What is the difference between the supernatural and the imaginary? [Archive I]

Adrammalech

June 26, 2003, 03:56 PM

Well the only thing that I can think of that could seperate the imaginary from the supernatural is that it takes more than one person to believe in it.
For example, let's say that I claim to see little blue men dancing on my table. Most people would rightly conclude that I was imagining things and should be medicated immediately. But if I can get someone else to "see" the little blue men dancing on the table, then people start concluding that if more than one person sees it, then it must exist so therefore becomes "supernatural"

yguy

June 26, 2003, 04:35 PM

The artificial distinction between the natural and the supernatural is merely a manifestation of the limits of our perception. For instance, if one were to bring a digital camera back to the middle ages, the inhabitants of that time would have thought it magic.

Marduk

June 26, 2003, 06:02 PM

�For example, let's say that I claim to see little blue men dancing on my table. Most people would rightly conclude that I was imagining things and should be medicated immediately.�

Hmmmmm, while somewhere else a small group of little blue men claim to have seen you.

I smell a Matrix. I pop a pill and suddenly am somewhere else, completely different landscape and inhabitants, it feels, looks and sounds real. I talk to the creatures briefly then I am back to where I was. I tell my friends about the cool dudes I spoke with and they tell me �yeah right, you were just sitting there drooling� Meanwhile my little creature friends are saying �what happened to that guy? He was speaking for awhile, now he just sits there drooling�

exnihilo

June 26, 2003, 08:21 PM

Good question and nice responses!
I too agree with jgl53, and would add that the imagination is that great human ability to see beyond our limited horizons, the seat of all creativity. When understood as such is it can be the greatest expression of the genius of the human mind. However, for some too weak, submissive or cowardly to accept their responsibility as a thinking being, it can be perverted into the tool of tyranny and ignorance.
The great philosopher E.M. Cioran once said that "In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he awakens there is a little more evil in the world." I think this idea speaks to the crux of the opposition that we a discussing. When the sublime and not-so-sublime creations of the mind are thrown into the metaphysical realm of the "divine", ignorance, hatred and suffering is always going to be the result.
--exnihilo

Wyrdsmyth

June 27, 2003, 01:56 PM

Originally posted by john_v_h
I can imagine natural and supernatural things. So can the supernaturalist. The difference is that the supernaturalist claims the supernatural exists.

Right, but what is the CRITERIA to distinguish between them? That's what I'm really after here. Belief isn't the criteria, since what I'm asking for is the criteria to determine whether one should believe such a claim in the first place.

john_v_h

June 27, 2003, 04:28 PM

Ah ... okay. That's a much harder question.

The best answer I've heard was given by an astronomy prof I had a long time ago. He was devoted to the scientific method and learned in the history of science. But in philosophical moments he admitted that what and how one chooses to believe is ultimately a matter of taste. And though there may be room to explain and advocate one's tastes, there is little point arguing over them.

Marduk

June 27, 2003, 04:34 PM

�Right, but what is the CRITERIA to distinguish between them?�

There is none. Everything is subjective due to the fact that your brain is in your skull dependent on the input it gets from your eyes, ears etc. It recreates reality for you the best that it can. At best you will have the coobarting testimony of someone else.

Calzaer

June 27, 2003, 05:34 PM

Um.. *dons asbestos suit and wades into the burning building*

There is no "supernatural". "Supernatural" is just "natural" that hasn't been studied yet.

Beyond that little nitpicky thought, I suppose there is a fine line. I would say that imagination is 100% controlled by the imaginer (ie, the pink talking dog says what I expect it to say, and never tells me anything I don't already know), while "supernatural" is less predictable using internal knowledge. (ie, the pink talking dog does something completely unexpected or tells me something I don't already know, and turns out to be true when I go look it up).

exnihilo

June 27, 2003, 08:04 PM

John_v_h said:
But in philosophical moments he admitted that what and how one chooses to believe is ultimately a matter of taste. And though there may be room to explain and advocate one's tastes, there is little point arguing over them.
I just wanted to add something because I thought something the "astronomy professor said was interesting.
I think it is particularly enlightening that he referred to what he chose to believe as rooted in "taste". I see a very common bit of self-deciet here. I would suggest that what the professor referred to as taste, is much more likely to be the result of the subtle operation of regimes of power, whether social, cultural, religious or whatever. This is especially true when it comes to such basic catagories of knowledge that delineate the supernatural from the imaginary.
I am certainly not a behaviorist, but it would be naive to assume that the beliefs, especially those most critical to the formation of our individual identities, as a matter of "taste". What seems much more likely is that most of people's most basic beliefs, such as religion and political affiliation are a direct result of coersion, implicit and explicit, brought to bear on the individual from birth until early adulthood.
see michel foucault....

--exnihilo

2human

June 29, 2003, 04:00 AM

Wyrdsmyth you ask what is the crucial difference.

Roy Rappaport in his book "Ritual, Religion in the making of Humanity" refer to a reading of George Bateson.
Rituals sanctify the groups proclaimed truth as what is
true for them. A truth of the third kind. Not like math
or logical truths and not the measured facts with its
approximate model of what the result could be referring to.

Truths of the third kind are scocial truths. To be acted upon
as a memeber of that group. Its set up to hide that its a
making of us. Its proclaimed and acted upon as comeing
from their God as a revelation.

Why this is possible is not knowned to us but its very likely that we biologically are built that way. Religion could be seen as a add on to the need to get along in very big groups. Anarchy break loose if the authority isn't internalised and this internalizing gets done by those circuits within that we have no way of interspection so the hiding is made unconsciously.

Its a bit like falling in love. If you fall in love then your friends could see what is wrong in your falling for. You are now that awere of what will be that which will be annoying in a few years.
The falling in love hide it to you. that is the most likely explanation why the believers don't see that its us who makes God. They are in love with the very set up and the rituals makes that happen. Its an old technique to make folks fall in love with the Big Groups ethics, to be loyal to them.

What do you say?

Bernt

Wyrdsmyth

June 29, 2003, 10:45 AM

Originally posted by unifiers_net
Why this is possible is not knowned to us but its very likely that we biologically are built that way. Religion could be seen as a add on to the need to get along in very big groups. Anarchy break loose if the authority isn't internalised and this internalizing gets done by those circuits within that we have no way of interspection so the hiding is made unconsciously.

That makes sense. Doesn't the Latin religio mean "to bind together"?

Its a bit like falling in love. If you fall in love then your friends could see what is wrong in your falling for. You are now that awere of what will be that which will be annoying in a few years. The falling in love hide it to you.

Good analogy.

"She's not temperamental, she's just strong-willed," the groom says to his friends. They roll their eyes, and think their friend who is about to get married is blind to her faults.

The picture you paint is very similar to how I see things, as well. Perhaps we are biologically hard-wired to get religion (in the sense of unifying into large, emotionally-bound groups) just as we are biologically hard-wired to fall in love. It would make sense.

But I was hoping to get more theists' responses. I expect that many atheists or agnostics will often see things in a similar way that I do (i.e., look for evolutionary, biological or psychological explanations). But I am looking for questions that serve as the crowbar to pry open someone's superstitious presuppositions. So, I have refined "What is the difference between X and Y" to "What is your CRITERIA to differentiate X and Y."

callmejay

June 30, 2003, 10:38 AM

Well, I'm an atheist, but the distinction is obvious to me. The supernatural can influence the natural world, but the imaginary cannot. E.g. God can cause an earthquake; an imaginary pink unicorn cannot.

Wyrdsmyth

June 30, 2003, 01:46 PM

Oh, it's that obvious, is it?

I'm not sure you get it from my angle, yet... How do we tell the difference between an earthquake caused by a God and an earthquake people imagine a God caused?

Marduk

June 30, 2003, 06:14 PM

�How do we tell the difference between an earthquake caused by a God and an earthquake people imagine a God caused?�

You can�t, an earthquake is an earthquake. Just as you can�t tell the difference between a 4 billion year old Earth and a 6000 year old Earth, created by a God instantly, to look 4 billion years old.

Wyrdsmyth

June 30, 2003, 06:45 PM

"We can't tell the difference" or "there is no difference" are probably going to be stock answers from most of us atheists and skeptics.

So, I was hoping to hear from some theists or supernaturalists.

I'm interested in what is the criteria we might use to separate the two: the supernatural and the imaginary.

Belief isn't the criteria, only the result.

If one believes the supernatural can cause actual effects in the world (physical effects), and the imaginary cannot, that makes sense, but it gets us nowhere near why one believes in the supernatural in the first place, or how they distinguish their supernatural entities from imaginary entities.

Is that clear?

NearNihil Experience

July 1, 2003, 11:00 PM

I used to be sort of supernaturalist. And I have always been skeptical. Now I think "supernatural" is a non-sense phrase.

However, I just can't get over some of the things I've seen happen. My friend's house was a phantom phenomenon. I have seen shit fly across the room, heard voices, watched doors open and shut on their own repeatedly.... And my friend and his family all have stories. BTW, grave yard right across the road from their house(30-50ft).

Frankly, it bothers the shit out of me. ghosts and goblins and faries, magic and witchery, God and the Devil... all bugga-boo.
But the stuff from above, I seriously can not explain.

So to answer the six million dollar question....the difference between super natural and imaginary....the supernatural is that which has not been explained naturaly, and the imaginary is that which develops naturaly as imag-es in the imag-ination.

The markers to tell supernatural from imaginary...experience. I can imagine encountering a specter or sprite all I want...but I have never actually encountered a specter or spirit. Basically, self-affirmation, that the experience you have or had actually goes on as you see or remember it. (Minus those who have had a psychopathic or schitzoid break with telling what is real and imaginary.)

One can never be sure, epistemology fans, 'cause who are you to say you have experience of how you perceived something happend and how it really(all factors inclusive) happened.
(I always thought epistemologists should be called the "honest madmen".)

my nickels worth...

BTW,

"I think it is particularly enlightening that he referred to what he chose to believe as rooted in "taste". I see a very common bit of self-deciet here. I would suggest that what the professor referred to as taste, is much more likely to be the result of the subtle operation of regimes of power, whether social, cultural, religious or whatever. This is especially true when it comes to such basic catagories of knowledge that delineate the supernatural from the imaginary.

I am certainly not a behaviorist, but it would be naive to assume that the beliefs, especially those most critical to the formation of our individual identities, as a matter of "taste". What seems much more likely is that most of people's most basic beliefs, such as religion and political affiliation are a direct result of coersion, implicit and explicit, brought to bear on the individual from birth until early adulthood."
"exnihilo"

Couldn't agree more. Don't forget the need to develop a stable and full identity, public and personal. Especially with individuals birth until early childhood...Hell is school with other kids....

Wyrdsmyth

July 2, 2003, 07:56 AM

Can you videotape the shit flying around in the air, and the doors opening and slamming on their own? Record the voices? What do they say?

I've heard these sorts of claims for many years, and not once have I ever seen or heard anything remotely like this. I am starting to conclude that either (a) the supernatural doesn't exist, or (b) I am like kryptonite to supernatural things, and they just don't "work" when I'm around.

For example, palm-readers and psychics mysteriously "lose their super-powers" when I'm around.

It's inexplicable!

You know, when your house is haunted, don't call an exorcist; call me. Ghosts and spirits cannot exist in my presence. They can't levitate things, make creepy noises or do much of anything. I don't know why that is, but experience has shown it to be the case.

*****

"My super-powers! They -- they're gone!!!" the overweight, middle-aged psychic lady with gaudy jewelry says, when I walk into the room.

"So, I guess that means your powers are untestable," I grumble.

"At least temporarily," she cleverly replies.

ps418

July 2, 2003, 08:02 AM

Originally posted by Wyrdsmyth
Can you videotape the shit flying around in the air, and the doors opening and slamming on their own? Record the voices? What do they say?

They say, in ghostly voice: "Boooolllshiiiittt . . . . Boooollshitt!"

Here's a thought. How many people, other than myself, have flat lied or exaggerated a report of paranormal/supernatural occurence in order to convince others that the stuff is real? Anyone else whose done it and will admit it?

Patrick

Wyz_sub10

July 2, 2003, 10:27 AM

Originally posted by ps418
Here's a thought. How many people, other than myself, have flat lied or exaggerated a report of paranormal/supernatural occurence in order to convince others that the stuff is real? Anyone else whose done it and will admit it?
Patrick

Yup. When I was a kid, my friends and I would trade ghost stories. Of course, the next was always better than the last. If my friend heard a ghost, then I saw one. The third person would then have to say they played a hand of cards with one, or some such thing.

Kids are kids, of course, but you still tell these stories, and despite knowing you are exaggerating what you heard (or making it up altogether), you still come to believe that maybe it did happen.

That's the bottom line - most people who have experiences that are not well defined tend to fill in the details. Subsequently, they begin to believe the details they themselves supplied, and the story about the creaking floor and flickering light in the bathroom, become the light going on for 2 minutes, then turning off, etc.

Edward

July 2, 2003, 12:38 PM

"What are the criteria that separate natural phenomena from supernatural happenings" (paraphrased and corrected).
This is a very large subject first satisfactorily discussed IMO by David Hume. Try the scientific method for a start.
Practising scientists like myself find it hard to give a brief description of the scientific method, we just try to maintain an attitude of open minded scepticism. Thus ghostly happenings described (but never filmed while happening) weekly on the so called Discovery Science programmes about the paranormal invarably have rather obvious alternative explanations. Here in Britain everyone learns about the Roman occupation at school and the countryside is littered with Roman remains 1600 years after the legions withdrew. Not too surprising then that people quite often report seeing or hearing Roman soldiers marching on the well known routes of the Roman road network that we still use in many places. As Hume put it in relation to another alleged supernatural happening "When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should have really happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion." Likewise one off happenings which leave no trace of their passing but the testimony of few or just one can never convince even an open minded sceptic that the laws of physics were temporarily suspended. I do not deny that the supernatural could occur, just that to date no one has satisfactorily demonstrated it to a sceptik (nor has anyone successfully claimed Randi's prize for a paranormal demostration).
Why? Perhaps the supernatural just doesn't want to come out and declare itself. Or is it just not there? These are indistinguishable, but I know which explanation I prefer.

NearNihil Experience

July 2, 2003, 05:08 PM

Sorry, can't tape any stuff. This all hgappened a few years back. We both moved and I haven't been at the house since.

But I assure you I am not deceiving you, nor am I exaggerating, nor am I deceiving myself(saw shit fly...filled in blanks..no).

I understand what you're saying about being "null" to the supernatural and spiritual. I feel that way too...with the exception of that house. On which, I really don't want to come to a conclusion as to what happened because I think the conclusion would be creepy. I don't want this stuff to exist...it introduces way to many variables for me to maintain a comfortable mindset.

But weirder shit has happened. And to say they didn't happen would be, for me, to either lie about what I saw, or be be in utter denial of the reality of the situation I witnessed.

I will refrain from drawing conclusions as to the causes, motivations, catalysts, or diffinitive underlying reality surrounding the events. I know shit went flying, I know I heard things and I know I saw doors doing very un-door stuff. But, please feel free to come up with an alternate explaination to poltergeists...I know I've pounded my brain to mush trying to figure something out.

rock.

Jesse

July 2, 2003, 05:58 PM

Does anyone live in the house now? Can you give the address? Maybe someone could write to them and ask if they've seen any such occurrences. If it's uninhabited, maybe someone reading this lives in the area and could go visit it (if it was near me I would).

Also, when you say you saw stuff fly around, do you mean you actually saw it sitting on a table or something perfectly still and then suddenly launch into the air? You're sure it wasn't just something falling off a shelf, or a person playing tricks on you?

2human

July 3, 2003, 04:15 AM

"So, I have refined "What is the difference between X and Y" to "What is your CRITERIA to differentiate X and Y."" Wyrdsmyth

Thanks for not dissing me from start :) Most people do.

I am not a supporter of George Bateson and didn't like the two
books by him I've read but Roy Rappaport has interpreted him
to suggest the following.

When a group act upon the groups proclaimed "seeing as"
then to some in the group that "seeing as" becomes the literal
truth for them.

My explanation is that their body hide that its a way of seeing
the world. That consciously they never get awere of the
imagination, it gets hidden by circuits that has the ability to hide
things from our waken conscious.

My wild guess is that this happens to secular people too.

Take this strong faith in "relativism" among those who are
positive to post-modernism. Its obvious that to them its not
a theory anymore, they actually have faith and even blind faith
in it. Why else the enormous hate towards EO Wilson,
Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and others who say that
biological traits may be strong enough to lure us into behavior
unless we take charge and go against them.

That is why I compare supernaturalism with madly falling in love.

Your body blind you cause its hidden intent is to survive by procreation. The group promoting supernatural faith use a
"proclaimed truth" as the bait to hook the potential believer.

If he or she swollow the baith then their body do the hiding.
why they swollow the bait? Cause intuitively they know that
if many work together they get stronger than if evey individual
try to be powerful on his own. Might makes right! they say.

So me not being into philosphy fail to tell you the criteria in
a formal manner but my intent is to say that imagination is
consciously known to be imagined, we could suspend our
disbelieve temporally under imagination until the story ends
then we wake up and know its was make-belief but the
believer in the supernatural get "converted" into falling in love
with the proclaimed promises of the "Truth" that the group
hold as true. This falling in love circuity within us hide the fact
that its an imagined truth.

You are able to say this shorter and more consistent I hope.

Bernt Rostrom A wannabee human

Calzaer

July 3, 2003, 02:36 PM

Maybe if I'd thrown in a ghost story, people would pay attention to my replies too. :(

Wyrdsmyth

July 3, 2003, 03:10 PM

Originally posted by Calzaer
Maybe if I'd thrown in a ghost story, people would pay attention to my replies too. :(

But your reply is similar to that of most non-believers. You wrote that the supernatural is "just the natural that hasn't been studied yet." That is what most of us atheists and skeptics think. It's not that I wasn't paying attention to what you wrote, it is just that I usually don't respond to posts that I agree with.

About the other part you wrote... I agree that could be used as a criteria to separate the supernatural from the imaginary. A mysterious entity that tells you things you didn't know that turn out to be true would be evidence in favor of something 'supernatural' occurring. That is something that would be testable, in which we could evaluate the results.

However even something like this can get blurred. What if you tell me an invisible dog tells you Lotto numbers sometimes, but when I ask you to ask it for one right now, you say the dog isn't in the mood to tell you one right now. That sort of thing is what seems to happen a lot with people who make supernatural claims: psychics, prophets, astrologers, and so on.

Normal

July 3, 2003, 03:22 PM

Originally posted by Wyrdsmyth
That sort of thing is what seems to happen a lot with people who make supernatural claims: psychics, prophets, astrologers, and so on.

http://skepdic.com/adhoc.html

To address the OP: I think the supernatural is what we can logically show might exist, but have no natural proof of it existing. i.e. -> The Cosmological Argument suggests evidence of the "supernatural"

braces_for_impact

July 3, 2003, 03:28 PM

To see the supernatural you HAVE to use your imagination. Yet you can use your imagination to also imagine possibilities that could happen in the natural world. In fact, I think the imagination is probably most often used in this manner. It seems to me that any speculation of future happenings requires one to use their imagination wouldn't it? The supernatural cannot exist independently of the imagination. If there were no people, would there be a supernatural realm? (Assuming one exists in the first place, which I don't believe it does.)

Just babbling...

wordsmyth

July 3, 2003, 05:11 PM

If we accept for a moment a multiverse that encompasses all possibilities, it is then conceivable that our imagination is simply the mechanism by which we sense other possibilities.

Jesse

July 6, 2003, 06:42 PM

Hey ContraTheos, I see from this (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57150) thread on "Bugs, Problems & Complaints" that you lost an earlier reply to me, but I'd still like to know the location of the house you were talking about, any chance you could try again? Doesn't need to be a detailed response, I'm just curious about the address.

ohwilleke

July 6, 2003, 09:09 PM

A supernatural event is one that occurs contrary to what the observer believes to be the "laws of nature", and remains supernatural until explained as an illusion or a manifestation of a law of nature.

A natural event is an event that occurs in real life pursuant to the laws of nature.

An imaginary event is an event that can be contemplated but does not actually happen in real life. It may be natural or supernatural.

The notion of the supernatural is largely rooted in the idea that most of what happens in the world happens in a Newtonian clock work nature, but that there are some forces such as "spirits" and "gods" which act as free agents and are able to act contrary to the default natural laws.

Wyrdsmyth

July 11, 2003, 06:37 PM

Hellooo-oo? Contra Theos?

You're not going to disappear like the ghosts and spirits do, as soon as attention gets focused on you, are you?

2human

September 14, 2003, 11:28 AM

Contra theos seemed to have gone like a ghost in front of yo uand me :) Don't cal lthe Ghost Busters call us! :)

Me I got caught up in other lists but are back and eager to continue this thread but seen from another angle.

Scott Atran in his book "In Gods We Trust" try to explain.

You want the believers in supernaturalism to answer. There is no way they could know how t oanswer, they are too close to that wich is all their life. Maybe an x-ian could guess the answer but i don't count on it cause if x-ians in any way behave like me then their knowledge of What it is liek to be beleiver in the supernatural will get hidden to them.

Ok then let us ask an anthropologist like scott Atran or a sociologist? like Rodney Stark.

As I get them both to say.

The claims the believers in revealed religion make is not supposed to be questioned. Ok they are posed as claims about a measurable reality and we find them counterintuitive or very irrational and logically in error or making a lot of fallacy too.

But that is because we look to the claims instead of listening to the intuitive message they have behind all the rhetoric.

Let us be basic. In the beginning god created heaven and earth.
Or how it describe it. Its not important at all. What si important is your response in fro mof the other believers. This becomes obvious if we look at how atheists are looked at in a theocratic society. Very few would see an atheist as the next President of USA. Why is that. Cause the the purpose with such expressions as One Nation Under God and similar is to point out that we are the power that decide and you could show your loyalty by accpeting our proclamation. If you choose another text than ours we realise that your not loyal to us. That is the functional aspect. None of the beleiver would confirm this in fron of the others who knows him to be a true believer. This is intuitive acting on the cues from the way it is set up, how it is socially rigged.

You and me and all who don't buy into such procalmations are sees as infidels or heretics or unbelievers and we are not trusted.

To them its a kind of test of loyalty to the norms of the in-group. The intellectual and emotional price they pay seem to be accepted cause the political and emotional power is soo much more worthy for the believers. To us its the other way around. To compromise with our intellectual integrity would be like deceiving not only us but what is the highest value i nour life. To be true to reality to the best of our knowledge??? Or to be countable to other of our sort?

Ok. I am too wordy here. If you read these authers you will be able to say al lthis much better and shorter and motre corect, this is my personal interpretation and no shadow on these writers.

Bernt too human to be true :)

Starboy

September 14, 2003, 07:12 PM

Wyrdsmyth, it doesn't look like anyone wants to touch your original question as to what are the distinctions between natural and supernatural. As I see it the supernatural is an explanative construct that is presented as part the explanations provided by certain religions. In the past there have been some supposed tests posited by particular religions. For example supernatural manifestations are affected by the bible, holy water or a cross or saying a prayer. Such practices seem to have fallen into disrepute as of late due to their obvious hokeyness. Also from a religious perspective what does it say if you try all those things and nothing changes? I suspect that the protectors of the faith would rather leave detection and control of the supernatural alone for obvious reasons.

As for the person who claims that they witnessed what would appear to be supernatural phenomena my bet is that it was a hoax or the results of an active imagination and that if you go to that house now you will find nothing out of the ordinary.

Starboy