Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...

[polymath257]

Not 'testable according to science'. Testable in the sense that there is some potential observation that would show it to be wrong, yet all actual observations fail to do so.

"Testable according to science" means "testable in the sense that there is some potential observation that would show it to be wrong." 
You're telling me, several times in this post, that only science can address these issues, and only science can tell us anything. Science is the only tool you accept. 

Yes, observation, hypothesis formation, testing said hypotheses, and modifying those that don't work. THAT is the only way to learn anything about the real world.

That does NOT include a pre-supposition of 'natural'.  The only requirement is testability.

What other tool would you propose? I am willing to listen to suggestions that can distinguish true hypotheses from false ones.

if a frog was able to sing Mozart duets, that would be an observation. And it would lead to further investigation, not simply throwing up hands and proclaiming it to be supernatural.

In fact it might be supernatural. But because you have ruled that out a priori, you rely on the faith that it must be natural. 

Where have I ruled it out? I am saying that science deals with observed patterns. The language of 'natural' or 'supernatural' is irrelevant to the process.

I am not saying that there are supernatural things. I am only saying that your firm commitment to a naturalist metaphysics begs the question. 

And, once again, I make no such commitment. I make a commitment to testable hypotheses. if you can come up with a testable hypothesis that includes a 'supernatural', then go for it.

Why? That seems to be all you are giving.

You brought up Aristotle, said his view of things was harmful, and said I shouldn't use the term "nature." But you haven't said why. 

I am curious as to why you think that's so.


This kind of "it's bad because I say it's bad" isn't helpful.

It is bad because 'natural' is *defined* by observation. And if a frog can sing Mozart duets, that would be an observation.

The term 'nature', when used in this way, leads to sloppy thinking. Which is what I am seeing a lot of: you had declared that it is not in the 'nature' of a frog to sing Mozart duets. But if a frog can, in fact, sing such, then it *is* an observational aspect of that frog.

And it is only observation, hypothesis formation, testing, rinse and repeat that is relevant here.

No, testable in the sense I gave. It requires falsifiability and accessibility to non-beievers. That is all.

Yes, this is how science works. I believe we've covered that.

Do you have an alternative?

Is there some way in which they *would* be testable? Again, in the sense that an explanation using them could be shown wrong by some potential observation?

If I'm understanding you correctly, you only accept as meaningful things that can be shown wrong by some potential observation. 

Many metaphysical beliefs can't be shown wrong in that way. The supernatural, if it existed, probably couldn't. 

Which is why I consider it meaningless. It isn't that it is false. It is that it is an incoherent concept.

Your own metaphysical commitment, that there is nothing unknowable to science, is also unfalsifiable in the way that you stick to it. Because if we did find something that science couldn't know, you would insist that through further tests science eventually would prevail. You just got through saying that above. 

So you are comfortable with at least one very strong unfalsifiable belief.

When you say I claim 'science will prevail', I feel that you are missing the point. I am saying that if there are patterns of behavior that can be observed, science can work. And if there are no such patterns of behavior, then saying there is a phenomenon at all is problematic.

Once again, I am NOT equating science with naturalism (at least not a priori). I am saying that observation, hypothesis formation, testing of hypotheses *by some means*, and rejecting/modifying those hypotheses that don't work is the only procedure I know of for finding things out about the real world.

If you have another method that has some test to distinguish truth from falsity, I am willing to consider it.

If you cannot do that, even in theory, what sense does it make to even say something exists?

Here I think your commitment to science is so strong that you are asking: if science can't address something, then we are OK to say that the thing doesn't exist. So in a metaphysical way, you are declaring that only those things addressable by scientific means exist. 

Again, this may be true, but it can't be proven.

Let's turn this around. What does it mean to say that something exists? is it meaningful to say that something exists that does not interact with anything else?

I say that it is not meaningful to say that. If you want to argue that it is, please explain how to distinguish between something existing and something not existing.

Is it meaningful to say you have knowledge without a way to test that knowledge to make sure whether it is true or false?

My position is that it is not. Part of the definition on knowledge is the ability to test.

Science has done a great job of demonstrating the kind of thing that science can demonstrate. This doesn't mean that nothing else exists.

Once again, what other procedure do you propose?

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Food for thought: parrots can mimic human speech and song. Before we knew much about parrots, it probably seemed that a bird singing Yankee Doodle was “beyond its nature,” and therefore supernatural; 

It probably seemed that way. Then we discovered that it wasn't.

But please don't make the same mistake as Mr. Polymath and assume, therefore, that it will be the same in absolutely every case. We don't know.

“Beyond its nature” is just another example of an argument from ignorance.

If you are committed to the metaphysical belief that every question can be settled by scientific means, then you think that all problems not yet solved by science involve only ignorance. 

But you can't know this. 

What you and poly are offering here is "promissory naturalism." This is the term Popper used to point out that people with your type of metaphysical commitment promise a natural explanation for all questions, even before any such explanation is available. 

It works in practice. It can't be proven.

I am NOT proposing a 'natural explanation' for all questions. PLEASE don't misquote me.

I am saying that the term 'natural' is *defined* in terms of observation. And science is also defined in terms of observation. For that matter, the term 'physical' is as well.

So, if frogs start singing Mozart duets, that is an observation and *by definition* it is then in the nature of those frogs to do that. HOW it happens is a very different thing.

Now, you seem to be making the claim that the scientific method cannot address the issue of duet singing frogs. WHAT is preventing it from doing so? Don't use the words 'naturalism'. Just look at the scientific method itself and tell me what would not work.

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In a general sense, "are there ever times when an object can do something that is not a part of its nature?" 

No, that is NOT possible. Why not? Because the 'nature' of something is defined by observation of that thing. So if something is doing something and we observe it, then it *is* in its nature to do it. it might be a rare behavior. It might be an unexpected behavior. But if it is doing it, then it is in its nature to do it.

You seem to thing the 'nature' of something exists independently of what that thing does. But the very definition of the 'nature' of a thing is, precisely, whatever it does.

Unless, that is, you can give an alternative definition of what the 'nature' of a thing is.

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is there a way to distinguish between a supernatural cause and a natural cause as of yet undiscovered?

Not that I can think of.

What I want to do is avoid begging the question, as poly does.

He says that even if there is a complete lack of naturalistic evidence, he would consider supernatural explanations to be failures. It would be "throwing up your hands" and accepting defeat. Even in the event of no natural evidence, he would just assume that there must be some. 

If you accept that it is a metaphysical commitment on your part that any explanation must be natural, that's fine. But it's not provable.

There are two possibilities:

1. The event in question is part of a detectable pattern of behaviors. That pattern *is* the first hypothesis in the scientific process. We check to see if the pattern holds up. We check to see if there is an even more general pattern. We how and if it relates to other patterns we see.

THAT *is* the scientific method. No default of 'natural' is required: only patterns of behavior.

2. There is no detectable pattern in the behavior. In this case, it is a singular event and will simply remain unexplained.

That is quite different than explaining it with a supernatural since *that* would require a detectable pattern of behavior to test if the 'explanation' fits.

So, in neither case is a 'supernatural' a *possible* explanation. In the first, the pattern detected *s* the nature of the thing.

In the second, there is no explanation at all, and adding a supernatural does not help.

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This is exhausting

Science includes any way that a thing can be tested so what other ways are there to know things that are somehow outside of science?

Here's an example. I'm not saying it happens; it's a thought experiment.

The human mind is complicated. Ideas may occur to us unexpectedly. 

Freud-type explanations say that there are parts of the mind that are only partially accessible to us, and that unexpected ideas, obsessions, etc., "arise" from those parts. But this is notoriously unfalsifiable. 

The ancient Greeks thought that any idea, obsession, inspiration, etc., that occurred suddenly into the conscious mind had been placed there from outside. A god, a daemon, a muse, or something like that gave it to us. 

Imagine that there really are such entities giving us ideas. How would this be testable?

Well, by looking at the pattern of how new ideas are found, seeing if we can detect demons around at the time, etc.

And, if there is no way to test it *it is not an explanation at all*. THAT is the point.

Poly would insist that even though we don't know where the idea came from, it must be natural. But this can't be tested. Maybe he will even insist that in the future super-MRI machines will read our subconscious minds and tell us where the ideas came from. In other words, he is sure that although we don't know now, we can just beg the question and say that it will be testable some day. 

In a sense, this is not supernatural, according to the definition I'm using. It is in the nature of the mind to take in ideas. It is in the nature of the daemons to give us ideas. But it isn't testable according to science. It may happen all the time, and we wouldn't know it.

And it can not be a part of any explanation if it is not testable. So, we can happily ignore that as a consideration.

Especially if we rule out a priori anything that isn't testable by science, we will just assume the idea came from within the mind in some way (even though this, too, isn't really testable). 

As long as people like poly announce by fiat that only testable things exist, we will assume only testable explanations exist. But there may be other things going on all the time, which affect us.

Yes, it is in the 'nature' of explanations to be testable. So only testable explanations can exist. If it is not testable, then it simply is not an explanation at all.

I'll anticipate the objections of the committed metaphysical naturalists: they will say that daemons, if they exist, will someday be demonstrated by science. But they don't know this.

Either they are testable (because of patterns detected--possibly even using new ideas in minds as the detecting agent) OR they are not testable and hence are not an explanation at all.