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

[The Grand Nudger]

If the supernatural is the part that can't be known by humans we can't comment on it...at all. This is not even remotely what the term refers to, obviously. We have alot of comments about it based on alleged observations.

Your new definition is ludicrous on it's face...even less useful than the last.

You're a complete failure.

[Succubus#2]

This is different from the definition I was using earlier...

These are my principles, if you don't like them, I have others.

G. Marx.

[polymath257]

I have yet to see a coherent definition of the term 'natural' that takes into consideration the actual methods of science and the possibility of scientific revolution that can lead to significantly different technologies.

Here's a definition of "natural" which takes into consideration the methods of science and tech. 

I mentioned it earlier. It's a version of the definition used in the mystical tradition, without necessarily accepting all of their conclusions. 

The natural is that part of the world which can be known by humans. Or to adapt it to your polymathic monomania, we could say that the natural is that part of the world which can be analyzed by science. 

The point is that just because there is a part of the world that can be analyzed by science, that's not proof that there's lots of other parts that can't. 

Consider our friends the earthworms. The range of what they can consider is different from our own. They don't know math, physics, or meteorology. They are indifferent to music and art. They don't know the history of civilizations. People know all that stuff, but it all falls entirely outside what an earthworm can conceive of. 

Why should I believe that human beings are able to know all of the world, when earthworms can't? In the evil old days of religion, people thought that the mind is a portion of the divine Logos, the principles and logic of the universe, and therefore our minds are constructed so as to know the world. But we scientific type people scoff at all that. People evolved to pass on their genes, just as earthworms did, and we know what we need to know for that. 

So let's imagine that "nature" is the range of things people can know. That would make the supernatural all the realm of things we can't know. How much is there? We can't answer that, because by definition we can't know it. 

At this point the normal objection is that if something is unknowable to us then it makes no difference, it "might as well" not exist. I think that's silly. An earthworm doesn't know anything about neoliberal economic policy, but such policies are still going to cause climate change and habitat loss that will significantly affect worm life. So the supernatural could be affecting us all the time, and we just wouldn't know it. 

This is different from the definition I was using earlier. In that usage, the part of the world we don't understand might be acting according to its nature, and would thus be hidden but natural. In this other definition, anything which is knowable to science is natural and anything which isn't knowable is supernatural.

OK, so we can never know if any given thing is supernatural, right?

And the only way we can tell if we will never know about something is to explore and use the scientific method to see if we can understand it, right?

So the best approach is still to use the scientific method to *attempt* to understand anything that we come across. And, at the point our species expires, only then will something be proven to be supernatural, right?

Here's the rub. There are facts about mathematics that no person will ever know. These follow from our axioms and are consequences of what we do know, but no person will ever know them.

Do you really want to say that part of mathematics is supernatural?

Or, for example, we will probably never know what Julius Caesar ate the day before he was killed. Does that meal thereby become supernatural?

In fact, I can think of quite a number of historical events we will never know about from this point forward. By your definition, all of these are supernatural, right?

I have to say that seems a strange use of the word.

[Belacqua]

Do you really want to say that part of mathematics is supernatural?

Or, for example, we will probably never know what Julius Caesar ate the day before he was killed. Does that meal thereby become supernatural?

No, these examples are entirely different from what I'm talking about.

[polymath257]

Do you really want to say that part of mathematics is supernatural?

Or, for example, we will probably never know what Julius Caesar ate the day before he was killed. Does that meal thereby become supernatural?

No, these examples are entirely different from what I'm talking about.

And yet they fit the definition you gave.

Want to try again? Another definition?

[Belacqua]

And yet they fit the definition you gave.

No they certainly don't.

It's true we lack information about Julius Caesar's meal on the day before he was killed. But we are perfectly comfortable with all of the concepts involved. "Caesar," "meal," "day before," and "killed" are all things we comprehend. If you read what I said, it's clear that I'm not talking about that kind of thing.

"Neoliberal economics" is to "earthworms" as "X" is to "human beings."

The concept of neoliberal economics is entirely outside of what earthworms can grasp. It's not as if they lack some bit of information which they could discover if they knew where to look. It's entirely possible that there are all kinds of things which are, similarly, beyond what humans can grasp. Not because we lack some bit of information, but because our minds just can't do it.

If you don't like calling such things supernatural it's OK with me. But it's the way many other people use the word. William Blake, for example, personifies nature as Vala -- a name which refers to a veil. For him, nature is that veil over reality which is available only to our corporeal senses. He believes there is more to the world than that.

[polymath257]

And yet they fit the definition you gave.

No they certainly don't.

It's true we lack information about Julius Caesar's meal on the day before he was killed. But we are perfectly comfortable with all of the concepts involved. "Caesar," "meal," "day before," and "killed" are all things we comprehend. If you read what I said, it's clear that I'm not talking about that kind of thing.

"Neoliberal economics" is to "earthworms" as "X" is to "human beings."

The concept of neoliberal economics is entirely outside of what earthworms can grasp. It's not as if they lack some bit of information which they could discover if they knew where to look. It's entirely possible that there are all kinds of things which are, similarly, beyond what humans can grasp. Not because we lack some bit of information, but because our minds just can't do it.

If you don't like calling such things supernatural it's OK with me. But it's the way many other people use the word. William Blake, for example, personifies nature as Vala -- a name which refers to a veil. For him, nature is that veil over reality which is available only to our corporeal senses. He believes there is more to the world than that.

And there are certainly concepts in math that are beyond the human ability to comprehend: proofs that would take longer than the age of the universe to scan, concepts that are so complicated, they would need for storage than is available in the universe to store, etc.

Are such mathematical concepts 'supernatural'?

I could also believe that physics is complicated enough that there are aspects of the physical laws that, even if we understood the basic laws, we would never be able to understand the application in some complex situations.

Are such 'supernatural'?

Would neoliberal economics be 'supernatural' because an earthworm fails to be able to understand it? if so, that seems like a very strange use of the term.

For example, suppose there is a superintelligent race of aliens. They *have* done science and figured out some laws that humans could never grasp because of our puny brains. Are such laws 'supernatural'? Again, if so, it seems like a very strange use of the term, especially if a highly intelligent race could find and understand those laws using the scientific method.

[Belacqua]

understand those laws using the scientific method.

A very large prime number which is currently unknown to us has the same ontological status as one which is known.

A law of physics which is not known to us has the same ontological status as one which is known. 

Numbers, laws, physics -- all these are concepts which humans are comfortable with. That's not what I'm talking about. 

I'm talking about things which are entirely unavailable to us, which the scientific method can't analyze. This is a traditional meaning of the terms natural/supernatural. 

It's possible that aliens would understand some of these things -- not through advanced science but through methods which humans can't conceive of. In that case I guess the traditionalists would say that the aliens understand the supernatural. They often posited that there would be higher beings who understood what is beyond nature. 

Maybe you reject the notion that there could possibly be anything unavailable to the scientific method. But that's unprovable.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're talking about ghosts.

[possibletarian]

Seems like we've done a full circle here and the question as to why we should consider something none natural as an explanation at all hasn't been addressed.