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Is it possible to prove the existence of supernatural entities? (lemmynsfw.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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Let's say that it's scientifically proven that ghosts exist. Would they then stop being supernatural and become natural, thus making it impossible to ever have proof of the supernatural?

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[–] 16 points 2 years ago (6 children)

It would simply move the concept of "ghost" from the realm of unproven and unexplained phenomena into the realm of proven but unexplained phenomena, joining the ranks of other proven but unexplained phenomena like gravity or particle-wave duality. In all of those cases, it would be possible to observe, quantify, model, and predict the effects of the phenomena in our natural environment, even if we don't have a complete grasp of the mechanism by which they work.

Ghosts wouldn't he supernatural anymore, just natural and observable.

And then humans will try to figure out how to turn them into gasoline, and/or have sex with them.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The current accepted explanation for gravity is that it comes from the fundamental twisting of spacetime in the presence of mass, as described in general relativity. It has held up perfectly ever since, including the recent measurements of gravity waves.

    Wave-particle duality arises naturally whenever you start working with wavefunctions. It only seems weird to us because nothing else in our daily lives behaves the same way.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It seems I am out of the loop about gravity. How is it "unexplained"? Seems pretty straight forward (or "downward") to me.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We know two masses attract each other across space, and have characterized a model that accurately predicts the magnitude of the force of the attraction over distance and time. What we don't know is exactly why those two bodies are attracted, and how the force actually operates.

    For other fundamental forces, the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces and light, we have a reasonably good handle for how they operate in the quantum and relativistic physical frameworks, and we can reconcile their behavior between the two systems. We can't say the same for gravitational force, and it's causing problems for our understanding of how the Universe came to be, and how it is evolving. We have only recently in the last 20 years successfully detected gravitational waves with LIGO, and are currently searching for proof of a cosmic background gravitational field. We have but yet identified a quantum particle responsible for "transmitting" gravitational waves. Likewise, we cannot reconcile our observations of Universal expansion with the amount of mass we can account for across the cosmos-- that whole thing about dark matter that interacts with other masses gravitationally, but seemingly not with the other fundamental forces.

    I probably butchered that explanation badly and made some actual physicists scream with the frustration (and if so, i apologize. please weigh in and educate us!), but my point is yes, we know a lot about gravity but we just don't know why or how gravity works.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    My understanding as to why entities are attracted by gravity is that the spacetime gets curved around them. Curved in such a way that a path “straight forward” in time gets curved so that it’s actually “toward the other one”.

    Now why the spacetime gets curved is anyone’s guess. But the fact it’s attractive has to do with bending the road underneath the car. A car with its wheels pointed straight can be turned if you curve the road in the right way. It would look like the car is “steering without steering”.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I think this makes gravity supernatural, we believe it but don't understand it, it's above (super) our understaning of nature. I'm not sure if this it what am axiom refers to, building all our theories on an unknown foundation. So I think ghosts could remain supernatural, we know they exsist, but their exitense is above our natural understanding. I mean, if I define supernatual as meaning above nature.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Supernatural means things that are beyond nature (I.e. don't obey our known understand of nature).

    If ghosts are proven to exist in nature, then they become part of nature, thus are no longer supernatural.

    We might not have a definitive explanation for gravity, but it is definitively within our understanding of nature - we can observe it, test it, and predict its effects far into the future.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Super- means above, like superimposed. Our lack of understanding means we don't know why it exists. It's above our understanding, even if we know it exists.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Supermatural IS things beyond our understanding of nature, phenomena that cannot be explained by science.

    If we could scientifically prove ghosts exist, the phenomena associated with them are no longer inexplicable to science, they would no longer beyond our understanding of nature, ergo they'd no longer be supernatural - just natural

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'll compare to the concept of human culture being called superorganic, which is an old cultural anthropology concept which can provide a model for critical thinking. We don't understand culture, yet we define it, record it, measure it. Hard to predict, I'll admit. Refering to it as superorganic implies it exists at a higher complexity than we understand. Gravity and many other observational phenomena also exist at a higher compexity than we understand. Thus although you may not like to refer to such things as supernatural, it's not wrong, it's an opinion.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Last I was aware, the idea of human culture being "superorganic" referred to the idea of our culture itself acting as an organism above the individuals that compose it, i.e. a superorganism.

    The concept being based on emergent behaviour observed in colony forming insects (I.e. ants, bees, etc.) to act as an apparent single larger organism.

    That isn't the same as the concept of the supernatural, where it refers to things beyond our understanding of nature.

    Not knowing the exact cause of a natural phenomena doesn't mean that we don't understand how it fits into nature - if it exists, then it can be understood, ergo not supernatural.

    It's not that I don't like it, it's that you give such a vague definition as to what qualifies as supernatural that damn near anything you feel like could qualify.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    https://anthropology.iresearchnet.com/superorganic/

    There's no referal to superorganism, not sure where you picked that up, just the superorganic. Many people believe different things about what is supernatural, it's inherently vague. Many people believe ghosts are real but they are still refered to as the supernatural.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Your source doesn't specifically say the word "superorganism", but that is what the idea of the superorganic points to - a higher level superorganism, the same as a bee hive, a termite nest, or an ant colony...

    It doesn't refer to any ability/inability to understand culture, which was my main point.

    Yeah, because they believe in ghosts, they don't know they're real...

    If you can't definitively, scientifically prove ghosts exist, then there is no way to understand how they work in nature, ergo they're supernatural. I don't think it's that vague...

    We don't know the exact cause of life on earth, doesn't mean all life on Earth (including you) is supernatural.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Of couse it doesn't say superorganism, that's just plain wrong. My source is also any intro anthro textbook. It's over your head it seems.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The term superorganic was coined by Herbert Spencer while discussing the idea of the social organism, that society itself acts like an organism - guess what concept that is?

    Oh right, the superorganism.

    Just because it doesn't say that exact word in your source doesn't mean it's wrong...

    And again, that wasn't even my main point, that was an aside that you started.

    What is wrong is acting like gravity is some supernatural mumbo-jumbo because we can't exactly pinpoint it's exact cause, despite the fact that we can observe, predict, and calculate it with pinpoint precision.

    Not understanding the cause of something =/= not understanding the concept of something

    Ghosts are supernatural because we don't even know if they're real, nevermind their cause...

    If we were able to prove their existence, we can understand the concept and learn how they work - with sufficient understanding of how they integrate into nature, they would no longer be supernatural.

    It isn't that vague or subjective, either something fits into humanity's understanding of the natural world or it doesn't.

    Anyways, I'm just about done with this, so hope you have a good one.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Gravity can be scientifically proven to exist though, unlike ghosts (so far, at least). We can do repeatable experiments to show that gravity has a predicable effect time after time, even if we don't know why or how

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