Why is the Supernatural Impossible?

[billydkid]

Hypothetically, lets say someone writes a biography about the life of Yahweh - lets say some of the details included lots of unusual events (bending spoons with my mind, communicating with spirits, healing lepers with my magic touch, etc.).

Most skeptics are going to be disinclined to believe the supernatural details of my life really happened.

There is a good chance that there are natural explanations for the extraoridinary claims in my life, but ultimately the reason I find that the superatural events are so unbelievable to others is because those types of events are impossible.

What is it that makes the supernatural so impossible?

Thoughts?

"Supernatural" is a nonsense term. I have been saying this for a long time in here, in my inarticulate way, and was relieved to discover that the Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman had expressed this same idea and in a much clearer and more effective way than I can. If I can find his arguments googling I will post a link to them. But the gist of it is this - if you consider that the laws of nature are descriptions of reality and predictive of the behavior of nature - if something happens that does not fit with those laws it simply means that we have not adequately comprehended the laws of nature. It is meaningless to use the term "supernatural".

 

[Carn]

What is it that makes the supernatural so impossible?

Energy conservation, momentum conservation, laws of thermodynamic, direction of time arrow,....

Carn

 

[Explorer]

Er... no... that would be "sensory perception". So far as I know no scientists think there's anything paranormal about this.

And, let's be pedantic... "extra-sensory perception" really would be a contradiction in terms.

Robert Todd's definition (from his Skeptic's Dictionary) of the term "paranormal":

"An event or perception is said to be paranormal if it involves forces or agencies that are beyond scientific explanation"

I am happy with that definition.

ESP - "It is sensory information that an individual receives which comes beyond the ordinary five senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch."

I too, am happy with that definition in relation to the animals and the tsunami issue.

I am also comfortable about linking the two defintions together to justify the point of my last posting.

Yes, Doctor, I agree with you. You are being pedantic, but to no good end, IMHO.

 

[RamblingOnwards]

And how do you know that no species has strong paranormal powers? Have you tested them all? Maybe giraffes are mutually telepathic. How would you know?

*laughs*I've been constructing hypothetical tests to show whether giraffes were telepathic, or whether deep-sea squids could astral project (I can figure out how to do the first, the second has me stumped at the moment).

But we can say things like:
- no species of large animal routinely teleports.
- no species we have studied routinely hunts by remote viewing.
- humans do not routinely communicate by telepathy.
- ants do not typically levitate objects.
etc.

It's like the 'if x power really existed, what would be different in our society?' game. (Gambling would be completely different, skeptics would be paid to keep their anti-psi effect over important industrial secrets, privacy laws would have a special provision for mind-readers, and so on)

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

billydkid said:
"Supernatural" is a nonsense term. I have been saying this for a long time in here, in my inarticulate way, and was relieved to discover that the Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman had expressed this same idea and in a much clearer and more effective way than I can. If I can find his arguments googling I will post a link to them. But the gist of it is this - if you consider that the laws of nature are descriptions of reality and predictive of the behavior of nature - if something happens that does not fit with those laws it simply means that we have not adequately comprehended the laws of nature. It is meaningless to use the term "supernatural".

That is all very well and good. However, if someone insists that his favorite paranormal thing is outside of the laws of nature, then it is reasonable to call that thing supernatural and its affects on the physical world magical. The obvious example is god.

What's good about using the term in this situation is that the person usually doesn't want his thing to be supernatural or magical. Thus much squirming arises, to the amusement of all.

~~ Paul

 

[Explorer]

"That is all very well and good. However, if someone insists that his favorite paranormal thing is outside of the laws of nature, then it is reasonable to call that thing supernatural and its affects on the physical world magical. The obvious example is god.

What's good about using the term in this situation is that the person usually doesn't want his thing to be supernatural or magical. Thus much squirming arises, to the amusement of all.

~~ Paul"

I think that Robert Todd's definition of the "paranormal" could apply equally to the term "supernatural"

i.e.

"An event or perception is said to be paranormal if it involves forces or agencies that are beyond scientific explanation"

Even God may one day be the subject of scientific explanation.

Surely, today's magic is tomorrow's science!

 

[Moose]

Even God may one day be the subject of scientific explanation.

Surely, today's magic is tomorrow's science!

Sure. One simply needs to provide testable, repeatable evidence of such "magic" to become the subject of scientific explanation. [Edited to correct a word.]

As well as becomming a million dollars richer.

 

[Traveller]

Even God may one day be the subject of scientific explanation.

I hope you wrote that with tongue in cheek; God (if He exists, about which I do not hold a view) would be external to the universe and hence not capable of being explained by the laws that pertain inside it.

I think it is the term paranormal which is meaningless. Simply being beyond scientific explanation will not do; that simply says more about the limits of our scientific knowledge than about the subject being studied. However supernatural would be a good word to describe the intervention of God.

 

[Luke T.]

Hypothetically, lets say someone writes a biography about the life of Yahweh - lets say some of the details included lots of unusual events (bending spoons with my mind, communicating with spirits, healing lepers with my magic touch, etc.).

Most skeptics are going to be disinclined to believe the supernatural details of my life really happened.

There is a good chance that there are natural explanations for the extraoridinary claims in my life, but ultimately the reason I find that the superatural events are so unbelievable to others is because those types of events are impossible.

What is it that makes the supernatural so impossible?

Thoughts?

If you wrote in your autobiography that you had sex with Kim Bassinger and Demi Moore during a drunken weekend in the Australian outback, I would believe you had bent spoons with your mind first.

Even though it wouldn't be impossible...

 

[voidx]

ESP - "It is sensory information that an individual receives which comes beyond the ordinary five senses sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch."

Ok, here's the part that has always bothered me. ESP is a sixth sense so to speak. However, when looking at mediums or any other form of ESP how does ESP manifest itself within any given subject? Yup, as some form of the other 5 normal senses. Mediums talk all the time of hearing, or visualizing the information they get, yet you never hear much mention of tasting or smelling or touching from them which is a little odd. I think a good reason for this is because we only have 5 sensory inputs, and as such cannot in our minds envision how an additional sense would work. So mediums relate the information they receive in the 5 senses we know we have, simply because those are the only proven paths.

How do we sense ESP? How does it work logically as a sensory input? Is it what we consider our "mental" sense? If so then there's a whole body of work showing that "mental" processes seem very much to simply be brain processes. So then we must hypothesize how this "mental" information is received by us, how it is transmitted, by what media it is transmitted. And all of this likely being outside of scientific knowledge and understanding ... so where does that put us really?

If we truly had a sixth sense, we'd have some sort of language or process by which to communicate the experience of it alone to each other. Yet it seems we have difficulty doing this, and can only relate it in terms of our 5 proven senses. Some people might go based on the idea of how they "feel" or what they are "thinking" but again if you drill deep enough into these they reveal themselves to be described by our 5 normal senses, or could be shown to very likely be brain processes.

To me, whatever your definition of supernatural, it seems impossible because it has no logical and consistent framework with which to desribe itself in our experience. And so we're left grasping at straws.

 

[Rolfe]

C. S. Lewis covered this in his book Miracles. In his view, if the natural universe we inhabit is all there is, there can be no such thing as "supernatural". However, if there are universes or modes of being or whatever different from the natural universe we inhabit, then to our universe these are "supernatural", and each would be supernatural to the other if there were several. I believe he included parallel universes in this.

If there is never any communication between the "supernatural" and our own universe, then in a way it's as if it doesn't exist, and still nothing "supernatural" can occur in our universe. Only if such non-natural (to us) universes exist and communication is possible, is a supernatural event possible.

So, to deny the possibility of the supernatural, you have to know for sure that there is no universe or mode of being other than the natural universe we inhabit, or that no communication is possible with such a universe or mode of being.

If you can prove these things, then you can declare the supernatural impossible. If you can't, you can only have an opinion, based on the plausibility (or otherwise) of the accounts of alleged supernatural events that are available to you.

Rolfe.

 

[Carn]

Even God may one day be the subject of scientific explanation.

Not without his help and he does not seem to like that science stuff.
And it is impossible, that god exists even with his help and full cooperation.
You could only prove, that that being described in the bible and various other books, which introduced itself as god to various prophets, exists, but how do you prove that this being is realy god?

Surely, today's magic is tomorrow's science!

Modify that that:

Surely most of today's magic is today's and tomorrow's nonesense.
A very small minor part of today's magic might become tomorrow's science.

You know, often big scientific changes are caused by small groups, who are ridiculed as fools by the majority.

But it is a blatant mistake to turn it around:
"Often people ridiculed as fools by the majority, will bring a big change to science." is completely wrong, most people ridiculed as fools are nothing but that.

Carn

 

[Explorer]

Not without his help and he does not seem to like that science stuff.
And it is impossible, that god exists even with his help and full cooperation.
You could only prove, that that being described in the bible and various other books, which introduced itself as god to various prophets, exists, but how do you prove that this being is realy god?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was referring to "God" the creator of the universe. How individuals or groups wish to describe their own particular God, is a matter for them
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Modify that that:

Surely most of today's magic is today's and tomorrow's nonesense.
A very small minor part of today's magic might become tomorrow's science.

You know, often big scientific changes are caused by small groups, who are ridiculed as fools by the majority.

But it is a blatant mistake to turn it around:
"Often people ridiculed as fools by the majority, will bring a big change to science." is completely wrong, most people ridiculed as fools are nothing but that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was speaking in the general sense, and in the spirit of Arthur C Clarke(or was it Asimov?), who said words to the effect that the technology of tomorrow, can seem today to appear as magic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carn

 

[Explorer]

voidx said:

"I think a good reason for this is because we only have 5 sensory inputs, and as such cannot in our minds envision how an additional sense would work. "

Perhaps the sixth, or even the seventh, eighth and/or ninth sense, works at the quantum physical level directly to the brain. Who knows? I cannot prove it or demonstate that in any way, but intelligent speculation and hypothesising of how it may work serves to construct frameworks for future scientific research. That is how progress is made.

 

[Carn]

Not without his help and he does not seem to like that science stuff.
And it is impossible, that god exists even with his help and full cooperation.
You could only prove, that that being described in the bible and various other books, which introduced itself as god to various prophets, exists, but how do you prove that this being is realy god?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was referring to "God" the creator of the universe. How individuals or groups wish to describe their own particular God, is a matter for them
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course the existance of a being, that created the universe, might be possible to prove, depending on whether this being exists and whether we can measure its existance somehow.
If you call that being "god" ok, but i thought more about "god" as almighty and the ultimate begining, such "god" cannot be proven nor disproven.

Modify that that:

Surely most of today's magic is today's and tomorrow's nonesense.
A very small minor part of today's magic might become tomorrow's science.

You know, often big scientific changes are caused by small groups, who are ridiculed as fools by the majority.

But it is a blatant mistake to turn it around:
"Often people ridiculed as fools by the majority, will bring a big change to science." is completely wrong, most people ridiculed as fools are nothing but that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was speaking in the general sense, and in the spirit of Arthur C Clarke(or was it Asimov?), who said words to the effect that the technology of tomorrow, can seem today to appear as magic.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And with that Clarke/Asimov quote it is the same:
Tomorrow science could look today as magic.
Turning it around "What looks today as magic could be tomorrow's science" is a statement i have no problem it, but if it is shortend to far "today's magic is tomorrow's science" you get a differant meaning:
"today's magic will be tomorrow's science" and that is nonesense.

When did you see the last witch flying on a brush?
Or when did the gold prize drop due to philosopher's stone being found?
That was 14th-17th century magic, but it has not become today's science, it is still nonesense, witches cannot fly using only brushes.
Carn

 

[Carn]

I cannot prove it or demonstate that in any way, but intelligent speculation and hypothesising of how it may work serves to construct frameworks for future scientific research. That is how progress is made.

Do not forget using the speculation and hypothesis to conduct what difference such would make upon reality and make experiments to look for the differences.

And do accept, that QM does not support all speculations. A sixth sense purely working at a quantum physical level is nonsense, since biological systems are simply not precise enough to measure the difference QM makes.(Guess why QM is so counterintutive? Simply because live never had the past 5 billion years any need to deal with it, it is unimportant for survival)

Carn

 

[Yahweh]

C. S. Lewis covered this in his book Miracles. In his view, if the natural universe we inhabit is all there is, there can be no such thing as "supernatural". However, if there are universes or modes of being or whatever different from the natural universe we inhabit, then to our universe these are "supernatural", and each would be supernatural to the other if there were several. I believe he included parallel universes in this.

If there is never any communication between the "supernatural" and our own universe, then in a way it's as if it doesn't exist, and still nothing "supernatural" can occur in our universe. Only if such non-natural (to us) universes exist and communication is possible, is a supernatural event possible.

So, to deny the possibility of the supernatural, you have to know for sure that there is no universe or mode of being other than the natural universe we inhabit, or that no communication is possible with such a universe or mode of being.

If you can prove these things, then you can declare the supernatural impossible. If you can't, you can only have an opinion, based on the plausibility (or otherwise) of the accounts of alleged supernatural events that are available to you.

Lewis's argument doesnt make any sense to me. He's defined "Natural" to essentially mean "the totality of all things that exist and occur in the universe". Therefore, its impossible for communication with the supernatural and our universe, because that communication is event falls under the definition of "the totality of all things that exist and occur in the universe" - logically there was nothing supernatural to communicate with in the first place. Either the argument has gone full circle, or it is reduced to absurdity.

For demonstration purposes only, I'll use the following example featuring the same kind of logic:
* I call anything I've seen by the name of borbs
* Anything I cant see is a non-borb
* The only way to know of the existence of non-borbs is to see them.

Something does not compute, this is true for the argument I presented and Lewis's argument. Either the distinction between natural and supernatural things should be redefined as "possible" and "impossible" things, or the distinction between natural and supernatural things breaks down at the point of defining them (I dont like that idea, it just doesnt seem that astonomy is not distinguished from astrology in some way or another).

At the moment, because I cant think of an acceptable definition for "supernatural" (and I dont want to bring this thread to its knees in a semantics argument), the first solution sounds more reasonable, so I offer this example:

I have a standard 6-sided die, I roll the die and it lands a 7 (this event can reasonably be called "supernatural" by our intuitive understanding). To me, it doesnt make any sense to say rolling the 7 is incredibly unlikely, its simply that rolling the 7 is impossible.

Carn's answer comes closest to providing the justification for why the above scenario is impossible:

Energy conservation, momentum conservation, laws of thermodynamic, direction of time arrow,....

In other words, that such an action would be contrary to the laws of nature that govern the actions of the universe.

But, that answer relies specifically upon accepting a few axioms - not to say that such axioms are unreasonable, but I think it should be asked "why is it impossible for things to behave in ways contrary to the laws of nature". There is a way to answer that question without repeating myself "why is that impossible" ad infinitum, but I havent found the words to express that answer as of yet.

 

[Carn]

In other words, that such an action would be contrary to the laws of nature that govern the actions of the universe.

But, that answer relies specifically upon accepting a few axioms - not to say that such axioms are unreasonable, but I think it should be asked "why is it impossible for things to behave in ways contrary to the laws of nature?".

Impossible per defintion for something to behave against the true laws of nature. Whatever goes on out there or in there or wherever it will be at least governed by the rule "everything is possible", "everything god/whoever allows do happen", "everything is possible, but only in a universe with the correct rules, which exists, as they are infinite universes" or ...
Obviously nothing contrary can exists.

Science now tries to understand these rules. It has so far found a few rules, that do not seem to change in any slight way and hold for various or even all cicumstances.
This supports the assumption, that these rules science found are realy the or at least a close approximation of the true laws of nature, that are relevant for this universe.
The conclusion is then, that anything breaking these known laws by far is also in violaion with the true laws of nature(as we approximated them well) and therefore cannot exist.

Also therefore identifiing something as paranormal can be diffcult, if it is solely in an area, where science has little or no reliable rules.
E.g. a claim, that a black hole actually allows to travel to different universes, where telepathy is possible, is not paranormal, science has no good theory that describes, what happens inside a black hole.
But claiming to be able to demonstrate this, is a paranormal claim, as for demonstrating, you either have to be beam there(obviously paranormal) or using a above light speed ship, which also somehow protects against the tidal forces(translation correct?) and all the heated gas around a black hole. This is paranormal, as the rules found by sciences do set a absolute speed limit and a limit upon what a ship hull material can protect against(not gravitation) and a limit how much tidal forces a human body can withstand.

But it of course all rest upon the assumption that we approximated the true laws rather well with our laws.
I think it is an acceptable assumption, as millions of repeatable, precisely described experiments, observational science and countless anectodal evidence from normal life confirm it.
Against it there are only a few anectodal evidence and most of them from areas, where science simply does not have reliable rules so far(e.g. predicting future of individuals, especially with medical issues), so they do not even target the assumption.

If something paranormal would be true, then it would be the first observed incidence, where rules, that have never so far been broken, are broken. It would be a huge surprise.
It would be simply an apple that does not drop.

Carn

 

[voidx]

voidx said:

"I think a good reason for this is because we only have 5 sensory inputs, and as such cannot in our minds envision how an additional sense would work. "

Perhaps the sixth, or even the seventh, eighth and/or ninth sense, works at the quantum physical level directly to the brain. Who knows? I cannot prove it or demonstate that in any way, but intelligent speculation and hypothesising of how it may work serves to construct frameworks for future scientific research. That is how progress is made.

The whole point is the one you give yourself. Who knows? Certainly the people pushing many super/paranormal claims have no idea. You've so far put forth additional senses at the quantum level. I'm going to reinforce what Carn said by saying this is really to misunderstand the quantum world. Its effects so far seem to have an effect at a level far below what such a macroscopic entity such as a human could sense and observe, let alone make conscious use of. However, even if it was possible you have not given a framework. That is key. If there is a sixth sense at the quantum level then how does it operate, what rules does it obey? How can its existence be inferred from observation? These are the questions that a logical framework would help answer, and its this framework that is missing from paranormal claims. Instead most paranormal claims try and infer their existence from the results of trials. Nothing wrong with that in particular, however the effect, if it exists is very subtle. Anyone claiming the common paranormal claims we deal with today must admit this. And so the problem for looking for inference within statistical results is that their open to a large degree of mis-interpretation, or subjectivity.

To answer Yahweh's question further: what does, or does not seem impossible depends greatly on our perception of reality. Reality is a slippery thing, it depends perhaps to a large degree on the make up of any particular universe for they don't all have to be identical to ours. What makes things seem impossible is that they do not have a framework that fits logically within the accepted level of how we understand the universe and anything in it, to operate. Since the accepted level is usually arrived at over time and by vigorous testing and observation and repeatability, when someone makes a claim contrary to that understanding without giving a detailed framework along with it, it seems counter-intuitive and impossible in the context of what we understand.

 

[Explorer]

Carn said:

"Or when did the gold prize drop due to philosopher's stone being found?
That was 14th-17th century magic, but it has not become today's science, "

It has actually Carn. The philosopher's stone was the key for the transmutation of matter from one element to another. e.g. lead into gold. Uranium into Plutonium is now a common industrial practice, all down to science and technology.