Destroyer wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:

Destroyer wrote: The final analysis as to which voice I am speaking with, will have to wait.

Hey, you should audition for that horrible TV show, the X-Factor.

Not my thing.

Part of "your thing" is telling people about the voice you are speaking with, always hinting about how profound this is. It is, perhaps, profoundly disturbing. Or just disturbing. It's not very profound, otherwise.

Teuton wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Materialism is not a metaphysical position, it's an accumulation of facts, each tested and found either true or false.

You're wrong! (I say this as a materialist.)

"It is particularly important for materialists to realize that they cannot adopt a fully fledged positivist position while continuing to call themselves materialists. For to be a materialist is to go beyond the empirically available evidence and into metaphysics."

(Strawson, Galen. Mental Reality. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. p. 48)

I'm not a positivist and I call myself a materialist and a physicalist but not in the metaphysical way that you are asking for. I guess I'm a modelinthemiddleist. But note that:

"It is particularly important for metaphysicians to realize that I can call myself anything I want and I still don't have to accept the possibility of metaphysics."

(SpeedOfSound, Mike. High School Dropout, Burglar(former), Crackhead, Iron Range MN( deRange))

Matthew Shute wrote:

Destroyer wrote:

Matthew Shute wrote:

Hey, you should audition for that horrible TV show, the X-Factor.

Not my thing.

Part of "your thing" is telling people about the voice you are speaking with, always hinting about how profound this is. It is, perhaps, profoundly disturbing. Or just disturbing. It's not very profound, otherwise.

Who knows; maybe there is a Judge who can tell whether either of us are full of nonsense!

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I'm not a positivist and I call myself a materialist and a physicalist but not in the metaphysical way that you are asking for. I guess I'm a modelinthemiddleist.

Even if you're not a positivist, the point remains that materialism/physicalism is a theoretical position within metaphysics rather than within physics.

Paul Almond wrote:Just to say I've been following this - though I can't think of anything particularly useful to say right now.

But I have something to say. You write:

"Some readers, of course, will insist that terminology associated with the 'supernatural' is meaningful. They only think this because they have become so used to labelling things as 'supernatural' and 'natural' that they have become unable to see they are using a vague, incoherent boundary."

(http://www.paul-almond.com/Supernatural.htm)

(I'm not sure what an "incoherent boundary" is, but I know what a vague, unsharp boundary is.)

I think you're wrong in assuming that vagueness entails meaninglessness. Either perfect semantic exactness or semantic emptiness is a false alternative. The complete elimination of conceptual vagueness is theoretically highly desirable for analytic philosophers and scientists, but in many cases it is practically unfeasible, because natural languages haven't evolutionarily developed as perfectly precise cognitive instruments. This fact notwithstanding, vagueness doesn't render the concepts in question (e.g. "baldness") meaningless and useless.

Your argument that the natural/supernatural distinction is meaningless and unintelligible unless the concept of naturality/supernaturality is totally free of vagueness is a non sequitur.

Teuton wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
I'm not a positivist and I call myself a materialist and a physicalist but not in the metaphysical way that you are asking for. I guess I'm a modelinthemiddleist.

Even if you're not a positivist, the point remains that materialism/physicalism is a theoretical position within metaphysics rather than within physics.

Well fine then. I will be one until someone finds a real issue with it. I'm just not going to be signing up to the Facebook page or wearing a t-shirt.

But what does the position of materialism really entail?

Teuton you make a good point that vagueness does not entail meaninglessness, and baldness is a good example of that. Indeed, even the boundary between life and non-life is somewhat vague, as people do argue over whether viruses are alive. But nobody would suggest that ‘alive’ is not a useful and meaningful concept. That set me off thinking for a while on that question as it relates to this issue.

I think the answer is that 'supernatural', as commonly used, is not vague at all. It has three common meanings, two positive and one negative:
1. Not explicable by, and possibly contradictory with, the laws of nature that we know.
2. Relating to deities.
3. Relating to ghosts and the like.

Now the context of this discussion precludes adopting the positive definitions 2 and 3, as the background question is whether one can reason to the existence of gods or ghosts using concepts that include the supernatural. As definitions 2 and 3 presuppose the existence of such objects, it is invalid to use them in the reasoning.

There is no such problem with the first meaning, which is what I earlier called Gap-supernatural. However, it is of no use in trying to argue for the existence of gods or ghosts because all we can say is that there are some things that are not accounted for by the laws of nature that we currently know (and may even contradict them), and it would be hard to find a credible scientist that disagreed with that. Dark energy is a current example of such a thing, as will be very-fast-neutrinos if the recent experimental measurements turn out to be accurate. I think such a meaning is what Paul refers to as a ‘trivial boundary’, in the sense that it is based on the arbitrary reference point of what we currently know. Perhaps the term ‘trivial’ is a bit harsh, but it’s correct in the sense that such a boundary doesn’t enable one to deduce anything interesting.

So, although the word 'supernatural' has some non-vague interpretations, with well-defined boundaries, none of them are of any use in philosophical discourse.

andrewk wrote:So, although the word 'supernatural' has some non-vague interpretations, with well-defined boundaries, none of them are of any use in philosophical discourse.

A doubtful assertion. Philosophers discuss fiction and the supernatural is a genre of fiction.

Hi Andrew

andrewk wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Naturalism is the belief that everything that is going on in the world of matter and energy follows a set of natural laws which are consistent and, in principle, discoverable by scientific methods. <italics added by andrewk>

Gday Elephant . This statement characterises very aptly the sort of thing that supernaturalists say about naturalism, and by sleight of hand they usually trick non-supernaturalists into accepting and echoing it. The point I'm trying to make in this thread is that, when we inspect them closely, statements like that reveal themselves to be either a trivial and arbitrary or an incoherent definition, as any attempt to define 'natural' as used in that sentence is either going to end in nothing, or everything, or an arbitrary set of conceptual objects such as matter and energy, or lead back to 'naturalism'. The same problem will be encountered by the supernaturalist that tries to explain what they mean by 'scientific' in that sentence.

Well, to be fair any attempt to define "science" just dumps you into a series of long-running debates that comprise contemporary philosophy of science. That is just as much a problem for a naturalist as a supernaturalist. I think the word "consistent", which you didn't italicise, is important. Natural causality is predictable and consistent and there is a clear, discoverable link between cause and effect. Supernatural causality is either inconsistent and/or the link between cause and effect is hidden and/or the cause is external to the universe (e.g. the will of an external God.)

Does that help to nail it down a bit?

UndercoverElephant wrote:Supernaturalism is any sort of belief which involves some other sort of causality existing. That can include causality which is deemed to the the result of the actions of an external God but could also include things like Karma, synchronicity or other claimed forms of "paranormal" causality. <italics added by andrewk>

Here the same problem is encountered again. What does this 'other' mean? Other than what?

Other than natural causality, which follows discoverable mathematical laws. People believe in all sorts of these forms of causality, science has demonstrated the existence of none of them.

I would go further and argue (and have done so in this thread) that even causality is an incoherent concept mostly beloved of supernaturalists. We cannot identify 'causes', even hypothetically.

Yes we can. We might have to specify it in terms of counterfactuals, or accept that there are multiple causes, but we can certainly identify causes and link them to effects. This happens every time a criminal case goes to court, and every time a scientist conducts an experiment.

What we can do is, if we work very hard, identify descriptive laws about how systems will evolve over time. Those laws may be about anything: particles, waves, ghosts, karma, qi, gods, minor deities etc. The test of their worth is simply whether the laws correspond with our observations and provide accurate predictions.

I fundamentally disagree. If we take "God" to mean something like "the sort of thing most mainstream Christians believe in" then there is no point in even trying to identify descriptive laws about how God works. By definition, that God is beyond scientific description and His actions are most certainly not predictable by humans. If they were predictable in this way, then it wouldn't be the Christian God we are talking about but some other thing altogether - more like a sort of supernatural machine - capable of causing things in ways that don't occur naturally but nevertheless following some sort of laws.

I think that anybody who is attempting to reduce supernatural causality to mathematical laws is thinking about supernaturalism in the wrong way. He's thinking about supernaturalism as if it was a branch of naturalism. It isn't. It's something else.

Geoff

Teuton wrote:

andrewk wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:Supernaturalism is any sort of belief which involves some other sort of causality existing. That can include causality which is deemed to the the result of the actions of an external God but could also include things like Karma, synchronicity or other claimed forms of "paranormal" causality. <italics added by andrewk>

Here the same problem is encountered again. What does this 'other' mean? Other than what?

We can distinguish conceptually between

(i) physical-to-physical causation,
(ii) physical-to-mental causation,
(iii) mental-to-physical causation,
(iv) mental-to-mental causation.

According to spiritualist supernaturalism, minds and mental activities are non- or hyperphysical; and so supernatural causation would be physically irreducible and inexplicable mental-to-mental or mental-to-physical causation.

Yes, but it's not just minds. It could also be Gods or reptilian aliens from another dimension.

Teuton wrote:It seems to me that supernaturalism boils down to the combination or disjunction of the following three isms:

1. Platonism, the view that there is a domain of reality populated by (mind-independent and non-mind-generated) abstract entities which are neither mental nor physical.

2. Spirit(ual)ism, the view that there is a domain of reality populated by immaterial concrete objects/substances, i.e. by spiritual beings/agents (nonphysical consciousnesses/minds/souls/spirits).

3. Miraculism, the view that some things, substances (objects or materials) have properties or abilities (powers) the having of which is naturally/physically impossible for them and scientifically inexplicable, and which enable them to effect or perform miracles.

I roughly agree with this, but I'd widen your third category into two sub-types.

3a. Physically Impossible Miraculism, the view that things can happen which are physically impossible.

3b. Probabilistic Miraculism, the view that things can happen which are physically possible, but at the same time both deeply meaningful and exceptionally improbable.

Anyone experiencing either of them would be convinced that miracles happen, and it may take a lot of thinking and perhaps a detailed understanding of the interpretations of quantum mechanics to tell the difference between 3a and 3b, but I think it is important distinction. You can believe in 3b without compromising your commitment to the authority of scientific knowledge, because nothing you believe actually contradicts existing science. 3a implies either that there is something wrong with the specific relevant bits of science, or you believe there is something wrong with the general scientific principle that the (true) laws of physics apply to the material world at all times.

UndercoverElephant wrote:
I roughly agree with this, but I'd widen your third category into two sub-types.
3a. Physically Impossible Miraculism, the view that things can happen which are physically impossible.
3b. Probabilistic Miraculism, the view that things can happen which are physically possible, but at the same time both deeply meaningful and exceptionally improbable.

The latter events would be pseudomiracles.
We could distinguish between natural marvels and supernatural miracles.

Thanks for that interesting post Geoff/Elephant. There are quite a few issues in there to think about. One in particular piques my interest - that of what it could be for a phenomenon to be indescribable (aka unknowable). This was where you said "By definition, [the Christian]... God is beyond scientific description and His actions are most certainly not predictable by humans."
I find it interesting to explore what might be meant when it is said, as it so often is, that God is beyond description.

This could mean:
(1) there is no possible description, even in principle; or
(2) there is a description, but it is impossible for humans to ever learn it; or
(3) it is possible that we could one day learn it, but we do not know it now.

(3) seems no different from the many questions in physics to which we do not yet know the answer, so I think we can discard that, as not referring to anything that is beyond what we would eventually call the natural or scientific world.

(2) could apply equally to other universes in a multiverse theory that held exchange of information between universes to be impossible, as many such theories do. While such multiverse theories may be described as speculative or even unscientific, because they are untestable, I doubt there are many that would describe the other universes as supernatural. So there doesn't seem to be any reason to regard anything else in this category as supernatural.

With (1), we can think about what it means for something (call it the 'object') to be indescribable-even-in-principle. If the object has any regularities (principles) governing its properties (noting here that actions are just a subset of properties, as 'I had breakfast this morning' is one of my properties), then they should be able to be described, otherwise in what sense can we say they are regularities? So it seems that we must divide the object's properties into those that are governed by describable regularities and those that are not. Let's call the part of the object that does not obey any regularities the irregular object. What can we say about it?

Firstly, the irregular object must have an infinite collection of properties, because if they were finite, they would be describable by enumeration.

Secondly, those properties must be incapable of generation from any finitely-stated principle. Consider the decimal expansion of pi. This is infinite and non-repeating, but it can be generated by a simple, finitely-stated, power series. For any n, we can ascertain the n-th decimal digit of pi, given a big enough computer and enough time. In fact, I suspect there are no objects that meet this second criterion unless we accept the Axiom of Choice. I'm not going to try to prove that here, but I suspect it can be proven, and I will go away and think about it towards that end.

So, if we take supernatural to mean something that is indescribable-even-in-principle, then it may follow that a belief in the supernatural implies a belief that the Axiom of Choice is true.

Might the reverse implication also follow? ie, does the Axiom of Choice imply that the supernatural exists? This direction doesn't seem at all obvious to me, but it may repay some thought. Certainly, if we are going to call anything supernatural, the Banach-Tarski paradox would have to be a pretty good candidate for that title.

andrewk wrote:In fact, I suspect there are no objects that meet this second criterion unless we accept the Axiom of Choice. I'm not going to try to prove that here, but I suspect it can be proven, and I will go away and think about it towards that end.

I guess it depends on what you mean by an object, otherwise I dont see the problem, uncountability can be demonstrated without the axiom of choice.

andrewk wrote:So, if we take supernatural to mean something that is indescribable-even-in-principle, then it may follow that a belief in the supernatural implies a belief that the Axiom of Choice is true.

And as there are several arguments for rejecting the axiom of choice, it would follow from any of these that "the supernatural" should be rejected.

Hi Andrew,

Sorry for the delay in answering.

andrewk wrote:Thanks for that interesting post Geoff/Elephant. There are quite a few issues in there to think about. One in particular piques my interest - that of what it could be for a phenomenon to be indescribable (aka unknowable). This was where you said "By definition, [the Christian]... God is beyond scientific description and His actions are most certainly not predictable by humans."

I don't agree that indescribable is the same an unknowable. I can't describe what red looks like to me, but that doesn't mean I don't know what red looks like to me.

I find it interesting to explore what might be meant when it is said, as it so often is, that God is beyond description.

This could mean:
(1) there is no possible description, even in principle; or
(2) there is a description, but it is impossible for humans to ever learn it; or
(3) it is possible that we could one day learn it, but we do not know it now.

I don't think (2) or (3) are important. (1) is what I'm getting at. No description, even in principle, could ever do it justice. And certainly not a scientific description.

With (1), we can think about what it means for something (call it the 'object') to be indescribable-even-in-principle.

"Object" is precisely the wrong word to use. I'd say "God" can only be defined in terms of what it isn't. And it's not an object - not a "thing." Even to say "it exists" is misleading, because it doesn't "exist" in the same sense everyTHING else does.

For me, the closest thing we could get to a description of God are the attempts of certain philosophers to describe something that they themselves declare to be indescribable. This is paradoxical by nature, and what they write always ends up being not only self-contradictory but absolutely (literally) paradoxical. Examples of this include the Tao Te Ching, the descriptions of God provided by Christian philosopher Paul Tillich and the most important parts of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

By "absolutely paradoxical" I mean they boil down to something like "Everything equals Nothing" or "here is a description of the indescribable" rather than just any old inconsistency or contradiction.

UndercoverElephant wrote: I can't describe what red looks like to me, but that doesn't mean I don't know what red looks like to me.

If you were a fox, you'd know what a chicken looks like to you, too. So we haven't done any serious philosophy, here, yet. Good to see you back, UE, though I can't yet describe what you look like to me. Be confident it would not involve violations of the FUA.

UndercoverElephant wrote:
By "absolutely paradoxical" I mean they boil down to something like "Everything equals Nothing" or "here is a description of the indescribable" rather than just any old inconsistency or contradiction.

Stop hypnotising yourself by inducing internal segmentation violations brought on by the deficiencies of natural language as a formal language, which is what mysticism is about. Unless, of course, you enjoy the sensations brought on by self-hypnosis. I sort of draw the line at attempts to hypnotise the gullible in the public square, but who knows, they might like it, too.

UndercoverElephant wrote:For me, the closest thing we could get to a description of God are the attempts of certain philosophers to describe something that they themselves declare to be indescribable. This is paradoxical by nature, and what they write always ends up being not only self-contradictory but absolutely (literally) paradoxical. Examples of this include the Tao Te Ching, the descriptions of God provided by Christian philosopher Paul Tillich and the most important parts of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Hello Elephant! I'd forgotten about this discussion, but now I remember that I was quite enjoying it at the time. Here are my thoughts stimulated by your post:

Say there is something - a god, demiurge, demon, or maybe just ‘The Force’ - that is indescribable even in principle. In what sense is it interesting to us humans? I suggest the answer to that is that only its interactions with sentient beings, or more generally with the physical world that such beings can perceive, are of interest to us.

Hence, a list of all such interactions, with full details of each one, would comprise all the description for which any human could ever wish. If the universe is infinite, in either time or space or both, then such a list may be infinite, otherwise it may be finite.

If the list of interactions is finite, then it is possible in principle for there to exist a description, comprehensible to us, of anything about this ‘something’ that we would care about. That description is the aforementioned list. That list then becomes just a description (albeit possibly a very long and complicated one) of another force of nature, and need not be considered in any sense ‘supernatural’..

If the list is infinite, it comes back to my speculation about the axiom of choice: the full description of all aspects of this ‘something’ that could interest us is infinite and hence not able to be comprehended by us. At least there it might be conceivable that the word ‘supernatural’ could have some non-trivial meaning.

ughaibu wrote:

andrewk wrote:In fact, I suspect there are no objects that meet this second criterion unless we accept the Axiom of Choice. I'm not going to try to prove that here, but I suspect it can be proven, and I will go away and think about it towards that end.

I guess it depends on what you mean by an object, otherwise I dont see the problem, uncountability can be demonstrated without the axiom of choice.

I don't think I mentioned uncountability, and if I did, I certainly didn't intend to. If there existed an object that was irreducibly complex (in an information theory sense, not a creationist one!) in such a way that it required an infinite sequence of bits to describe it then that would imply the existence of a limited choice function, applicable to countable collections of sets in which no more than a finite number of them had cardinality greater than that of R. It would not imply the existence of an unconstrained choice function though, for instance it would not give a choice function for an uncountable collection of sets.