Subject: Re: definitions of god, atheism, etc. Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 13:14:24 -0700 From: "Brian Holtz" To: "Brian Holtz" "Paul Filseth" wrote : > > > > mass-energy conservation at will, by making a crucifix appear ex > > > > nihilo in his hand. Instead of saying this is "supernatural > > > > > > I don't know what "supernatural" means. > > > > You really have no idea? > > I know what people use "supernatural" for -- they > use it for things that go in the same box with Harry Potter and Santa > Claus. OK, you don't know what it means, but you're able to use it in sentences and recognize it when other humans use it. :-) > But I've noticed whenever people attempt to explain what they > _mean_, by giving _criteria_ rather than examples, they fail Are you then saying that the notion of "supernatural" is a) nonsensical/oxymoronic (as Dennett claims about the notion of zombies), b) ineffable (like, well, I don't believe in ineffability :-), or c) definable but you've never seen an acceptable definition? > "The world follows natural law" is a tautology. Is "all events follow natural law" a tautology? If so, why have so many philosophers disputed naturalism? Have you some insight that can resolve this long-standing philosophical debate, or do you just define "natural" so that the above is a tautology? > > A regularity doesn't have to be inviolable to seem to be operative. > > Of course not -- but it does have to _seem_ to be inviolable. Are you saying a pattern has to have zero known violations for it to be considered a "regularity"? If you're going to insist on this definition of 'regularity', then feel free to substitute 'pattern' for it in my definition. > > No, I'm saying that supernaturalism is the thesis that > > 1) effects can be divided into two kinds: > > a) those consistent with the (not necessarily ironclad) > > regularities that usually govern the material world, and > > b) those that egregiously violate those regularities in a > > way that is miraculously consistent with the expressed > > will of some agency; > > Note that this is a change to your definition. You didn't say > "usually" before, or require will to be involved. "Usually" was (to me) implicit in the notion of regularities. I earlier omitted "will" mainly because I wanted to include pantheism as a form of supernaturalism, but pantheism is incoherent enough that we can ignore it for the purposes of this discussion. > Also note that you've evidently left out c) those that violate > the semi-regularities of kind "a", but in ways that don't satisfy > kind "b". Quantum tunneling, for instance. Right. They are not what I would call "supernatural". > Regularities that are only usually followed are violated > all the time in accordance with the will of agencies. It should be somewhat obvious that I'm talking about regularities or patterns that are basic or irreducible in some sense, as opposed to the regularity that e.g. "West Wing" appears on Wednesday nights. The kinds of willings that you're talking about (i.e. human decisions) are (I believe) consistent with the basic or irreducible patterns or regularities that usually govern the material world. Others disagree, and say humans have souls that by their decisions can affect the material world. If this is true, then (by my definitions) naturalism is false and supernaturalism is true. Also, the difference between humans and gods could then be seen as a difference in degree, not kind, since humans (by virtue of their souls) would have at least one supernatural power (i.e. will). > So at this point you need to define "miraculous". We can omit it if you like; "egregiously" probably can do the work that I wanted to get done. > Wouldn't you call their > lack of reflections a supernatural property of vampires? If such an optical property turned out to be an unwilled regularity of the material world and not dependent on e.g. the nature of vampires' souls, then I wouldn't call it supernatural in any theological or metaphysical sense. I would certainly call it paranormal, but a century ago many quantum phenomena would probably have been called paranormal. If you're looking for more test cases for my definition, feel free to consult my book's census of paranormal phenomena: http://c264141-a.smateo1.sfba.home.com/Thoughts/Thoughts.html#Paranormality -- Brian.Holtz@sun.com Knowledge is dangerous. Take a risk: http://humanknowledge.net