RE: Answers needed
June 29, 2015 at 12:25 pm
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2015 at 12:27 pm by robvalue.)
This all got me thinking.
Let's say there is a supernatural being, and it wants to communicate with me. It could use whatever funny powers it has to write messages in the air, right in front of me. It would be manipulating the natural world. I couldn't see the being itself, because our light particles cannot bounce off it.
Now. I could speak back, and let's say it could hear me. (Not entirely sure how, if our sound waves cannot affect the supernatural...) It could then "talk" back to me by moulding sound waves in our natural reality, so I hear a voice. In this way, I could communicate with this supernatural being.
But here's the problem. I can't know for sure what is causing these messages or sounds. Since they are entirely natural, I can't distinguish between a supernatural being causing them, or some natural being/force using technology I've never experienced. Except for appealing to incredulity, I cannot logically deduce it's from supernatural causation. There may well be amazing powerful beings that are natural but I can't see or experience in any normal way, which could perform such feats. And maybe one day we would create the technology to be able to measure and experience these natural beings. But if they are supernatural, then we never can. And we can't know that we will never be able to interact with the previously mentioned hypothetical supernatural being; hence it remains a mystery whether it is or is not natural.
This all rests on my personal definition of supernatural from my website. If instead you simply refer to what is known at any particular time, then any unexplainable thing could be called supernatural as a placeholder, although I don't see the point. It's just another way of saying unexplained.
Let's say there is a supernatural being, and it wants to communicate with me. It could use whatever funny powers it has to write messages in the air, right in front of me. It would be manipulating the natural world. I couldn't see the being itself, because our light particles cannot bounce off it.
Now. I could speak back, and let's say it could hear me. (Not entirely sure how, if our sound waves cannot affect the supernatural...) It could then "talk" back to me by moulding sound waves in our natural reality, so I hear a voice. In this way, I could communicate with this supernatural being.
But here's the problem. I can't know for sure what is causing these messages or sounds. Since they are entirely natural, I can't distinguish between a supernatural being causing them, or some natural being/force using technology I've never experienced. Except for appealing to incredulity, I cannot logically deduce it's from supernatural causation. There may well be amazing powerful beings that are natural but I can't see or experience in any normal way, which could perform such feats. And maybe one day we would create the technology to be able to measure and experience these natural beings. But if they are supernatural, then we never can. And we can't know that we will never be able to interact with the previously mentioned hypothetical supernatural being; hence it remains a mystery whether it is or is not natural.
This all rests on my personal definition of supernatural from my website. If instead you simply refer to what is known at any particular time, then any unexplainable thing could be called supernatural as a placeholder, although I don't see the point. It's just another way of saying unexplained.
Feel free to send me a private message.
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Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.
Index of useful threads and discussions
Index of my best videos
Quickstart guide to the forum