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+--- Thread: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities (/thread-21643.html)
The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Magical Realist - Oct 22, 2026
Aliens, ghosts, cryptids like Bigfoot and skinwalkers and shapeshifters and djinn, demons, higher spirits, shadow people, poltergeists, egegores, tulpas, thought forms, yokai, and the Fae consistently seem to resist easy objective identification. The first thing exorcists like Jesus did when encountering a demon-possessed person was ask the demon its name. There was something powerful in acquiring its name--its identifiability as an objective "who" localizable in space and time. But their non-physical reality may not be like that. There's a slipperiness to their being semantically predicatable as a static "who" or "what", as something nameable, as if the rules of discrete and objective existing don't apply to them.
Indeed, if humans themselves belong to some higher non-physical plane, the whole spiritual agenda of shedding one's selfness found in both Christian and Buddhist mysticism suddenly makes perfect sense. It's the learning to be what we really are, not enduring material bodies in spacetime but consciousness itself whose only essence is in its own phenomenal self-knowingness. We thus will never truly understand these mercurial otherworldlings until we dispense with our habitual need to conceptually project on them the ontic state of being absolutely localizable and in-themselves things.
RE: The problem of objectivity for non-physical entities - Syne - Oct 22, 2026
Non-physical-of-the-gaps. 9_9
If you have to claim that aliens, cryptids, and other previously asserted physical entities are now non-physical, you're just moving the goalposts because you know you have no compelling evidence.
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Magical Realist - Oct 22, 2026
Quote:If you have to claim that aliens, cryptids, and other previously asserted physical entities are now non-physical, you're just moving the goalposts because you know you have no compelling evidence.
I'm not arguing about their existence at all. I'm speculating on the nature of that existence which has been documented and photographed and filmed and studied and part of cultures globally for hundreds of years. There's no question about their existence. Outside of religion, made up shit has the tendency to just fade away and be forgotten over time.
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Syne - Oct 22, 2026
(Oct 22, 2026 01:49 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: I'm not arguing about their existence at. I'm speculating on the nature of that existence which has been documented and photographed and filmed and part of cultures globally for hundreds of years. There's no question about their existence. Made up shit has the tendency to just fade away and be forgotten over time.
Not buying it. "resist easy objective identification" implies that being non-physical has something to do with them NOT being objectively identified.
I thought you believed the Bible was "made up shit." It hasn't faded away.
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Magical Realist - Oct 22, 2026
Quote:I thought you believed the Bible was "made up shit."
Read the post moron:
"Outside of religion, made up shit has the tendency to just fade away and be forgotten over time."
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Syne - Oct 22, 2026
(Oct 22, 2026 01:55 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:Quote:(Oct 22, 2026 01:49 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: I'm not arguing about their existence at. I'm speculating on the nature of that existence which has been documented and photographed and filmed and part of cultures globally for hundreds of years. There's no question about their existence. Made up shit has the tendency to just fade away and be forgotten over time.Not buying it. "resist easy objective identification" implies that being non-physical has something to do with them NOT being objectively identified.
I thought you believed the Bible was "made up shit." It hasn't faded away.
Read the post moron:
"Outside of religion, made up shit has the tendency to just fade away and be forgotten over time."
You obviously edited your post after I quoted it.
But hey, way to completely address and debunk the rest of my post [/sarc].
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Magical Realist - Oct 22, 2026
Quote:You obviously edited your post after I quoted it.
Nope..The post was last edited "14 minutes ago."
Quote:But hey, way to completely address and debunk the rest of my post
I'm not going to listen or respond to you pompously expounding on something you don't even believe in and know nothing about.
RE: The problem of objective identity for non-physical entities - Syne - Oct 22, 2026
(Oct 22, 2026 02:07 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:Not my problem if you don't understand how quoting a post and editing a post work.Quote:You obviously edited your post after I quoted it.
Nope..The post was last edited "14 minutes ago."
Quote:I hear you:Quote:But hey, way to completely address and debunk the rest of my post
I'm not going to listen or respond to you pompously expounding on something you don't even believe in and know nothing about.
9_9