RE: Presumption of naturalism
September 14, 2015 at 8:30 pm
(This post was last modified: September 14, 2015 at 8:32 pm by bennyboy.)
(September 14, 2015 at 4:51 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote: The idea of the supernatural is useful only insofar it can be said to offer a better explanation than the natural. However, it is impossible to assert that any event in the universe is a supernatural act:
- Firstly one would need to demonstrate the validity of the measurement (in that the observation was not flawed)
- Secondly if one overcame that hurdle, one would need to establish that there was no currently understood natural antecedent cause
- Thirdly if one overcame that hurdle, parsimony would require you to rule out any undiscovered element of the natural (requiring human omniscience).
Given that we do not have omniscience and only empirical examples where the supernatural has been replaced by the natural by better observations, refining of current natural processes and discovery of new natural phenomona, we are only justified in presuming naturalism is true. Thus supernaturalism is false.
I think a look at the etymology of the word is in order. The "nat" in "supernatural" means birth. What to make of this? It means that things are created which did not exist, at least in form. Space and time, being the framework IN WHICH things are brought into being when they once didn't exist, cannot themselves be said to be created without reference to the supernatural. So if there is nothing beyond the universe, the universe is itself supernatural.
If it was created by something, then you have a semantic decision to make. Either it turns out that the creator of the universe is supernatural, or you say that whatever created the universe is part of a kind of super-framework, and is still therefore natural. But I'd argue that's just bully semantics: in the latter case, it could be that things could influence our universe which we could never observe or really know about; and that is basically what people mean by the words.
