Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

Hullo, Straggler.It's difficult to get a handle on long debates well underway, so I've found this one, and that between bluegenes and RAZD, both interesting and frustrating.I do wonder about this: Granting all that you have stipulated, there still seems to be room for something more than coincidence between any possible supernatural reality and the concepts arrived at by humanity.For example, a supernatural creator might have no contact with humanity once the universe(s) starts rolling: but the structural similarities between human consciousness and that of a supernatural creator might give human concepts some flavor of and insight into our creator. Wouldn't that be more than coincidence?Your formulation seems to hinge critically on the imperceptibility of the supernatural. But what is physically perceptible has changed nearly every decade of the past few hundred years, the intellectually perceptible for even longer. We might reasonably expect that process to continue. It seems to me that one could as reasonably argue that perceptibility/imperceptibility is a function of the evolving human mind, not a necessary quality of the supernatural.You may have touched on these questions already, but I am susceptible to the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) syndrome when reading long contentious threads without the drama of a ringside seat.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Well, as it turns out, I did need to read this thread and the RAZD v. bluegenes Great Debate to understand the battle in its entirety.More specifically, I see now that your emphasis on perceptibility comes from the historical retreat of the supernatural into ineffability as science offered demonstrable explanations for perceptible phenomena. That retreat is inarguable, and I find your argument in general, and bluegene's theory in particular, quite persuasive.My initial response was predicated on the misunderstanding that you were offering an absolute disproof rather than a strong tentative theory. So I looked for weaknesses in a position that was not, in fact, yours.Let me reply briefly to your questions. I was thinking more along the lines of an anthropic principle, of a universe which demonstrably, by our existence, is precisely the kind of universe required to produce intelligence/consciousness.So, no, not a universe made to produce us, specifically, but one made to produce intelligence without further intervention from its creator or creative force--who (or which), by residing outside this universe, would fit the bill as "super" to the nature of our universe and imperceptible from within it. I realize this merely kicks the can down the road, since it does not necessitate the "supernatural" in the sense reflected by our world's religious history, nor does it engage the gallop into ineffability readily tracked in that history. This is a bit slippery, since perception cannot be equated with the unprocessed senses: the process is more dynamic than linear, with the brain's preexisting descriptions conditioning what perceptions are derived from the senses.I think we have, indeed, demonstrably expanded our perceptive abilities--via improved technology, yes, but more fundamentally by improving our minds. While my senses function just as those of deep antiquity, what I perceive is vastly different: Fred Flintstone might perceive a nasty smell on a cloudy day and think the valley cursed by gods, while I perceive a thermal inversion layer. We both "see" the same sensory input, but our perceptions are conditioned differently by knowledge and experience.I acknowledge that this expansion of our perception was accomplished by applying empirical rigor to our sensory input; I also acknowledge the distinction whiffs by your argument, as I now understand it, without effect. This point in particular arose from my misunderstanding your argument as an attempted disproof, without the context of the supernatural's retreat into ineffability. You are right, of course, that supernaturalists would not accept any phenomenon we can detect and measure.Similarly, I still think it possible (if unevidenced) that our universe was created or caused by an outside entity who established starting conditions which would lead to the evolution of intelligence within it and who would forever remain imperceptible outside it.We might discover it to be an evidenced possibility should we gain the technological wherewithal to send another brane expanding its way into the evolution of intelligence and the climb out of superstition. But I don't believe it.Well formulated, well evidenced, well argued: I think you are right.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Hi, greyseal.I agree with everything you said.The AP does appear in a bewildering array of flavors, none of which, of course, prove anything, but all of which are fodder for armchair speculation, giving us, if you will, one of Straggler's unevidenced possibilities. At its most rigorous, the AP merely warns us against our undeniable, as-we-find-us anthropic bias; at its most speculative, the AP borrows from QM to posit the necessity of multiverse observers to our universe's birth.I was merely looking for a place for a "supernatural" creator--in the "outside our nature" sense--because I first saw bluegene's theory as an attempt to eliminate logically any ground on which a creator could stand. That is clearly not bluegene's or Straggler's project; when I thought it was, it amused my philosophical contrary streak to look for that logical space in a fashion that would also confound religious supernaturalism.I personally see no requirement for--or likelihood of--a deity. Were I somehow to be persuaded otherwise, I would still see no reason to think we could have (or need) any accurate apprehension of it.Further, if I could (even more outlandishly) be persuaded of a god's existence AND of the accuracy of one of humanity's extant descriptions of that god, I would still see no reasons for worship in any of those descriptions; quite the contrary--I would more likely look for the means of organized resistance. I strongly agree.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

When has that happened? I think you need to merge your two statements:The supernatural moves people to negative responses against all others.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

Emphasis, sir, emphasis.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

Hi, Jon.Do you have a better word than hypothesis that we can use?[rant]Keep in mind that the scientific method is not holy writ; it has evolved. It can continue to evolve.In the meantime, why do you insist the supernatural cannot be tested? The proponents of supernaturalism assert something quite different: Christians claim, repeatedly, that the end is nigh; wrong every time. Witches claim the ability to call down pernicious powers upon their enemies' heads--no curdled milk or barren brides documented yet! Little boys claim that if you step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back: nope. Satan cannot be summoned; disciples do not walk the wards of children's cancer centers healing left and right; the mountain ain't comin' to Mecca.I have a better word, I think: superstition.There are experiments we all can do to test superstition in the comfort of our own homes. Step on a crack, walk under a ladder, break a mirror, draw Mohammed, blaspheme the holy spirit, etc.--the predicted consequences have been spelled out in detail, and they universally fail to materialize. When we perform these tests, and superstition fails to produce its predicted results, why should we not consider that long chain of failures as falsifying the superstition hypothesis notion? Should the predicted results be obtained, wouldn't we all, naturalists and superstitious alike, call it verification?More to the point, why should science permit any phenomena to escape scrutiny by the assertion of vague notions of exceptionalism and special pleading? We cannot absolutely disprove the existence of the superstition notion, but we can test predictions, and we can compare the explanatory and predictive powers of the superstition notion to naturalistic hypotheses. The results, repeated and replicated endlessly over time, in the absence of any positive evidence for the superstition notion, make the likelihood of its validity vanishingly small. Since science, indeed, does not deal in absolutes, "vanishingly small" is as close as we can get to disproved. It will do; I'd call that failure.I agree that superstitionalists, as you noted, seek to build a bulwark against science by retreating into the intellectual fog banks of ineffability, but they ultimately cannot succeed because they cannot surrender their assertions that the superstition notion impacts our naturalistic world. Without that impact, superstitionalists have no way even to claim awareness of their painfully shy force; mind you, they can claim the impact is accomplished by superstitious means, ineffable causes; but even ineffable causes must result in observable effects, or no one can know about them. So we can and have followed those footprints. They go nowhere.Your comment about scientific methodology being subservient to natural empirical means exemplifies the dodgy character of the superstition notion and its adherents. "You can't absolutely prove the fairies didn't eat your strawberries in the night, because they are ineffable little fucks that natural empirical means cannot detect." That's all well and good, trivially silly and useless and even harmless--until the superstitionalists take your strawberries and claim that fairies ate them in the night. An empirically minded strawberry grower films the garden with infrared night after night for a year, and, sure enough, it's that brat next door eating the strawberries: oh no, his parents insist, that was fairies making themselves appear as Jon, or, sure, Jon ate your strawberries every night this year, but not on the night you weren't watching. Then the superstition notion nation hoot like frat boys and walk away jeering and laughing.I say, enough: we can test your superstition notion. I say to superstitionalists, you may think your superstition notion is safely ensconced in its ineffable batshit-crazy cave, but the claims you make for it are not--they are right here, in the same naturalistic world we inhabit, where claims for impact on the naturalistic world can be tested, where predictions can be demonstrably refuted.I would say to any proponent of the scientific method the same thing I say to those who defend injustice because it is the law: If your method means we cannot address the merits of a notion merely because its proponents claim the mechanism to be ineffable, then your method needs to change.Straggler is arguing that the scientific method can handle the ineffable as it stands, and I think he's doing a fine job of that. I'll be a bit more radical: Iif science cannot test and judge the merits of the superstition notion by evaluating it like any other--what observations is it based on, what predictive power does it have, what positive evidence can you present, what experiments can we replicate--then science needs to change. Currently science is in the position of not evaluating something that talks and smells because that something cannot also be seen.What kind of knowledge engine can science be if the bare assertion of ineffability places an area of investigation off-limits?What other notions need to hide from scrutiny by lurking in the dark unknowable? None that I can think of--so I'm not too concerned about corrupting the purity of scientific methodology and naturalistic empiricism.So go tell your gods and godlings and goblins and ghosties that we're coming for them.[/rant]And have a nice day.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : ineffable

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Wrong. Superstition notions are only great at explaining away many things.Where superstition fails is not in the ability to explain away, but the ability to explain productively. There are neither new data nor new avenues of inquiry in superstition explanations and their predictions. Wrong. The superstition notions are concerned primarily with empirical things, i.e., our empirical world. They claim a causal relationship with it. However misty superstitionalists make their causal powers, we can test everything about them on the effect side of the equation in this empirical world.You are reciting your denials like a politician. Turn off the teleprompter and defend your assertions like a man. Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : clarity

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

Apparently.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.Edited by Omnivorous, : iPhonitis

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

I'm locked in a hotel room on Cape Cod with a beautiful woman and my iPhone, so I must be brief.You're full of fresh mouth, so suck it up.Funny that you ignore hundreds of words of debate, but reply to one word of mockery--and that milder than your own.Make substantive replies, and you'll get some back.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

My household enjoys that show. Those boys know what to do with the supernatural...Kick its ass.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

1. The supernatural hypothesis has failed.2. Onifre and Straggler can debate even my considerable interest into the ground.3. Straggler had the better argument; Oni had more fun.

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Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio

​

Real things always push back.
-William James