I say “pretty much” only because “supernatural” is another vague word. If you start asking hard questions about what exactly it means, it starts to disintegrate.
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Replying to @Meaningness
How? And what is a hard question? Maybe two requirements are that the supernatural event is unfalsifiable, and breaks a falsifiable law of physics?
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Replying to @_FitCrit
Well, physics should be a theory of everything, in some sense. If we started to see “miracles,” we’d just want to incorporate them into our physics. What distinguishes “supernatural” events from ones that just aren’t explained by current physics?
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Replying to @Meaningness @_FitCrit
Something like “couldn’t be explained by any imaginable physics” maybe. But that makes the limits of our current imagination part of the definition, which doesn’t seem right.
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Replying to @Meaningness @_FitCrit
Also, current physics doesn’t actually explain *most* everyday things. We just think they’re “reducible to” physics in some sense; but no one has been able to work out exactly what that sense is.
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Replying to @Meaningness @_FitCrit
Here I’m not trying to make room for anything “supernatural”; I’m just pointing out that the term isn’t conceptually coherent. I don’t think there are any souls, gods, miracles, or bigfeet.
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Replying to @Meaningness
That doesn’t account for the other part of my criterion which is that the supernatural occurrence is itself not falsifiable. Definitely agree our current physics theories are not complete but they *are* falsifiable, so their truthiness can be tested; not so for a miracle.
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Replying to @_FitCrit
David Chapman Retweeted David Chapman
Hmm… what supernatural things are in-principle unfalsifiable?https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/981565908316573702 …
David Chapman added,
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Replying to @Meaningness
Souls, angels, gods, alien abductions... The article you linked is talking about amassing empirical evidence, which I agree does not help. Falsifiability is about designing a test that proves something is false, rather than amassing evidence (which never *proves* truth)
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Replying to @_FitCrit @Meaningness
(Also sorry, trying to keep my statements short and sweet to fit the character limit but I don’t intend to come off as sounding blunt, if I do :) )
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Hmm… I think I’ve lost the thread of the conversation. Falsificationism is another whole kettle of fish. Generally, philosophers of science agree that it’s an unworkable theory. There’s a large literature on that; I can suggest things to read if it would be useful.
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Replying to @Meaningness
I don’t mean ‘falsificationism’, sorry. I just mean having a theory be falsifiable, as in, you can design a test that disproves it. You can’t design a test that disproves the existence of a soul.
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