RTP Discussions

[squeakthedragon]

... nothing unusual has happened.

Or, so the saying goes.

Of course, I have seen many people invoke this quotation as a logical disproof of the "supernatural". The implication of course, that only things which are natural can happen by definition, therefore the idea of a metaphysic or "super"-natural disproves itself automatically.

The funny thing for me (and I am funny about a great many things) is that I've always seen the quote as supporting a version of the so-called supernatural.

In my lexicon, "supernatural", does not mean outside-nature. Rather, it refers to a super-context to what we are able to perceive as natural. The things that humans may have experienced that they've qualified as supernatural in an attempt to justify their existence.

Yet, to a primitive human, a light bulb is supernatural and magical. The primitive human lacks the understanding and framework to realize how entirely natural forces have been marshaled to bring the light bulb into existence.

Supernatural, in a sense, is an event horizon. It is always just out of reach, and from our subjective perspective, we never actually reach it - as our understanding increases, the mystery of the next thing we do not yet know stays a step ahead of us. Like many things, this can be taken in multiple ways. Some people use this to support things such as a "god of the gaps" rational - saying that because there are always things we cannot understand, this proves the existence of entities like God. Or, a person could take it to mean that this is the real reason why inquisitiveness and the scientific struggle are actually valuable - not just for the temporary inventions and current understanding they grant to us. Tthey give us a better way to cope with complete understanding always being one step out of reach - instead of telling us "do not ponder that which you do not understand, for that is the realm and mystery of God", these tools tell us "we do not know simply because we do not know. But we may know some day."

It's an incredibly powerful promise, I think, that this philosophy makes to human beings - it is a circuit breaker to prevent a mind from being overwhelmed (and thus driven back into true superstition) by contemplating the infinite.

... of course, if this statement is going anywhere, I don't know. I just saw this forum on a really fascinating subject sitting empty.

As for the general subject of the supernatural, and the paranormal, one of those funny things about me is that I'll believe in damn near anything given half the chance. That's because I'm confident I have the correct mental buffers (or as best I have refined so far) to deal with undefinable possibilities without needing to force closure - by either jumping the a positive or a negative conclusion.

I have, in short, seen and experienced my share of Extremely Weird Shit, things that it would be dishonest of me to pretend I'm playing it safe by dismissing out of hand with the modern pseudo-rationalist handwave of "oh, I am sure there's some rational explanation". Which is a non-explanation of an interesting potential phenomenon if there ever was one.

The way I see it, it doesn't matter what the ultimate reality behind a strange thing I experience may turn out to be. Whatever it is, I will eventually be discovering a new wrinkle, and perhaps one that no one has before.
_________________
We're from Outer Space, every one of us!

[AlchemicPhilosopher]

Ah, squeakthedragon! You must be new to the forums. I've become increasingly disenchanted by the lack of meaningful discussion for the better part of a year.

On a happier note...

Or at least a more relevant one I would like to say that I agree with you almost completely. I look at the word 'supernatural' from another perspective. Why use the word at all? Sure there are phenomena worthy of a label with as much impact as they potentially have in themselves, but I prefer to think that the universe is far more grand and elegant if these phenomena actually conform to a framework we have yet to fully grasp. All that occurs in this world is natural, in the purist sense. What is natural is not what is currently within our scope of knowledge, but rather, what is possible. Who are we to judge what is possible, and by implication, what is impossible?

Rationale, however, is a tool used to focus our efforts on something within our reach, or just beyond it (but still in view). When we say, "surely there is a rational explanation for [insert whatever ridiculous phenomenon you see fit]," we aren't dismissing the event, or so I would like to think. Rather, we are keeping record that it happened and waiting for an explanation of 'how' it happened. It may be an inadequate declaration, but it's a noble one.

[squeakthedragon]

In a conversation that came up elsewhere, it was remarked that the human mind operates on a system of closure - the brain wishes to close connections and make perfect loops. This is in part simply a survival strategy; an eagerness to figure out the environment and act upon it (or not act upon it, such as avoiding threats).

"Closure" is what causes people to jump to conclusions. The rationalist might point at this and say "ah hah! This is the cause of magical thinking, where human beings have created explanations for the sake of having them, even if they're not well thought out!"

Perhaps! But the same urges affect everyone, including the rationalist. Many people say "I believe nothing until the evidence is in". But few can really balance themselves on the head of the pin; most people believe, deep down, that a large swath of ideas are "safe" to effectively dismiss. "After all, there's no compelling reason to think much on whether unicorns exist; and if one shows up some day, it will obviously prove its existence, so who cares!"

This can steamroll a little far in a lot of people though. Soon, plenty of ideas become "unicorns" in the mind of a rational person who is overly dismissive, and become summarily dismissed. There's a fair number of people who see themselves as "science minded" today, who consider anyone that even spends a mental cycle thinking about anything that has "the stink of the supernatural about it" to be fools and morons. Worse, many self-proclaimed rationalist go so far as to call anyone who "wastes time with foolish thoughts" (to quote one direction) to be a danger to society - inevitably, they argue, anyone with a non-rational, non-scientific foolish thought in there head is a danger, for their actions will in some way be colored by their "irrational beliefs". (For these people, there is no difference between pondering an idea and believing in it - which itself is not really a rational way to approach things, but they're ironically blind to this.)

For myself, I believe that this particular flavor of "rationalism" gone astray is partly due to the perceived war between religion, superstition, and rationalism in Western societies. People who see themselves as logical, skeptical, scientific, often are pushed to feel if they're fighting (which in some cases, yes, may be literally true) against a black tide of dangerous irrationalism. Unfortunately, far too many rationalists I've met in the west have an extreme western bias.

Their ideas of "the supernatural" for example, comes mostly out of the three big Abrahamic religions of the West and Middle-East, and the folklore superstitions of the west. They've no really solid understanding that orders of human thinking from other cultures and hemispheres have anything more interesting to offer than the Western "bunk" that they've characterized as the enemy. And they're not really interested in exploring.

Also, this working ignorance seems to result in the tendency to see religion or really, the orders of subjective human perception that create things such as religion, as purely negative. Flaws and outdated evolutionary widgets to be controlled ruthlessly or better, ripped out. Again, "silly ideas" as nothing but a danger to the progress, as they see it, of the human race.

The thing is, all of this is quite understandable. One cannot really blame the westerner for having these attitudes, because of the incredible damage that has been done to much of western history and society due to the religions organizations that have dominated so much of history. But like any "war" the combatants inevitably retreat to extremes and begin pumping out propaganda and demonization of "the enemy".
_________________
We're from Outer Space, every one of us!

[AlchemicPhilosopher]