Open challenge regarding the supernatural

[bennyboy]

I am unconvinced that the mind is so special.  The way it is decided that a mind exists is through behavior.  The observation of behavior is how the mind is, to use your words, "tested, detected or measured" and such observation is "by natural means."  We make all sorts of determinations of the intelligence of minds (IQ tests, etc.), and there is nothing supernatural about how that is done.  We do the same sorts of things for determining how minds feel about various things.

These are all correlates, and there's a problem with science which can use only correlates-- none of them proves that any mind-- the mind I know which consists of the experience of qualia-- exists, or even adequately defines the term. The problem with this is that if you take what you already "know" and associate it with correlates, then you're begging the question. What if I already "know" that Zeus exists, and define measurements of Zeus in electrical terms. Then I can claim "There's nothing supernatural about the way in which I collect information about Zeus." I can show where Zeus' presence is strongest. I can do things to create or influence Zeus' presence. My Zeusology will produce results in the laboratory, which my startup company will package in interesting products to make me a trillion dollars.

But there's still no Zeus, or at least no way to prove such an entity exists.

The fact that it is "indirect" observation, in that one views the behavior rather than the mind itself, does not make the situation special.  We do the same with gravity.  We do not observe gravity as a thing in itself, but as it affects other things.*  That does not make gravity supernatural or unreal.

The difference is that there is no mechanism other than gravity for those effects. In fact, "gravity" isn't so much an assertion about the cause of the effect as a simple description OF the effect. But it is not necessary to do this with mind: we do not need to know what causes mind-like behavior because we know about the brain. So why talk about a voodoo entity like the mind at all? Why not just spell it like you think it: "Entity A receives input B and outputs behavior C." What's all this mind stuff even talking about?

Additionally, with examinations of damaged brains, we know that the mind is altered by altering the brain.  We can be pretty certain that the mind is a subset of the activities of the brain.  (One also can do a self-test, where one drinks enough alcohol to become drunk, and one can notice the subjective aspect of mind changing, while others can observe differences in our behavior.  The alcohol in the brain affects the activities of the brain.)  Granted, the details are not all worked out yet, but before modern astronomy, we did not know what the stars were and could not be sure about them.  That did not make them supernatural.  That just made the details unknown.  Unknown details is not the same as "supernatural."

What is unknown is whether any other mind than my own exists at all. You keep talking about correlates, and haven't addressed the first question that really needs answering: Do any minds-- defined as agents capable of experiencing qualia-- exist? All you can is assume they do, and start working with the correlates. But you could equally assume God exists and start making up correlates for that, and studying God as though it were a thing. What's the difference?