The natural is physical and spacetime. The supernatural is not the natural. The supernatural is nonphysical (completely empty) and spacetimeless (exists nowhere and never exists), which is not different from nonexistence. Supernatural existence, nonexistence existence, is a contradiction in terms, like a three angled square in Euclidean geometry. Supernatural being (existence) is a contradiction in terms. Gods and Devils are supernatural beings. Gods and Devils cannot exist any more than three angled squares can exist.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.“Supernatural” is used more in reference to phenomena than to “things” with objective reality. I personally see no reason to classify some phenomena as supernatural. There are aspects to reality that are not understood and can never be understood with our illusory space/time/matter model, but because they are not understood does not mean they are not natural. Everything is natural.
But you are speaking in terms of existence and non-existence. My opinion is that humans do not understand existence on a deep level. We detect a certain pattern in the fluctuating morass of sensory data, and if that pattern is detected often we give it a name or icon and promote it to the status of a “thing”. All those objective things out there exist only in our thoughts. There is ultimate reality beyond, but we can not directly detect or understand ultimate reality, which has nothing to do with space, time, causality, etc.
I agree that the supernatural is not a useful concept, but it’s not an issue of existence vs. non-existence. Existence is in the mind. Love exists. Waterfalls exist. The US exists. But all those are concepts, not objective things.
“As Wheeler put it, “No space. No time. Heaven did not hand down the word ‘time’. Man invented it. . . . If there are problems with the concept of time, they are of our own creation . . . as Einstein put it ‘Time and space are modes by which we think, and not conditions in which we live.’ ”30”
— The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman
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WilliamFleming
Level 8
Feb 25, 2020
0
I'm glad my doctor gave me a real flu shot rather than something that just exists in the mind or is just sensory data or that just exists in thoughts. Time is just motion. Standard time is just a standard motion, such as one turn of the earth, against which we compare other motions, no big mystery. We cannot know the neumana, but we can know the phenomena and that is good enough. The spacetime/physical model is no illusion. The nonphysical is complete emptiness given that the physical is defined as that which resists acceleration, as in physics.
@Questioner1879 Reality might seem like no big mystery to you, but if you study science and read the words of the worlds most respected physicists you’ll learn differently.
I didn’t say that things exist “only” in the mind. Reality as we experience it is created by the mind, but there is ultimate reality beyond.
@WilliamFleming One of my majors was physics. There are plenty of mysteries. That's part of what makes science interesting. I was only talking about time.
Nature is more than the physical and space time. According to quantum gravity theory time does not exist and space is not the smooth expanse that we envision. We perceive reality through the lens of our illusory space/time/matter model, but ultimate reality beyond is of an entirely different order of existence and is beyond our grasp.
“Supernatural” is not a useful concept. Everything is natural but there are aspects of nature that we can not understand and may never understand.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Feb 24, 2020
0
Quantum gravity is only hypothetical. Any quantum system is a physical system. So Nature is not more than the physical and spacetime.
I suggest this is a play on terms rather than erudite conjecture.
Would a mobile phone not be considered supernatural to a Roman senator?
Geoffrey51
Level 8
Feb 24, 2020
1
I defined supernatural. The supernatural is not just what one is ignorant of.
@Questioner1879 Then it is a metaphorical idea.
Does metaphor exist?
skado
Level 9
Feb 24, 2020
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As a fictional model.
@Questioner1879
Model of what? Only nonsense or idle entertainment? Fiction is not synonymous with falsehood. Truth is as easily fictionalized as any other thing.
@skado Model of a metaphor. Existing as brain energy/logic states.
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