Open challenge regarding the supernatural

[bennyboy]

It depends on what you mean by "Zeus."  If you simply are using the term as meaning "electricity," then I don't have a problem with "Zeus" existing in some sense.  I can use a meter to measure electrical current, and if you choose to call that "Zeus," it will seem odd to me, but there is no magic in the term "electricity;" one could use the term "Zeus" instead.

If you mean something else (and I am guessing that you do), you will need to explain yourself more clearly.

That's right. Zeus means one thing, and "Zeus" means another, as I've defined it. I insist that Zeus and "Zeus" are the same, and that the science I do about "Zeus" is therefore not only science of Zeus but proof of Zeus. ("Zeus" meaning my physicalized definition, and Zeus with no quotes meaning the Greek god of that name).

The same goes for mind. There's mind, as in the word for my subjective experience of life, and then there's "mind," which is physicalized in terms of brain function: waves, blood flow, structure, electrochemistry, etc. But the problem is that while you can show "mind" all over the place, you cannot prove in a philosophically satisfying way that no-quotes mind event exists, or that it is what you say it is.

I use the term "mind" as the aggregate of the processes in which A, when receiving input B, outputs C.  It is easier to use one word than a long phrase.

To me, mind means the subjective experience of thoughts, ideas and sensations. I do not recognize your "mind" as my mind, though many will insist until they are blue in the face that they are the same thing.

I think you need to say more about what it is you mean by the term "mind."  What, exactly, do you mean by "agent" and by "experiencing qualia?"

By "agent," I mean a single unified being, and by "experiencing qualia" I mean experiencing the "what it's like" of things, rather than just mechanical processing.

You seem to imagine that there is a something more, like Descartes, thinking that there is some soul/mind attached to a body.  I see no reason to believe in such a thing, and don't believe in it.

No. I believe that mind meets the OP's definition of supernatural. That is all.

The mind is nothing more than physical processes.  That people are confused about it and imagine it to be a thing, makes it like the way primitive people thought of fire.

You are now making a positive assertion. Show me a mind, and show that it is nothing more than a physical process. My prediction is that you will make operational definitions of mind-- brain function, etc., but that you cannot show me someone else's "what it's like" of experience. You will, in essence, be proving that Zeus is an electrical field by defining it as such and then pointing at an electrical field.

Now, keep in mind that I'm not saying you're wrong. But I don't think you have enough points filled in between points A and B to confidently make positive assertions. Specifically, you cannot locate (or even adequately) define what "A" even is or how one will know when one finds it.

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"Bright" enough or "deluded" enough?

If Christians could operationalize definitions of the presence of God in ways that were taken seriously in a lab setting, then they would bring the whole scientific method, and the scientific institutions, to a screeching halt.  Given the goals of Christians, this would be a major coup, and I'd say it would represent a kind of evil-genius brightness, for sure.