The workings of woo

[watchamadoodle]

Difficult... Usually I'd say woo is by definition something which does not really exist, but is merely an artefact of our partial ignorance,imperfect perception and lack of critical thinking.

The supernatural is a related problem: I'd say if there is something supernatural consistently going on, it is basically just a newly discovered part of nature, and thus not supernatural any more. If such a thing is however so complex that it seems to elude rational analysis from our side, it could have the same effect as woo even though one would formally - as with any actual phenomenon affecting our world - include it in the definition of the natural world after it is discovered.

An example of what I roughly mean is given in the novel SOLARIS, where the sentient ocean is a perfectly natural materialistic object, but in its intellect and complexity so unfathomable that mankind fails in grasping it, possibly forever.

An opposite example is radio waves: they fulfill the criteria of a supernatural phenomenon as seen by mankind a few hundred years ago, yet it was both included into our understanding of nature after the discovery and proved to be simple enough to be described and understood by us.

Imagine if the universe is a computer simulation that can receive input from the computer operators. Could you say the computer simulation is the natural world and the computer operators are the supernatural world? What would that look like from the perspective of an artificial scientist inside the computer simulation? Would these inputs look like observations collapsing probability waves in QM or something? (Like I mentioned I don't understand QM. Don't be too hard on me. )

Maybe a different form of the same question: in Cartesian dualism, some speculated that the pineal gland was the interface that allowed a soul to pilot the body. I guess my definition of woo is based on the dualism of religions like Christianity. Does physics have anything that could provide the inferface between supernatural and natural?

There are also issues like free will, determinism, causality, etc. Maybe some of those concepts would help define woo?

The examples you mentioned like the sentient ocean is only woo from the perspective of humans. Another sentient ocean would not consider it woo. I'm trying to imagine the true woo.