Peanut Gallery

Where there is an evidenced naturalistic explanation for a given phenomenon is it ever rationally justifiable to invoke an unevidenced supernatural explanation for that same phenomenon? The position being that supernatural concepts are human fictions. This position is based on the wealth of objective evidence favouring the human proclivity to invent false supernatural entities for reasons that have everything to do with human fallibilities Vs the baseless notion that such concepts exist due to the actual existence of real supernatural entities.

Ahem! Message 189So do you still think merely observing, documenting and peer reviewing constitutes scientific explanation or have you changed your position since then?

By your dimwitted definitions history is littered with genuinely supernatural phenomena which are no longer supernatural now because they have been scientifically investigated. Note: Your anal Emma is not based on a definition of supernatural where such phenomena are simply erroneously believed to be supernatural when they are in fact natural. Your definition demands that supernatural is what a team of white coated experts classify as supernatural at any given moment in time. Do you understand that:A) 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.B) 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.C) 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.

Straggs - you are confused. Cause and effect. Observing stuff doesn't make it natural instead of supernatural. I never claimed the observations changed the nature of the phenomenon. The observations can change the explanation, but not the phenomenon. You cited your misapprehension of my case in Message 189.To which I immediately & correctly replied in Message 188: Then you stab your own foot by quoting me: Does that statement in any way imply causation? No. It is a simple observation that when scientists around the world get the same results, there is a scientific explanation behind it, not because of it.So, as you can now readily see: ...is a MISTAKEN characterization of my so-called "previous" position and the one that YOU, in your stodgy stubborn cloudy way, think I was holding; and if I was holding that position - which I wasn't - you would be right to say it would be different, even as far as to say it would be supernatural.

Straggler uncharacteristically slips another rung down in classiness when he finds himself resorting to puerile insults: Again, with the reading comprehension. It is the prevailing explanation that changes, not the phenomenon.Straggler then brings up a clumsy, if not intentionally provocative, quote from me: Yes - I admit I was sloppy there. Blame on the sunrising bird calls....Lemme try again, perhaps in a way you can understand: Continuing: Why don't you just call it an Anal Enema? I can give you more suggestions.here is my Xongsmith Analemma again: ** analemma is a word i made up to capture the essence of a lemma with the nuance of an analogue with undertones of antagonism meant in a friendly way. True, it is also the figure-8 shape of something like the sun photographed around a whole year from the same spot in a backyard by many amateur astronomers. This is a good coincidence, because it resonates with the circularity of this whole subject of supernaturalness. We go around in repetition all the time with these things. Think of a mobius Yin/Yang snake-eating-its-tail Klein Bottle thingy.
===============================================Read it & weep.I have mentioned how there is a singularity here. Read up.On to your list: A big DUH!An even bigger NO WAY YOU KNOW WHAT I SAID. Maybe I should explain? The prevailing scientific expert opinion has NEVER classified anything as "supernatural" to my limited knowledge. The prevailing expert opinion has been Wrong a thousand times at a minimum. Well, Shirley, by now you can see that this is not at all what I was talking about. Shirley you see that this is only a confabulation of your own erroneous conclusions of what I was saying. LOL. EDIT: Then: Actually I don't believe a thing I say under the influence of all these wonderful ales.

A strong theory IMO, but not a fact (we cannot go into the future and conclusively prove it). A fact that supports my theory and yours. Dubious phrasing, as it seems to imply that everything observed has been explained. Stick to the point that every good explanation of anything so far has been natural, and that's correct. Which strongly supports the theory that there's no actual supernatural beings outside our heads, and that they are natural figments of our imagination. That would also be a falsification of my theory. Your theory supports mine. Correct. That would be an unsupported claim. We don't know for sure whether they can exist or not (like elves). What is applicable is the point that we cannot know the future, therefore we cannot declare that a supernatural scientific explanation is completely impossible. That's why both of our theories are regarded as falsifiable. My theory also predicts that.Thanks for your support.

bluegenes, among other things, comments: Ah, yes - I see - the term "scientifically known" was sloppy, as was the choice of the word "we". Even your term "good explanation" is imprecise. There is an old folk song "Give Me That Ol' Time Religion" which hammers in repeatedly how, if it was good enough for X and Y and Z as the verses unfold, "then it's good enough for me". Perhaps it should be rephrased: I should add here that anything that is described but unexplained scientifically, by definition, has not yet been described scientifically in enough detail. The scientific community will always claim that there has not been enough objectively gathered data to scientifically describe it yet - namely data for that part of the phenomenon which is still unexplained. The scientific process can never at any point say "well, that part was by magick".When a person goes into science study to become a respected scientist, right away, at the first door of their academic study, they embrace fully this constraint to their published works - at no time ever can they at any point conclude "well, that part was by magick". This is the power of the analemma. It isn't that some Ivory Tower of Science forbids it - it's that they, themselves, on their own free choice, clear of mind, forbid it. And this is with good reason! Yes?This is why your theory cannot be falsified. In order for your theory to be falsified, the scientific community will have to have accepted a publication by a respected scientist in the appropriate field of study who, somewhere in the paper, has concluded "well, that part was by magick". This is what you will need to be "beyond all reasonable doubt".Edited by xongsmith, : No reason given.Edited by xongsmith, : magic can be done naturally by a professional magician, magick requires the supernatural.

This is where you're going wrong. You can theorize that my theory will not be falsified on the basis of the observations that you've made. But you cannot demonstrate it as a fact.My theory itself theorizes that it will not be falsified.So your theory, if well supported, supports my claim that my theory is strong.To put it another way, the fact that the natural is the only known source of anything makes a theory that ascribes a phenomenon to its only known natural source a strong one.

Let's observe the rate of incoming supporting evidence. On the contrary - the stronger my theory becomes, the less your theory can be falsified and thus it crumbles under the scientific microscope. When we extend this out to the limit, by L'Hopital's Rule, you have nothing. This is why the analemma is MEGAHARD in comparison. Except when it fails at Gate 1 - scientifically describing the process to carry out a confirming objective experiment, and at Gate 4, the falsification stuff.I have described how you can perform a corroborating experiment to test my analemma in Message 1220.Edited by xongsmith, : Added links to the stuff

Nope. You cannot claim to have proved the future, and if you did, my theory would have become a fact.The stronger yours, the stronger mine.Last time we discussed this (on one of Straggler's spin off threads), I gave you a link to a paper by a scientist who disagrees strongly that science cannot deal with supernatural propositions in principle.The fact that science has never established the existence of a supernatural being outside our minds can hardly be used against my theory, can it? Think about it. And have a good read of this, again.It appears that plenty of scientists have not signed up to the agreement that you suggest they have. They just haven't found anything supernatural outside our imaginings!

bluegenes continues: L'Hopital's Rule kills you.Sorry, never saw that. Maybe my dial-up dropped it. Not only can I not load that page or see what it is, it wouldn't matter here. I would sign up, myself! But that isn't what is going on here for millions of exchanges. This is all about how you phrased & presented your theory.

So all this useless rhetoric has been about some semantics you have burned into your mind?
Even after all the extremely specific clarifications provided afterwards?If you keep insisting on thinking that people mean something while they're clearly telling you they aren't... I'm not sure if that's a problem with bluegenes' theory, or its wording.Yes, some phrases/words can be taken two or three or more different ways if you want to see them as such. However, after elucidation by the authour has been provided... the original wording (as long as it can be taken in the manner they intended) is perfectly fine. Any further harping that the original wording may be seen as something else (as long as you ignore the explanation that has already been given to you...) is simply mean-spirited.

Xongsmith rather than tying yourself in contradictory knots telling us what you don't mean and what doesn't constitute "supernatural" with regard to your anal Emma why don't you tell us what does?Can you give an example of an entity that, if it exists, is genuinely supernatural? Nothing we do will make something that is genuinely supernatural anything other than supernatural will it?So - To repeat - Can you give an example of an entity that, if it exists, is genuinely supernatural?

Your citation of a mathematical rule and your continued insistence that the theory under discussion is phrased inappropriately just continues to demonstrate your ongoing inability to grasp the inductive nature of the theory being presented.Does each failed attempt to create a perpetual motion machine make the second law of thermodynamics increasingly unfalsifiable and thus less scientific?

And all deliveries are to be made in the rear.