The "science" of Miracles

Right, I'm on your side, flying bridges and mountains clearly violate the laws of physics, violate them so violently that talk of tentativity and working at understanding the phenomena so as to modify science to include them seems ridiculous.But you and I have to face it - that's exactly what scientists would do. Even if it's only after the fact, once the George Washington Bridge moves 50 miles up the Hudson, what scientist wouldn't want to study the aftereffects, the margins where the steel and concrete of the bridge were separated from the steel and concrete that remained on the ground, the effects on the alloys and the welds, increases or decreases in heat, changes in the roadway or cars, the experiences of people on the bridge at the time, any photographs or videos that were taken, etc. Imagine having a for-real miracle to study. Any scientist would consider it the opportunity of a lifetime. And I bet most scientists would start with the initial assumption that there is a natural explanation.But what if there isn't. What if, as you speculate, miracles become a commonplace? What if you always have to check that red wine before drinking to make sure it hasn't become blood? What if you never know when that bridge you use on your commute might change locations? What if the Internet suddenly turned into frogs, and the undersea cables digitally connecting the world became sea serpents?Well, if you're like me, you agree that I've by now crossed over into the absurd. We live in the real world. Things like this are never going to happen, and if they did then they should be considered miracles. Study them if you like, it's at least a starting point, but something more fundamental, more profound, more subtle and momentous at the same time, is going on than just new laws of physics, and that's what really needs to be studied. For thousands of years no physical evidence of miracles, then suddenly physical miracles begin happening. What changed? This is probably where my biggest differences with you lie. I believe anything we can observe, directly (a bridge) or indirectly (dark matter), is natural. I guess if an honest-to-God miracle occurred, I would at least begin with the initial assumption that it was natural. I can't imagine science being able to discriminate between the natural and the supernatural because in my own mind the supernatural isn't detectable or even existent. Science would have to provide evidence that the supernatural exists before I would accept it, sort of similar to the way most people have to study the evidence for wave/particle duality or entanglement and things like that before they accept it.As a participant in this discussion I can accept the existence of the supernatural as a hypothetical and try to consider the implications, but it's hard. How does one even go about even defining something that is undetectable scientifically and therefore undoubtedly nonexistent. We may as well speculate about how science would discriminate between Oxford and Hogwarts.If miracles begin to happen it won't mean we've discovered the supernatural. The word supernatural may be the label we eventually decide to apply to the occurrences of miracles, but since we had no idea of the nature of the supernatural beforehand we couldn't be said to have discovered it.I fear I've created more confusion than clarity about my position, but I hope you find this post useful.--Percy

Again, apparitions have no Biblical support. They seem to be a Catholic concept, not a Protestant one.If minor miracles are part of the natural world, as you've claimed, then any light perceptible by people can also be photographed. There is no such thing as "invisible to normal vision" - if people are seeing it then it is obviously not invisible. People have only one type of vision here in the natural world, and we understand it very well. If this "spiritual vision" exists in the natural world then it can be scientifically studied. In the natural world there is no such thing as "spiritual vision" or a "third eye." Lady Gaga can roll her eyes back, too, but it's all part of a performance, just like gurus. And yes, it is weird in the extreme, and must involve some impairment, incompetence and total memory collapse, that you cannot find the image of the painting of Ignatius Loyola with his eyes rolled back, given that you posted that very image in the message you posted less than ten minutes earlier, Message 187, here's that image: What craziness of interpretation of evidence is leading you to conclude that pictures of people with their eyes rolled back is evidence of "spiritual vision" or a "third eye"? This is something you couldn't possibly know. Besides, there is no evidence the Garabandal visions, or any visions, were anything more than fictions. The evidence is images and videos of children looking or acting weird - there's no evidence they saw anything. Plus do you really believe that a child was told this message in a vision and remembered it all word for word:

quote:

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As my Message of the 18th of October has not been complied with, and as it has not been made known to the world, I am telling you that this is the last one. Previously, the Cup was filling; now, it is brimming over. Many priests are following the road to perdition, and with them they are taking many more souls. Ever less importance is being given to the Holy Eucharist. We should turn the wrath of God away from us by our own efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with a sincere heart. He will pardon you. I, your Mother, through the intercession of St. Michael the Archangel, wish to tell you that you should make amends. You are now being given the last warnings. I love you very much, and I do not want your condemnation. Ask Us sincerely and We shall grant your plea. You must make more sacrifices. Reflect on the Passion of Jesus.

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Of course you believe it. You concede there's a great deal of religious flimflam out there, such as faith healing and donation abuse, but you apply none of that skepticism to things you want to believe, despite the total lack of evidence. This is all something you believe on faith, and we haven't been discussing God's miracles. We've been discussing apparitions, for which you still haven't provided a Biblical foundation, which I wouldn't accept anyway, I'm just pointing out yet another of your invented extra-Biblical beliefs. You've obviously been influenced by the Catholics, which is so strange since you reject them as even Christian. Did they *see* a Marian apparition, or did they only claimed they saw one? Did anyone else see it? How do children, indeed anyone, know what a Marian apparition looks like? Why couldn't it be a Mary Magdalene apparition? A Joan of Arc apparition? A ghost? Besides, even you don't believe they saw a Marian apparition. You think they saw a demon, for which there is also no evidence.--Percy

Where are the studies that produced the evidence supporting the view that "miracles aren't subject to scientific testing" and that "they are unpredictable ephemeral one-time events that don't leave enduring evidence." There aren't any such studies. You're just making it up as you go along. There's not even any Biblical support for this view of miracles, let alone scientific. Many bleeding statues have been debunked. See the Wikipedia article on Weeping statue. It's your observation that miracles can't be tested? You, who have experienced only a single one of these figments of imagination, and who has no evidence from anyone else of miracles, are able to conclude that? Amazing.--Percy

Do I understand correctly that you're saying you're willing to consider the hypothetical, for the sake of discussion, of true miracles? Well, yes, this has been very apparent. Tangle believes that a true miracle would be a violation of the physical laws of the universe, while you believe a miracle wouldn't really be a miracle but would only mean there's more to the natural universe than we yet know.But does this mean that you're not willing to consider the hypothetical of a true miracle if a miracle is defined as a violation of the physical laws of the universe? Because if so it sounds like you're only willing to consider miracles as natural phenomena we don't understand yet, and that you're not willing to explore the other definition of miracle even hypothetically.--Percy

Sure it should. Any scientist would agree. But you're assuming that the answer will always be, "Once again, a natural explanation was found." I'm not sure you've got the right definition of miracle (see my upcoming reply to Tangle), but in any case we have to agree on definitions before we can have a discussion. According to our local expert, Faith, God can break the laws he created for us. I don't myself believe in a God like any traditional God, but if you're talking about the same kind of God as Faith, the one in the Bible, then he has broken the physical laws of the universe many times. If you explored this avenue one of two things could happen, both of them good. One is that you prove you're right (always nice), and the other is that you learn something (also always nice). Win-win. Again, see my upcoming reply to Tangle.--Percy

I guess the problem I'm having is with definitions. Just to try to find a solid foundation, here are the definitions from Wikipedia:

• Natural: The natural, physical or material world.
• Supernatural: All that cannot be explained by the laws of nature.
• Miracle: An event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.

Apologies if I'm mistaken, but I think these are definitions you and I agree with, so we're on fairly solid ground because a consensus of interested people have agreed on these definitions in Wikipedia.This means that when the George Washington Bridge moves 50 miles up the Hudson that it must be supernatural and a miracle.That doesn't mean that Ringo and Jar don't have strong arguments, because I think they do. Ringo says he's exploring this from a scientific perspective, and this is a science thread. Science is tentative, which I think includes the idea that we can never say that we know all the laws of nature, and that even the well established ones might have aspects that aren't yet known.But does tentativity also require that we can't know whether miracles are possible? I don't know, but if so then it forces the conclusion that something that violates well known physical laws could be either a miracle or something in science we don't understand yet.Another question is whether it's possible to develop scientific definitions of the supernatural and miracles. Aren't they outside the realm of science, being either fictional or religious?--Percy

I agree with everything you say, right down to the details. Well said. I wanted to comment on this: Yes! Yes! How can we say what a miracle or the supernatural is without a hint of evidence of their true nature? Right now aren't they just made-up concepts? Certainly they're very familiar as words, but they're very ill-defined words. Are they really any better defined than a crocoduck?--Percy

I have a couple comments about the dark matter example.First, about the history, I knew the discovery of the first evidence of dark matter preceded the 1970s by a good bit but didn't recall the details, so I looked up dark matter at Wikipedia. The section on Early History of Dark Matter has a brief description. I mention this only in case you're interested - it isn't really germane to the discussion.Second, about dark matter as an example of something that didn't follow our understanding of the natural universe at the time, it was never viewed as a potential miracle. The same is true of the problem of the energy distribution of black body radiation (required the concept of quanta of energy to solve) and the photoelectric effect (again, quanta was the solution) that at the turn of the 20th century were considered some of the major unsolved problems of physics. It seemed obvious to all scientists that these were merely unsolved problems of science, not potential miracles.The examples of miracles that Tangle and I have been suggesting, like moving mountains and bridges and turning wine to blood, bear no resemblance to these. They wouldn't seem to any scientist like unsolved problems of physics. They would seem impossible, inexplicable, incomprehensible, unfathomable. They would be the first examples of the headline "Scientists Baffled" being accurate.As Tangle and I argue, the George Washington Bridge suddenly moving 50 miles up the Hudson is not an indication of not-yet-understood physics. It breaks dozens of laws of physics nine ways from Sunday. The only natural explanation I can think of is aliens using their advanced technology to entertain themselves at our expense. Naturally scientists would spring into action to study the seemingly miraculous event, which is exactly the possibility that would get mentioned endlessly. I think many scientists would be willing to characterize the event as "Miraculous until a natural cause is found" rather than "Natural until proven miraculous."--Percy

We were trying to say the same thing, but I like the way you said it better. So you're not talking about the same kind of God as Faith, at least not now. You're talking about the kind of God that is the invention of the Bible's authors. But when you wrote, "Hypothetically, if there was a God or other supernatural presence..." you seemed to be talking about the same kind of God as Faith, so let me try again quoting you from your Message 198: So if, hypothetically, there were such a thing as a supernatural God like the one Faith believes in from the Bible, in other words, if, hypothetically, God exists and the Bible is his story, then the hypothetical situation under consideration includes that God has broken the physical laws of the universe many times. What is the point of invoking something true of everything anyone thinks, including of all parties to this discussion?--Percy

Right, of course you didn't, and that's why I commented. You were trying to clarify the discussion for Phat, but no one does or ever did consider dark matter miraculous. In fact, what's most exciting about dark matter is it's potential for revealing new science, not any potential miraculous quality.Tangle and I have been suggesting examples that are unambiguously miraculous by the definitions provided by Wikipedia. About the miraculous example of the George Washington Bridge moving 50 miles up the Hudson you say: So because of what you say next the problem must be that I'm insufficiently imaginative in coming up with miraculous ideas: It looks like the last part of your message got chopped off somehow, but this fragment does say that you believe in miracles, so since my ideas for miracles aren't working for you maybe it would be better if you suggested something that could happen today that you'd consider miraculous.--Percy

There weren't a lot of hypotheticals. I just used the word hypothetical a lot because in your previous response you seemed to drift away from your earlier proposal to look at it hypothetically, in your words, "Hypothetically, if there was a God or other supernatural presence, I don't know if it could "break" the physical laws that it supposedly created."So this time I won't even use the word "hypothetical," I won't use the God of the Bible as an example, and I'll take a different tack. Speculate that there's a God. Why would you further speculate that he can't break his own laws? I mean, there's absolutely nothing to go on, how could you speculate as to His qualities? (Unless you had a guidebook like Faith's Bible ) I agree with you, but we're just speculating here.--Percy

I think it's the hypothetical aspect that is key. To me the supernatural and miracles are all just made up, but if you want to have a conversation with believers then you have to, at least part of the time, be willing to consider the possibility that they're real.I haven't reached the point where I understand Jar's position yet. He appears to both accept and reject miracles, so I must be missing something.--Percy

Don't take this the wrong way, but now your beliefs, or at least this one, are beginning to sound like my own in that they make little sense.--Percy

Why is that "as far as we can go"? Anything that happens in the real world can be studied. A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws. So if something happened that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, such as the GW bridge moving 50 miles up the Hudson (I don't know why you prefer Oakland as a destination), how could it not, by definition, be a miracle?I did notice that back in Message 105 you provided your own definition of miracle: But you misdefined supernatural. The supernatural isn't something impossible in the natural world, but something that cannot be explained by the laws of nature.--Percy

First it's necessary to settle something really important, where the GW bridge moves to. It's my example, and I say the miracle is that it moved 50 miles up the Hudson. If you want to move a bridge to Oakland, pick your own bridge. The supernatural is anything that can't be explained by the laws of nature, but it is still of the real world. The supernatural isn't a place with no ingress. It's an event or process or object that can't be explained by the laws of nature. So we study the supernatural the same way we study anything that happens or exists in the natural world.--Percy