Saturday, 11 August 2007
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Supernatural Semantics
Intro:
It’s a darn shame…people quibble over semantics. However when I use the term “supernatural” I tend to use it the general pop cultural sense to mean claims of magical things (things of a different nature that our world) that have some kind of life outside of the known universe that have something more or less personal to do with us in our world. I rarely have a desire to use it in any technical sense.
Some simple examples: God may be in heaven but he can perform miracles or make special appearances. Angels are up there too, but they can rescue one out of 10,000 believers from car accidents. Ghosts may be supposed to be moving on to the next world but perhaps were too stubborn to stop and ask for directions and thus are stuck hanging out. Perhaps the astral plane can be accessed through the portal of the mind. It’s out there, but not necessarily in the universe, and for some reason someone put a door to it through your brain. And many other examples could be cited.
Nature as whatever is real (a.k.a. supernatural = fake): Technically speaking, if the “clock work” of our universe is the “natural world” multiverse theories (MTs), which are currently being pursued in science, could classify as “supernatural.” However it seems obvious that there is a distinction between the two kinds of supernatural claims. MTs have nothing to do with us, aren’t of significant difference in nature with the universe at least in terms of the most proximate universes, and would be an extension of the natural world we already know. In this regard “natural” would begin to mean “whatever is real” and supernatural effectively doubles in meaning with “whatever isn’t real, but some people say it is anyway.” Given that this usage goes in tandem with what the scientific world has either refuted or been unable to corroborate, this version works just fine and MTs aren’t supernatural in that sense. This is the primary usage and if something labeled “imaginary” by the skeptical community turned out to be real as well (like God), then one could only imagine he is just as “natural” as anything else that exists.
Nature as our home reality (a.k.a. supernatural = some other reality): If a leprechaun is real, then it is perfectly natural in its own right. It is just not of a nature we are familiar with. Supernatural in the “realist sense” should probably should mean something like, “Most characterized by the extreme juxtaposition of discordant natures with only a minimal of semi-practical continuity.” In other words photons still bounce off of them so we can see them, but the wee people can still break the laws of conservation of mass and energy by disappearing into the woodwork. Or perhaps if we are speaking of ghosts and from a phenomenal perspective, we might not see ghosts with our eyes, perhaps we merge the “spiritual sight” from the mind’s eye with the natural sight much like our brain combines the dual images from both eyes. But the primary means of causation is not to be found from anything we know of our periodic table…and yet somehow some people are enabled to interact at some level with this supernatural stuff. This is the secondary usage.
Nature as the supernaturalists would have us believe (a.k.a. combining fact and fiction and calling it all nature): Some people apparently have no use for the term “supernatural” and yet by just about everyone else’s sense of the term, they are supernaturalists in the ordinary sense given the kooky things they apparently believe in to whatever extent. And so when these “naturalists” meet the naturalists from the primary usage above…things can get quite confusing, because both parties want the label. Perhaps those “kooky things” should step in to settle the dispute… lol
Personally I only adopt the term “naturalist” and use the term “metaphysical naturalism” to refer to myself abroad because those are the most “in the ball park” terms pointing at my position that make the most sense to our culture. I don’t think I need a title for “I believe in things that are the most likely to be true as I see it.” I can work just as well with “Pastafarian” as long as you know what that entails. But the discussion needs to start somewhere, and the actual line items I ascribe to can be used to most readily lump me into the mainstream naturalist camp and so it is fair enough to classify me as a naturalist in the primary sense used here in this entry. Technically all three could refer to my position given that I see no reason to think our reality is the only one there is though I don’t think there’s any evidence that whatever leprechauns or unicorns may be in some other universe actually have any impact here in ours. You might call this "open" naturalism. In other words I believe in the basic paradigm of understanding how this natural world works, but I don't cap it off and say, "And I know that's all there is."
Perhaps I could be challenged in regards to my Allverse hypothesis and there are only so many philosophical statements I will defend. However if it turns out that our universe is all there is, the Allverse hypothesis is hinged on the conditional statement “all possible iterations.” If our clockwork universe happens to be the only possible iteration of existence…so be it. I just think the particularity of our realm is too “off center” so to speak (or as theists would say “on a razors edge”) to pretend this universe is all there is. Perhaps this teleological intuition is where aesthetics meets ontology, but incidentally an infinite multiverse plus seems to be on the horizon of scientific inquiry and it would start filling in that infinite blank between us and the "other side" of the Allverse.
I’ll just go ahead and say, I don’t care which way you use these terms as long as you do so consistently and that proper communication is maintained. In all likelihood…I’m already making accommodations for your usage whatever it is. And unless otherwise noted, I’m probably using it in the most normative modern day sense of the word and do not pretend to use it in any “assert my conclusion” kind of way. I would hope you are mature enough to do the same.
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