Open challenge regarding the supernatural

[robvalue]

but isn't that the definition of "supernatural"
Anything without a solid explanation is "woo"

Let's say we were visited 2000 years ago. Wouldn't the goat herders make up there own woo for what they saw because they couldn't comprehend what was actually happening.

Well, I'd say "woo" is where people put forward their own explanations for things we don't understand (or even things we do understand). It's different just saying "we don't understand this yet" to saying "it's a spiritual force which comes from another dimension". This is exactly what people used to do yeah, and still do today. So if they called lightning a supernatural event, they would have been wrong. If they claim there's a god Thor doing it, that is eventually found to be a needless assumption which adds no expanatory power. That's the problem, by making up your own story, we don't learn anything new, we have just found a pretty way of saying "I don't know".

So labelling parts of QM we dont understand as supernatural would be woo in itself, because there's always the chance we will discover how to understand it in a natural way. Then our classification will have been wrong. And since you can't prove the classification is right (hence the challenge) it's a pointless thing to say. Maybe it is partly supernatural, but the point is you can't justify saying so.

And I agree, I don't think there can be a supernatural claim that makes any sense, that's the point I'm hoping to make with the challenge. It certainly hasn't stopped religion though, it's just people aren't analysing the claims being made in an objective way. Even people who may be excellent critical thinkers, far better than me I'm sure, succumb to mind melt when it comes to their pet woo/religion.

Even if your claim is true, you can't actually know it is true or have any idea if it is true.

If religion ever wants to be taken seriously in an academic way, rule number one is stop saying things are supernatural. Say God is natural. At least then you can justify knowing something about it. But the problem is that then you can be proved wrong. So they hide it behind this shield.