Inductive Atheism

That's a good example. We are fairly certain that the explanation, should we ever know it, will be a natural one - it will be subject to Natural Law.Another one, perhaps weirder because of the philosophical undercurrent, is the observation that generally most, if not all, human beings and a lot of other life-forms here on earth are Self-Aware. If no life-form was Self-Aware, they would be as machinery - and self-replicating machinery is more easily accepted into what we understand of the current body of Natural Law - something akin to a whole bunch of microscopic-down-to-nanoscopic levers, springs, hammers, inclined planes and simple machines of that sort operating with Heisenbergian uncertainties and superimposed Schrodinger wave functions. No awareness needed there. The Von Newman Nightmare without the middleman! I digress...what the hell is Self-Awareness? Explain that? Religion again provides the misleading answer - something akin to your Soul, whatever that is. Why? GOD. But surely (no, not you Shirley) scientists have seen Self-Awareness in chimpanzees, gorillas, porpoises and so on. An ant? Hmmm. An ant figures out if she's a nest maintainer or a forager by the smell of the greases and oils on her body and the ants around her. But is that Self-Awareness? Hard to think that it is. A cat. Surely cats are Self-Aware - they recognize the name you, the human, assigned...what is it? recognizing yourself in a mirror? Is it like pornography - I know it when I see it?But, to get back to the idea of a Supernatural subfolder within the Unknown folder (and also to my Boxes 2a, 2b, 2c,..., 2z inside my bigger Box 2) - the difference is when you take something out of the Supernatural folder and bring science to bear upon it, by the very nature of the scientific method, if you cannot yet explain it, you are nevertheless not permitted to return it to the Supernatural folder - you file it in some other Unknown subfolder. When you investigate the Adam & Eve allegorical story in depth and are unable to explain it yet, you don't put it back in the "GOD did it with his Magic Sistine Ceiling Finger" subfolder - you put it into the newer Unknown subfolder marked abiogenesis.Science does this because it cannot answer the Big Why. Supernatural things in the Supernatural subfolder, 2a, almost entirely come included with their own little smug Why stories ("God works in mysterious ways."), or they come with a story derived from such Why stories. Science dispassionately strips them off like old obsolete price tags at Filene's Basement in the process of it's investigation. It finds these stories unsubstantiated, unreproducible, unevidenced and mostly misleading within the rigors of analysis and thus science must discard them as unfit for inclusion in any publication it may make about this thing from Supernatural subfolder 2a. Then, if the investigation is inconclusive at best and must be returned to the Unknown box 2, it is no longer that way it was! and must go into a different subfolder. This is why I say that the very process of scientific investigation of the Unknown removes that aspect of it's Unknown quality that is very much at the center of the supernaturalness itself.Ah, but this is making a modification to your definition we agreed on.....what True Scotsman Scientist would deign to return that thing back to the very box he had the misfortune of taking it from, indeed? It's not that the True Scotsman Scientist has to return the thing to Box 2, the Unknown, that give him trouble. No - what makes his skin crawl in spasms of agony is having to put it back into Box 2a, the Supernatural subfolder. "Every bone in my body" is how Richard Milhaus Nixon described his problem. A repugnant revulsion so strong that - no - he must instead fabricate a new subfolder if necessary to avoid having to return this...this...thing...to Box 2a, the Supernatural subfolder. He will instead note that to do so goes against everything in science. He is simply not professionally allowed to do it. If it must be done, find someone else not in a scientific discipline. His colleagues may rally around him and his graduate students may make a new subfolder 2s, Scotsman's Unknowns, to be Dealt With Later.........So, in the matter of falsifying bluegenes' Theory, what is needed is a thing from Box 2a, the Supernatural subfolder in the Unknown folder, Box 2, that must be returned into Box 2a by the scientists. It's not gonna happen. Ever. Ergo, Unfalsifiable.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

What are the chances you think it will turn out to be supernatural when we do explain it?If the explanation is unknown now, what folder(/box) does that put it in?Edited by Jon, : clarity

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Love your enemies!

Self awareness is no tougher than heat awareness, or light awareness. It is the awareness of a perceived entity. The real toughy is explaining what it means to be or have a 'self'. I appreciate you are still discussing the distinction between the unexplained and the unexplainable, but allow me to once again introduce a bit of spin.How do you know an experience you had was natural? You can't just define all experiences as 'natural' since that is just making the epistemological assumption that the supernatural cannot be experienced which cannot be demonstrated.If the supernatural can be experienced, I'm sure you would agree it is feasible that the experience defies explanations in terms of natural phenomena. But there may well be a corresponding set of coherent theories that explain the experiences in terms of super-natural phenomena.If the supernatural actually exists, we find ourselves in a difficult position of differentiating the natural and the supernatural. There are some indicators of course - the radically different interactive properties of supernatural material proposed by the supernaturalists would lend weight to their notions should they be experienced (no mass, no radioactive interactions (though still visible etc)). Would you agree that even if a naturally existing angel, or ghost was detected that would cause serious issues with the inductive reasoning that relies on the fact that the only known source for such things is the human imagination? That is to say, if someone provided evidence that demonstrated that the human mind was not the only place where angels/ghosts could be found - the theory 'All supernatural entity concepts are products of the human imagination' would be false since we now have a supernatural entity concept that is not.Supernatural entities are simply those beings that supernaturalists have claimed as entities that are supernatural. I will list some example properties:1. Has no mass (is not composed of natural matter or energy).
2. Has motivation aka 'a will'
3. Interacts with things that have mass at willYou can't even 100% falsify any theory. So sure, you can whitter on about doubting whether the entity we have just discovered is a True Supernatural Entity and NOT ever being able to KNOW FOR SURE, and not being able to rule out that it is a naturally occurring entity we are just not able to explain...but all of that doesn't matter.There comes a point with any theory, that it is strained to breaking point. This is a subjective point.But if there was a world of dead ancestors made up of ectoplasm that was periodically detectable visually or tactiley...and such entities decided to help us with testing...it is in principle possible to ascertain the truth of such a thing. Bluegenes, Straggler, and me are perfectly happy I expect to suggest that these 'ghosts' are precisely the thing the theory says were only in the human imagination and their actual existence ruins the theory. The quality 'unknown' is definitely nothing to do with the supernatural as it is believed in. Just ask around. You'll see them acquiring information that they call knowledge all over the place (talking to the dead, gods, djinn, spirits, angels etc). In a dualist epistemology, the supernatural is not unknown, unknowable, inexplicable etc. If you have any doubt about this visit a book store and pick up a book on the subject.It just isn't generally known using traditional epistemic means. It could in principle be known using those means. If that were to ever happen, any theory that postulates the above people were just making shit up would be shown to be false. If the supernatural was real and natural science was an insufficient tool to describe it - any good scientist would adopt a new methodology and throw natural science out as being a reasonable approximation with some unfortunate problems. 'professional allowance' be damned - we are seeking the truth, not the approval of some professional body.As seekers of the truth of reality, any curious scientist would, as you say 'fold it in' even if it means abandoning what said scientist had thought was an absolute dogma of science. Science is not our master, it is our tool. If it isn't up to the job - we have to either modify the tool or craft a new one.Some scientists may abandon their search. Indeed, many such scientists may do so. It may require a rare genius to break out of the traditional Victorian Dogmas of science, to smash through the perceived Magestria and come up with a unified theory of dual reality or some such.In short - if I doubt nature exists I can kick a stone and 'prove it thus'.
If ghosts regularly manifest and share information that only their living counterparts knew, could volunteer to interact with material things at leisure (walk through walls, be invisible, acquire secret information about another nation etc), then that would be sufficient for the notion that

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'ghosts are products of the human imagination'

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to be shown in error as far as bluegenes, Straggler and myself are concerned. Even if die-hard monist naturalists insist such things are natural entities.Furthermore'{Things which are traditionally called supernatural entities including ghosts} are products of the human imagination' is likewise falsified as ghosts are a particular of this general.Regardless of the impossibility of definitively and empirically determining metaphysics - this would be sufficient to ruin the induction. It wouldn't destroy inductive atheism unless some ghosts masqueraded as gods, then there'd be a little problem (not with the conclusion necessarily, but with the induction).Why don't you try wording bluegenes' theory yourself so that using your own definitions it says something non-trivial and is falsifiable? Think of a general word that covers 'ghosts', 'spirits', 'gods' etc. If 'supernatural' is a label that fills you with paroxysms of metaphysical angst or terminological nightmares, change it to 'spooky' or 'fantastic' whatever you like.The idea can be show to be in error. Just like 'horses are products of the imagination' can be.

Okay, so at what point in the scientific investigation for the explanation for how life exists is the supernatural going to be considered as a possibility?
At what point in the scientific investigation for the explanation for how Chris turned the river into wine is the supernatural going to be considered as a possibility?
At what point in the scientific investigation for the explanation of the source of human belief in the supernatural is the supernatural going to be considered as a possibility?

Given that I don't believe in the existence of the supernatural the answer should be obvious to you. Very low.The current status of abiogenesis is unknown.But that doesn't preclude the (bewildering unlikely) possibility of positive evidence for a supernatural cause does it?

When there is positive empirically verifiable evidence for a supernatural cause. At the same point that Chris qualifies as a potentially supernatural cause. You have already agreed the empirically verifiable existence of a being that exactly matches the supernatural concept of Christ is evidence in favour of the supernatural concept of Christ actually existing. So the fact that this inexplicable being is verifiably doing these miraculous things is evidence sufficient to falsify bluegenes theory by any reasonable standard. When there is positive empirical evidence that the supernatural entities people believe to exist a) actually do exist and b) are not reasonably able to be explained by the laws of nature as we currently know them to be.Do you know of any such evidence?

Before going any further you need to actually make clear what your 'Before and After' position actually entails. Because at the moment it remains the case that you are simply assigning "boxes" entirely arbitrarily. Can you explain what specific qualities the Earth going round the Sun possessed such that this phenomenon could be legitimately assigned to a supernatural box?Are there no phenomena which currently also meet these same criteria? If so - Why are these also not in your supernatural box? Only if you place yourself in the ridiculous position of denying that empirically verifiable evidence demonstrating the existence of a being that exactly matches a supernatural concept (e.g. Thor) is not positive evidence in favour of that supernatural being actually existing.

Before the best investigation has a chance to weigh in, and after it has. The best investigation has been constrained to use the best methods available of the time in question, so the best investigation is something that has been changing with time. To all of the people who were considered experts on the subject, other than the rare earthquake, the earth was not moving. It was solid ground. The equipment they had at the time, such as maybe something akin to a tower of cards upon a house of cards, showed that the ground underneath was not moving. It was always wind or something like that that knocked the house down. The understanding of gravity and orbits was unable to allow the idea of the earth suddenly getting up and jumping around the sun. Any text putting that forth would have to be dismissed as a supernatural concept. They could know the difference between swinging around a pole at the end of a rope and standing on the ground. It was deceptively incredibly obvious, but wrong. I don't know of any. I suspect Box 2a only has things that have not been looked at scientifically yet, like Jesus Christ. The difference between any Old Science and New Science, as developed during the Renaissance and beyond, is precisely the change of allowing/not allowing things taken out of Box 2a to be returned to Box 2a.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Has any honest scientific investigation ever concluded with the supernatural?Edited by Jon, : clarity

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Love your enemies!

To my knowledge every single investigation into the supernatural has yielded results that support the human imagination theory by demonstrating the human willingness to ascribe false "unknowable" supernatural causes to perfectly materially explicable phenomena.Isn't this what you would expect from a strong theory?Is the theory that all T-Rex's are extinct a strong theory because nobody can present a living T-Rex? Or is it an unscientific theory because it is "unfalsifiable"........?

So when you say that the Earth's orbit actually was supernatural you simply mean that the prevailing view of experts at a given time is that the phenomena under consideration should be given the label "supernatural". But what does labelling something as "supernatural" actually mean? When these experts labelled something as "supernatural" what do you think they actually meant by that? This seems a rather glaring ommission from your analysis.Do you understand that:A) This "prevailing expert opinion" approach has little to do with the meaning of supernatural as "inherently materially inexplicable" that I have been using throughout? (and which you said you agreed with).B) That my use of the term "supernatural" means that the Earth's orbit is not, and never was, genuinely supernatural regardless of what anyone happened to believe. If any experts labelled it as such they were simply wrong.C) That your use of the term supernatural means that whatever the prevailing expert opionion classifies as supernatural actually is supernatural. That the prevailing expert opinion can never be wrong by definition. It can change. But never be wrong.D) That by your use of the term history is littered with examples of genuine and actual supernatural phenomena.D) Your use of the term bears no relation to any use of it I have ever seen anywhere else. Hence you effectively inventing your own terminology to justify your own arguments.I am sure that based on your own personal terminology your own arguments are very personally convincing.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I'll ask again:Has any honest scientific investigation ever concluded with the supernatural?Jon

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Love your enemies!

Do you have an actual, as opposed to hypothetical, example of that ever happening? And how does that happen? Because he matched a description? No, not always. If that's the case, then someone believing that, say, Jim Jones was supernatural because he fulfilled prophesies in the Old Testament, or whatever, would have a known source for thier supernatural concept that was not imagination and bluegenes theory would have already been falsified. Your example here can be discounted for the same reasons that this one is.

If I did I wouldn't be describing bluegenes theory as a strong one would I? The verifiable existence of an entity that exactly matches the Christian concept of a supernatural miraculous and miracle capable Christ is obviously positive evidence in favour of the supernatural concept of Christ actually existing. How could it be otherwise? When isn't it? When it hasn't been sufficiently investigated? You are making the same mistake RAZD did when he started citing documented evidence of supernatural beliefs as some form of evidence. The fact that Jim Jones himself dreamt up the idea that he was supernatural and then convinced others of this doesn't mean that the source of 'Jim Jones the supernatural being' was not human imagination does it? It simply means that the concept under consideration wasn't sourced from the imagination of the particular believer you are talking about.I didn't personally dream up the concept of Apollo. I first came across the concept of Apollo in a book. But that hardly means I can say that Apollo is not sourced from human imagination because I personally didn't imagine him first does it? Except that we know how Jim Jones did his tricks and there was nothing supernatural about him. People falsely believing that things are supernatural when they are in fact not is evidence in favour of the human imagination theory. Not against it. Obviously.How could it possibly be otherwise?

Why not induce that there won't be positive empirically verified evidence for a supernatural cause? For one, him simply matching a description doesn't mean that he really is supernatural (how do you know the description wasn't wrong?). But I think you're more on about the concept having a source outside of imagination, rather than it necessarily being supernatural. Not exactly, documents don't suggest something outside of the imagination. A real live person does. It could. How is Jim Jones matching some prophetical description different from Christ doing the same thing? That distinction isn't really conveyed in the theory: All supernatural concepts are sourced from imagination. You didn't imagine your concept of Apollo, you sourced it from a book. But of course, the source for that book wasn't necessarily not imagination... that I get. No we don't. How do we know that? And this is another problem I have with the "strong evidence", is that when we have not shown that it was supernatural, its just assumed that it wasn't and this gets counted as another time that the supernatural has lost even though it hasn't. The person that met Jim Jones and was convinced that he was a supernatural being, especially if it was because he matched a previously documented concept, had a source for the concept outside of imagination in the same way that your Christ example does. If you can reduce this example to still being imagination, then you can do it to the Christ one.