Has The Supernatural Hypothesis Failed?

Ok I got my pantys in a wad. my bad.

This has nothing to do with ravens.On what basis do you confidently conclude that gravity won't be supernaturally suspended 30 seconds after responding to this post.My answer is obvious. The consistency of natural law and the deep unlikelihood of any entirely unevidenced supernatural interference.But as someone that believes in miracles you cannot make that claim.So on what basis do you reject this possibility as "unlikley"?Be specific.

It doesn't seem that you're interested in the point I was trying to make.

Shouldn't that read "the concept/s of god/s remain a possibility"...?For two reasons:1) "god" doesn't represent any one thing; it can be lots of things and has been throughout history - For example, anyone claiming "god" is the sun has evidence to support the existence of the sun. If that's their concept of god, there is no issue.2) The issue is more with the concepts than with an actual "god" type thing. We haven't gone past stage one, which is trying to understand the many concepts of god/s. Here is where the issue starts and ends, at the concepts. Humans are attributing all kinds of unknowable, unevidenced features and qualities to their concepts and that's where problems are. Can there exist something that can be refered to as a god? Sure, there could be many things that could be called god, or there could be a yet unknown force that can be called god. But what's all the other stuff about "outside the universe" and "outside of reality"? What are all these claims that things can break the laws of nature? What is this talk about something being derived from and not subject to the fundamental laws of physics? That's when the concepts take on a more fictional role. That's when the concepts become saturated in nonsensical terms.So I would say that God doesn't remain a possibility, because that word doesn't represent any one thing. When someone can say god is love, or god is energy, or god is light, or god is Christ, or god is Allah, which one do you pick as the actual representative? Which one concept is possible and which one isn't? Or are they all possible?- Oni

What point?I will answer any point made explicitly to me.And how is asking you "On what basis do you confidently conclude that gravity won't be supernaturally suspended 30 seconds after responding to this post." NOT specifically challenging your claims of non-inductivist thinking?Without a degree of inductivism you cannot be confident of anything at all.Can you?

If you choose to use the word 'possible' to mean 'not yet demonstrated to be impossible'. But I think that's misleading and dangerously open to equivication.. So I try not to. Ask for evidence that God is possible if someone claims that it is. And don't concede that God is possible just because you can't prove the contrary is true.

God admittedly means many thing to many people.Buz's God for example has been pretty much refuted because his version of God makes claims about the real world that have been falsified.But the whole god as the creator of the physical universe or the natural laws that govern it - That has not been "falsified". As such.Yes you can argue it is unknowable. Yes you can say it is as likely to actually exist as the celestial cows whose farts created the universe. But it is not "meaningless" or "nothing". in the sense you seem to be suggesting. Nor does the word "superhero".The fact that an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of imaginary, but very specific in their own right, concepts exists doesn't make the umbrella term itself meaningless.Spider-man is a superhero. So are Superman and Wolverine. "Superhero" is not a meaningless term because no such things exist. Nor is it meaningless because it is non-specific about what a superhero is. We have an umbrella definition. Thor is a god. Yahweh is a god. Zeus is a god. RAZD's universe creating deity who plays no further part in the development of reality is a god.What is possible and what is not? Well we enter the "evidenced possibility" Vs "unevidenced possibility" realm again.Some gods are certainly more falsified than others. Other than that all we can say is that they are all equally baseless propositions and that the likelihood of the actual existence of any such supernatural entity is deeply improbable.To say the least.

The first one that I made when I entered this thread, from Message 286:

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I said that it is impossible to have ANY confidence in ANY prediction borne of ANY naturalistic explanation without implicitly assuming both the consistency of natural law and the absence of supernatural agents that will override those laws

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I don't think this is true, and I think it is an error in inductive logic.

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Take the observation that every crow that you've seen has been black. There would then be a scientific theory that all crows are black. This theory is not saying that there are no white crows that exist. That is the nature of inductive logic. That doesn't mean that you cannot have any confidence in the all crows are black theory, especially if it is working.

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Now, scientific theories do not explicitly state the lack of the supernatural, nor do I think they implicitly imply it. They simply don't touch on it. If it works then sweet, we can just continue on with it and get more shit done.

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I went even further:

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So I ask you - Can we legitimately have confidence in conclusions and predictions made on the basis of consistent natural laws and the absence of any supernatural agents overriding those laws?

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Or are you still asserting that such assumptions are "heuristic" and statistically invalid?

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Yes we can have confidence in them, especially if they are working, but they are not statiscally, or logically, valid.

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I think I've brought this up before, and you didn't reply...

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What you are relying on is Inductive Probability:

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It has often been noted that the word ‘probability’ is used in two different
senses in ordinary language. In one sense, probability is relative
to the available evidence and does not depend on unknown facts about
the world; probability in this sense has something to do with inductive
inference and so I will call it inductive probability. In the other sense,
probability is a fact about the world and not relative to the available
evidence; I will call this physical probability.

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As an illustration of the difference between these two concepts, suppose
you have been told that a coin is either two-headed or two-tailed
but you have no information about which it is. The coin is about to be
tossed. What is the probability that it will land heads? There are two
natural answers to this question:

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(i) 1/2.
(ii) Either 0 or 1 but I do not know which.

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Answer (i) is natural if the question is taken to be about inductive
probability, while (ii) is the natural answer if the question is taken to
be about physical probability.

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I still think you are trying to take an inductive probability about the supernatural and assign it a physical probability and that this is where the error of your logic occurs.

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Continuing with this example, suppose you now observe that the
coin has a head on one side. Given the information you now have, the
inductive probability of it landing heads on the next toss is 1. Thus
the inductive probability has changed with the new evidence. You also
now know that the physical probability of the coin landing heads is 1,
but this probability has not changed, it was 1 before as well, only your
knowledge about it has changed. This further illustrates how inductive
probability is relative to evidence and physical probability is not.

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I also think that part of your error is in assuming that a scientific explanation acutally precludes a supernatural one, and you think that pretty much all the supernatural explanations have been refuted by scientific ones. I don't think this is true. Just like it doesn't matter how many times you drop your pen, you still haven't shown that the angels aren't there.

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Now, this doesn't mean that we cannot have confidence that the scientific explanation will work, it just means that inductice logic doesn't preclude an alternative. And I think this is what Bluejay was getting into with having something to compare it to. In the end, you're still just assuming that the supernatural doesn't exist. It isn't something that you're arriving at from the available evidence.

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You totally avoided 75% of my post. I'm not claiming non-inductivist thinking, I'm challenging your conclusion logically following from the available evidence. I don't have a problem with inductivism. I'm saying the conclusions your deriving from it are not logically following.Hell, even the wiki page on inductivism is takes the same route I am:Inductivism - Wikipedia

Again I agree. But the likes of RAZD and Bluejay will insist that the existence of the supernatural is "possible". Fine. But when confronting those who preach the gospel of agnosticism things are not as simple as that.They are asking how anyone can legitimately be atheistic towards something that is "possible".How do you deal with that?You have no choice but to distinguish between evidenced and unevidenced possibilities as far as I can see (which is what I end up attempting to do)Or come up with other terminological wizardry to the same effect.

I don't think your "inductive probability" argument has anything to do with anything I am saying. But I might be wrong. Let's find out based on a prediction derived from the conclusion I am making.If I conclude that supernatural agents will not override gravitational effects 30 seconds after you respond to this post is that an argument derived from inductive probability?On what legitimate basis do you think I can make that conclusion? Or are you agnostic to that proposition?Because my estimation of the unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural is made on the same basis as the conclusion that supernatural entities will probably not override gravity 30 seconds after your response.Can you not see that?

That is not a logical conclusion derived from the available evidence.ABE: I just want to point out that this doesn't mean that you can't have any confidence that gravitational effects will continue to operate as usual. Yes, I see that. Too, your estimation of the unlikelihood of the existence of the supernatural is not a logical conclusion based on the available evidence.Do you see that?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : see ABE

Cool, we got that out of the way. Not really though. Humans make the claim that their concept of god makes claims about the real word. There in lies the rub, "god" has said nothing at all. Here's what you're saying: X as the creator of the universe has not been falsified.Can you see how that becomes a rather insignificant statement? Sure it does, it represents fictional characters that within the world of non-fiction make sense. No not meaningless, in this particular case, but surely ambiguous to say the least. And frankly, how can the concepts be specific if, like you agreed, god means many things to many people. You have to admit, there is a vast difference conceptually between "God is the sun" and "God is an energy that exists outside of reality," no? These are human concepts, Straggler. Nothing more really. You didn't have to stop there, you could go on to say, the sun is god. Fire is god. Wind is god. Love is god. An extra-terrestrial being with super intelligence is god. Where does it end?- Oni

And you could say "Demonstrate this is true rather than demonstrating that its contrary hasn't been proven true (or cannot be proven true." - There are people on this board that insist on all sorts of things. Treat them the same: Demand evidence that god is in fact, possible. Straightforwardly enough: It is 'possible' that guy over there owns Brooklyn Bridge and that it is 'possible' that if I give him a thousand pounds he'll give me the deeds. But I'm not going to.Since I'm not going to, that implies that I don't believe the claim.
I am an aGuyOwnsBrookylnBridgeAndIsSellingItCheapist.I just ask Agnostics "Do you hold the belief "God exists"?" If they don't they are agnostic atheists like me. They probably just treat people that claim God differently than they do potential conmen: so I'll ask why. Possibly out of 'respect' or not wanting to be viewed as a Dickish Gnu Atheist. How about falsifiable and unfalsifiable claims, verified claims and unverified claims. You don't even have to suggest how they are verified or falsified.RAZD's God is unverifiable and unfalsifiable, for example.It is therefore implied that it is 'unevidenced' and 'not demonstrated to be impossible' without the ambiguous language.

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cavediver in Message 346:
Looking at the devlopment of our understanding of the Universe over the past several thousand years, my overwhelming conclusion is that the supernatural is precisely that that has nothing to do with reality.

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Jon in Message 348:
In what way does the supernatural have nothing to do with reality?

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Do you find the supernatural to be, as a matter of definition, then, false and untrue?Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar

Claims about the natural world are natural. Claims that do not involve the natural world are supernatural (as far as my definitionand those of many dictionariesis concerned). Remember, just because a claim uses three-letter words like 'god' or 'creator' does not mean it is supernatural; so long as it makes claims about the natural world, it is natural. If the statement makes no claims about the natural world, it is supernatural.Jon

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"Can we say the chair on the cat, for example? Or the basket in the person? No, we can't..." - Harriet J. Ottenheimer

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"Dim bulbs save on energy..." - jar