Peanut Gallery

Hi, Modulous. I can see the logic in the argument you present here; but, I'm still a bit leery of it, because it seems to assume that Thor is nothing more than a human explanation for a naturalistic phenomenon.How can we define Thor as "the cause of thunder" without implicitly assuming that Thor was invented by humans to explain thunder?Surely, if he were a genuine entity, he would be more than just an explanation for a naturalistic phenomenon, wouldn't he?

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

Whatever IT is that is believed in.If lots of people believe something is it more likely to be true than if nobody believes in it?RAZD's arguments certainly seem to imply that he thinks so.Belief as evidence. A common fallacy.

If you agree that subjective experiences which are believed to be caused by something supernatural are no more indicative of something supernatural actually existing than they are indicative of fluctuations in the matrix then what relevance do they have to bluegenes and RAZD’s debate?There are a near infinite number of unfalsified possible causes of such experiences. Why are such subjective experience not evidence of magic moonbeams interacting with our brains? Or of a devious and sinister CIA plot to utilise the opium of the masses? So why are you citing such experiences as evidence of something supernatural rather than any of the other possibilities? Only because people believe they are caused by gods do they get cited as any form of evidence for gods.Belief as evidence. Yet again. However you phrase it.

Hi, Straggler. The difference: Bluegenes' theory is explicitly about supernature. Evolution is not.Theories about supernature have to address supernature. Theories about nature only have to address nature.RAZD and I have both said this already, multiple times, in fact. Your only response has been to ask us to spell it out for you, as if we hadn't yet.Now it's your turn: why do you think a theory that is explicitly about supernature does not have to deal with supernature in a different way from a theory that is explicitly not about supernature?----- Wow, that's... pathetic, really. You brought up hypothetical experiments on hypothetical entities that, if run, would hypothetically have the potential to falsify your version of Bluegenes' theory, and these hypothetical experiments are the only things you have proposed as even having the potential to falsify it.Now you've somehow turned this into my inability to find a falsification for Bluegenes' theory? It's my contention that the theory is not falsifiable, and I admit that I don't want it to be falsifiable, so why do you expect me to be the one to look for potential falsifications?----- And how do you propose that I do this, Straggler?When I asked this before, Bluegenes suggested the following: What is meant by "verification"? It would seem to amount to nothing more than exhausting Bluegenes' skepticism. Neither you nor Bluegenes has been more specific than this.I suggest the following tests to determine whether a mermaid is supernatural:

1. Look for all possible evidence that it is a hoax (e.g. sutures).
2. Once satisfied that it is not a hoax, genetics testing to look for chimerism, artificial insertions of non-human genes, etc.
3. Once satisfied that she is not a chimera or a genome-splicing project, suspend all skepticism and become a believer in fairy tales.

Maybe you could think of a few more steps to put in between #2 and #3: maybe parallel evolution, or very skillful genome-splicing by someone with better technology than we have. I don't see any reason to believe that any scientist will ever favor "supernature" over "extremely improbable parallel evolution" or "advanced alien technology."

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

Whether this was an explanation invented by humans or revealed to them by Thor himself in an intimate fireside chat doesn't need to be assumed either way to say that Thor is the god of thunder with all that that generally implies.I agree any supernatural being can be stripped of all the possible falsification tests so as to render it unfalsifiable. As with all unfalsifiable notions, there is no need to worry that they aren't falsified. If you want to imagine (heh) a Thor that doesn't do anything that can be tested by modern scientific tests (and even, to be sure, one that logically can never be tested) - but I'd argue that this is a different entity to Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. Yes, but any proposed god that it is also proposed as the cause of natural phenomenon would be falsified by demonstrating that it wasn't actually the cause of said natural phenomenon. You could, as I said, appeal to some other definition of Thor. Still if we propose two entities:Thor1: His hammer creates storms etc
Thor2: Is immediate and transcendently the first mover of storms by way of a metaphorical hammer.Thor1 is falsified by showing that a hammer (magical or otherwise) is not the cause of storms.
Thor2 is unfalsifiable.I agree that ontology is potentially inherently unfalsifiable especially if we don't attach rigid properties (eg: defined places of existence or influence) to that which we are talking about. There is however, the possibility of verifying and falsifying certain claims in this area - in the sense I could verify the existence of a giraffe at my local zoo or the falsify the existence of a blue whale in a field.I could not falsify the existence of the IPU at my local zoo or verify a non-interventionist Thunder God - but I could falsify and verify the existence some supernatural entities.The question is - of those supernatural entities whose existence can be in principle verified, how many have been verified?
Of those supernatural entities that can in principle be falsified, how many have been falsified?Surely the preponderance of evidence at least points to bluegenes' theory as worthy of consideration, rather than a feeling of awkward trepidation, even if it doesn't necessarily settle the issue once and for all (which scientific theories of course, don't do anyway).

Is it? I thought it was about supernatural concepts? Human belief in the supernatural is an observable phenomenon. What is the cause of this phenomenon? That is the question being asked. That is the question bluegenes theory seeks to answer. Evolution is not explicitly asking if the world was created last Thursday in the same way that bluegenes theory is not explicitly asking whether or not supernatural entities exist. These things are implicit in the respective theories. I don't think bluegenes theory is explicitly about supernature in the way that you are asserting. It is about explaining an observed phenomenon (i.e. human belief in the supernatural) naturalistically based on positive empirical evidence.The fact that this causes it to come into conflict with those who like to consider the actual existence of supernatural entities as a possible cause of human belief in such things is a matter of emphasis of opposition rather than difference of principle in terms of the theory itself.If the world were full of confirmed omphalists and their agnostic adherents the theory of evolution would be accused of explicitly denying omphalism in the same way that you are accusing bluegenes theory of explicitly commenting on the actual existence of supernatural entities.In each case it is a difference of emphasis. Not principle. As long as the possibility remains open you are probably right that many scientifically minded individuals will continue to pursue naturalistic explanations. But so what?I say bring forth one of these borderline supernatural cases. I say let's discuss one of these entities such that we can cast some serious doubt on bluegenes theory even if not actually outright disprove it. But wait - Do we have any such examples? All you have to do is find a concept that is universally classed as a supernatural entity and for which there is no known natural explanation and demonstrate that it either actually exists or is sourced from somewhere other than the human imagination.Try to see the theory for what it says rather than what you think it says. And do try to get past this obsession you have with proving and disproving things.

...well this should be qualified so that the recent studies showing how the Red Sea could have naturally parted and that this made have been inflated up to the Moses story level of supernaturalness are not what bluegenes is talking about. In all likelihood *most* of the myths and entities probably originated from a natural event of some kind that was then exaggerated beyond belief, so to speak .

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Of course. A magical Santa would qualify as a supernatural entity. But are you seriously suggesting that St Nicholas was supernatural? No.So what is your point?

Hi Bluejay,Not that it will make a difference to some ... OriginsNet Publications
http://www.originsnet.org/chimpspiritdatabase.pdfNor do I think that this is the only example of such behavior in animals.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Hi xongsmith. Where do subatomic particles go as they flip flop between states of being and not being? If dark stuffs do not cause the anomalous behavior in galaxy spin, could this be evidence of this energy field? Now integrate those concepts into one overall concept, that the elephant exists in the energy field outside normal experience as well, extending to the vast reaches of the universe, "to infinity and beyond", that what is seen is our flatlander vision of the elephant, that it is constantly changing, flowing, so that no one observation can be repeated.Just an idea.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : ...

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

---

Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

Seriously - Why don't you present this in your thread with Bluegenes? Actually I think this is the most relevant thing you have posted on the subject so far.This is exactly the sort of thing that could be relevant to actually understanding the origins of supernatural concepts. This is exactly the sort of thing your debate with bluegenes should be about.Rather than all the guff you keep reciting about human written documents as providing some sort of alternative source of supernatural concepts to the human mind. Surely even you can see the stupidity of citing belief as evidence?

If by "just an idea" you mean a baseless proposition then - Yes indeed.The fluctuations in the matrix proposal is "just an idea".
The magic moonbeams scenario is "just an idea".
The dastardly CIA plot scenario is "just an idea".There are a near infinite number of unfalsified possible causes for such wholly subjective human experiences. So why are you citing such experiences as evidence of something supernatural rather than any of the other possibilities? Only because people believe they are caused by supernatural entities do they get cited as any form of evidence for such entities.Belief as evidence. Yet again. However you phrase it.If you really want to pursue this line in your debate with bluegenes here is a link from which you can start that area of discussion. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hi, Modulous. This seems like a reasonable argument, but I still think the way of defining things is artificial, and presupposes the tested entity to be an artifact of the observer's belief or perception, rather than an actual being about whom the observer may or may not have a correct perception.As a "real" example, consider me. If it is revealed at some point that I was never actually a Mormon, the result would not be that some actual entity was discovered to not exist, but that an actual entity was discovered to not possess an attribute that it was thought to possess. To me, referring to this as the discovered non-existence of some entity "Bluejay the Mormon" seems like just a semantic twisting of the reality that there is an actual entity there, whose existence has not been effected at all by the discovery.

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

Hi, Straggler. This is the statement of the theory: You don't believe that this statement is explicitly about supernature?
This is a positive claim about what supernatural entities are.
How is this not explicitly about supernature?----- Damn it, Straggler! It has been my position from the beginning that this cannot be done, even in principle. Why do you think my argument requires me to do what I believe it is impossible to do?You and Bluegenes have proposed three hypothetical ways of falsifying your version of the theory, and I've shot all three of them down. How is the burden of proof not on you to bring potential falsifications forward?I challenged your assertion that the theory follows the scientific method, and have mounted several pieces of evidence on which to build my case. All the positive evidence about the issue of falsifiability is so far on my side. At what point does the burden of proof shift to you?All you really have to do is switch to Modulous's view of Bluegenes' theory: i.e., that some individual god-concepts are falsifiable. If you switch to that mode of argument, I will concede defeat. Gladly. But, my experience with you on this topic suggests to me that you will instead doggedly persist in your same vane of argumentation and make stupid statements about me demanding proof and disproof.

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

The difference between you and Thor is that we can define what 'you' are much better than we can define Thor, purely because you have been courteous enough to leave various clues as to what 'you' are.We can tie ourselves in all sorts of philosophical knots, objections over what it is to be 'you' - if we change things about 'you' are 'you' still the same 'you'?We may agree that 'you' are a conceptual entity that corresponds with some real entity (or collection of entities or what have you) of some kind that can be independently confirmed in a consistent way etc etc as we would identify any object as being 'real'.In this sense, I argue, you are no different than Thor. As Straggler notes, the theory that bluegenes has postulated is that Thor is a conceptual entity that does not correspond well with any real entity external to ourselves that can be confirmed etc Sure, it might correspond to 'electrical forces' or something like that, but it doesn't correspond in the sense of 'humanoid, bearded, giant, powerful, hammer wielding originator of thunderbolts etc'.In the end - the point is that it doesn't matter if your theory posits undiscovered subatomic particles or undiscovered agency: a demand to demonstrate the existence of said entity is required. A scientist who looks for an undiscovered subatomic particle may find nothing, and so change the properties of the subatomic particle so that it does its job in their theory while also explaining why the test failed to detect it. They could formulate a new test - but ultimately if they keep ad hocing reasons as to why nothing is found they need to abandon their idea.Likewise, if you go from an intelligent being that strikes a hammer to create sparks down to 'an intelligent being that cannot be detected using material devices that periodically and unpredictably intervenes with some lightning bolts' - it's time to abandon the notion as being useless yes?So we really should only be worried about those supernatural beings that are not like our hypothetical subatomic particle - undetectable but necessary for our desperately held onto theory. Science does sometimes say things like 'the lumineforous ether is a conceptual entity only, and does not correspond with anything in the real universe outside of our minds', and that's really all bluegenes is saying. If you can show the lumineforous ether does correspond to something non-mental about the universe then show it, but if you just posit that it can't be ruled out 100% of the time, and say people have believed it was real in the past then science is going to sneer at you as bluegenes has done with RAZD.