What is "supernatural"?

[Esquilax]

Please, do inform us of this wonderful way in which the supernatural can be verified as existing.

Through direct revelation or personal experience. I believe much about the supernatural through the witness of people I trust. That's not good enough for you because you rely on science to prove or disprove what it's not equipped for.

Yep, and the followers of every other religion use personal experience and revelation to attest to the reality of their gods, and the unreality of yours. Alien abductees use personal experience to verify that they've been abducted. And so on, and so forth.

Every unverifiable claim ever made has used personal experience as a replacement for evidence, and most of them are mutually exclusive, or contradict at least a few other accounts. When you say you rely on personal experience and revelation, you're leaving out a crucial step in your process: presupposing certain beliefs are true, so that you can pick and choose which personal experiences are real, and which are obviously the product of delusion.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'Supernatural' is the result when 'natural' gets bitten by a radioactive spider.

Other than that, the term is pretty much useless.

Boru

[Faith No More]

That's not good enough for you because you rely on science to prove or disprove what it's not equipped for.

No, it's not good enough because you're asking us to put complete trust in the infallibility of the human mind. It's not about "relying on science." It's about how the human brain's perceptions are extremely flawed and your refusal to acknowledge that.

[Anomalocaris]

That's not good enough for you because you rely on science to prove or disprove what it's not equipped for.

It's not good enough because it is not good enough. It is not good enough because it contains no consistent and demonstrably effective safeguards against wishthinking, hallucinaiton, and flat out lying and cheating. It would not be good enough even if no one had ever dreamed of science.

BTW, science does not rely on naturalistic explanation. Science relies on verifiable explanations that has underwent consistent and demonstrably effective safeguards against wishthinking, hallucinaiton, and flat out lying and cheating.

[Mr Greene]

'Supernatural' is the result when 'natural' gets bitten by a radioactive spider.

Other than that, the term is pretty much useless.

Boru

I think it's genetically engineered in the current continuity.

[MindForgedManacle]

Do I dare bring up the many worlds interpretation ?

Or the multiverse ?

I question if you even understand those at all, given they follow strictly from science. The MWI interpretation of quantum mechanics makes the fewest assumptions of any QM interpretation to date.

[Rhizomorph13]

Supernatural is, to me, a weasle word to avoid the rigors of a rational discussion. As a theological non-cognitivist I would say that Supernatural is as undefined as division by zero or god and not worthy of discussion. The theory of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) presents the proposition that there are different magisterium over which this or that (Science or woo?) method of apprehension is relevant. The supernatural used to be one of my favorite things to talk about because it is an unassailable place to build bullshit upon apophenia and wrap it up in some astrological, aural, or numerological happenstance and label it "real". I can't facepalm hard enough now.

The fact is that all things that are real are, by necessity, natural. To say that something is real but somehow NOT part of nature is to violate the rule of identity A=A and the rule of non-contradiction A!=!A. Even if God exists in some other place outside direct perception (Heaven); the claims made in the Christian bible outlines effects in the lives of God's followers that would be measurable, and demonstrable in the directly perceivable universe. Heaven would still be part of nature though, just a part that for some reason is not perceivable right now. Once we find a Forier Tranform Infra-Red device that uses radiation that interacts with, whatever Heaven is made of, we will be able to find it! But, I think that device was already created and featured in the movie Delicatessen. It was a bullshit detector, a funny sight gag.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm tempted to say "magic", but that doesn't really help. xD

I suppose when you get down to it, it refers to things perceived to lie far outside our normals means of explaining things. Ex: The heavens, gravity and diseases were often regarded as the workings of the supernatural prior to us gaining a more robust understanding of them.

I don't know if this epistemic-gap is necessarily the case with all purportedly supernatural things, but it certainly is rather pervasive.

Generally I agree. The term supernatural seem to hinge on what one considers natural. I know many people that believe in sychronisity (sp) and think profound coincidences are perfectly natural. However a more restrictive view would put supernatural things outside the regular operation of known physical processes.

[Whateverist]

It's just one big cop out.

"It's supernatural - therefore I do not have to explain it".

That would be more honest. More often you find people appealing to 'the supernatural' as a means of explaining something. So much fail.

---

Anything that exists outside the natural realm. Supernatural entities would not have to follow natural laws. Supernatural events or beings can't be proven by science because science is the study of natural existence.

This works for me if you replace the word "natural" with the word "actual":

"Supernatural entities would not have to follow actual laws. Supernatural events or beings can't be proven by science because science is the study of actual existence.