Om

So what you're saying is ... you're ath-supernaturalist.

I'm a little surprised.

Had you pegged as ag-supernaturalist for sure.

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Og

Supernatural is a nonsense word. It's not a proposition that can't be proven or disproven. The word is actually a covert implementation of "shut up and drop your brain at the door."

What is something that is supernatural? Above nature? Well? What rules govern its behavior? No rules? So it has no cohesion and no reason to its behavior? How can you even call it a thing if there isn't a boundary or behavior associated with it? Why isn't it natural if it exists?

Supernatural is a null word. It has nothing to do with asking honest questions. In fact, it's the exact opposite. F that word.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Om

Spoken like a true scientist, friend. With maybe a belt or two in him.

Funny though ... intellectually I'm right there with you. I'm generally the guy in the room arguing the exact same thing when the "supernatural" comes up in the usual way ("dude, this house is SO haunted").

But I'll admit there's a tiny little voice in the back of my head that whispers sometimes about not accepting absolutes. Even the absolute-sounding ones. Like in this case, the seeming implication that boundaries of "the natural world" are ones we've defined with enough certainty to speak confidently about where they might be.

Fortunately, when the little voice starts to do that, I generally find having a belt or two shuts it up before I embarrass myself.

So. If you'll excuse me ...

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Og

Naw dude. I'm not putting boundaries on anything at all! The point is that whatever exists must be within the bounds of nature. I'm trying to keep on pushin the bounds of nature to include all things that are coherent and experience-able. Anything that is a thing and that has existence is understandable and natural.

Supernatural is just a word that roughly translates as "LALALALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU"

I'm not trying to put ANY boundaries on the natural world. The whole point is that these things you experience and would call supernatural have an explanation. Describing the physics behind a rainbow doesn't make it less of a rainbow.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

greywolf90

if you hate the word so much, then what do you want to call it? what would you call something that is observable but is without a natural explaination?

__________________
"is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"- poe

Og

I do not hate the word at all! I think that once you understand the meaning of the word you can understand much about the people who use it and the way their minds work. There's no point in hating a word.

I would call it just that with a small tweak. "Something observable but without a known explanation."

The point I'm trying to make is that supernatural has nothing to do with explaining anything. Don't get bogged down with the notion that science/physics knows all that there is to know about the natural world period and that there are no exceptions. Scientists certainly don't think this way. The point is that if we don't understand something that is observable, we can work to understand it.

If a thing exists, it is natural. This is not a limit on things, it is a logical definition of the term "natural."

Supernatural is used when people want to hold their warm blanket of belief close to them. This is not always a bad thing, but it has nothing to do with seeking truth. They want to think that their loved ones are still with them physically, so they think of a heaven or of ghosts or whatever. Then any odd experience that THEY can't explain is interpreted to support these notions and they don't look deeper than that. They aren't skeptical of it because they want to believe it. Calling it "supernatural" allows them to do this.

The term "supernatural" has nothing to do with explaining anything. It has everything to do with describing how someone wishes to face the world on a certain topic.

I do not hate the word. I understand it and appreciate what it means when someone uses it. What is unfortunate (what I don't like) is that people, who are conceivably seeking truth, use it in debates or in questions as if it is something that should be considered.

"Supernatural" means "stop thinking and accept this interpretation." Science is the exact opposite. Never stop thinking. Never stop questioning your current interpretation. All effects/things/etc are natural. That is not a limit on things or on the word natural. Our understanding of the natural may be limited, but that doesn't mean that the world must be.

The point is to approach it with an open and incredulous mind with the FAITH that observation and open/unrestrained inquiry will get you towards the truth.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Om

I'm with you. We're not disagreeing on the concept, just the label we've given it. Perhaps what we need to do is come up with a better label.

"Something observable but without a known explanation," while accurate, descriptive and unambiguous, lacks a certain ... panache. I propose we come up with an alternative.

SOBWAKE, perhaps?

Let's see ...

"So dude, you believe in the sobwake?"

"Nah. When I go I want people to party, not sit around my urn and blubber."

No, I guess that's not going to work.

I'm open to suggestions.

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Og

Keep on asking people if they believe in the supernatural. Their answer tells you loads about the person, not about the nature of things that don't currently have a clear explanation.

There's no point in "believing in the sobwake." Sobwake is a statement of ignorance coupled to a faith that things in the world have explanations.

Clearly this thing you thought was a ghost interacted with your visual field in some fashion. How did it do this? What mechanisms allowed you to see photons that created a visual pattern of this ghost. What material caused the photons to reflect into your eye or what mechanism carried the sounds you heard of this "sobwake" entity moving about in your haunted 19th century house? Presumably there's some motivational intelligence behind this "sobwake" entity. What drives this intelligence (i.e. is there a ghost brain).

All of these questions have real answers. The answer could be as simple as "the person was hallucinating" or "it was the wind." The idea that nature has an "above" or a "boundary" to which there is something "outside of nature" is silly.

If its a thing, it has existence, and interacts with the world and can be experienced. It is coherent and structured in some fashion.

Supernatural takes all the above questions and says "you shouldn't ask those questions, I'd rather just think that my loved one is still with me in some literal form." This is not necessarily a bad thing.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Om

I haven't been around enough to know quite where you're coming from with this, so just to cover my bases ...

1) I'm not disagreeing with you. I understand you to be saying that all phenomena fall into 1 of 2 categories: natural, knowable events and processes we can identify today, or natural, knowable events and processes we can or have not yet been able to identify. You're also saying that anyone who would categorize a phenomenon as anything other than occurring in 1 of the 2 categories above is either willfully or unintentionally ignorant of science, and indulging in fantasy at best, foolishness at worst.

If I have misinterpreted you, lemme know. If not ... well, there we are.

2) "Sobwake" and the silly quote context I used it in were merely a play on words. You know ... *sob* ... at a wake ...

Never mind. Wasn't that funny to begin with. Mostly I was just having a little fun with the idea that you seem to have a marked distaste for the word "supernatural," and was riffing off that. I'll stop now.

3) To get back to where we started (ath-supernatural vs. ag-supernatural), you do appear to allow for the possibility, however remote, that something commonly referred to as "supernatural"---say a dead rock legend showing up for work at a Tennessee gas station---might actually BE a remnant or echo or ghost or spirit or whatever label you want to use of someone who has clinically died. It would simply be a natural, knowable event or process we have not yet been able to identify.

Just for fun though ... what would you say about the possibility, however remote, that the sun will about face tonight and rise in the West tomorrow? Obviously, the evidence weighs heavily against it. In fact, everything we think we know about our universe prohibits it.

So if a bright eyed 8-year old comes up to you and asks, "But Dad, is it possible?", do you say "Nope, can't happen--finish your plantain," (Ath-) or take a deep breath, sigh, and say, "Well, I suppose it could ... just please don't tell your friends I said so." (Ag-)

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greywolf90

i agree that all things that exist are natural, but i think you are only thinking of those who believe the supernatural to just as real as natural. from what i understand, we identify something as being "supernatural" because we can not yet give it a natural explaination. therefore, it can be real (which would make it natural), or it could be false. take god for example: if we cannot prove or disprove the existance of a god, then we cannot say god is natural, so we would classify it as supernatural. now i realize that god isn't a very good example, because even if there was evidence to support the existance of god, it is still not something we can observe or test. i also doubt we could define the cause of nature and existance to be natural. but my argument can be applied to other examples such as ghosts, astral projection, psycic abilities, etc. also, consider things that are considered natural today, but were once believed to be supernatural. diseases, weather, and natural disasters were once believed to be caused by a diety or spirits etc. bet today we know that these all have natural causes. my point is that if we call something supernatural, it may in fact be natural, but we cannot call it natural because it also may be false and therefore not exist.

__________________
"is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"- poe