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I'm an atheist, and don't believe in the supernatural per se. To me, the supernatural is best described by Harold Abelson in Structure and Interpretation of Com
by yosito 5y ago
I'm an atheist, and don't believe in the supernatural per se. To me, the supernatural is best described by Harold Abelson in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs:
> We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.
> A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.
> A computational process, in a correctly working computer, executes programs precisely and accurately. Thus, like the sorcerer's apprentice, novice programmers must learn to understand and to anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors (usually called bugs or glitches) in programs can have complex and unanticipated consequences.
I do think the supernatural exists but simply as perceived emergent properties of natual systems. For example, most of us have experienced love and might describe it as a supernatural experience. That is a real experience to most of us. Yet we know that in reality, the experience we had emerged from a complex set of natual systems (hormones, brainwaves, etc) that are far beyond our understanding.
So to answer your question, my spirital practices are things that increase my wellbeing and bring about these supernatural experiences.
Regularly: breath-focused meditation, time in nature, swimming laps, sex, burning incense, journaling/reflection.
Occasionally: fasting, ayahuasca, solitude retreats.
- marcofatica 5y agoI'm not sure I agree with this take. > It is not composed of matter at all. Is this not false? Maybe not at the level we can see with our human eyes, but any computer process does exist as matter, in the bits of code stored on the disk and the electrical circuits that execute it
- Veen 5y agoI think the point is that compuational processes are an emergent property of matter, but not matter. It's like how when I look at the plant on my desk, I see a green thing. The "experience of greenness" isn't composed of matter; it emerges as a result of the interaction of matter and energy in particular ways, but is not itself matter.
- blablabla123 5y agoThat, also considering things like Gödel Incompleteness, Halting problem, P vs NP being so difficult, Emergence, divergences and intrinsically probabilistic theories in Physics: that already feels sufficiently counterintuitive and supernatural to me. At least there is a vast area of things not yet understood
- nottorp 5y ago> At least there is a vast area of things not yet understood They key is to accept that there are phenomena we don't know enough about yet. There's no supernatural, just stuff that needs a couple more hundred years of research :)
- NateEag 5y agoIf you don't understand it, how do you know it's natural? Not saying it has to be supernatural, just that if you think it's not yet understood, being sure it's not supernatural seems like unfounded confidence.
- akiselev 5y agoThat question is a pandora's box that can't be given the nuance it deserves in an HN comment so I'll leave you with the Plato encyclopedia entry on naturalism [1] which was a philosophical debate which wrestled with this very topic in the first half of the 20th century. The vast majority of scientists and philosophers default to the definition from physicalism [2] [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/ [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
- yosito 5y agoI think you've got it backwards. The default assumption is that only the natural world exists. If something is not understood, the assumption should be that it has natural causes. A supernatural cause would imply the existence of something outside of natural causes, and to assert that that something exists without being able to demonstrate it is where the unfounded confidence lies.