7 ms·

Nature = what is. (By extension, "supernatural" = "what isn't." By definition, it doesn't exist.) If that is what you mean by "prayer" and "god", then you sh

Nature = what is. (By extension, "supernatural" = "what isn't." By definition, it doesn't exist.) If that is what you mean by "prayer" and "god", then you shouldn't use those terms, for the same reason that you don't call firetrucks "lampshades" and asprin "peanut butter". I suspect that those concepts never worked for you because they don't work, period. Giving them up is called being an atheist. Why not just own that?

astine 18y ago
That is not what nature means. In the broadest sense, nature is what exists on a material level. If you assume a priori, as Hume did, that all things that exist do so on a material and sensible level, then sure, that is a fine definition of 'nature.' But that's an assumption that, right or wrong, not everyone makes, so it isn't correct to say that.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
  nature is what exists on a material level. On a material level... So, what exists on a non-material level? The existence of information implies that it has some representation in some medium. Scramble the representation, and the information is gone. Qv, the files on my hard drive that time I used a magnetized screwdriver to put it in a new case, or the speaking ability of old alcoholics. Pretty smart people sometimes get confused by different levels of analysis and then start saying absurd things. We can talk about semiconductors or registers or instructions or lines of code or functions or programs. It's not that each one of these conversations are the same, but they do imply one another. When we talk about an abstraction like "purple" or "justice" or "motherly", we're implying all the real world examples (past, present, and future) of these abstractions, and focusing on what they have in common. "Justice" doesn't exist apart from just things, any more than "purple" exists apart from the typical human experience of purple light. There's no sense in looking for Plato's Ideal Forms; you won't find them, no matter how many caves you turn around in. I would argue that, when we talk about "nature", we are referring to all that exists, but that's not enough to know how to use the term, which is why you find that flip definition unsatisfactory. We're specifically focusing on the level of analysis that involves fundamental properties of things. Since things are the sum of their properties (in other words, "things are what they are"), "nature" is what is, "natural" properly means "consistent with a thing's fundamental properties", and "supernatural" is "imaginary and not real." God isn't natural, therefor, God doesn't exist. Quid erat demonstratum. And that's why geeks are atheists ;) In all seriousness, I actually think that this is what people usually mean when they use the terms "nature" and "supernatural". They sometimes bundle in the assumption that supernatural things can exist (which is a contradiction) and that humans are somehow magical non-animal creatures and not a part of nature (which is silly.) But that's an assumption that, right or wrong, not everyone makes, so it isn't correct to say that. If the assumption is right, then the people who don't make it are incorrect, aren't they? They might mean something vague and undefined when they say nature (in fact, I'm quite sure most do), but that doesn't mean that the soup of contradictions most people carry around in their heads is even slightly valid or worth worrying about.
  - dmoney 18y ago
    I would argue that, when we talk about "nature", we are referring to all that exists I would argue that "nature" is a matter of perspective. If the universe is a simulation, for example, the set of things in that simulation and the set of rules that apply to them to us constitute nature. You could define nature to also include the machine that runs that simulation and the universe in which it exists, but I don't think at that point the term "nature" is very useful. To this outer world, the term "supernatural" would apply, relative to the people in the simulation. This outer world would be capable of interfering with the simulation in ways that violate the rules that normally govern it (this was mentioned here[powerpoint]: http://www.mit.edu/%7Ehooman/ComputersAndGod.ppt http://www.mit.edu/%7Ehooman/ComputersAndGod.ppt), and those interferences could be called supernatural; or perhaps since they've still occurred inside the simulation, they are "natural" but "paranormal". Replace "simulation" and "outer world" with "physical world" and 'spiritual planes' if those terms float your boat. I'm just playing with semantics here, but so are you: God isn't natural, therefor, God doesn't exist. This doesn't refute the idea of God, it just shows that some definitions of "God" and of "nature" are incompatible and may need to be revised.
  - astine 18y ago
    You are right and wrong. The term 'nature' is used in multiple ways. Sometimes to denote organic life, sometimes the physical world, and sometimes as a synonym for 'essence.' The problem is not to conflate all of these meanings. When people speak of supernatural things, they do not generally mean that something is defying its own essence. What they do generally mean is that is defies what we understand to be the essence of physical matter. Our understanding of it is based on our experience thereof. So, something which is supernatural, defies classification through experiential knowledge. We can also speak can also speak of supernatural as a sort of non-material existence, by which I don't mean Plato's forms, necessarily, but entities that exist that are not governed by the laws that visible matter is governed. Such an entity has not been widely experienced (otherwise our physics would take it into account,) and is possibly non-experienciable, so one might debate the merits of discussing it as there is clearly no reason to assume it exists. However, one cannot simply define it away. St. Anselm in middle ages attempted to define 'God' as existing, arrived at what we now call the Ontological proof of his existence. The 'proof' was so laughable that nearly all of the Scholastics rejected it out of hand and even went out of there way to refute it. Now you seem to be presenting me with the ontological disproof. It's a little ridiculous.
robg 18y ago
My wife and I came from completely different traditions and yet we could see the similarities in our understanding of both "prayer" and "god". Pointedly, I haven't tried to explain my views on either much here - this isn't a good forum for it. My main point has been an epistemological one rather than an ontological one. Why choose nihilism? The inflexibility of thought is what doesn't work for us. But that wasn't a reason to stop learning. We just searched a bit harder for folks to learn from. Now we're satisfied by the result even as the learning is incomplete.
- IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
  Who says atheism == nihilism? I consider my life rich with meaning and spiritual satisfaction. I relish my place in this species, my instincts and my awareness of them. My scant century-or-so of life is a limited quantity, and that motivates me to use it to live and love and push for everything I can achieve.
  - robg 18y ago
    Atheism is one version of nihilism unless some attempt is made to redefine the basic concepts. It sounds like you already have and it sounds very similar to what I embrace. I don't know where that leaves us, but it doesn't worry me either. I'm not trying to convert anyone. But I'm also very satisfied by my working model for God. You may choose a less-loaded term to describe where you derive a "life rich with meaning and spiritual satisfaction".
    - IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
      God is a particularly bad word for that term. Not only is my life 100% godless, I try to be free of superstition of all kinds. (No Santa, no tooth fairy, no magic dreams, no esp, no ghosts, etc.) Superstition, in my opinion, is mental clutter that obscures spirituality.
      - robg 18y ago
        "I try to be free of superstition of all kinds." Really? What's "spirituality" then?
robg 18y ago
"Nature = what is." By this definition, you could just as easily be a pantheist (or panentheist). But that's up to you to decide.

astine 18y ago

That is not what nature means. In the broadest sense, nature is what exists on a material level. If you assume a priori, as Hume did, that all things that exist do so on a material and sensible level, then sure, that is a fine definition of 'nature.' But that's an assumption that, right or wrong, not everyone makes, so it isn't correct to say that.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
nature is what exists on a material level. On a material level... So, what exists on a non-material level? The existence of information implies that it has some representation in some medium. Scramble the representation, and the information is gone. Qv, the files on my hard drive that time I used a magnetized screwdriver to put it in a new case, or the speaking ability of old alcoholics. Pretty smart people sometimes get confused by different levels of analysis and then start saying absurd things. We can talk about semiconductors or registers or instructions or lines of code or functions or programs. It's not that each one of these conversations are the same, but they do imply one another. When we talk about an abstraction like "purple" or "justice" or "motherly", we're implying all the real world examples (past, present, and future) of these abstractions, and focusing on what they have in common. "Justice" doesn't exist apart from just things, any more than "purple" exists apart from the typical human experience of purple light. There's no sense in looking for Plato's Ideal Forms; you won't find them, no matter how many caves you turn around in. I would argue that, when we talk about "nature", we are referring to all that exists, but that's not enough to know how to use the term, which is why you find that flip definition unsatisfactory. We're specifically focusing on the level of analysis that involves fundamental properties of things. Since things are the sum of their properties (in other words, "things are what they are"), "nature" is what is, "natural" properly means "consistent with a thing's fundamental properties", and "supernatural" is "imaginary and not real." God isn't natural, therefor, God doesn't exist. Quid erat demonstratum. And that's why geeks are atheists ;) In all seriousness, I actually think that this is what people usually mean when they use the terms "nature" and "supernatural". They sometimes bundle in the assumption that supernatural things can exist (which is a contradiction) and that humans are somehow magical non-animal creatures and not a part of nature (which is silly.) But that's an assumption that, right or wrong, not everyone makes, so it isn't correct to say that. If the assumption is right, then the people who don't make it are incorrect, aren't they? They might mean something vague and undefined when they say nature (in fact, I'm quite sure most do), but that doesn't mean that the soup of contradictions most people carry around in their heads is even slightly valid or worth worrying about.
- dmoney 18y ago
  I would argue that, when we talk about "nature", we are referring to all that exists I would argue that "nature" is a matter of perspective. If the universe is a simulation, for example, the set of things in that simulation and the set of rules that apply to them to us constitute nature. You could define nature to also include the machine that runs that simulation and the universe in which it exists, but I don't think at that point the term "nature" is very useful. To this outer world, the term "supernatural" would apply, relative to the people in the simulation. This outer world would be capable of interfering with the simulation in ways that violate the rules that normally govern it (this was mentioned here[powerpoint]: http://www.mit.edu/%7Ehooman/ComputersAndGod.ppt http://www.mit.edu/%7Ehooman/ComputersAndGod.ppt), and those interferences could be called supernatural; or perhaps since they've still occurred inside the simulation, they are "natural" but "paranormal". Replace "simulation" and "outer world" with "physical world" and 'spiritual planes' if those terms float your boat. I'm just playing with semantics here, but so are you: God isn't natural, therefor, God doesn't exist. This doesn't refute the idea of God, it just shows that some definitions of "God" and of "nature" are incompatible and may need to be revised.
- astine 18y ago
  You are right and wrong. The term 'nature' is used in multiple ways. Sometimes to denote organic life, sometimes the physical world, and sometimes as a synonym for 'essence.' The problem is not to conflate all of these meanings. When people speak of supernatural things, they do not generally mean that something is defying its own essence. What they do generally mean is that is defies what we understand to be the essence of physical matter. Our understanding of it is based on our experience thereof. So, something which is supernatural, defies classification through experiential knowledge. We can also speak can also speak of supernatural as a sort of non-material existence, by which I don't mean Plato's forms, necessarily, but entities that exist that are not governed by the laws that visible matter is governed. Such an entity has not been widely experienced (otherwise our physics would take it into account,) and is possibly non-experienciable, so one might debate the merits of discussing it as there is clearly no reason to assume it exists. However, one cannot simply define it away. St. Anselm in middle ages attempted to define 'God' as existing, arrived at what we now call the Ontological proof of his existence. The 'proof' was so laughable that nearly all of the Scholastics rejected it out of hand and even went out of there way to refute it. Now you seem to be presenting me with the ontological disproof. It's a little ridiculous.

robg 18y ago

My wife and I came from completely different traditions and yet we could see the similarities in our understanding of both "prayer" and "god". Pointedly, I haven't tried to explain my views on either much here - this isn't a good forum for it. My main point has been an epistemological one rather than an ontological one. Why choose nihilism? The inflexibility of thought is what doesn't work for us. But that wasn't a reason to stop learning. We just searched a bit harder for folks to learn from. Now we're satisfied by the result even as the learning is incomplete.

IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
Who says atheism == nihilism? I consider my life rich with meaning and spiritual satisfaction. I relish my place in this species, my instincts and my awareness of them. My scant century-or-so of life is a limited quantity, and that motivates me to use it to live and love and push for everything I can achieve.
- robg 18y ago
  Atheism is one version of nihilism unless some attempt is made to redefine the basic concepts. It sounds like you already have and it sounds very similar to what I embrace. I don't know where that leaves us, but it doesn't worry me either. I'm not trying to convert anyone. But I'm also very satisfied by my working model for God. You may choose a less-loaded term to describe where you derive a "life rich with meaning and spiritual satisfaction".
  - IsaacSchlueter 18y ago
    God is a particularly bad word for that term. Not only is my life 100% godless, I try to be free of superstition of all kinds. (No Santa, no tooth fairy, no magic dreams, no esp, no ghosts, etc.) Superstition, in my opinion, is mental clutter that obscures spirituality.
    - robg 18y ago
      "I try to be free of superstition of all kinds." Really? What's "spirituality" then?

robg 18y ago

"Nature = what is." By this definition, you could just as easily be a pantheist (or panentheist). But that's up to you to decide.