A Philosophical Perspective on the Supernatural

[Demagog]

First off, this is not a thread about any specific religion. The purpose of this thread is to discuss anything supernatural on a philosophical level. That includes any and all religions, as well as topics such as ghosts, spirits, deja vu, precognition/premonition (there's a slight difference), or anything else that could be considered supernatural. Please try to refrain from taking an agnostic/atheistic view. I think for this thread to work (prove me wrong if you want), we should ignore our doubts so we can explore the supernatural on an unbiased basis (that doesn't mean you shouldn't pick a side). You should approach a topic as possible first, then decide whether to support it or not. I think everyone should read up on logic, especially inductive/deductive reasoning, and logical fallacies (the latter is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy)).

I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work, considering the vastness contained in the word "supernatural," so we'll have to figure it out as we go along. If we let everyone loose, there would likely be such as mess of discussions that people would lose interest. Therefore, when you begin your post, always write as briefly as possible what you will discuss (basically give your post a title). If you will discuss different topics, simply make a clear distinction when you switch (large bold words perhaps). Should there be so many discussions that there are problems, I'll petition to the admins to create a philosophy section.


I guess I will get things started then...

A Designer

I am arguing that there is some being who created the universe. I am taking a sceptical view on "reality." This means I doubt that what I perceive exists outside of myself. That doesn't mean I think or know other things don't exist, it means that I can't know that they do exist. When I say there is a being that created the universe, I mean the being created me and my perceptions. My perceptions aren't of things, they are of ideas. My reasoning (regarding a designer) is as follows:

1. Something can not come from nothing.
2. I exist.
3. Therefore, someone must have caused my existence.
4. Either I caused my existence or someone else caused my existence.
5. If I caused my existence, there is a designer; if someone else caused my existence, there is a designer.
6. Therefore, there is a designer.

I am trying to discover any instances in which my reasoning doesn't work. The only place I can do so is in the first proposition (if something could come from nothing, my reasoning would be wrong). The first proposition could also be applied to myself and someone else. If I caused my existence, what caused my original existence? If someone else caused my existence, what caused their existence? In both cases it's either circular (I caused my own existence), or you can't find a beginning (in both cases).

I think I could take it further by deciding on whether it is me or someone else that is the cause of my existence, but I'll do that another time.

Feel free to reply to either the designer topic, or start a different discussion.

[Daxx]

I haven't posted in here for a while because I don't really have the time right now (though I will try to get back to everything eventually), but I'm sure I remember that we've already had this discussion.

[Delreich]

I'll leave the supernaturalness to someone else and stick to the logic.

1. Something can not come from nothing.
2. I exist.
3. Therefore, someone must have caused my existence.

Disregarding the lack of support given for point 1, how (and/or why) does "not nothing" become "someone"?

[Avenger]

If you call something that is the causation of another thing a 'designer', then you make pretty good designer farts
Designing implies a voluntary, conscious action. Causation lacks that.

[Demagog]

No Daxx, that discussion was on Descartes' claims that God exists and is good. I'm talking about someone (or thing I guess, since I don't think that's ruled out) that caused existence. If you take a sceptical view, your existence was caused, if you take a realist view, everything's existence was caused.

Delreich, I don't know of anything that has ever come from nothing, do you? I did explore this while writing it, and I couldn't come up with anything (if I had, it would have been a big discovery, since theists/atheists agree that something can not come from nothing). I think as far as anyone knows, that statement is true, so that is what I am basing it on. And your actual question is something I stated in my post, unless I misunderstood you.

And Avenger, causation is the theme of this. What proposition one says is that everything must have a cause. I don't think the human mind is capable of understanding the original cause, because it seems to me that you can never find a beginning without ignoring causality.

[Essence]

I do believe this is called the Telelogical Argument for the Existence of God.  There are a variety of counterarguments, but my favorite is this: if all things need a creator, than suddenly claiming at the last regression that the Creator is self-existent and doesn't need to have been created himself is the Fallacy of Special Pleading.


Here's a different but equally great counterargument from "Atheism: The Case Against God".

Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature, as we have seen, provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects. Evidences of design are those characteristics not found in nature, so it is impossible to produce evidence of design within the context of nature itself. Only if we first step beyond nature, and establish the existence of a supernatural designer, can we conclude that nature is the result of conscious planning.

In essence, you have to believe in Intelligent Design BEFORE you can infer it's existence from nature's complexity, at which point you're being a bad scientist.

[Demagog]

Ya, both circumstances have no beginning (referring to the big bang and intelligent design). The only way they work is if one of them has always existed, or if something can come from nothing (unless I'm forgetting something). That's why I find scepticism appealing. You can ignore the big bang completely because it (for the sceptic) never happened, and you can accept that your existence is due to intelligent design because scepticism only doubts the existence of the natural (or anything that can be perceived). Since there are many sceptical hypotheses, it's pretty much just belief in which one is "right." Some of these are the brain in a vat hypothesis (BiV), Descartes' dream argument, and if you've ever seen any of the Matrix movies, that is another "hypothesis" (I don't know that anyone takes it seriously, although it is just as probable as any other sceptical hypothesis). But ya, if you take a sceptical view, it depends on what hypothesis you believe is right that determines what the designer is. If you believe the BiV hypothesis is correct, the designers are likely scientists, but they must exist, so who/what created them? If you prefer Descartes' dream argument instead, you are the one creating everything you perceive, but you still exist, so who/what created you? Luckily, in the latter case I don't think we can know that our "real" self (the one dreaming) and the world they live in, are bound by causality, so it's possible that something could come from nothing in such a world.

If you take an anti-sceptical or realist view, you're pretty much bound by causality, and we've never come to a consensus on what the beginning is unless we ignore causality.

[Essence]

Fortunately, science has already provided us with a few ways to ignore causality.  The first is through quantum physics, where two otherwise unrelated particles thousands of miles apart can be made to influence each other without even having to wait for light to get from one place to the other -- literally simultaneously, without the fastest thing in the universe having time to get from one to the other.  Causality depends on time happening between cause and effect, and quantum entanglement throws it out the window.

Less unconventionally, the special theory of relativity tells us that singularities like those found in the middle of blach holes -- where finite mass is condensed to infinite density -- can also ignore the laws of causality under certain circumstances.  Specifically, it's a widely-held notion that the bit of mass that expanded to form the space-time continuum that we exist in (the Big Bang) 'came from' the other side of a black hole in some other universe.  Read the epilogue of David Brin's "Earth" (one of the best sci-fi novels of all time, by the way) for a fascinating example.

So, essentially, yes, you can also attack the Telelogical Argument by attacking an intuitive but still disproven element of it's foundation -- the nature of causality itself.

[Daxx]

Just as a point of socratic inquiry, does it make sense to talk about causality when you're talking about the literal beginning of time? Since causality is defined by the procession of one event to the next over time, how does it make sense to talk about the procession of time before spacetime even exists?

[Demagog]

So without time we can completely ignore causality? That makes sense in a strange way... Is to be without causality is to be without time the same as to be without time is to be without causality? In other words, if there is no causality, then there is no time, can we infer that if there is no time, then there is no causality? Certainly there must have been some transition between no time and time, so was there something to spark this transition? Or is time and causality synonymous and they "began" simultaneously?

[Daxx]

Certainly there must have been some transition between no time and time, so was there something to spark this transition? Or is time and causality synonymous and they "began" simultaneously?

Something "sparking" a transition still implies a causal relationship between spacetime's existence and some cause that occurred before time, and so still runs into the problem of assuming that causality holds in a timeless environment (or indeed, that the concept of a time before time makes sense).

This isn't necessarily an answer to any particular question about the origin of the universe, but it highlights one particular potential problem with our perspective.

Is to be without causality is to be without time the same as to be without time is to be without causality? In other words, if there is no causality, then there is no time, can we infer that if there is no time, then there is no causality?

This depends on how you define time and causality. I would suggest that causality is a phenomenon completely dependent on the passage of time - in fact, one of the properties of time is that as it passes, causality occurs. For example, if you stopped moving forward in time you would observe no causality. Moving backwards through time you would observe causality occurring in reverse (to your perspective).

I didn't mean to post here... I should probably just avoid this section entirely until I have more time.

[Delreich]

Delreich, [...] your actual question is something I stated in my post, unless I misunderstood you.

My point was that "not nothing" doesn't necessarily mean "a being".
As Avenger pointed out, there's also a quite large gap between design and causation. Design implies a purpose, which isn't necessary for causation.
Someone creating something implies something is created. The reverse is not true. Compare with "Singing in the rain gets you wet".