Studying the supernatural

I don't "know".But more to the point- If there were evidence that Harold Camping (or some other such equivalent) was correct (either in this universe or any other that we can gain evidence of) would that constitute evidence of the supernatural?

Science is free to speculate on there being other dimensions of time so I don't see why a simple theist like myself can't as well. My speculative view is that an infinite person or prime mover would be free to move around in 2 or 3 dimensional time just as we move around in 3 dimensional space. Think of the surface of the globe as representing time instead of space. Just as we never come to the edge spatially we would never come to the edge temporally. I realize that is just a tad speculative. Actually I'm not talking about investigating a prime mover as such. The question is about "studying the supernatural" and so what I'm suggesting that we might be able to study a universe that is beyond what we can perceive by our 5 senses. If we are to find that we are part of a much greater reality than just the universe as we perceive it, it would provide a new frame of reference to the discussion of whether or not a prime mover exists.

Sure you can. But I don't see how positing additional timelike dimensions for reality answers that question. And science doesn;t just "speculate" based on nothing - when physicists hypothesize about additional dimensions, they're doing so because adding additional dimensions to specific mathematical equasions makes the results come out more like what we observe. Essentially they're using math based on observed physics to predict a possible solution.That's not quite like you or me saying "well, what if the prime mover was infinite!" That's not so speculative actually - it's actually closer to a real view of the actual Universe. Humans only experience time as a one-way constant-speed ride because our brains run on entropy. Our thoughts, because they are electrochemical reactions in our meat brains, can only ever run in the direction of increasing entropy at the speed of those electrochemical reactions. Computers are similar, requiring an increase in entropy for processing data, but the mechanism of flipping transistors on and off is significantly faster than biological neural activity, so you could say that they "think" faster.But time really is just like the spacial dimensions. It's just a continuum of coordinates, where (just as with the spacial dimensions) events and objects at given coordinates have a specific relationship to nearby coordinates (ie, "causes" and "effects" are related in the coordinate system of time in that any "cause" must exist at a time coordinate posessing a lower amount of entropy than its "effect"). If our meat brains, or a computer's electronic processor, were not entropy machines, our perspective on time would be a lot more similar to our perspective on length, or width.How, though, does this solve the problem of infinite regression? The logic behind demanding a "prime mover" in the first place requires that all complex entities be "designed" or "caused" by a more complex entity. How would an "infinite prime mover" then not itself require a still more compelx entity as a "cause?" Why does the ability to perceive time as just another spacial dimension, being free to move to various points in the timeline, solve the question of infinite regression?It sounds like just more special pleading to me, honestly. It's just another way to say "yeah, but this is the first cause" with no actual reason at all to suggest it other than personal preference...and hypothesizing about reality is something quite apart from choosing one's favorite color. Evidence is not what allows us to believe our preferred solution; evidence is what forces us to believe the logically most likely hypothesis. If you intend to be logically consistent, I don't see how an "infinite prime mover" is any different at all from a non-infinite version, except with the nifty word "infinite" attached. Well, that's trivially easy: we already study parts of the Universe that are beyond what we can perceive with our 5 senses. We use technology and mathematics to develop the tools to make observations that let us mathematically predict the existence of things that we can then use technology and mathematics to detect and then display the results in a format that our five senses can perceive. We do this every day.After all, you can't directly observe a neutrino. Innumerable neutrinos pass through your body every day, and not one of your five sense would tell you. Only a specialized detector can do that. We already know that we're part of a much greater reality than the Universe as we perceive it. We've known that virtually since Galileo pointed a telescope at the sky instead of a distant ground-based object and saw a bunch of "stars" (moons) orbiting Jupiter. What we see at the human-sized scale is a teensy, tiny, fragment of a fraction of a percentage of the actual Universe. I'm sure you've read some of cavediver's posts about real quantum fields...The reality is that the Universe is not at all limited to just what we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. The underlying reality is far more elegant, simple, complex, and amazing than anything we will ever be able to directly perceive. After all, you've never ever actually touched anything - the electrons orbiting the atoms in the cells that make up your skin electromagnetically repelled against the electrons in every object you've ever picked up, keeping just a tiny amount of distance between the two. You don;t even see ultraviolet, or infrared, or x-rays or radio or gamma rays - those wavelengths of light (and others) are all around us every moment and you'd never even know it. In every breath, you take in uncounted gluons and quarks without realizing. I could go on for hours like this, GDR.Science doesn't ignore what we can't see, taste, touch, hear or smell. Science figures out what can detect those things we cannot, and then builds a machine to do so to see what exists and what doesn't.The investigation of the supernatural is what science is all about. We just stop calling it "supernatural" once we no longer feel confused about a mysterious question.More specifically, once a real explanation forces us to believe based on evidence, rather than myriad speculations allowing us to believe whatever is most pleasing based on ignorance.

Hi RahvinI just gave your post a thumbs up and as I don't have time to answer it right now I just want to tell you how much I appreciate it. It was brilliant and my response will take time partly because of time restictions but mostly as it will take a lot of thought. Hopefully I'll be back to you within 24 hours.Cheers

Once again, thanks for a great and thoughtful reply. Well I was talking about science speculating on additional universes/dimensions and these theories were not grounded on my theistic beliefs. Yes, my Christian beliefs do suggest other universes/dimensions but that belief isn’t really part of this discussion. The discussion is about Studying the Supernatural and the only way that I can see of doing this is with the scientific method. It seems to me then that the natural world only experiences change in one direction and if we were to study a world that could experience change in multi-directions we would be studying the supernatural. I’ll use an example of a world with 3 dimensional time. We could move forward, back or at an angle in a combination of both. There wouldn’t be a time=0, there would only be points in time that we would move around in the same manner, (as I suggested earlier), that we move around the globe using our spatial dimensions. So, just as we move around the globe an infinite distance we would move around in time in an infinite distance.
The point is that if this was the non-entropic hang out of the prime mover it would be quite conceivable that he always existed and was never created. There then is no need of a more complex entity as a cause. Well obviously faith is not something that is objectively evidenced, but subjectively IMHO, it does make sense of the world I experience. I realize that it is quite reasonable to come to other conclusions as you have done but that is one of the things that makes life, and discussions like this interesting.It seems to me that the turtle argument is correct in that at some point you require a first cause that is infinite. I agree that it doesn’t much matter whether or not it is one order of deity up or 100, but at some point there has to be an infinite first cause regardless of whether or not the first cause is intelligent. That would be those neutrinos passing through me at faster than the speed of light. Another way of looking at it though is that we can’t perceive neutrinos with our 5 senses because our senses aren’t strong enough. If we had vision that was billions of time stronger we presumably could actually see a neutrino. I’m suggesting something, that no matter how strong any of our 5 senses were we would never be able to perceive it.Right now it seems to me that the only way we could possibly study a supernatural world would be through mathematics but who knows what the great brains of the future can come up with. If other universes/dimensions exist then I think it is conceivable that someone in the future might come up with something that could detect this greater reality using some form of detector utilizing a 6th or 7th sense. It is all so amazing. Nothing is intuitive. One science book I read made the statement that everything is nothing and he had a point. If we can study a universe that is interwoven with our own and call it natural then any question of the supernatural is going to involve the existence or non-existence of sentient life within this interwoven universe/dimension. That would bring it back to faith. It does seem to me though that if we established that there is another universe interwoven, interactive and more complex than our own it would be consistent with the idea of an external intelligence that is responsible for life here. We can make the claim of anyone , regardless of belief, that they believe something based on what is pleasing to them. Frankly, things come up in life that could more favourably dealt with from a selfish perspective if I believed differently. We all search for truth and there are no guarantees that we are right. Frankly I am confident of my beliefs and the more I study about the world we live in, whether it be science, theology or history the more convinced I become.

The problem is that the entropic arrow of time is the key ingredient to our consciousness. Yet conciousness is the first attribute assigned to any kind of Western prime mover. Don't you think that this is just badly misplaced and rather blatent anthropomorphism?

I understand time as simply being the way that we experience change, or to put it another way, the sequence in which change is ordered in our lives. In some ways technology has been able to reverse that arrow of time for us. We can look at old recordings and relive events in our past and so on. For that matter we have memories. If I'm correct and we are going to move on to another form of physical existence I don't see why our consciousness couldn't be expanded to experience change in more than one direction and I don't see why that couldn't be true of a prime mover as well.I think I would agree that all views of God are to some large extent anthropomorphic. As humans we are limited and we need to understand God in largely human terms. For that matter, if we are made in His image it only makes sense that we would understand God in an anthropomorphic way.Actually as far as studying the supernatural goes it seems to me that philosophically, and to a large degree theologically we are limited to a anthropomorphic god, but through science we can actually learn about God somewhat objectively through creation.Even Paul says in Romans 1 that "God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made". It seems to me that the more we learn from what has been made the more we will understand about the supernatural. See cavediver, you scientists are really theologians in disguise.

You wrote this in your last post and it intrigued me. I poked around on the computer and found this interview with Lisa Randall. I had read her book "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions", (I found it interesting but tough going), and so was interested in what she had to say.Here is the link to the whole interview. Lisa RandallIn the interview I came across the following:

quote:

---

Yet we very clearly see only three dimensions when we look around. Where could the other dimensions be hiding?

​

The old answer was that the extra dimensions were tiny: If something is sufficiently small, you just don't experience it. That's the way things stood until the 1990s, when Raman Sundrum and I realized you could have an infinite extra dimension if space-time is warped. Then with Andreas Karch, I found something even more dramaticthat we could live in a pocket of three dimensions in a higher-dimensional universe. It could be that where we are it looks as if there's only three dimensions in space, but elsewhere it looks like there's four or even more dimensions in space.

​

And there could be a whole other universe set up that way?

​

Possibly. It would be a different universe because, for example, bound orbits [like Earth's path around the sun] work only in three dimensions of space. And the other universe could have different laws of physics. For example, they could have a completely different force that we are immune to. We don't experience that force, and they don't experience, say, electromagnetism. So it could be that we're made of quarks and electrons, while they're made up of totally different stuff. It could be a completely different chemistry, different forcesexcept for gravity, which we believe would be shared.

---

Randall is talking about a universe/dimension that we are unable to access with our 5 senses no matter how enhanced those 5 senses are. Is this studying the supernatural, even without direct evidence fo any sentient life within it? If this universe/dimension exists how might we be able to determine how it interacts with our own reality and how would we be able to determine if there is sentient life of any form existing within it?

Imagine we are in the Matrix. Now I know this isn't quite what you meant but it could just as easily fit your description/criteria regarding us being in a sub reality of an undetectable greater reality.Would the greater reality in which the matrix exists (the one where our brains are in pods or whatever) qualify as "supernatural".I don't think it would.So I don't think simply being a "greater reality" as you have suggested necessarily makes anything supernatural at all.

I agree that a matrix fits into the idea of there being a greater reality. I would see us as being an emergent universe from this greater reality. It would also make sense then that when time as we now know it comes to an end we will absorbed back into that greater reality. The idea of the matrix has a kinda logical ring to it as our thoughts are immaterial but they are enacted through a material brain.Frankly I would think that would make the greater reality supernatural as it presumably wouldn’t be subject to natural laws. If it functions outside of natural laws, and we know that it has intelligence as an aspect of it, (because our minds function within that universe/dimension), then it would IMHO be supernatural.Here is an interesting paper on the idea of a matrix. The Matrix as Metaphysics

So the supernatural 'greater reality' you are talking about is one that "wouldn’t be subject to natural laws" - Is that correct?If so I don't think the sort of extra dimensional conjectures that theoretical physicists are proposing (the sort of thing mentioned in previous links re CERN etc.) really qualify do they?If they weren't subject to natural laws I don't see how we could discern their presence by extrapolating mathematical models which are based on the natural laws we do know about in this universe.

Yes, as it would seem by definition that if it had natural laws, (as we understand natural), it would no longer be supernatural. I'll repeat part of the Lisa Randall quote that I used earlier.

quote:

---

It would be a different universe because, for example, bound orbits [like Earth's path around the sun] work only in three dimensions of space. And the other universe could have different laws of physics. For example, they could have a completely different force that we are immune to. We don't experience that force, and they don't experience, say, electromagnetism. So it could be that we're made of quarks and electrons, while they're made up of totally different stuff. It could be a completely different chemistry, different forcesexcept for gravity, which we believe would be shared.

---

I realize that we are well into the speculative realm here, but it does seem that there are some highly qualified physicists proposing models that would qualify. Who knows? When scientists can discover particles popping in and out of existence, essentially being created from nothing and disappearing into nothing, it seems to me that are not only discerning, but investigating something that is on the borderline of being called supernatural.Don't go selling our scientific minds short. There are some pretty bright people out there. I think our friend cavediver just might be up to the job. Cheers, and thanks for the comment on the other thread.

As Mod seems to have dropped out of the discussion and it seems to have come to an end I thought I'd have a go at a summary. (It is possible that my subjective POV may creep into my objectivity in this. )The question from Modulous was:

quote:

---

Can science even investigate the supernatural?

---

The answer to this largely boiled down to the definition of supernatural. The point was made that if we are able to investigate something then it is natural. That has been our experience but much of theoretical science involves universes/dimensions that might or might not conform to what we consider natural laws.Personally I have to wonder about some of QM. Natural law IMHO would dictate that matter, in one form or another, once formed would always exist but we apparently observe particles popping in and out of existence, or being created and uncreated all the time. That, at least intuitively is contrary to natural law so, in answer to Mod's question, perhaps science has already started investigating the supernatural.(Now a word from my sponsor. )I can't see how we can avoid classifying much of theoretical physics as supernatural and from my personal viewpoint I find the congruence between much of theoretical physics and my Christian theism to be of particular interest.In the end it all boils down as to where we draw the line between the natural and the supernatural. If we conclude that anything that we can investigate is natural it seems to me that the line between the two will never be determined and the answer to the question will always be no.If however, we draw the line as being the point where we investigate something that does not conform to natural law then I believe the answer is not only yes but appears to me to be already happening.So after reading all the posts and paying particular attention to my own the answer to:

quote:

---

Can science even investigate the supernatural?

---

Is YES.Edited by GDR, : typo

How would "different laws of physics" in this different universe qualify as "supernatural".....? Theoretical physicists have long been proposing the possibility of universes with different natural laws to the ones we know.But that is hardly the same as finding heaven.

I am not sure. Of course statistically a prophet can be right just out of mere coincidence. ESP is regarded somewhat as supernatural. So if somehow it could be verified scientifically then yes Im sure you would agree that some supernatural claims can be scientifically examined. To date nothing has been shown to be supernatural as there are either naturalist explainations or out right debunked.
That does not imo mean SOMETHING outside of our abilities to verify is NOT taking place.