Supernatural can never be "proved" to exist (Split from Hypothetical Million...)

[steenkh]

Careful now folks, I suspect Maatorc is trying to drag the argument in semantic circles.

Yes, he has been doing it for years, and he is not making any headway.

The challenge is directed at claims which are supernatural in that layperson's sense.

And the challenge use the term 'paranormal' which is only slightly better defined. I argue that the layperson's sense of 'supernatural' is the only useful sense, because obviously, nothing that actually exists can be 'above' nature. In the MDC, the 'paranormal' is anything that is not yet recognised by science.

Maatorc's goal seems to somehow show that the MDC is void because it can never achieve its purpose. No amount of semantic twisting has yet enabled him to succeed in this.

I wonder why he goes on and on.

 

[Dancing David]

Can you give an example of something that is not natural?

That wasn't the point, you have claimed a category of behavior that defies evidence, I assume that the validity of reports of is an issue to control for.

So 'natural' telepathy still has no evidence.

 

[Dancing David]

Are you saying phenomena and noumena are commensurable?

It doesn't matter, if there is something that has a basis in evidence that nature of the event is immaterial.

 

[Dancing David]

But indirect measure still remains once-removed from what you are trying to measure or demonstrate. An inference is not a demonstration.

This shows that you do not understand science very well, in science you always have approximate models, you are always 'once-removed' and always using inference.

The measure of the acceleration of a falling object is an ifenece that supports the 'theory of gravitation', Millikan's experiment is an inference to measure the 'charge/mass ratio' of an 'electron'.

 

[Dancing David]

If it is once-removed it cannot be demonstrated to have occurred, and its usefulness is not relevant to the MDC.

False dichotomy, all science is always at least 'once removed'.

 

[Snixtor]

Careful now folks, I suspect Maatorc is trying to drag the argument in semantic circles.

Trying?

We have already agreed that the term "supernatural" is philosophically suspect, and that it does not mark out a defensible boundary. However regardless of such philosophical quibbles, the term as used by laypeople refers to a wide variety of claims such a claimed powers to read minds, levitate, bend spoons and so on.

Precisely why people are tested on the terms of their own protocol. One only needs to spend a minute looking at the challenge application log on this forum to see how that works.

For example:
"Pavel Ziborov has applied for the JREF Challenge claiming the ability to tell what photographs are placed inside envelopes without being able to see them."
leading to...
"If sixty-seven or more of Ziborov's announced responses match the photographs within his chosen envelopes, the test will be considered a success and Ziborov will pass to the final Challenge."

The challenge is designed to examine testable claims. The above is a claim, that for the purpose of testing, is considered "supernatural". Success in the test would do nothing more or less than prove that the applicant could do what they claim.

I imagine this has already been said more than a few times in the past 450+ posts in this thread, but I really felt compelled to stipulate it since it seems so pivotal to the issue at hand.

 

[maatorc]

False dichotomy, all science is always at least 'once removed'.

False assertion: All science is and cannot but be phenomenally based.

 

[maatorc]

Look it up. Any english dictionary.
Can you answer my question?

The definition is no problem, but your example could be.

 

[maatorc]

...... Maatorc's goal seems to somehow show that the MDC is void because it can never achieve its purpose. No amount of semantic twisting has yet enabled him to succeed in this. ......

And no amount of semantic twisting will ever allow a phenomenally based procedure to demonstrate a noumenal event.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

False assertion: All science is and cannot but be phenomenally based.

You are avoiding answering the points put to you.

That said, surely you can see that your conception of the supernatural fits the pattern of God-of-the-Gaps thinking?

 

[maatorc]

...... surely you can see that your conception of the supernatural fits the pattern of God-of-the-Gaps thinking? ......

Not so.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Not so.

It seems to me the parallels are clear. The "supernatural" has been banished from the rest of the universe by observation, so you hypothesise that it must be lurking in our minds because it's the one place that is left. Then when it's pointed out that even "supernatural" phenomena lurking in our minds can be tested indirectly, you are forced into an even smaller gap. Now the "supernatural" is confined to untestable and hence meaningless mental phenomena.

Once we can observe brain events and map them to noumena, what then? What gap will you move to?

 

[maatorc]

It seems to me the parallels are clear. The "supernatural" has been banished from the rest of the universe by observation, so you hypothesise that it must be lurking in our minds because it's the one place that is left. Then when it's pointed out that even "supernatural" phenomena lurking in our minds can be tested indirectly, you are forced into an even smaller gap. Now the "supernatural" is confined to untestable and hence meaningless mental phenomena.
Once we can observe brain events and map them to noumena, what then? What gap will you move to?

I have to be honest and say I do not know what you are talking about.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

If you did not know what the God of the Gaps was you could have just said so.

 

[maatorc]

If you did not know what the God of the Gaps was you could have just said so.

I know what it is but do not know what you are talking about in post 492.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I know what it is but do not know what you are talking about in post 492.

You're arguing for a "supernatural of the gaps" that hides in whatever place is not yet accessible to science.

 

[Czarcasm]

And no amount of semantic twisting will ever allow a phenomenally based procedure to demonstrate a noumenal event.

Could you explain what you mean by "noumenal"?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Could you explain what you mean by "noumenal"?

Wikipedia: Noumenon.

 

[steenkh]

And no amount of semantic twisting will ever allow a phenomenally based procedure to demonstrate a noumenal event.

And we have been through this before: Direct observation is not necessary for the determination if an event has happened. If somebody has experienced a noumenal event, they can tell about it, and so the event can be confirmed when every other possibility has been excluded. If you claim that this too is impossible, you have just reduced the concept of noumenon to a philosophical concept that has no relevance to our lives.

 

[Robin]

Kant defined a noumenon as an object cogitated through pure understanding, as opposed to a phenomenon, which is an object known by empirical means.

He does not always use the terminology consistently and draws different conclusions about them in "Critique of Pure Reason" than the ones he draws in "Critique of Practical Reasons".

I think the term is somewhat dated and out of favour in mainstream philosophy. Mach wrote in "Analysis of Sensation" "Some two or three years later the superfluity of the role played by "the thing in itself" abruptly dawned upon me."

Generally I think modern philosophers regard the concept as somewhat incoherent.