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. Kantian Naturalist,

    KN

    Thanks for this. I should probably take more time to absorb before responding but I will just come back about “Error”. If what you say about Royce is correct – “sometimes we have false beliefs” – then fine. Although I’d maintain that truth/falsity isn’t, in my view, a helpful way of grasping how natural language describes reality. I think there’s much more of improving the accuracy of our descriptions than being right or wrong.

    Regarding the correspondence theory of truth, if Wikipedia is accurate (heh) in saying “the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined solely by how it relates to a reality; that is, by whether it accurately describes that reality.”, I think that is more or less what I am saying.

    You add:

    This is the line of reasoning that led Rorty to abandon “truth” as a requirement for knowledge and accordingly replace objectivity with solidarity as a standard of epistemic progress.

    Pragmatism rules!

  2. I would favor an operational approach to correctness, and abandon the word truth, except when used informally, or when used in mathematical or logical statements.

    Outside formal verbal systems, things work or don’t work, to varying degrees.

  3. petrushka: I would favor an operational approach to correctness, and abandon the word truth, except when used informally, or when used in mathematical or logical statements.

    I’m trying to have an argument here! 🙂

    I meant to say that the problem is with “Truth” and “Error” as something that exist outside language, something more than abstract constructs.

  4. I think the philosophically correct view is pretty much Sellars’s: we should talk about truth and falsity as relative to a conceptual scheme (e.g. in Euclidean geometry it is true that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees) and talk about conceptual schemes as mapping the world with varying degrees of adequacy.

  5. Alan Fox: Regarding the correspondence theory of truth, if Wikipedia is accurate (heh) in saying “the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined solely by how it relates to a reality; that is, by whether it accurately describes that reality.”, I think that is more or less what I am saying.

    You [i.e.KN] add:

    This is the line of reasoning that led Rorty to abandon “truth” as a requirement for knowledge and accordingly replace objectivity with solidarity as a standard of epistemic progress.

    [Back to Alan “the masked combiner” Fox]: Pragmatism rules!

    A correspondence theory without objectivity! Only a superhero could have done that!

  6. walto: A correspondence theory without objectivity! Only a superhero could have done that!

    Objectivity is one point of view! 🙂

  7. Kantian Naturalist:
    I think the philosophically correct view is pretty much Sellars’s: we should talk about truth and falsity as relative to a conceptual scheme (e.g. in Euclidean geometry it is true that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees) and talk about conceptual schemes as mapping the world with varying degrees of adequacy.

    The concept of truth makes sense in formal systems, but the world is not mappable to a formal system. Yet.

    Statements like physical laws are correct to varying degrees, just as maps are correct in varying degrees.

    Perhaps off topic, but TomTom talks about applying hundreds of corrections and updates per second to its map database, continuously.

  8. Corneel: Walto’s dog is supernatural because walto owns him?!?!?

    Walto is supernatural and his dog is associated with him. Walto’s dog is part of Walto’s sphere of influence.

    In this thought experiment what separates one pile of atoms from another identical one is exactly this association with Walto. The second pile of atoms might share all of the physical attributes with the first but it’s not Walto’s dog. It can’t be. The thing that is not reducible to physics is not the pile of atoms but the relationship to Walto.

    On the other hand imagine a universe with no persons whatsoever in such a place all differentiation would be impossible.

    peace

  9. Mung: You continuously disagree with him, as if he is in error, while denying that he can be in error or that what you say can be true.

    bingo

    peace

  10. walto: Reid was a really great philosopher. FMM and I agree on that!

    I know that I annoy you but you really are my favorite. In a better world Reid would be much more popular and known.

    peace

  11. walto: It’s a purely religious view at this point, it seems to me. Utterly implausible.

    I think that the idea of humans created uniquely in the image of God is at it’s heart a religious concept. It’s about the special relationship between God and humanity not about anything physically unique in us.

    I don’t think that nonhuman creatures are machines instead I think that they don’t have the same relationship to God that human beings do.

    peace

  12. petrushka: The concept of truth makes sense in formal systems, but the world is not mappable to a formal system. Yet.

    Statements like physical laws are correct to varying degrees, just as maps are correct in varying degrees.

    Fair enough — but the distinction I was urging was one between

    (1) truth and falsity as properties (if you will) of assertions relative to the conceptual system that gives those assertions their sense — so that we can say “In Ptolemaic astronomy, it is true that the sun and planets orbit the earth” just as we can say “In Euclidean geometry, it is true that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees”.

    and

    (2) the degrees of adequacy of a conceptual scheme as mapped onto to the features of the world, so that we can also say “the Keplerian model of the solar system is more adequate than the Copernican model, which in turn was more adequate than the Ptolemaic model”

    This is not to say that the distinction doesn’t have problems of its own (some of which I am trying to solve in my own research) and better philosophers than I have decided that the distinction cannot be salvaged (Rorty, for example). But it seems like a highly promising step, because it allows us to retain the bivalent concept of truth (a sentence must be either true or false) while recognizing that any conceptual scheme which is not purely formal has its own degrees of adequacy to the world in which it is used.

  13. walto: . Not too many people agree with Descartes about all non-human animals being machines anymore. It’s a purely religious view at this point, it seems to me.

    I wouldn’t agree with that criticism expressed quite that way. What’s religious in Descartes’s metaphysics isn’t that animals are machines, but that human beings aren’t. His confidence that animals are machines may stem from an excessive optimism about how far mechanistic physics could be taken, but then he draws the line at us because he recognizes that a mechanistic understanding of human beings would eliminate free will and make trouble for rationality. It fell to Spinoza and La Mettrie to take that step which Descartes refused to take.

  14. newton: And which can tell an identical copy is not the same person?

    I’d say both can given an appropriate amount of familiarity .

    That is actually an important implication of my method in that other thread.

    peace

  15. Kantian Naturalist: he draws the line at us because he recognizes that a mechanistic understanding of human beings would eliminate free will and make trouble for rationality.

    I think he had the same common sense impressions that we all have when it comes to humans. We all draw that line one way or another either explicitly or unconsciously.

    peace

  16. fifthmonarchyman: I’d say both can given an appropriate amount of familiarity .

    So the more knowledge . the better model of that person.

    That is actually an important implication of my method in that other thread.

    More knowledge is beneficial in most methodology.

    peace

  17. Kantian Naturalist:
    I think the philosophically correct view is pretty much Sellars’s: we should talk about truth and falsity as relative to a conceptual scheme (e.g. in Euclidean geometry it is true that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees) and talk about conceptual schemes as mapping the world with varying degrees of adequacy.

    So consistent conceptual scheme PLUS successful action under that scheme EQUALS truth (at least in the long run).

    Bingo! The philosophical issue of Truth solved. Next!

  18. Alan Fox:
    Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.
    Wittgenstein

    Is Walto paying you for straightman services?

    Regarding the correspondence theory of truth,

    Should be “the Correspondence theory of truth”.
    You’ve got to focus on the capital ‘C’.

    The philosophical theory says there are
    1. Statements which somehow represent how the world is
    2. Facts (or Truthmakers) which are states which obtain in the world.
    3. A common metaphysical relationship of Correspondence between Facts and Statements whereby which all true Statements Correspond to Facts.

    But what can the common Correspondence relationship be? What are these Facts which somehow exist independently from Statements? And how can we hold both up somehow to compare and determine if they bear this common Relationship of Correspondence?

  19. Today we are going to discuss whether walto’s dog is supernatural.

    fifthmonarchyman: Walto is supernatural and his dog is associated with him. Walto’s dog is part of Walto’s sphere of influence.

    In this thought experiment what separates one pile of atoms from another identical one is exactly this association with Walto. The second pile of atoms might share all of the physical attributes with the first but it’s not Walto’s dog. It can’t be. The thing that is not reducible to physics is not the pile of atoms but the relationship to Walto.

    Relationships are two-way streets, and it seems to me that walto’s dog, like walto, needs to have emotions (affection in this case) to make it work. Is affection reducible to physics? Is only affection for and by human subjects non-reducible to physics?

  20. Corneel: Is affection reducible to physics?

    I don’t know. I suppose the affection could be purely instinctive and in that case there is no reason to think it is not reducible to physics.

    Corneel: Is only affection for and by human subjects non-reducible to physics?

    I would say that any affection that is the result of personal choice is not reducible to physics.

    peace

  21. DNA_Jock: Today we are going to discuss whether Walto’s slippers are supernatural.

    Walto’s slippers are not supernatural.

    Walto is and his slippers are his.

    That is the exact same logic that worked with walto’s physical body in the original thought experiment.

    Walto’s body is not supernatural but he is and his body is his.

    peace

  22. You can carry the logic out if you choose

    Walto’s gives his dog special slippers to chew on.

    Walto’s dog’s special slippers are not supernatural but Walto who assigned them to his dog is.

    Therefore a second pile of atoms can not also be walto’s dog’s special slippers even if they are physically identical.

    The common denominator at the necessary center of all of these hypotheticals is the person Walto.

    That is why Walto is not reducible to physics.

    peace

  23. BruceS: So consistent conceptual scheme PLUS successful actionunder that schemeEQUALS truth (at least in the long run).

    Bingo! The philosophical issue of Truth solved.Next!

    Ha ha!

    I know you’re being sarcastic, but that is actually my view (well, mostly). I’m enough of a pragmatist to say “well, what else would you need ‘truth’ to be besides that?” and then urge that pretty much anything else that philosophers would want is beyond the scope of finite, embodied minds.

    (You will see at once that my project here, which I advertised as “Sellars contra Nietzsche”, is precisely that of showing how truth is not ‘dead’ even though God is — and also a “KN contra Rorty” since it was Rorty’s view that the death of God entails the death of truth, in his own “Nietzsche contra Sellars”.)

  24. Kantian Naturalist: Ha ha!

    I know you’re being sarcastic, but that is actually my view (well, mostly). I’m enough of a pragmatist to say “well, what else would you need ‘truth’ to be besides that?” and then urge that pretty much anything else that philosophers would want is beyond the scope of finite, embodied minds.

    My post was poorly phrased. I was not intentionally being being sarcastic at all — your view makes sense to me too. Only the “Next!” bit of my post was meant to be humorous in the sense that of course it is not that easy.

    I arrived at my view through less sophisticated route than I suspect you did. I got it from Blackburn’s 2018 (NB date) popularization On Truth

    I did omit the fact that Blackburn addresses the metaphysics of truth by taking a deflationary view of it.

  25. BruceS: I did omit the fact that Blackburn addresses the metaphysics of truth by taking a deflationary view of it.

    There is something really important about the deflationary approach, too. It focuses our attention on the semantics and pragmatics of truth: what does “is true” mean and how is “is true” used? I find a lot of value in these approaches, especially in the “prosentential” approach — according to this strategy, “truth” is a device used to refer back to sentences previously asserted. (E.g. Mark: “it’s raining outside.” Rebecca: “yes, that’s true”.)

    The tricky part is that deflationary approaches generally — prosentential, etc. — really only tell us about how to make sense of truth and falsity relative to conceptual schemes, or what Sellars would have called “semantic assertability”. And that’s something worth knowing. But there’s also the further question of what we can say about how conceptual frameworks are related to the world. Maybe we can’t say anything at all. (This was Carnap’s view, and in a different sense, also Putnam’s.) Sellars thinks we can follow Peirce in making sense of the idea of conceptual frameworks as approximating the world in successive degrees.

  26. fifthmonarchyman: Walto is supernatural and his dog is associated with him. Walto’s dog is part of Walto’s sphere of influence.

    Beware. My sphere of influence rivals that of Britain’s in Victorian times.

    Sadly, however, my sphere of ignorance is even larger.

  27. Kantian Naturalist: I wouldn’t agree with that criticism expressed quite that way. What’s religious in Descartes’s metaphysics isn’t that animals are machines, but that human beings aren’t. His confidence that animals are machines may stem from an excessive optimism about how far mechanistic physics could be taken, but then he draws the line at us because he recognizes that a mechanistic understanding of human beings would eliminate free will and make trouble for rationality. It fell to Spinoza and La Mettrie to take that step which Descartes refused to take.

    Yes, that puts it better. I didn’t mean to suggest that the belief that all non-human animals are machines is religious–except to the extent that they have to be contrasted with us extra-special folk.

  28. walto: My sphere of influence rivals that of Britain’s in Victorian times.

    Indeed it extends to the very edge of the universe and beyond.

    walto: however, my sphere of ignorance is even larger.

    quote:

    as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. … But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

    end quote:

    Donald Rumsfeld

    😉

    peace

  29. newton: And which can tell an identical copy is not the same person?

    I couldn’t tell if an exact replica of my wife appeared this morning any better than my cat could. I don’t think you can get that people are special from those Reid and Parfit examples. I don’t think an exact replica of my brain would be me–but I that belief is not what makes it not me. My cat (and my old dog) have (and would have had) fewer beliefs about this matter, but that’s neither here nor there.

  30. fifthmonarchyman: I don’t think that nonhuman creatures are machines instead I think that they don’t have the same relationship to God that human beings do.

    If there is a God that’s true. They don’t pray much–except for food or to go out. But as there is no God, they each have at least one fewer false belief than you do.

  31. Kantian Naturalist: we can say about how conceptual frameworks are related to the world. Maybe we can’t say anything at all. (This was Carnap’s view, and in a different sense, also Putnam’s.)Sellars thinks we can follow Peirce in making sense of the idea of conceptual frameworks as approximating the world in successive degrees.

    Thanks, very helpful. I wondered where Putnam fit in — I have seen but not closely studied a paper or two of his on the issue.

    I can contribute this link for any dilettantes like me. (Hat tip to Sophisticat — remember him from TSZ?– he/she still posts at PF where I follow him. )

    It’s a quick critique of the argument that we cannot know anything about the world as-it-is because we have to rely on conceptual schemes we create. I found it helpful although of course it is nothing deep. It’s in the Sellars tradition (calling out IBE for the process of approximation).

    Stove’s Discovery of the Worst Argument in the World

  32. DNA_Jock:
    Corneel,

    Naah.
    Today we are going to discuss whether Walto’s slippers are supernatural.

    And maybe whether they remain within my sphere of influence when I can’t find them? Thanks in advance.

  33. walto: I couldn’t tell if an exact replica of my wife appeared this morning any better than my cat could.

    If it was me that was duplicated, I could pick out the duplicate Of course, my duplicate would differ on that, but he would be wrong.

  34. walto: I couldn’t tell if an exact replica of my wife appeared this morning any better than my cat could.

    It’s my contention is that when it comes to persons there a difference between an exact replica and an exact physical replica.

    The latter is possible while the former is not. that is because there is more to your wife than physics

    That is the point of the thought experiment

    peace

  35. BruceS: Kantian Naturalist:
    I think the philosophically correct view is pretty much Sellars’s: we should talk about truth and falsity as relative to a conceptual scheme (e.g. in Euclidean geometry it is true that the interior angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees) and talk about conceptual schemes as mapping the world with varying degrees of adequacy.

    Bruce: So consistent conceptual scheme PLUS successful action under that scheme EQUALS truth (at least in the long run).

    Bingo! The philosophical issue of Truth solved.

    I think that’s only half-right myself. You have to add that (capital C) Correspondence theory biz you put above. The problem with the half-version is that it confuses what we can know or understand (or as KN put it,”talk about” with what is actually true.) It’s TRUE that we can’t step out of our conceptual schemes and look at the world from any God’s eye perch. But that’s it.

    IOW, you have to add early Witt to late Witt get the whole story.

  36. fifthmonarchyman: It’s my contention is that when it comes to persons there a difference between an exact replica and an exact physical replica.

    Well pick any choice of replica you want, and the same is true of my cat. It doesn’t matter what I or he believes about the matter.

  37. walto: But as there is no God, they each have at least one fewer false belief than you do.

    As God is the grounds for all existence if there were no God neither me nor my dog nor anything at all could exist.

    That includes especially things like rational thought.

    peace

    peace

  38. BruceS: walto: I couldn’t tell if an exact replica of my wife appeared this morning any better than my cat could.

    If it was me that was duplicated, I could pick out the duplicate Of course, my duplicate would differ on that, but he would be wrong.

    You’d all believe that you were continuing. Assume one is correct. If you knew that there were a bunch of duplicates you’d have reason to doubt you were the correct one, just like all the others would. Your intuitions about the matter wouldn’t guarantee a thing.

  39. fifthmonarchyman: As God is the grounds for all existence if there were no God neither me nor my dog nor anything at all could exist.

    That includes especially things like rational thought.

    And, in this case, begging the question.

  40. walto: Well pick any choice of replica you want, and the same is true of my cat.

    My dog is repeatedly fooled by recorded barking on the TV. I expect he would be fooled by an exact physical replica of me.

    I don’t think I would be forever fooled by a physical replica of my wife but I can’t say for sure till I have a working transporter.

    😉

    The cool thing is that my hypothesis is in theory testable and thus supernatural science is possible

    peace

  41. walto: And, in this case, begging the question.

    If God did not exist you could not know what begging the question was.

    IOW

    Since I can beg the question God necessarily exists

    peace

  42. walto: You’d all believe that you were continuing. Assume one is correct.

    You don’t have to assume one would be correct.

    The fact that one is correct is the reason why the thought experiment works

    walto: Your intuitions about the matter wouldn’t guarantee a thing.

    The force of the experiment is not based on intuitions.

    It’s based on the fact that the duplicate walto is not the original walto.

    peace

  43. walto: It’s TRUE that we can’t step out of our conceptual schemes and look at the world from any God’s eye perch. But that’s it.

    We can’t do that on our own of course.

    But God being God can reveal the world to us from that perch if he so chooses.

    peace

  44. BruceS: So consistent conceptual scheme PLUS successful action under that scheme EQUALS truth (at least in the long run).

    I think you also need that this conceptual scheme be adopted by social convention (probably a matter of unstated informal convention).

  45. fifthmonarchyman: I don’t know. I suppose the affection could be purely instinctive and in that case there is no reason to think it is not reducible to physics.

    This statement felt a little familiar, and surely we have discussed this before (thanks google).

    I’m going to say that only those beings that are created in the image of God are conscious.

    In order to have your position crystal clear: You believe that a dog can feel affection and love, but that dogs are not conscious. Do I understand that correctly?

    fifthmonarchyman: I would say that any affection that is the result of personal choice is not reducible to physics.

    Ah, choice instead of randomness and determinism. It seems like several of your talking points are converging in this statement.

    I am going to disagree: First, I believe that many animals are perfectly capable of choosing. Second, I don’t think humans choose the objects of their affection in a different way than social animals do. Hence, your statement above does not make a useful distinction between humans and animals.

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