Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Pondering the use of positing supernatural beings in addition to natural beings to account for paranormal phenomena/experiences. I have never been comfortable with that sort of unimaginative extension of physicalism into some imagined etheric state called spiritism.

Rather, I propose we acknowledge what I shall call "metaphysical entities"---ontological realms/beings totally beyond the materialist one we find ourselves stuck inside. Examples? Take Kant's noumena. Entities necessarily beyond our experience which nevertheless exert influence on our reality. Or what about Hegel's notion of Spirit--a time-based entity operating above the realm of the everyday on the scale of historical eras. Minds would be forms of metaphysical entities, existing in some manner beyond the merely physical. Platonic forms? Quasi-dimensional manifolds? There's the elan vital or life energy of Bergson. The Noosphere of Teilhard De Chardin? The Logos of the Gnostics? And there's the Tao of Taoism. Synchronici-tea anyone? lol

Clearly this becomes fertile ground for the reimagining of spirituality itself, whether that be for a God/Goddess, demons of nihilistic chaos, a pluralism of diverse realities, or for some transcendental essence/destiny inherent in humanity itself. Rorty called ontology the philosopher's playground. I'm acting on the spirit of that to explore the phenomenally-manifest connections between physicality and metaphysicality.

“We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing, a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use.”― Plotinus, The Essential Plotinus

It goes back to the ancient idea of there being a prior-in-rank level that makes the observed (natural one) possible, and since the rules of the latter are subordinate to the other, that's why it could (in theory) violate and intrude. Unfortunately, the contemporary computer-oriented world now conceives that relationship in a technological simulation or Matrix scenario. But we shouldn't want an unresolved situation of nested repeats all the way down (tech simulations within tech simulations). So it's ironically the ancient view of "something completely different than this world that doesn't require an underlying stratum" that puts an end to that "digital machine" lamination.