Peanut Gallery

Hence their recourse to invoking supernatural agents to explain the phenomenon in question. If something can possibly exist it cannot accurately be described as nothing can it?So it seems that we agree that it is possible that things which are neither derived from nor bounded by any natural laws and which are thus not explicable in any natural terms can exist. Things such as the Christian concept of Christ as the miraculously and immaculately conceived son of an eternal and omniscient God.It is these possibilities that we call supernatural.Now if you want to argue that positing the existence of such things leads to pointless explanatory dead ends - I will agree. If you want to say that science can never accept supernatural answers to anything because it effectively stops any further investigation in it’s tracks — I will agree.If you want to point out that every shred of evidence we have, the entire history of human understanding beating such explanations ever further into retreat, deeply implies that such explanations are nothing more than figments of the human imagination borne out of a psychological need to try and understand nature by imposing our own needs and desires at the expense of accuracy — Then I won’t just agree with you. I will trample you down as I beat my way to the head of the queue in order to make that point myself.But as flawed as belief in the actual existence of the supernatural almost certainly is you cannot just define the concept of the supernatural out of existence and call it nothing. People’s beliefs in the supernatural are real and, despite all of the evidence favouring human invention, it remains possible that the actual entities they believe in are real too.And if they are possibly real they are not "meaningless" and they are not nothing.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Do you agree that we are limited to our physical senses as a means of perceiving reality external to our own minds?Do you agree that if something is immaterial it cannot be physically perceived?If the answer to both those questions is 'Yes' then I think you have your answer.

"All rabbits are born from other rabbits." This is a high level of confidence scientific theory. The only known source of baby rabbits is being born from adult rabbits. The theory can be falsified by the demonstration of a source of rabbits other than birth from other rabbits.Would you ask someone putting "all rabbits are born from other rabbits" forward as a strong theory to demonstrate conclusively that there is not a single conjurer in the world who has ever really pulled one out of a hat?Don't you agree that if a person or people are suggesting that conjurers and hats are an alternative source of rabbits, then the onus is is on them to demonstrate that that's actually the case?I like the title of your post. Your brother certainly isn't heavy on positive evidence that any supernatural beings actually exist.Are you going to carry him?

So what are you saying?Are you saying that nothing short of proof (which we probably both agree is impossible) will satisfy you that bluegenes theory has been falsified? If so why this sudden demand that we have to disprove things when science makes no claims to either prove or disprove anything?In the unlikely event of being faced with what appears to all practical intents and purposes to be the second coming of Christ I, as an atheist, would feel it necessary to re-evaluate my position on the validity of the religious methods of knowing that had predicted this event.I would also consider bluegenes theory to have been falsified to all practical intents and purposes. Not disproven. But falsified by the terms he laid down.Is that really so unreasonable? OK. But you have also said the following:Bluejay writes:"But, a religious person can easily distinguish non-empirically between their faith-based, theistic epistemology and imagination or delusion. " Message 111So what are these epistemologies and why are they so much more convincing to you regarding the existence of the supernatural than the verified existence of a miraculously conceived Christ dude with DNA to match who goes round raising the dead, healing the incurable and generally being as verifiably miraculous and divine as one could hope for?

It is almost certainly true that anything to which a supernatural explanation is being posited will turn out to be perfectly comprehensible in terms of entirely natural laws. History would strongly suggest this to be the case.But it is not absolutely certainly true.It is possible that there can exist causes which are neither derived from nor bounded by any natural laws and which are thus themselves not explicable in any natural terms .It is these possibilities that we call supernatural.These are not "nothing". Nor are they "meaningless". They are just poorly evidenced dead-end explanations that are in all probability wrong.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hi, Straggler. This is the most frustrating discussion I have ever tried to engage in. At least, when it’s ICANT, I can pretend that it’s because he’s too ignorant or senile to figure it out. I have no idea what I’m supposed to pretend in your case, because I have gathered enough evidence from my time here to conclude that Straggler is not this stupid.Your example of Jesus’s Second Coming is, at best, tangential to the topic. Bluegenes has not asked RAZD to validate religious methods of knowing things or religious prophecies, nor would RAZD’s successful defense of his position necessarily validate religious methods or prophecies.I say again: Bluegenes has asked RAZD to demonstrate that belief in at least some supernatural beings is based on a foundation of empirical evidence and/or rational principles.----- I have already explained why I think the supernatural hypothesis is different from others. Twice, in fact. I’ll write it again a third time, using smaller words, but if you still don’t get it, I’ll just ignore your responses.The concept of confidence in statistics and science refers to the likelihood that rejecting the null hypothesis in favor of an alternative hypothesis is accurate. Thus, an investigator can have confidence that the alternative hypothesis explains the data better than the null hypothesis, or confidence that the alternative hypothesis does not explain the data better than the null hypothesis.Note that there is no option of having confidence that the null hypothesis is correct, or even that the null hypothesis is likely to be correct. There is no possibility of measuring the veracity of the null hypothesis at all.In statistical tests, supernaturalism can only be entered as the null hypothesis. If you believe otherwise, present a series of tests to which you could subject Jesus that would yield positive evidence for supernaturalism. In doing so, you should notice that all evidence you gather takes the basic form of, I can’t explain this using natural law X, or natural law X fails to prevent this, as it should.What that means is that you are concluding supernaturalism on the basis of rejecting alternative hypotheses. That means you are treating supernaturalism as the null hypothesis, which means you cannot assign confidence to its veracity, and thus, cannot know how likely it is that supernaturalism is the correct conclusion.Now, you could still conclude that supernaturalism is the only explanation, but only if you are able to reject all alternatives, and able to ascertain that no natural alternatives beyond those tested remain. This, essentially, amounts to absolute proof.This is in contrast to all truly scientific theories, which can be entered into statistical tests as the alternative hypothesis, and can thus have levels of confidence assigned to them.This is why I treat supernaturalism differently from the way I treat scientific hypotheses: because logical consistency requires me to acknowledge that there is a real and fundamental difference.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Theories like "all swans are white", "all supernatural beings are figments of the imagination", and "all rabbits are born from other rabbits" are all "falsifiable" in scientific terms."One or more yellow swans exists", "one (or more) supernatural beings exist" and "one (or more) rabbit has been literally produced ex nihilo out of a magic hat" are statements that are not falsifiable, but can be, theoretically, verified. There's no way anyone could falsify these three.What's considered falsifiable is dependent on the state of human knowledge at the time. When we cannot know for sure if theories like the first three are correct and true, they are considered falsifiable. All the falsifiable three that I mentioned have naive falsifications, and the "all swans are white" (classic textbook example) one has already been falsified by the discovery of the Australian black swan.Examples of falsifications of my theory would be:the discovery of a fossilized centaur.fishermen actually catching a mermaid in their nets, and bringing her to port for verification.a goddess manifesting herself, and demonstrating beyond all reasonable doubt that she was a powerful supernatural being (she might do things like changing frogs into princes while walking on water).And so on.The problem with your Guan Yu example is that my theory does not state only that Guan Yu's supernatural powers were human inventions, but that all supernatural beings are. That would include deified versions real beings like Pharaohs, Caesars and G. Y.There's no reason that we know of why the above cannot come back and manifest themselves if they really were gods. But all I ask for is the demonstration that just one supernatural being of any sort is real, beyond reasonable doubt.One little garden fairy will do."Some supernatural beings are figments of the human imagination" is another example of a statement that would not be falsifiable, even if it hadn't already been verified.

Straggler asks: Yes. Yes. Not to my question.You are not following the line of thought I'm trying to make. I am talking about the "made-up-ness" of the IPU, not the actual IPU.What is scientific objective evidence that something - anything at all - is made up?We can collect scientific data on the orbit of the moon's orbit.
We can collect data on foraminifera.
We can collect data on lots of physical things.What is it that we collect when we investigate whether something is made up?Let's take a look at the Piltdown man hoax - what was the scientific evidence that that story was made up? See, I read that it was, I read that established respected scientists concluded that it was by examining the bones more closely. But I don't have the expertise in that field, so I have to take their word with the trust that I have built up all my life about respected scientific peer reviews and repeatability of the experiments. A heckuva lot easier for Piltdown man than for the IPU.I sort of thought it might be a case for linguistic experts to see where that term, the IPU, originated from in the language. Again, I am not talking about the IPU - I'm talking about the made-up-ness of it.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I think I kinda missed my target: Maybe it would better to imagine an alternate story, say Newcastle man, found in the Newcastle coal beds. A full story of it, but no pictures in the story. Then it happens soon that all scientific evidence collected for Newcastle man is completely and irrevocably destroyed and all we have is the story. Thus experts, such as were brought in to investigate Piltdown man, cannot be of any help here. However, as luck would have it, there is video tape of the conspirators plotting to do this, then there is recorded tape of them burying Newcastle man in the coal beds to be found and tape of them leaking the story. Then the police find the equipment used to make Newcastle man with the correct forensic evidence. This is evidence that Newcastle man is made up. Notice the actual description of Newcastle man is not needed here. This is the kind of evidence I'm talking about regarding the IPU.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

bluegenes visits the peanut gallery with: I'm assuming that a near future genetic institute injecting rabbit DNA into a guinea pig egg and implanting the egg back into the guinea pig and thus having the guinea pig give birth to a rabbit does not count because you really meant say"All rabbit DNA comes from other rabbit DNA." This is a high level of confidence scientific theory. The only known source of rabbit DNA is from rabbit DNA. The theory can be falsified by the demonstration of a source of rabbit DNA other than from other rabbit DNA.bluegenes goes to say: He hasn't gotten to that part of your "theory" yet.You said: Name any one you like. RAZD slyly suggested the IPU. You can pick any supernatural being you like.Then provide evidence that it is a figment of human imagination.Should be a piece of cake.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I'll pick the mermaid who lives in your bath, washes your hair for you when you take a bath, and magically and mischievously forces you to type all your messages on this board in Spanish.Yes, that's easy.Did you miss my question? Do you disagree with me that human invention is the only known source of supernatural beings?

The original bluegenes text from Message 167: I have a cat who is staring at an empty corner of the room and thinks he sees something. He pounces on it and nothing is there. A few moments later he hallucinates the thing again and pounces only to have it vanish into nothingness in his paws again. Moments later it happens again.Here is a supernatural thing that is NOT a figment of human imagination, but instead is a figment of feline imagination. It is supernatural because the thing vanishes magically, seemingly at will, to escape the paws.So strike the word "human".Even replacing it with "cerebral" may also get a trivial oopsie. An entity that can hallucinate?No - better just to strike the modifier.Now we have - which still has all the same problems we have seen before.Now restate it as This might flip the onus back to where it belongs. Then again it might not.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

bluegenes answers: Excellent! Solid evidence - for me. I know for certain this entity is made up. Yes. Now go back to confront RAZD with this. The only caveat, is that you & I could be in cahoots and I could be lying saying it's evidence for me.Your other question about your avatar is noted. Did you see my correction to how it should be rabbit DNA? And also the incident of feline imagination? p.s. - when does this lovely creature show up again? I can't wait any longer! Now don't tell me you sent her to Oni!

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

No. It's an imagined thing which is not a figment of the human imagination. There is no reason to suppose that the cat thinks it's magical. No. The human imagination is the only known source of supernatural beings. Concentrate on the word "known", and consider that I mean known to science, not what old Madam X the "clairvoyant" claims she knows.Like the cat, we can imagine non-supernatural beings as well. If the cat can imagine fairies, we do not know that to be the case.

No correction needed. If we find a way to make rabbits such that a rabbit can be produced that was not born from other rabbits, that's fine by me. It would then falsify the theory from that point on, and would be an unusual situation in which the theory isn't falsified for the time which it was made, but becomes false.Like this: "All trains are steam powered", which was true until someone built a diesel train.I don't mind if my theory about rabbits is falsified, or becomes false in the future. I don't even mind if you and your brother manage to construct a real fairy, vampire or god, but I don't think it likely. But my comment to you about asking someone with the rabbit theory to demonstrate that no conjurer had ever produced one was just to see whether you understand that theories aren't consider to be required to be conclusively proven in that way.Someone making the conjurer claim needs to support it.Evolutionary theory is not weakened or falsified by someone asking its supporters to demonstrate that no species in the fossil record was brought into being by supernatural intelligent designers.The I.D. folk need to support such ideas with positive evidence.Are you following me?