The Science of the Supernatural

If Darwinism fails then supernatural causes are back on the table and should be included in science.

I do not think there can be a science of the supernatural.

I do not think that if Darwinism fails that supernatural causes will become acceptable.

If the hope of ID is that supernatural causes will be allowed back into science if they can only just get rid of Darwinism, ID is doomed.

The tools and methods of ID cannot differentiate a supernatural cause from a natural cause anyways.

Thoughts?

1,433 thoughts on “The Science of the Supernatural

  1. fifthmonarchyman: Oh I agree,

    According to your worldview who is responsible ultimately to firm up definitions? And exactly how did you come to that conclusion?

    Hint: it has everything to do with that other choice you already made

    peace

    I doubt he really needed the hint.

  2. fifthmonarchyman:

    Depending on your interpretation either the future becomes actual when you choose or the world itself splits in two and you follow one particular path rather than the other.

    peace

    Or you follow both. That’s multiworld (Everett). Although the collapse bit is rejected by all but the YouTube woomeisters these days.

    Not sure why you think QM entities are not actual, unless you think actual is confined to everyday human experience.

  3. fifthmonarchyman: It’s not anti-AI due to the gaps.
    It’s an AI of the gaps argument that you are making.

    I am making a positive argument and the other side is forced into an eternal retreat as the gap keeps getting smaller forever with each new digit of the decimal expansion.

    That is fine of course but you don’t have to do that. All you have to do is be willing to choose and declare that
    3.14159265359…… is in fact Pi

    peace

    .Is the “…” bit in your mind or in God’s?

  4. phoodoo: See this is the problem that you and Rumraket seem to be avoiding.

    You have ruled out, a priori, any success at estimating the existence of God. Because any success, you simply call ignorance of cause.

    Thus, its a pointless claim that the materialist make, when they say, I would believe in a God if you would just show me evidence. Then when you say, Ok, well, what would qualify as evidence, your reply is nothing, because I have already decided no evidence would suffice.

    So what you have really done is remove any burden of evidence for the theist, because you refute evidence before it is given. And we know that throughout the atheist community they pretend they want evidence.

    You are making clear that that tactic is really just a ruse. A bluff.

    You are very insistent on your right to serve the next set, but as I keep telling you I have no interest at all in tennis–whoever’s serve it might be this afternoon.

  5. fifthmonarchyman: Two people with apposing viewpoints will often go to their grave with out ever agreeing.

    Does that really mean that it’s an open question and neither is right?

    peace

    If the dispute involves whether something is a this or a that, agreement on what are thises and what thats is kind of crucial. I mean everyone is free to go on without it, but the argument will just continue.

  6. dazz: Not true. It’s just that your camp has failed to produce jackshit in the way of knowledge in the many centuries of theological history.

    I’ve been thinking about this, because it seems to be disputed. I don’t like theology or philosophy, but I would deny that they have contributed nothing.

    Science as an organized activity is only a few hundred years old. Before that, people were looking around and thinking, there’s a lot of stuff. i wonder where stuff came from, why is some stuff different stuff, and what make it go?

    Arguing about these questions produced a lot of useful vocabulary and a system of logic to test the coherence of ideas.

    These are not trivial inventions. we would never have stumbled on science without them.

  7. phoodoo: You have ruled out, a priori, any success at estimating the existence of God. Because any success, you simply call ignorance of cause.

    Exactly, it’s really about presuppositions.

    If you begin by assuming that something doesn’t exist low and behold you will come to the conclusion that that thing does not exist .

    peace

  8. dazz:
    petrushka,

    Philosophy, sure. Theology, well, maybe it’s taught us what piss poor arguments look like.

    Why don’t just write : ” I don’t like it”? It’s the same thing…

  9. walto: I mean everyone is free to go on without it, but the argument will just continue.

    I think this is crucial.

    If you think you can just “go on with out it” then you won’t care too much whether or not the argument just continues.

    The point is that the choice is yours

    peace

  10. There is not test (s) that can verify Supernatural…
    Don’t you get it?! If there were such a test (s), what purpose would faith serve, involving both Darwinian and the rest of all religions?

  11. petrushka: I don’t like theology or philosophy, but I would deny that they have contributed nothing.

    Neil linked to a comment on a blog post by Daniel Kaufman, linking to an article he’s had published at Philosophy Now. He seems to be aware of the current problem with philosophy and the ability of philosophers to step outside the closed circle.

    It’s possible for philosophy to reclaim the social, cultural, and political position it enjoyed for most of history. The return of the popular essay as a central form of philosophical writing would allow philosophy to re-engage with the public conversation. Once again, philosophers might play the role of public provocateurs and critics, creators and commentators, speculators and synthesizers. Once again, philosophers might be opinion-makers and have the ears of parliaments and prime ministers, as well as of the educated citizen on the street. Once again, philosophers might help create, inform and sustain the contemporary zeitgeist. This would be a good thing, not just for philosophers, but for everyone.

  12. J-Mac:
    There is not test (s) that can verifySupernatural…
    Don’t you get it?! If there were such a test (s), what purpose would faith serve, involving both Darwinian and the rest ofall religions?

    What about the resurrection?

  13. BruceS: .Is the “…” bit in your mind or in God’s?

    I’d say ultimately his but mine in a derivative fashion.

    peace

  14. BruceS: I am an atheist regarding the everyday conceptions of a God that is personally involved in or caring about human affairs..

    Reasonable

  15. BruceS: Not sure why you think QM entities are not actual, unless you think actual is confined to everyday human experience.

    Interesting, Do you think the future is a QM entity?

    peace

  16. BruceS: I am an atheist regarding the everyday conceptions of a God that is personally involved in or caring about human affairs. .

    The idea of God is ok as long as he does not think he can poke his nose in your business. We certainly can’t have that

    Got it

  17. fifthmonarchyman: I think that deciding which of the infinite number of ways is the correct one is what makes us persons and persons “supernatural” (ie not reducible to physics).

    Do you think humans can analyze an infinite number of anything?

  18. newton: Do you think humans can analyze an infinite number of anything?

    No
    Who said anything about analyzing an infinite number of anything?

    The point is that we don’t have to calculate or analyze the digits of PI to know what PI is.

    peace

  19. fifthmonarchyman: If you begin by assuming that something doesn’t exist low and behold you will come to the conclusion that that thing does not exist .

    Works for spaghetti monsters, but I’m open to revisions with real evidence. Bad arguments aren’t going to do it.

  20. walto: You are very insistent on your right to serve the next set, but as I keep telling you I have no interest at all in tennis–whoever’s serve it might be this afternoon.

    Walto:

    I lost. I am not playing this anymore. You cheated. Its windy. The sun was too bright…..

  21. walto: Works for spaghetti monsters, but I’m open to revisions with real evidence.

    and what does it take for evidence to be considered real??

    Well it has to agree with your presuppositions of course.

    peace

  22. walto: Bad arguments aren’t going to do it.

    and what makes an argument bad?

    It’s bad if it conflicts with your presuppositions of course.

  23. phoodoo: See this is the problem that you and Rumraket seem to be avoiding.

    You have ruled out, a priori, any success at estimating the existence of God. Because any success, you simply call ignorance of cause.

    No, it’s the other way around. It is YOU who call ignorance success.

    We don’t know what causes X, or how it is caused, or if it even is. You take our ignorance of these facts to be evidence of the existence of God.

    We point out that your conclusion is based on a basic fallacy in logic, the argument from ignorance, and then you come here and start blathering that we have ruled God out a priori.

    We haven’t, we just refrain from making arguments from ignorance. That’s it.

    Thus, its a pointless claim that the materialist make, when they say, I would believe in a God if you would just show me evidence.

    Yes. And all you can offer us back is ignorance. Things we don’t know, or find perhaps counter-intuitive.

    Atoms have this weird behavior. Why? We dont’ know. We don’t know which of many conceivable explanations is the right one, and some times we don’t even know how to distinguish between them observationally.
    You then JUMP to the conclusion that oh well it’s God. How do you know? You don’t, that’s just the conclusion you jump to. What justifies that move? Nothing. It isn’t based on reason (as in, it doesn’t follow logically and isn’t even implied). You have no hypothesis that predicts the behavior.

    Then when you say, Ok, well, what would qualify as evidence, your reply is nothing, because I have already decided no evidence would suffice.

    No, we don’t say that “nothing” would qualify as evidence. Evidence is data which should be more likely to be obtained if a given hypothesis is true.

    But that now means you have to have some hypothesis that predicts the data. You don’t. This isn’t because we have ruled your hypothesis out, you simply don’t have one.

    Now, the problem is that these observations of the behavior of atoms have already happened, so you can no longer “predict” them. And it’s obviously completely ad-hoc to just say after the data has been observed that “God would do it that way”.

    You’re going to have to come up with a hypothesis of God that predicts yet-to-be observed phenomena. And no, ignorance isn’t evidence. When we don’t know, then we don’t know. That doesn’t make it rational to jump to the conclusion that God must have done it.

    What could not be believed if we allow ignorance to be an excuse for just making up an explanation? We don’t know, I guess super advanced alien species did it. We don’t know, well then obviously it’s Santa Clause. We don’t know, it must be the Illuminati. We don’t know, then obviously unicorns did it. We don’t know, it’s those fucking communists again!

    If you allow yourself to conclude something from ignorance, there’s nothing you couldn’t support that way. I’m going to say the behavior of atoms is evidence for the existence of an advanced alien civilization from another universe. They’re manipulating with our cosmos using incredibly sophisticated technology we don’t understand, and they have access to higher spatial and time dimensions.

    Can I prove this? Of course not, it’s ridiculous ad-hoc reasoning in the exact same way that God did it is. You say it’s God, I say it’s aliens from another universe. If all it takes is ignorance to justify jumping to a conclusion, then mine is as good as yours and anything goes.

  24. Rumraket,

    Stellar post, Rum, as usual.
    My (unscientific) prediction is that phoodoo will miss the mark once again and will continue to spout retarded screeds till hell freezes over

  25. walto: Works for spaghetti monsters, but I’m open to revisions with real evidence

    You were given real evidence, just like Rumraket was.

    But Rummy likes to play humpty dumpty as much as you like to take your ball and go home.

    So don’t ask for real evidence and then say no evidence is real evidence. Its rather hypocritical of you.

  26. fifthmonarchyman: and what does it take for evidence to be considered real??

    Well it has to agree with your presuppositions of course.

    peace

    Right. Schoolbuses–real; spaghetti monsters with British accents, not real. Call me cuckoo or presuppositiony!!

  27. fifthmonarchyman: and what makes an argument bad?

    In your case, they’re generally invalid due to equivocation. But other fallacies pop up too now and again. I guess my presuppositions require validity. Sorry.

  28. dazz:
    Rumraket,

    Stellar post, Rum, as usual.
    My (unscientific) prediction is that phoodoo will miss the mark once again and will continue to spout retarded screeds till hell freezes over

    Yes. He really knocks it out of park sometimes.

  29. phoodoo:
    walto,

    Don’t think I am not going to call your bluff again the next time you claim you want evidence.

    If you mean you’ll always think it’s it’s your serve, I don’t need to be reminded. Other than that, I have no idea what you’re talking about. So, I guess call my bluff now. What evidence?

  30. fifthmonarchyman: No
    Who said anything about analyzing an infinite number of anything?

    Well, you.

    “I think that deciding

    which of the infinite number of ways is the correct one

    If there is an infinite number, who is to say where in the set is the correct one?

    Or do you just prejudge which one is correct before any analyzing?

    The point is that we don’t have to calculate or analyze the digits of PI to know what PI is.

    For some people , but if you believe that anything that is not completely correct is wrong, no gradations, then can you know pi without a completely accurate value?

    peace

    newton: I think that deciding which of the infinite number of ways is the correct one is what makes us persons and persons “supernatural” (ie not reducible to physics).

  31. fifthmonarchyman: It’s not anti-AI due to the gaps.
    It’s an AI of the gaps argument that you are making.

    I am not making a gaps argument.

    That is because I only say AI is possible algorithmically based on what we know. Only that is is possible, not that it must happen.

    Whereas you are saying AI can never happen algorithmically. Not that is looks unlikely or remote, which would not be gaps arguments. But that is is impossible, which is a gaps argument.

    For me, there has to be a denial of all possibility, that is to necessary (of a Not) without reason, for it to be a gaps argument.

    If indeed there is a sound argument that intelligence requires an oracle, then that would be a necessity argument (or at least one for our universe as we now understand it). But you have not made an argument for that.

    Is it revealed knowledge to you and not the experts working in the area (many of whom I do not doubt are Christians)?

  32. fifthmonarchyman: I’d say ultimately his but mine in a derivative fashion.

    peace

    Why would it be impossible to teach a AI that the name for the ratio between a circle’s diameter and a circle’s circumference is ‘Pi’? That’s as far as almost every human goes.

    Is it because God would not reveal the transcendental* significance of the underlying concept to an AI? Presumably God could reveal it.

    Or do you think that AIs have to be able to invent new mathematical concepts. Almost no humans do that. So are only mathematicians using oracles?

    ————————–
    *Pun intended.

  33. BruceS,

    What about leapfrogging? Can we possibly make an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than humans that was capable of designing an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than itself and so on?

  34. fifthmonarchyman: I make choices but an AI does not. It merely follows it’s program which may or may not incorporate randomness.

    You are doing the same thing you did in the animal conversation you are assuming that similar observable outcomes imply similar mental processes are going on.

    Not true, you misunderstand. I am calling you out on the fact that you smuggle in consciousness as an implicit requirement for making choices. Yet for most people choosing is just selecting from a number of options. I am not convinced yet that being conscious of a decision is adding some magical extra to the decision making process itself that does not occur in animals and computers.

  35. Alan Fox:
    BruceS,

    What about leapfrogging? Can we possibly make an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than humans that was capable of designing an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than itself and so on?

    My (unscientific) prediction is that Alan will miss the mark once again and will continue to spout retarded screeds like this one till hell freezes over.

  36. Alan Fox:
    BruceS,

    What about leapfrogging? Can we possibly make an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than humans that was capable of designing an AI system that was a tiny bit more capable than itself and so on?

    That is definitely the scary possibility. Well scary for us.

    Hence the alarmists (?) who say we better get AI ethics right or we are screwed..
    Didn’t this topic come up before, maybe in a JM thread on self-replicating machines (which BTW von Neumann showed were possible 80 or so years ago).

    If you listen to podcasts, one of Sean C’s Mindscape series interviewed the author of Ethics for Robots: How to Design a Moral Algorithm. Philosophy in first half, with application to AI in second. Transcript at link too if you prefer to read.

    Episode 30: Derek Leben on Ethics for Robots and Artificial Intelligences

  37. phoodoo: My (unscientific) prediction is that Alan will miss the mark once again and will continue to spout retarded screeds like this one till hell freezes over.

    Have I upset you, phoodoo? It was unintentional, if so.

  38. BruceS,
    And there’s Terminator and Skynet!

    The argument that such speculation produces successful movie plots is hard to refute.

  39. dazz:
    Rumraket,

    Stellar post, Rum, as usual.
    My (unscientific) prediction is that phoodoo will miss the mark once again and will continue to spout retarded screeds till hell freezes over

    Have I upset you?

    If so, it was intentional.

  40. Corneel: I am calling you out on the fact that you smuggle in consciousness as an implicit requirement for making choices.

    It’s not implicit it’s explicit. The ability to make choices is what makes you conscious. You can’t make choices when you are asleep. Dead men and machines don’t make choices.

    Corneel: Yet for most people choosing is just selecting from a number of options.

    You don’t select when you are asleep. Dead men and machines don’t select.

    All machines do is follow their program. When they come to a fork in the road they continue down the path that they were programed to go down. Perhaps their path is determined by a random number generator but there is no selecting or choosing going on.

    Corneel: I am not convinced yet that being conscious of a decision is adding some magical extra to the decision making process itself that does not occur in animals and computers.

    There is nothing magical about any of this.

    Persons are not reducible to physics but computers are it’s that simple. Make an exact physical replica of an iPhone and what you have is an iPhone unlike Kirk they are interchangeable they behave identically. Before you take ownership of your iPhone one is just as good as another.

    Animals are a more difficult subject where you fall on that one depends on what you believe about the nature of consciousness.

    If you think that what animals do is the same as what computers do fine I would agree.

    But what persons do is different. That is unless persons are just machines

    peace

  41. BruceS: Why would it be impossible to teach a AI that the name for the ratio between a circle’s diameter and a circle’s circumference is ‘Pi’?

    You don’t teach an AI you program it.

    BruceS: Is it because God would not reveal the transcendental* significance of the underlying concept to an AI?

    Nope it’s that an AI being a machine is incapable of “understanding” that or anything else whatsoever.

    peace

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