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Comment by gurumeditations | Hacker News Reader

If belief in the supernatural rules you out then you’d have to rule out billions of Christians and etc.

Right, belief in god or supernatural is still compatible with a belief in science and the scientific method. the laws of nature and physics, and even evolution, do not preclude a god; god can be seen as the author of, or even the embodiment of, these laws.

The existence of an "active" God as portrayed in most religions would complicate things tremendously though. If an entity can inject energy into the system or can alter system properties at will then the fundamental assumptions about the way the universe works go out the window.

Is it not true that if this entity is not limited by space-time, then they can easily alter the past to affect the present, and no one in the present would be the wiser, since there is a cascading effect of changes?

Except somebody always remembers the Sinbad movie that apparently never existed (pretty sure I do).

And if no entity can, we don't have free will...

only in deterministic physics...

In my head 100 times out of 100 my "decision" to raise my hand or open my mouth results in said action. Are you suggesting the fact each decision is made at all is due to non-deterministic quantum effects? I thought neural activity had already been demonstrated to operate at a classical level though.

If you are open to another viewpoint, that free will is an illusion, listen to Sam Harris’s take on it (he’s a neurologist). Here’s a summary of his book on the topic as well as mentions from a few other cognitive psychologists and neurologists who came to the same conclusion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701738/

Yes, familiar with his take. I honestly don't see any alternative hypothesis that makes sense. But the illusion is too good to allow me to believe that it is one.

It depends how you cash out "compatible."

Speculative metaphysical theories are compatible with science because they are unprovable and, if true, "override" science as the true cause of the laws of nature and the world. However, this is trivial and uninteresting because we don't have good reasons to take any of these speculative theories seriously in the first place.

Insofar as supernatural/mystical beliefs correspond to testable claims about the world, these beliefs are clearly incompatible with science. First, they are not backed by evidence. Second, the combined efforts of anthropology, history, and neuroscience have built a compelling model of how people come to believe such things.

Absolutely, if you were running a study to determine the existence of God. A proponent of extraterrestrial visitors is hardly sufficiently unbiased to work on a study attempting to explain UFOs.

The headline may oversimplify the article (a little).

The article isn't explicit, but I think this guy is seen (by some) as gullible for supernatural explanations.

I.e., his reports would only be informative if they concluded that there were not UFOs.

It depends on the degree to which their religion biases their judgement. I wouldn't trust a Christian doctor who believes in faith healing for a medical diagnosis, for example. Likewise, I wouldn't expect someone who already believes in the UFO narrative to be skeptical enough not to begin with the premise that confirms their biases and work backwards.

>have "seen more UFOs than I can count," and that he’s been tracked by supernatural entities that caused his car and appliances to malfunction. "

There are levels to it.

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