Posted: Nov 20, 2011 12:06 am
andrewk wrote:
Theists who want to rule out all scientifically observable phenomena as potential explanations for existence appear to say:
1. The natural world cannot explain its own existence
2. The natural world consists of all matter and energy, including vacuum potential and other forms of potential energy
3. Anything scientifically observable, or even able to be hypothesised by scientists as affecting the natural world (eg the brane-world ‘bulk’ or the 11-dimensional string-theory manifold), falls within 2 and hence is part of the natural world
If this is indeed what theists believe, then how does it keep gods out of the natural world? As gods can create mass-energy, they are a form of potential energy, and so would be part of the natural world under this definition.
A crucial question is whether energy is by definition physical energy, because if it is not, supernaturalists can draw a distinction between physical energy (PE) and (hyperphysical) mental energy (HME). As the concept of hyperphysical, mental mass is doubtless nonsensical, there is only a PE-mass equivalence but no HME-mass equivalence. (Anyway, a spiritual being with a mass would be a material being.)
Given the distinction between PE and HME, one can say that the natural world is spacetime+matter+physical energy; and the theists can then also say that when God, the divine spirit, created the natural world, he converted a certain amount of his mental energy into physical energy.
Of course, now two basic questions arise as to how such a "magical" HME-PE conversion can conceivably take place, and whether the concept of HME really makes sense in the first place.