If 'natural' is taken to be synonymous with empirical. But there's always the question of what gives rise to the empirical. What is the nature of existence? — Marchesk

The nature of things as we experience them is certainly physical or material. Those very words have been created to denote the way things are as we experience them. So nature is what we experience. Naturally, we suppose that things have their own nature independently of how we experience them, but that nature is not certainly decidable. So in that sense that imagined nature is (whatever it is) the supernatural or the metaphysical (leaving aside whatever woo-ish baggage those terms have managed to accumulate over time).

, oh, I might'a misread, was just wondering about the something → (intellect) → tree thing.

'Metaphysical' seems to be, in a certain sense at least, synonymous with 'supernatural'. — Janus

Is it possible to hold a position that isn't metaphysical?

Any position regarding the metaphysical would be a metaphysical position I guess.

Yes, but isn't physicalism (the supposed antithesis of the supernatural) considered a metaphysical position?

This might prove interesting:

As per idealism, everything is mental, everything exists only in the mind. If so, an apple on a plate on a table, which all of us can see qualifies as observing the mind, objectively, from a third-person point of view (@Wayfarer). There is no hard problem of consciousness.

I think so, inasmuch as physicalism claims that the metaphysical (in the sense of meta-empirical) nature of reality is physical. Since it claims that the metaphysical is just physical, and that there is nothing that is not physical, it may not see itself as being a metaphysical position.

Yep - which kind of leaves me with 'supernatural' when I am fumbling around for an alternative to physicalism. Can you think of a better term?

. There is no hard problem of consciousness. — TheMadFool

That's what they say. But it's swapped with the hard problem of idealism...

Science makes giant leaps in our understanding consciousness. "We've finally discovered how the brain produces consciousness!", the news media exclaim. Credit is given to all the scientists who've made breakthroughs in the study of consciousness. It's all a big party. :party:

Meanwhile: David Chalmers since home with a bottle of wine lamenting the fact that they never mention "the hard problem". :yikes:

That's what they say. But it's swapped with the hard problem of idealism... — Tom Storm

Whaddaya mean?

On reflection I think you're right. The terms 'metaphysical' and 'supernatural' cannot be synonymous, since there is a metaphysical position termed metaphysical naturalism, and it seems ridiculous to refer to that position as supernatural naturalism.

The hard problem of consciousness

There's a purely subjective aspect to consciousness (qualia as a catch-all) which science, being objective, is incapable of handling.

Can I show that this "purely subjective aspect to consciousness" can be observed objectively?

An interesting side to idealism is that all things exist because God is continually and simultaneously, 24×7, thinking (perceiving) about all things. In a sense then, as Stephen Hawking once said, we're reading "God's mind." We have now a third-person point of view of God's mind.

Coming to our own minds, wouldn't we gain the same third-person perspective into each other's minds; after all, we got into God's head, quite literally I might add.

Whaddaya mean? — TheMadFool

Well, you need to be able to accept idealism is true, which comes with its own problems.

Well, you need to be able to accept idealism is true, which comes with it's own problems. — Tom Storm

:up:

But isn't nonphysicalism close to idealism, close enough to be clubbed together?

Well, you need to be able to accept idealism is true, which comes with its own problems. — Tom Storm

Why do you have to accept idealism?

I don't.

The terms 'metaphysical' and 'supernatural' cannot be synonymous, since there is a metaphysical position termed metaphysical naturalism, and it seems ridiculous to refer that position as supernatural naturalism. — Janus

Metaphysical and supernatural are Greek and Latin terms, respectively, which are essentially synonyms. 'Supernatural' is more of a boo word because naturalism is defined specifically to exclude anything considered supernatural.

'Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation.' It's distinguished from methodological naturalism which only considers those kinds of principles, but makes no claim that there is 'nothing but' those principles. In other words, metaphysical naturalism is generally another name for scientific reductionism, whereas methological naturalism is another name for regular scientific practice.

Mind you this all begs the question of what the scope of the term 'natural' implies. Augustine said 'miracles are not against nature, they're against what we know about nature'. And the concept of what is natural changes all the time (per Hempel's dilemma). But in practice, 'naturalism' is the hard-nosed attitude that science is the only reliable arbiter of what is real, and that anything outside that is 'woo-woo' (sometimes with the concession that religious ideas might be ennobling or edifying.)

I don't — Tom Storm

Who does?

n a sense then, as Stephen Hawking once said, we're reading "God's mind." — TheMadFool

Bearing in mind that Hawking was a life-long and extremely vocal atheist.

Mind you this all begs the question of what the scope of the term 'natural' implies. — Wayfarer

Yes, I think that is a key question.

I've tended to consider myself a methodological naturalist not a philosophical naturalist.

But in practice, 'naturalism' is the hard-nosed attitude that science is the only reliable arbiter of what is real, and that anything outside that is 'woo-woo' (sometimes with the concession that religious ideas might be ennobling or edifying.) — Wayfarer

I think I pretty much agree - this describes me.

Based on my position, what options do I have for words to describe the supernatural?

Bearing in mind that Hawking was a life-long and extremely vocal atheist. — Wayfarer

Yeah, Hawking's comment is like how atheists (still) use "OMG!" as an expression of surprise/shock.

Nevertheless, idealism, if true, seems to make the hard problem of consciousness a cinch to solve - the world out there (objective) is simply the world in here (subjective). We do get a third-person perspective on other minds.

The problem is, secular western culture is structured around a worldview in which it doesn't exist - there's no conceptual space for it, and so there's no easy way to conceive of it. In practical terms, it requires either reading of, or absorption into, a domain of discourse in which it is real, for example by reading the literature of traditions which do recognise it. Maybe, as you've mentioned David Bentley Hart favourably, his book 'The Experience of God' might be worth a read. (I found it a little polemical in a lot of places, but overall I liked it.)

Nevertheless, idealism, if true, seems to make the hard problem of consciousness a cinch to solve - the world out there (objective) is simply the world in here (subjective — TheMadFool

Well as one of the resident idealists, I can't disagree, but I get the sense that most of what people say about idealism is based on misunderstanding it. But I'll refer back to my earlier posts in this thread, this one and the one after.

Bearing in mind that Hawking was a life-long and extremely vocal atheist. — Wayfarer

A vocal atheist? Are you joking? Says the computer voice:

"Ahas shahientists, we thary to fihind out what ihis the nature of tha maahaath mind of God"

So he believes in God. He is a mathematician. Which is not unreasonable from Hawking's humble POV.

I appreciate your contributions and how you articulate the ideas. I think my key issue is I utterly lack the sensus divinitatis and I generally hold the view that people are attracted to the philosophy that emotionally satisfies them. Maybe I need to move on and go back to reading English literature.

Yeah, Hawking's comment is like how atheists (still) use "OMG!" as an expression of surprise/shock. — TheMadFool

I'm not sure I get this. When I scream OMG, to what comment of his does this correspond?

My intuitive sense is that people have no feel for what might be beyond the physical because they're instinctively oriented around the world of sensory detection - that only what can be sensed, weighed, measured by the senses or by scientific instruments is real. Obviously today's scientific instruments are unthinkably powerful but people still have trouble understanding the sense that there might be some dimension or domain that is not available to apprehension by those means.

Think for example what kinds of wavelengths, to coin a metaphor from science, a yogi might be attuned to. What if, in fact, the human being is able to understand in him or herself, simply by virtue of the kind of being they are, something about the Universe, which can be found by no other means. What if, in fact, h. sapiens has a role to play as the Universe coming to understand itself. These kinds of ideas are actually beginning to percolate even in the scientific community - 'the view of Cosmogony and evolution of living systems that we are beginning to approach here is neither a Neo-Darwinian ‘blind watchmaker’ materialism nor a theistic creationist view' (from here). A completely new take on the meaning of science, religion, and philosophy might be emerging. (It is, after all, the Age of Aquarius.)

Hate to dissappoint you, but no, Hawkings was a committed and lifelong atheist. You can read about it here.

Maybe I need to move on and go back to reading English literature. — Tom Storm

Maybe! My younger sister's husband, a bit younger than me, has suddenly transformed from a DPP (which he still is) into a published writer. Poetry and now short stories.

Hate to dissappoint you, but no — Wayfarer

Who says I'm disappointed? Why should I be? I feel pity for the poor man It's his own fault he is an atheist. Luckily I know better. I don't understand though why he says that God is a mathematician. Probably because he considered himself as one. All bow to the wheelchair God!

What if, in fact, the human being is able to understand in him or herself, simply by virtue of the kind of being they are, something about the Universe, which can be found by no other means — Wayfarer

This is indeed the fact! How else can I understand you, or the physical world?

all other things being equal, we have no more warrant to suppose that they don't operate the same way than that they do. — Janus

Yeah, that universal consciousness, mindful matter nonsense has been around as long as man has succeeded in persuading himself toward contradictions. Methinks self-consistent speculation doth far surpass under-powered conviction. But at the end of the day, we are left with the reality that although reason is necessary for our knowledge, it is at the same time the source of inquiry for which there is no possibility of knowledge.

Taste, indeed, at least for the initial premises in a dialectical argument. Accepting a conclusion predicated on mere taste, is just lazy, wouldn’t you agree?