RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
May 27, 2020 at 8:11 pm
(This post was last modified: May 27, 2020 at 8:19 pm by Belacqua.)
(May 27, 2020 at 8:04 pm)Succubus#2 Wrote: Your singing frogs? *If* they exist of course, there's always an if isn't there.
I don't believe that singing frogs exist. The "if" is there because it's an example of how a person's metaphysical commitments influence and predetermine the kind of conclusions one draws from wildly improbably empirical observations. That's what I've been talking about.
Just now I added something to my earlier post. I'll put it here too, so that you don't miss it.
edit to add:
I watched the video. In the portion you describe as "an uppercut that floors the mystics," Dr. Carroll makes a persuasive case that no natural particle or field strong enough to affect the human mind over long distances remains undiscovered. I'm happy to take his word for it -- anyone who is claiming that undiscovered natural particles or fields affect the human mind over long distances should stop making that claim.
However, he doesn't say anything about the supernatural. Why should he? He's a physicist. His job is the natural world.
I don't know of any mystic who argues that undiscovered natural particles or fields affect the human mind. Are you sure you know what a mystic is? If they are making claims about the supernatural world, it is not something that Dr. Carroll will study. His speech here is completely irrelevant to the claims of mystics.
I find the writings of some mystics to be very beautiful. Theresa of Avila, Boehme, and Blake are among my favorites. Have you read anything by them? If you did, I think it would make clear that none of them makes claims that modern physics could address.