The supernatural cannot, by definition, actually exist. We assume things like ghosts are "supernatural," but if they existed, they would be "natural."

Everything that exists is natural. Some people distinguish human-made from natural, but that is, in my opinion, just a way to pretend that humans aren't just large, hairless apes. In either case, a ghost would be something that happens "naturally" after a person dies, since no human has created ghosts artificially.

For example, this definition includes things like me telling you I will flip this coin and get tails 20 times in a row, and I get it, and you and others are not capable to reproduce the event within a reasonable timeframe using the same coin. — Agustino

That definition would seem to include good magic tricks.

That definition would seem to include good magic tricks. — Baden

Let's exclude those and other things that can be determined as fakery.

OK, well, no, and I expect this to end up about 80% no. What's your prediction?

OK, well, no, and I expect this to end up about 80% no. What's your prediction? — Baden

60-70% No, I would say.

But there's a lot more believers and conservatives around here than old PF, this is a more balanced community. You probably voted no - why?

I don't have any reason to believe the laws of physics admit of exceptions.

I don't have any reason to believe the laws of physics admit of exceptions. — Baden

This is ambiguous. By "laws of physics" do you mean "the way nature behaves" or "the way we believe nature behaves"? If the former than it's a truism that the laws of physics are always obeyed, and if the latter then there are exceptions, as current theory cannot explain all phenomena.

Any resistance to the unfolding of nature is done within its scope. An insight from De Sade. He thus had all kinds of fun with the idea of natural law.

...Reflecting the fact that the concepts of "miracles" and the "supernatural" are somewhat incoherent. And the only way they can be rendered coherent, and get us beyond the truism, is to posit something above and beyond nature and nature's laws. That's where the "no" comes in.

I think the supernatural plays a much larger role even in day-to-day life than most people care to admit (I will not even mention guiding the evolution of history).

Miracles no, “supernatural”... I don’t like the word, but something along the lines of metanatural, or “spirit”, “fundamental being”. Of course those terms are all loaded as well...

Miracles no — Noble Dust

Why not?

I’ve never experienced one. But the fact that I don’t believe in them doesn’t mean my mind can’t be changed in the future.

Contemporary physics, particularly at the extreme micro- and macro- levels is a much richer source of novelty and strangeness than the impoverished narratives of "miracles" and "the supernatural", which are fuelled largely by superstition and parochialism rather than the more hard-earned aspects of the imaginative life associated with the former, which are borne of a combination of real intellectual work and theoretical courage. So, anything of "miracles" or the "supernatural" that can't be at least potentially distilled into theoretical physics can be confidently flushed from consciousness as superfluous to understanding and most probably detrimental to it.

For example, this definition includes things like me telling you I will flip this coin and get tails 20 times in a row, and I get it, and you and others are not capable to reproduce the event within a reasonable timeframe using the same coin. — Agustino

That is not the definition of miracle, nor coherent with your first sentence.

Your definitions are shoddy, there are already well-defined terms by others that most of us would accept.

Anyway, I voted no.

(lazy copy paste): Hume defines a miracle as ‘a violation of the laws of nature’, or more fully, ‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity’ (p. 173)

...

Learn to read kid.

Contemporary physics, particularly at the extreme micro- and macro- levels is a much richer source of novelty and strangeness than the impoverished narratives of "miracles" and "the supernatural", which are fuelled largely by superstition and parochialism, rather than the more hard-earned aspects of the imaginative life associated with the former, which are borne of a combination of real intellectual work and theoretical courage. — Baden

Contemporary physics exists with one end in mind, which structures the entire enterprise. I am of course speaking about what Nietzsche called the "will-to-power" or Freud called the "death drive" - in its essence science is man's attempt to force nature to do his bidding. And how is this achieved? It is achieved by destroying matter and turning it into energy, and then rechanneling that energy according to man's will. That's what you do when you burn gas to cook your meal, when you burn petrol to drive your car, or when you use nuclear fission to power your home. The whole enterprise is the exact opposite of a creative endeavour - it kills, in the attempt to control. To understand the flower, science breaks it up - into this and that part, and then proposes a theory to explain how the parts fit together. But once broken, the parts cannot be put back together. The divisive nature of physics obscures - and completely misses - the creative and unitive nature of existence - indeed that which makes physics itself possible in the first place.

So science is useful to calculate - it is useful to mechanise existence - to transform existence into a mechanism, where if you do this, then that will happen, and so on so on. That is, to kill existence. It encourages calculation, but not understanding. Science misses the essence of life. Indeed, modern-day philosophers even admit this, with pride, if one may say so. Just take a cursory glance at Ray Brassier for example. He tells us that "we are already dead" and that "thinking has interests that do not coincide with those of living; indeed, they can and have been pitted against the latter". But Brassier has of course not discovered anything new, despite his firm conviction that he has. All that he has done is merely put into words what already existed, a priori, in man's collective unconscious - that which has been and continues to be repressed, and emerges every now and again - in Nietzsche's "will-to-power", Freud's "death drive", Heidegger's "nihilism", Brassier's "death" and also more concretely in the tremendous destruction that we have just emerged from in the 20th century, today's extreme forms of decadence and promiscuity, rampant environmental destruction and so on. The modern philosopher does not have the intelligence and tremendous energy - the life - to discover anything new - to create - he, like the scientists, can only speak about what is already there.

Remember the story of the Garden of Eden? The two trees? The Tree of Knowledge and The Tree of Life? The Tree of Knowledge is that which brings death, and the Tree of Life is guarded by the Cherubim with the flaming sword, who guards the Tree of Life from every direction such that the one who has Knowledge cannot reach it.

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. — Genesis 3:22-24

Paradoxically, it is only today that the meaning of Genesis becomes clearer and clearer. Science is the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge - that appealing fruit which appears to make one like God, but actually kills them. Indeed, we have reached the point where the death of man is already prefigured by Brassier. Nietzsche prefigured the death of God 150 years ago - now it is the time of man to die. Now, there is no God to protect us or to die for us. Science has killed God, it is only a matter of time before it kills man as well. Because that is its nature - that is the nature of technicality, of calculation - to kill and to destroy in order to control. And science itself blinds man from Life.

Just look at it - open your eyes. It is your life too after all. What is happening? A tremendous lameness, weakness, fatigue has fallen over Western culture. A tremendous lack of bearings, lack of motivation, lack of goals. We can do anything, but paradoxically, that's exactly why we can't do anything. Because we don't know what to do. We lack the courage. We know how to do very well - but what use is that when you don't know what to do? And of course I don't mean you in particular, but we as a culture, as a people.

To create, to live - that takes great energy, tremendous energy. We lack the energy today. Where could we get it from? Today, we just have energy to go to work and slave away for others (usually), then come home, eat, at night be dead tired, can't even have sex with our wives, we have to ask them to get on top and do it... and even when we do, we are tired, sick of it almost. That is why we need to have a golden shower from time to time, to try another woman, to masturbate in public, to have an orgy, to mix alcohol with benzodiazepines, smoke some weed, take some crack - at least, for a few moments we can feel a little bit more alive, a little bit more free. This is who we have become...

With no energy for authentic living, only the inauthentic remains. And science cannot show us the way to reawakening this energy. Science cannot guide us on how to live - it can only close down possibilities. Science has created the atomic bomb, which can cause untold outer destruction. Where is that inner "atomic bomb", which does not destroy, but makes one's soul blossom with life, energy, vigor, strength, confidence, hope, love, etc.?

So, anything of "miracles" or the "supernatural" that can't be at least potentially distilled into theoretical physics can be confidently flushed from consciousness as superfluous to understanding and most probably detrimental to it. — Baden

On the contrary, science has done such great damage to man's collective psyche over the past 400 years, that if this continues, soon there will be no man left. We have greater technical power than ever today, but much less wisdom. We have utterly explored the outer world, but continue to be completely ignorant of the inner world. In fact, science itself has obscured the inner world in its blind quest for power. It has called the inner "subjective" - an epiphenomenon at most - while only the outer is real, fundamental and true. Science itself has attempted and continues to attempt to reduce and force the inner - that epiphenomenon - to be subservient to the outer. You feel depressed? Where is your Prozac? In other words, do not let this inner crap control you - you are the master, just like you are the master of the external world, and you will force it to be as you want it to be, you have control over it. Of course, I forgot to mention that you are also no one, just check out Metzinger's Being No One.

Not a kid, — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Are you sure?

Learn some new things about Hume: http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Hume/HumeMiracles.pdf

Hume defines a miracle as ‘a violation of the laws of nature’, or more fully, ‘a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity’ (p. 173) — Kitty

A miracle is very difficult to define - alas, I am not much interested in definitions.

The problem with Hume's definitions is that "laws of nature" do not really mean anything. Whatsoever we call a law of nature is just a regularity we have observed. For all intents and purposes, those regularities can change over time. There are no laws of nature above and beyond the regularities themselves. So if the regularities change, that would, according to Hume, be a miracle. Quite a strange definition I think.

A miracle is very difficult to define - alas, I am not much interested in definitions. — Agustino

It is not, read Hume.

The problem with Hume's definitions is that "laws of nature" do not really mean anything. Whatsoever we call a law of nature is just a regularity we have observed. For all intents and purposes, those regularities can change over time. There are no laws of nature above and beyond the regularities themselves. So if the regularities change, that would, according to Hume, be a miracle. Quite a strange definition I think. — Agustino

Christ almighty for the love of God, read some Hume. This discussion is older than your dead granny.

Hume's take down on miracle still stands today. If you somehow find it incoherent, please share with us why.

Everything that exists is natural. — NKBJ

But that's just question-begging. The whole point of supernatural hypotheses is to explain something about the world that seemingly cannot be explained through a naturalistic theory.

Typically the more serious and respectable philosophical theories about the supernatural are not about ghosts, unicorns, or any childhood fantasy but rather something totally and wholly other-than-Being. Something above-and-beyond the normal, physical, "natural" state of affairs. A transcendence beyond the immanent reality we live in.

I think it's useful to distinguish between the largely religiously-inspired concepts of "miracles" and "the supernatural" as boring and unsophisticated tropes that offer little of interest in terms of our knowledge of the universe, and physics, as a set of rich and imaginative theories, especially at the cutting edge, of how reality works. I haven't made a broader metaphysical point than that.

Doesn’t physics itself rely on other things? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Like what?

OK, this is a nice word-wall critique of science that I have some sympathy with. My point was more specific though and related to the relatively impoverished imaginative basis of miracles, the supernatural and so on—i.e. the subject of the discussion, as compared to contemporary physical theories. Science isn't the be-all and end-all of life etc, I know. I'd personally rather create art than anything scientific, but it's still a hell of a lot more interesting than magic virgins, ghosts and oddly behaving wafers etc.

If you assume there islam a diety, then the laws of nature are the volition of that diety. so a transgression of a law of nature by a particular voilition of a diety becomes -the transgression of a volition of the diety by the particular volition of a diety. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Where you go wrong is add your own (strange at best, trying to be charitable) definition in the mix -- equivocate -- then fall over and blame me ( or Hume).

Again, to you as well, read some Hume kiddo.

I’ve read the document on Hume quite intensely already. I did an exam on that very paper last year, and seemed to have a decent understanding of it considering I got a 1st. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

I doubt that, for your own sake, lmao.

Physical theories and calculations rely on mathematics, sure. As for physics relying on mathematics taken to mean the ultimate reality of nature is mathematical rather than physical, you might find some that agree with you on that too, but you'll have to flesh out exactly what you mean by that. And until you do I'll presume it's nothing "miraculous".

I do believe in miracles and in the supernatural. For a reason that may appear a bit too prosaic.

I don't believe that just because there is science, all and everything can be explained by it. I think the modern ignorance stems precisely from the lack of humbleness in approaching our own experience of the world. If we don't understand something, we figure that there must be some scientific explanation for it. Why? That's the same as saying that there must be some mystical explanation for what has happened. We replaced our potential for wisdom for ignorance. We are led down the path of 'psychic laziness'. We do not investigate via our experience - we deconstruct, and destroy. As if we wish to 'outsource' our knowledge to someone else. This time to scientists who will baffle and mesmerise us with their explanations of the world. Do these scientists even know what they are doing? Or is it the same as with the robot?

Poor Freud. Blamed for shoveling phallic symbols to the faces of others, yet I can't help myself but to think that most of the scientists just try to manifest their neurosis and complexes in their specific field. It's not about discovery or about creating something useful for humanity. No, just sublimation of their bitterness. This is more of a reference to the book I linked before.

A transcendence beyond the immanent reality we live in.

You could possibly argue for the supernatural on the grounds of some other kind of reality or what does it mean to exist. But since I presuppose one reality, one universe, I'll stick to all things that are in existence are "natural" in the sense that they obey the laws of nature. Natural things do not have to comply to our current understanding of the laws of nature, because we understand (or ought to) that our grasp on these is incomplete and still an area of scientific exploration. If a ghost existed, for instance, it would force us to redefine some of our laws of nature, but it would still be natural since it exists naturally in the world. Think about it, the natural course of life would be for one to be born, live, die, and part of oneself to become a ghost. It would merely be an unexplained phenomenon, not supernatural.

But that's just question-begging

Please explain how I am committing the fallacy of begging the question? I fail to see it.