence AGAINST the existence of a supernatural creature. You can have evidence against any specific action of something supernatural. You can test "the flood", etc. I'm not talking about anything specific. I'm asking, can you have evidence against the simple existence of something supernatural?I'm not asking "did God do anything?" or "do we have proof against any claims about what God did or did not do?" I'm not talking about God at all. I'm asking, can you have evidence against that which exists OUTSIDE of the natural world. If a fairy exists, it exists WITHIN the physical world. Everything it does, it does it in THIS WORLD. When God exists, God exists OUTSIDE the physical world. Something like that.Of course, since I'm not the one using the words "fairy" and "God", I'm kind of guessing at what you mean by those words. But I think my guesses fit the general formulation of what those entities are. Is there any way that you can interact with it? Can you visit it? Is it physical?No, no, and no. Natural=empirical=measurable.This message has been edited by Ben, Sunday, 2005/10/02 02:25 PM

I agree 100% Well.. now you're stepping back. "Limited" and "no" are different; there is a limited ability to understand, not no ability. So that doesn't seem to fit to me. Plus, they are said to hold to known laws of the universe (at least black holes), and predictions have been made that have been confirmed (event horizons, xxx xxx types of radiation, etc).I was going to propose "testability" as a basic premise for supernatural, but I've been so busy with schoolwork. I wanted to at least throw my support behind your definition, because I totally agree, and I think the consequences of accepting such a definition are really .. interesting. I'll get back during the weekend and try to flesh that out (unless some kind soul does it for me! )Ben

Just a couple of comments, to hint at where I'm going (hopefully I'll find time this weekend to go there) "Need" (we don't need to invoke) is a utilitarian concept. Science and scientific theories are utilitarian. There's no need to invoke them... for science.For "truth"? There's no argument for or against invoking supernatural for that. There's no reason to invoke supernatural when talking about "truth"... and there's no reason against it. "Truth" is, by the definition given by 1..61803 in this thread, supernatural. Parsimony is not a guideline applicable for the "supernatural", and therefore not applicable to "truth". It serves the purpose for explaining the unexplainable. It definitely can retard scientific inquiry. But it's definitely not meaningless, and definitely serves some purpose.Some people simply seem unable to be satisfied with the answer "I don't know". Even labelling something, which gives the appearance of understanding, is more comfortable to people (in general) than simply leaving it "untouched" (a pure "I don't know"). Supernatural is then, in this regards, useful.It's crazy to delude ourselves and describing ourselves as "rational animals." (pending definitions), we most certainly are not. We should face the reality of our psychological traits. "Supernatural", or "explaining that which we do not know", is critical to what we are. Whether we explain it with the naturalistic assumption (nothing "spooky" exists; that which is unknown can either be known, or simply does not exist), or with the "supernaturalistic" assumption (there are things which "exist" that cannot be addressed through emprical investigation or theory).Damn... there's no way I can go further today. Sorry. But this is the direction I'm headed. There are things which are not "successfully" addressed by empirical investigation to date. We have to deal with that fact. How we deal with it is up to us, and in principle not open to claims of "right" or "wrong", only lesser claims, such as "utility".Again, sorry for the hasty, unsupported post. Not sure if this is useful at all, but I'll try to get back to it this weekend.

nwr,I'm bumping this because I am of course interested in your perspective on this. Would you be so kind as to address my original response to you? I'm afraid you may have found it dismissive; if so, I'm sorry. I tried to address what I could understand (first two bullets) and ask a question for the 3rd.Of course, if it's simply not interesting to you to discuss, that's fine too. But I wanted to follow up.Thanks!
Ben

This is good. I appreciate the response.I don't know how you'd go about finding the "default" response either, especially since kids' thoughts are confounded with the fact that they're in development. Is kids' response due to a developmental factor (i.e. it's incomplete), or just a lack of a culturally learned factor (i.e. it's complete and pure)? I have no idea.My assumption is different. I tried to outline it in Message 67; it seems most adults feel the need to have some "mechanism" that either explains things, or (via assumption) WOULD or WILL explain things. But right now, it's basically an assumption. No hard data.So I guess we get nowhere with it for now. Thanks for the clarification.This message has been edited by Ben, Wednesday, 2005/10/05 11:27 AM