Saturday, July 23, 2011

On defining the natural, and the supernatural

In order to understand what the supernatural is, we need to understand what it is to be natural. I have developed a definition of what is natural, which has to do with there not being any mental explanations at the basic level of analysis. If something normative, subjective/perspectival, purposive, or intentional is at the basic level of analysis, then it isn't naturalistic according to my definition. This is, I take it, the basis of what I call the skyhook ban, based on the cranes/skyhooks distinction from Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I have also developed the argument that if everything is natural in this sense, then reasoning and science itself are impossible.

However, I am open to the possibility that this definition of the natural might be rejected. It is the naturalist who needs the notion of the supernatural, because they need to know what to exclude from their worldview. If it turns out that my Christian ontology is real, but that it's all really natural in some sense and therefore not supernatural, I don't really care. Thus, for example, the attempt to exclude all theistic explanations from science on the grounds that they are supernatural is, I believe, a fundamental error. Therefore, I am inclined to reject all "demarcationist" arguments against creationism and intelligent design, even though I don't necessarily advocate those positions. We could in theory discover laws governing what to expect from God, and include those in science. The fact that that would "naturalize" God doesn't bother me in the slightest.

11 comments:

Hiero5ant said...

This gives a good rough-and-ready idea of what it is for something to be NON-natural, but I don't see where you've given any clue about the SUPER-natural.

For example, being a metaethical expressivist I am an antireductionist and hence a NON-naturalist about morality. But, being a materialist as far as I understand the term, I am not a SUPERnaturalist about morality. SO I think your post title only accomplishes half of what it set out to.

Hiero5ant said...

PS Your conclusions about demarcation are pretty much a non sequitur in their own terms. Like you I'm not wedded to any grand metaphysical thesis about the content of specific abrahamic theism -- there is nothing in principle different in my disbelief of them than in my disbelief that water is flammable. But just because you can imagine and be comfortable with a naturalized version of theism doesn't mean that the creationists rejected on demarcationist grounds would be so inclined.

In principle, common descent could be false, mutations could be nonrandom with respect to need etc. But these aren't rejected on demarcationist grounds, they're rejected because they're demonstrably false.

The real demarcation problem IDCs have is legal, not metaphysical. Whenever the courts examine the issue, they invariably find creationist claims so wildly at odds with reality that no explanation for their persistence can be credibly maintained except to posit a religious rather than a scientific basis for them.

William said...

Hiero,

I think what is missing in what you need is the causation by a person or agent.

An invisible moth that violated the laws of physics in its invisibility but was otherwise just a moth would cause a rewrite of physics, but would not be otherwise supernatural.

However, in common usage, an angel that arbitrarily became visible or invisible by willfully bypassing known laws of physics would be supernatural, even after the rewrite of physics.

I think the difference is agency. This is similar to murder not being death by natural causes, because of human agency.

Superhuman agency, as attribution of cause to superhuman entities, would result in what is commonly referred to as "supernatural" when that agency violates humanly understood natural laws.

Ilíon said...

"I have also developed the argument that if everything is natural in this sense, then reasoning and science itself are impossible."

Oh, noes! The "free thinkers" will soon be, with some justificaton, linking your thought with mine.

Tony Hoffman said...

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this: "I have developed a definition of what is natural, which has to do with there not being any mental explanations at the basic level of analysis."

Can you explain this further?

Hiero5ant said...

"I think what is missing in what you need is the causation by a person or agent.

An invisible moth that violated the laws of physics in its invisibility but was otherwise just a moth would cause a rewrite of physics, but would not be otherwise supernatural."


I'm not sure how well, this tracks either common or technical usage, but OK, this is simply an example of randomness.

"However, in common usage, an angel that arbitrarily became visible or invisible by willfully bypassing known laws of physics would be supernatural, even after the rewrite of physics.

I think the difference is agency. This is similar to murder not being death by natural causes, because of human agency."


I fail to see the metaphysical distinction from the previous example in play here. Either there are a set of laws governing antecedent angel-willings to subsequent angel-invisibility, or the invisibility is by definition random.

Also remember that when anti-naturalists speak uncarefully, they can end up implying that "He wanted some coffee so he went and made some" becomes literally a description of a miraculous event every bit as majestic as the sun standing still for a day or a dead man returning to life.

Ilíon said...

TH: "I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by this ..."

He means that when "what is natural" is understood in terms of 'naturalism', then *everthing* must be logically reducible to, and wholly explicable it terms of, and without remainder, physics; which is to say, (mindless) matter-in-motion.

Ilíon said...

... and, as a corollary, anything at all which is not wholly explicable in terms of matter-in-motion, is, definitionally, “supernatural.”

Thus, in terms of ‘naturalism,’ you are “supernatural.”

Ilíon said...

At the same time, 'naturalism', as an '-ism', inclues the assertion that there exists nothing at all which is "outside of" or "above" or "beyond" "the natural."

But, since *you* cannot be accounted for under 'naturalism', we see at once that 'naturalism' is not the truth about the nature of reality.

William said...

I'm not sure how well, this tracks either common or technical usage, but OK, this is simply an example of randomness.

This must be a poor example then. Consider the quantum effect of "spooky action at a distance" which might at first seem to fit the definition of "supernatural" to someone in the 18th century.

Yet that effect is not merely random. Because it fits physical laws, physics would adjust to accommodate, and in the end we still consider the phenomenon natural. Thus, the "supernatural" must refer to something that does not just require a "future physics"
to explain.

idea of what it is for something to be NON-natural, but I don't see where you've given any clue about the SUPER-natural

By the OP definition, human reason is indeed NON-natural, and I am suggesting that SUPER-natural be confined to non-human reason and agency, in particular to those non-humans which might be considered superior in those qualities to humans.

Abelmon said...

Differently the others that are judging your thesis before a full reading, I would like to know about that after you finish it.
Looking forward.