Naturalism is false

[ZackMartin]

Until and unless you can prove the existence of the supernatural then there is no distinction to be made between it and the natural. Science deals with observed empirical data not unproven beliefs.

I'm not claiming "the existence of the supernatural". I'm rejecting the concept of a natural-supernatural distinction. You say "there is no distinction to be made between [the supernatural] and the natural", yet you still seem to be making one.

[JimL]

I'm not claiming "the existence of the supernatural". I'm rejecting the concept of a natural-supernatural distinction. You say "there is no distinction to be made between [the supernatural] and the natural", yet you still seem to be making one.

No, I am not making one because I make no claim of a supernatiural existence in the first place, therefore I can make no distinction.

[Sparko]

Duh!

isn't that basically what you said in the first place? why are you repeating yourself?

[Cerebrum123]

I want to see where this goes.

[ZackMartin]

No, I am not making one because I make no claim of a supernatiural existence in the first place, therefore I can make no distinction.

Are you a naturalist? How do you define "naturalism"? As the rejection of the "supernatural"?

You can't define naturalism without relying on a natural-supernatural distinction. If the natural-supernatural distinction is invalid, then so is naturalism.

[pancreasman]

Oh dear, I know I'm just going to get more of those wordy 'philosophical' replies but here are my thoughts:

Methodological naturalism assumes that events in the physical universe are caused by and related to other events within the universe. Is it certain that this is true for all events? No. However, it has been the most extraordinarily successful methodology for gaining knowledge about the physical universe in human history. If we LOOK for causation within the universe we most often find it, its behaviour is regular and predictable. OTOH, supernaturalism posits that some events in the universe do NOT have causes within the universe and, in fact, are caused by events or entities outside the universe whose character and existence is problematic and disputed. I'm always a pragmatic guy. I look at the track record. Methodological naturalism produces results. Supernaturalism produces words and arguments.

Is it possible that some events in the universe are caused by supernatural agents? It's possible, but even its proponents seem to believe it is a rare occurrence. If I'm a betting man, and I want an explanation for an event, I will most likely find it within the universe.

Now, let's go back to sophistry.

[Seasanctuary]

What I mean by 'naturalism' is that rock-bottom reality is not a person.

Elves, ghosts, and magic spells can be consistent with naturalism.

[JimL]

Are you a naturalist? How do you define "naturalism"? As the rejection of the "supernatural"?

You can't define naturalism without relying on a natural-supernatural distinction. If the natural-supernatural distinction is invalid, then so is naturalism.

Thats ridiculous Zack. If there is no supernatural existence, how would you define existence?

[magellan004]

Until and unless you can prove the existence of the supernatural then there is no distinction to be made between it and the natural. Science deals with observed empirical data not unproven beliefs.

From the opening post:

deciding whether an idea is "natural" or "supernatural" plays no proper part in evaluating scientific theories

If Naturalism is not about rejecting some concept (supernatural) then it is a rather usless label. Yet 'strong' naturalist people , eg Tassman, argue that there is a difference between Naturalism and other approches to knowledge.

But let's put all this to the test.
Are we allowed to hypothesise 'There are ghosts in that house'? Is that idea out-of-bounds? Is there some rule that prevents us from an experiment? Lot's of people have investigated parnormal etc.

Surely Naturalism rejects the notion of ghosts, therefore rules out experiments and is therefore anti-science.

Magellan

[ZackMartin]

Methodological naturalism assumes that events in the physical universe are caused by and related to other events within the universe.

But how does one decide whether an event is "in the physical universe" or not? How does one draw the boundaries between what is in the universe and what is outside it? Methodological naturalists want to make such a distinction the centrepiece of the scientific method, when it plays no actual role in evaluating scientific theories. Methodological naturalists can't draw any such boundary in a clear or coherent manner, so their whole philosophical edifice collapses like the house of cards that it is.

And now we have scientific discussion of the possibility of other universes. See e.g. physicist Max Tegmark's classification of parallel universe theories (summary in Wikipedia). Of course, none of these claims have yet reached the level of testable theories, let alone demonstrated ones. But the fact is that physicists are discussing them, and theoretical physicists are actively pondering the question of how (if at all) they might be tested. (The nature of theoretical physics, is that often theories require years of intense mathematical study before anyone finds a way to test them - so the lack of testability for these theories now does not rule them out as scientific.) But if things outside our universe are a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry, how does it make any sense for a philosophy of science to restrict the role of science to events in this universe only?

Is it certain that this is true for all events? No. However, it has been the most extraordinarily successful methodology for gaining knowledge about the physical universe in human history. If we LOOK for causation within the universe we most often find it, its behaviour is regular and predictable.

I don't think the success of science has anything to do with a philosophical commitment to only investigating causation in this universe. Being in this universe - and a very tiny part of it at that - the vast vast majority of the patterns of causation we can observe are going to be relatively local. It is only in certain limited areas of science - such as cosmology and theoretical physics - that we address the relationship between this universe and other universes, or things outside any universe. This isn't the product of any principled commitment, it is just a product of practical realities.

OTOH, supernaturalism posits that some events in the universe do NOT have causes within the universe and, in fact, are caused by events or entities outside the universe whose character and existence is problematic and disputed. I'm always a pragmatic guy. I look at the track record. Methodological naturalism produces results. Supernaturalism produces words and arguments.

What is "supernaturalism"? An idea with no clear or coherent definition. If naturalists want to accuse people of it, they should first given a clear and coherent definition of it. I believe in God, but I don't believe God is "supernatural" - I believe the natural-supernatural dichotomy is misconceived, and as such do not place God on either side of it.

Is it possible that some events in the universe are caused by supernatural agents? It's possible, but even its proponents seem to believe it is a rare occurrence. If I'm a betting man, and I want an explanation for an event, I will most likely find it within the universe.

No clear definition provided for what "in the universe" is, or what "supernatural agents" are. If I was a betting person, I would not place a bet that was so vaguely defined, that no one could ever work out who if anyone had won.

Now, let's go back to sophistry.

Accusations of sophistry are the refuge of the intellectually lazy. They are cheap too; you don't even have to read your opponents arguments to levy this accusation.

[ZackMartin]

What I mean by 'naturalism' is that rock-bottom reality is not a person.

And what exactly do you mean by that?

Elves, ghosts, and magic spells can be consistent with naturalism.

I reckon many naturalists would disagree with you. This is another problem with naturalism - it is so vaguely defined, no one can be sure what exactly it entails, what exactly it rules in or out.

[ZackMartin]

Thats ridiculous Zack. If there is no supernatural existence, how would you define existence?

I'm not sure existence itself is definable. But in any case, not using any "natural"-"supernatural" dichotomy. But this is the bizarre thing about naturalism - they start out by adopting a highly questionable dichotomy, and then deny (or at least near deny) that half of their beloved dichotomy even exists. What's the point of setting up a questionable dichotomy only to tear it down in the next step?

[JimL]

I'm not sure existence itself is definable.

How about we define it by the term existence?

But in any case, not using any "natural"-"supernatural" dichotomy. But this is the bizarre thing about naturalism - they start out by adopting a highly questionable dichotomy, and then deny (or at least near deny) that half of their beloved dichotomy even exists. What's the point of setting up a questionable dichotomy only to tear it down in the next step?

But who are they? Who set up the dichotomy? There is no dichotomy of existence unless one claims a super-existence. So whoever is claiming a super-existence(that would be you)is the one setting up the dichotomy.

[pancreasman]

And now we're actually talking about how to decide what 'in' the universe means as opposed to 'outside' the universe. If a philosopher falls over in the forest, does he still say useless things?

[robertb]

I have to thank Tassman for bringing me to this insight: Naturalism is false. I used to believe that methodological naturalism was true, and philosophical naturalism was false.Now I realise that methodological naturalism is false also. All forms of naturalism are false.



Naturalism is an incoherent, and false, philosophical theory. It has nothing to do with actually doing science.

What an interesting hypothesis Zak.

Naturalism is based on a claimed distinction between the "natural" and "supernatural", but naturalists cannot give a coherent justification for making such a distinction. The deep incoherence of their making such a distinction, is that they insist such a distinction should exist, even while denying the existence of the supernatural. The nature-supernature distinction is incoherent and useless. Likewise, the distinction between "natural" and "non-natural" is meaningless.

I would call myself a naturalist and, as such, I usually equate the words 'natural' and 'supernatural' with the words 'non-fiction' and 'fiction' respectively.I am not aware of a more coherent definition of the two terms, at least in normal usage when distinguishing one with regards to the other.

Do you see any distinction between the words 'fiction' and 'non-fiction'? Can't we say, for instance, that both 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' exist, at least under some definition of the word 'exist'? Of course we can and, in turn, I would not say that a distinction between the words 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' is "incoherent and useless" at all. On the contrary, I would say that the concept behind the words 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' is not only coherent, but extremely useful for our day to day survival. Do you disagree?

However, unless you wish to posit some other definitions for these words, I think you can agree that, at least as far as my own interpretation is concerned, there is nothing incoherent in the justification I use to make the distinction between these two terms, natural and supernatural.

They say that the "supernatural" violates the "laws of nature", but since no one knows for sure what the ultimate laws of nature are - all we know are our admittedly imperfect human approximations to them - no one can ever say whether a given observation violates those laws or not. And if we define it in terms of our knowledge of laws, then the orbit of Mercury was supernatural between 1859 (when it was discovered to violate Newtonian gravity) until 1915 (when Einstein published his theory of general relativity which could explain it), since for that roughly 55 year period it violated the laws of nature as we understood them at the time.

What do you mean by the "ultimate laws of nature"?

Doesn't it seem that the "laws of nature" are a description of what has been observed? As such, wouldn't an observation that violates some particular theory, in this case Newtonian Gravity, indicate a problem with said theory? You realize, I hope, that a theory is also based on what has been observed and will, as such, be open to modification as observation dictates, not vice versa, right?

In fact violating the "laws of nature" may, from time to time and case by case, be one of the aspects of the supernatural, but surely this is not always the case, nor even really necessary for a supernatural attribution, or so it seems to me. Would you say that unexplained cancer remission violates the "laws of nature"? I probably would not. Has such an occurance ever been attributed to the "supernatural", at least by some? I am pretty sure that we can agree that it has, (supernatural attribution), and perhaps rather commonly, again by some, when such odd events, (unexplained cancer remissions), do occur.


So, for the above, I would simply view this as the attribution of a non-fictional phenomenon (natural) to a fictional source (supernatural). Again, this is simply how I coherently use the terms, as I stated earlier.

I don't even think "laws of nature" is a good name, since it gives credence to the false and incoherent nature-supernature distinction of the naturalists. I'd prefer to call them "the laws of observation", since they are the laws that govern what we do and don't observe. (If the laws of observation say that we will observe the rock to fall, then indeed we will observe it fall, and we will fail to see it rise.)

Here again, I see nothing incoherent with the terms fiction and non-fiction.

You can use the phrase "the laws of observation" if you wish, because in the truest sense of the word 'nature' as usually used in this phrase, that is exactly what is being implied.

Same goes for the term "miraculous" - the term "miracle", as naturalists use it, is incoherent and useless. (That is not to say that the term is necessarily invalid as used by non-naturalists, who may well be using it in other ways; but the term as used by naturalists has no validity.)

Miraculous can simply mean unexpected and it seems to me that most of the time that this word is used, that is exactly the sense in which it is meant. So again, I think your assertion here is kind of bunk.

Miracle, in the sense that it is used by "non-naturalist" and if I understand your reference, is what I refer to, once again, as fictional. Just for coherencies sake.

Both "methodological naturalism" and "philosophical naturalism" are equally false. "Methodological naturalism" is not an accurate description for the scientific method - for deciding whether an idea is "natural" or "supernatural" plays no proper part in evaluating scientific theories. If the theory predicts what we actually observe better than competing theories do, then it should be accepted as science; the fact that someone has arbitrarily chosen to label some of the theoretical entities involved in that theory as "supernatural" is irrelevant.

As you might by now have guessed, using the terms 'fictional' and 'non-fictional' in place of the terms supernatural and natural might help you understand why your statement above might be quite funny, at least for a naturalist.

Naturalists like to harp on that they have the evidence and their opponents don't, but they have absolutely no evidence for their natural-supernatural distinction, for their natural-non-natural distinction, or for their miraculous-non-miraculous distinction. All these distinctions are incoherent and unevidenced. Other incoherent and unevidenced distinctions advocated for by naturalists include the material-immaterial distinction, and the physical-non-physical distinction.

Replace all of these terms with fiction.non-fiction as I have described earlier, for coherencies sake if nothing else.