Norm Smith wrote:
> In reading this essay, I notice that when I come to the word
> "supernatural" in item A., no definition has been given for that term.
> I can understand the distinction that was made in the SC2 item between
> events at least partly caused by intelligent activity and those that are
> not ( even though in a particular case, I may not be able to tell the
> difference ). Is "supernatural" a special kind of intelligent activity
> such as that caused by "God"?
Yes, God or some other intelligent agent. Perhaps in version 3 (there
probably won't be a version 4, unless version 3 generates a lot of new
feedback) I will include the following "definition" for supernatural: (An
event caused by intelligent beings of an entirely different "reality" than
our universe.) The super-human technology category is (An event caused by
intelligent beings who are contained in and limited by our universe, but
with superior technology.)
> I have a hard time understanding the
> utility of making a division of events between natural and supernatural.
> I would tend toward considering all tangible events as natural, i.e., if
> it happened in "nature", it is natural. That God may interact with nature
> in ways that are foreign to me seems no more reason to separate these
> actions as not natural any more than for a humans interaction with the
> rest of nature.
Human and other creaturely interactions with nature are in principle
limited, and in principle empirically explainable. That is not true for
God's interactions with nature. That's why I think a special category is
necessary.
> I might find greater utility, myself, in the the following two
> dimensional classification of events. The first dimension might be:
>
> 1. Events not directly resulting from the action of any intelligent
> being
> 2. Events resulting ( at least partly ) from the action of a well known
> type of being, i.e., man or beast
> 3. Events resulting ( at least partly ) from the action of a less
> directly observable type of being, e.g., a "deity", an "angel" or an
> "alien".
>
> A second dimension of classification might be:
>
> A. Events explainable in terms of direct causes or mechanisms which are
> presently well understood or at least well described processes, i.e.,
> we think we understand the physics
> B. Events not presently explainable in terms of direct causes or
> mechanisms which we understand
>
> Note that this last partition is in terms of whether the event is
> explainable, rather than whether that explaination is in fact correct.
> For example, that some lights in the night sky might be explainable in
> terms of swamp gas does not in itself preclude the possibility that they
> might in fact be caused by some alien craft.
>
> The cross classification then gives 6 catagories - 1A, 1B, 2A,....
That's a very good scheme. I think for now I'll keep the one I've got,
though I might borrow yours in the future.
(One of the points I'm making in my post is that "supernatural"
"superhuman" "unknown natural mechanism" and "improbable event" all
function nearly equivalently from the point of view of empirical studies.
(They are, of course, quite different in principle.) I don't quite see
how to make that point with your scheme.)
Thanks again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There's nothing more exciting than science. You get |
all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing | Loren Haarsma
down numbers, paying attention. Science has it all!" | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu
--Principal Skinner (_The_Simpsons_) |