Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

(Jan 16, 2020 10:04 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]That's arguably it, although I don't restrict it to simple conceptions like block-universes or that such is even deterministic. If those become necessary features of it then I'd have to reject the classification.

Maybe I'm missing something because I don't understand how it wouldn't entail determinism.

(Jan 16, 2020 05:22 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]If God is a product of some unknown event in some mysterious unseeable realm that existed since the beginning of time and if he is the creator then we/universe might be the closest thing to supernatural there is. Depends how he did it. 

Will someone show me something supernatural?

Like calling the man-made artificial, calling god, what it did/does, or it's creation supernatural seems an arbitrary distinction. Either it's all supernatural, or none of it is. Some might balk that god would therefore be subject to the laws of nature, but why would a god countermand the laws it created, thus being, at least superficially, self-contradicting.

Quote:I don’t think I’m the target audience here, you are.

I am not a supernaturalist that I know of. IOW, I prefer not to have beliefs about some separate nonphysical realm in which other intelligent entities exist. I just assume all the paranormal phenomena and ufos and raining frogs and SHC's and Bigfoot etc are parts of our one big shared reality, as mysterious and undefined as it is. That makes me basically a mystical atheist or agnostic I guess where we all share one naturalistic universe with numerous other intelligent beings and energies and events. Reality is all there is, and is magical and transcendental and maybe even infinite in itself, hence my user name.

(Jan 16, 2020 11:30 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 16, 2020 10:04 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]That's arguably it, although I don't restrict it to simple conceptions like block-universes or that such is even deterministic. If those become necessary features of it then I'd have to reject the classification.

Maybe I'm missing something because I don't understand how it wouldn't entail determinism.

My bad. Absolute determinism (always the case) is what I'm refraining from being dogmatic about.

- - -

Quick reason (for me) not to be dogmatic: States of the universe in (naive or non-complex) eternalism just exist. There is no process determining them, popping the next one into being while eradicating the last.

- - -

Another, that's lengthier... Since there are no past/future states in presentism (apart from everyday pragmatism of those labels), claims of determinism and indeterminism in presentism apparently have to be based on laws, principles, rules -- and lack of such applying when something is not predictable or determinable.

As a hybrid of presentism and eternalism, the growing block-universe (possibilism) can at least potentially serve a purpose in illustrating how the former two could be equivalent in some ways.

For instance, if a justifiable claim is made in the context of presentism that an event is random (not dictated by a law, not predictable), then that event still retains random status when mapped onto the preserved past of possibilism.

From there it can be mapped with the random value onto whatever framework eternalism uses, where there is no designation as past (or "now" and future).

The fact that Abraham Lincoln's complete life doesn't exist in presentism doesn't prevent people from asserting that he and his life did happen. And in possibilism his complete life would actually exist rather than being mere memory and environmental records vulnerably subsisting in a particular fleeting moment. Whatever justified an event being "random" in his life if in a presentism context would still be "random" in a possibilsm and eternalism context.

Note that this isn't about whether or not there are random events that cannot be subsumed under a law or method of prediction, but rather not denying their possibility (dogmatic).

It's also not about the issue of free will. Randomness does not equal free will, since an outside influence or controller is still an outside influence or controller even if it's random. In contrast to decisions and actions falling out of one's own identity traits and typical output of one's physiological system.

- - -

Now, if one wants to define "determine" in a way that doesn't concern or even hint at a selective action and predictability via maxims... it's just a reference to, say, other existing differences that are usefully labeled "future" from the perspective of this state... Then it can pertain to the block-universe.

- - -

A reason for not making eternalism synonymous with a simple block-universe (the only option or member for it) is that the latter doesn't take into account the complexities of a multiverse. As well as something like Julian Barbour's stratified manifold that he calls "Platonia". And any other candidates for new models lurking around the corner which might allow some semblance of unpredictability as to which world one is experiencing. Which is not to say that any of that stuff is the case, but they shouldn't dogmatically be ruled out.

(Jan 17, 2020 12:16 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I don’t think I’m the target audience here, you are.

I am not a supernaturalist that I know of. IOW, I prefer not to have beliefs about some separate nonphysical realm in which other intelligent entities exist. I just assume all the paranormal phenomena and ufos and raining frogs and SHC's and Bigfoot etc are parts of our one big shared reality, as mysterious and undefined as it is. That makes me basically a mystical atheist or agnostic I guess where we all share one naturalistic universe with numerous other intelligent beings and energies and events. Reality is all there is, and is magical and transcendental and maybe even infinite in itself, hence my user name.

What do they say about reality? It follows you around. We’re close to having the same outlook, it’s just that I don’t include some things as part of reality. Not yet anyways, there’s always room for some evidence to convince me otherwise. Paranormal and supernatural are basically two similar adjectives used to describe something that’s normal and natural. As nouns, maybe they shouldn’t exist in anyone’s reality.

As for magical, I think it is along the same lines. I don’t know how normal and natural can be magic. Mysterious? Definitely.

(Jan 17, 2020 03:30 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 17, 2020 12:16 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I don’t think I’m the target audience here, you are.

I am not a supernaturalist that I know of. IOW, I prefer not to have beliefs about some separate nonphysical realm in which other intelligent entities exist. I just assume all the paranormal phenomena and ufos and raining frogs and SHC's and Bigfoot etc are parts of our one big shared reality, as mysterious and undefined as it is. That makes me basically a mystical atheist or agnostic I guess where we all share one naturalistic universe with numerous other intelligent beings and energies and events. Reality is all there is, and is magical and transcendental and maybe even infinite in itself, hence my user name.

What do they say about reality? It follows you around. We’re close to having the same outlook, it’s just that I don’t include some things as part of reality. Not yet anyways, there’s always room for some evidence to convince me otherwise. Paranormal and supernatural are basically two similar adjectives used to describe something that’s normal and natural. As nouns, maybe they shouldn’t exist in anyone’s reality.

As for magical, I think it is along the same lines. I don’t know how normal and natural can be magic. Mysterious? Definitely.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

(Jan 17, 2020 05:24 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

Doesn't seem to be any middle ground there. What a great mind. When I think of oppressed people I usually wonder how many great minds never get the chance to be great.

Maybe Vonnegut puts all into perspective here when he says: 

Quote:Science is magic that works.

Not that I think science is magic but perhaps when it does work it can be seen that way.

(Jan 17, 2020 03:30 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 17, 2020 12:16 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]

Quote:I don’t think I’m the target audience here, you are.

I am not a supernaturalist that I know of. IOW, I prefer not to have beliefs about some separate nonphysical realm in which other intelligent entities exist. I just assume all the paranormal phenomena and ufos and raining frogs and SHC's and Bigfoot etc are parts of our one big shared reality, as mysterious and undefined as it is. That makes me basically a mystical atheist or agnostic I guess where we all share one naturalistic universe with numerous other intelligent beings and energies and events. Reality is all there is, and is magical and transcendental and maybe even infinite in itself, hence my user name.

What do they say about reality? It follows you around. We’re close to having the same outlook, it’s just that I don’t include some things as part of reality. Not yet anyways, there’s always room for some evidence to convince me otherwise. Paranormal and supernatural are basically two similar adjectives used to describe something that’s normal and natural. As nouns, maybe they shouldn’t exist in anyone’s reality.

As for magical, I think it is along the same lines. I don’t know how normal and natural can be magic. Mysterious? Definitely.

We can explore what adjectives like "natural" and "supernatural" (in a metaphysical or ontological context) could or should be addressing if their history wasn't so muddled-up with a potpourri of folk beliefs and school of thought orientations.

Existence for us (and animals) is always a mental representation. Either things ironically existing outside themselves as the outer appearances of objects presented in our perceptions, or as the technical and abstract descriptions of science and philosophical orientations like physicalism.

I can assert that the world behaves independently of my own personal wishes and desires (the situation isn't solipsism), but it doesn't outrun mental properties in general (our representation of how it exists).

If it did outrun mental properties completely then there wouldn't even be the materialization of corporeal objects in space (thing existing as those outer appearances) that we experience now, any more than such applies after our deaths. A completely mind-independent (or independent of experience and reasoning) manner of existence would be "absence of everything". Which is indeed the very expectation of those of us who don't believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, etc. Once consciousness ends, then the mental representations of perception, personal thoughts, and intellect outputted inferences/descriptions vanish. We return to what existence normally is to itself (i.e., the archetypal or non-represented style of existence).

Ideally, if minus the contamination of naive realists who reflexively believe that world is "showing itself" outside their heads just as it does inside them -- or if minus scientific realists who believe that the world is the technical and abstract descriptions of physics (arguably even more artificial)...

Then "natural world" would only be referencing the experienced external world and its lawful-like regularities (our representations of existence), including whatever invisible items mediating instruments could turn into sensed phenomena (like microorganisms and molecules). And supernatural would (in terms of its combining forms) merely be referencing non-represented existence (which again is not even a presentation and cognition of nothingness). But the latter is all scrambled up with a history of traditional folklore beliefs (demons, angels), similar to how "natural" (in an ontological context) is all scrambled up with "thinking" it is instead about non-represented existence along with realism about the manifestations of the senses, and realism about concepts (expressed by rational descriptive activity).

Now there is a biased metaphysical assumption in the above with regard to the idea that what follows death and the eradication of consciousness is "absence of everything" as far as those presentations and manifestations go. Obviously that conflicts with stances like monistic idealism, panpsychism, the nondualism of the East, and so-forth. But thought orientations like that -- while they may have been entertained by some scientists in the 19th-century, fell by the wayside in popularity by the mid 20th-century. So even though what the scientism-type atheist expects after death is dogmatic, it nevertheless is something one can use as a default stance in a science forum ... usually without any objections (apart from religious and counter-philosophical folk with different expectations).

(Jan 16, 2020 04:50 AM)Anu Wrote: [ -> ]

(Jan 15, 2020 09:54 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]I would suggest that science offers meaning to human beings as much as religion or the supernatural does. Science offers a grand metanarrative of evolution, human conquest and discovery, and technological progress that is as inspiring and value-laden as any other worldview. It assumes the mastery of the human mind over the physical universe in being able to break down and dissect its components and laws and principles. It also carries on the Enlightenment tradition of everything being rationally explainable and comprehensible. Mankind comes out of the scientific metanarrative shining like a demigod who thru noble effort and genius recreates the universe into a world completely suited to his purposes. It is a hero myth, and one that is clung to by many for its meaning-giving effect.

This is all suggested in the article. But what the article also suggests is that this subservience to a "meaning-laden narrative" is not categorically "natural" science. Rather, it belongs to the "supernatural."

From the article: "Traditional religious beliefs are really social beliefs. They are about transcendent connections across space and time. The more these beliefs bind us to family and community, the more they make us feel like we are part of something more enduring and meaningful than our brief mortal lives."

Well, concepts -- prescriptive and otherwise -- aren't usually concrete objects or particular phenomena, for sure, apart from the perceivable written and vocal descriptions expressing them and the inferences made about them. I can see why some analytic philosophers seem to venture that route for their version of "non-physical" or "immaterial" or "transcendent" or "noological" or whatever. Arguably, its actually older than the hills, what's meant by the "intelligible world" ascribed to the ancient thinker, in contrast to the sensible world. But the newer philosophers -- being so hip deep in reflections about language at the beginning of their school -- are maybe less obscure about such ideas being mediated by descriptive activity or being no more than that whenever it's a bent toward nominalism.

Every belief system begins with a primary belief. God is a great example. Since whomever came up with the idea, countless secondary beliefs have sprouted from it like leaves on a tree. If anything, the belief in God has spurred the imaginations of billions over the years and may have even aided our evolution and technological advancement, idk. Too bad God is not the belief that binds all theists socially. Which end of the egg you crack shouldn’t matter, but it does.