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Comment by NateEag | Hacker News Reader

For many, many people, their sense experience has included some interactions with what they perceive to be the supernatural.

If yours hasn't, then obviously that isn't pertinent for you personally, but it seems wise to me to admit that others have their own experience and their own interpretation of those experiences (often not easily falsified).

A good example is Philip K. Dick's experience of apparently hallucinating a pink beam of light telling him his son needed medical care. He took the kid to the hospital, and found his child had a hernia, IIRC.

could that be coincidence, or his drug-addled subconscious picking up on some subtle behavioral cues from his kid? Yep.

Could it have been something beyond human ken? Also possible.

Can we confirm or falsify either of those possibilities? I don't see how.

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> For many, many people, their sense experience has included some interactions with what they perceive to be the supernatural.

How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

> A good example is Philip K. Dick's experience of apparently hallucinating a pink beam of light telling him his son needed medical care. He took the kid to the hospital, and found his child had a hernia, IIRC.

Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

> If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

This presumes materialism, which many believers in the supernatural do not grant.

Even in a materialist framing, where the brain is the source of all perception and experience, these things could originate as strictly internal phenomena, not triggered by senses.

It's also conceivable a supernatural being / Simulator could tweak things directly in your brain to communicate, which stays fairly materialist but still allows for non-sense-driven communication.

Are these plausible? Perhaps not. They are conceivable, though.

Your perspective is perfectly valid and rational, but holding yours out as the correct answer won't help you understand perspectives other than yours.

> Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

Since I didn't bring fairies up, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

If you have no good explanation for something, that's not great grounds for saying "I'm sure the true explanation lines up with the way I see the world."

And yes, that cuts both ways, and a little more humility would hurt neither side.

> How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s sense data. So photons and sound waves.

You can perceive something, but what you perceive is not necessarily a comprehensive and accurate representation of what may be there.

> Not having a good explanation for how you know something does not imply fairies did it.

True, and the fact that this is true has little bearing on whether the underlying proposition is objectively true (but perhaps beyond humanity's current ability to "know").

inb4 solipsism.

> You can perceive something, but what you perceive is not necessarily a comprehensive and accurate representation of what may be there.

I don’t understand what point you are making here. Please clarify.

> True, and the fact that this is true has little bearing on whether the underlying proposition is objectively true

Agreed. But if you offer the explanation “magical pink laser did it”, then I say, “going to set up some lenses and sinks and mirrors to study this phenomena”, then you say, “nope, it’s magical, your dorky science equipment can never contain it”.

Then what?

Consider two examples:

"Water is wet." - it is true that water is wet, but is that all that water "is"? (Non-comprehensive)

"January 6 was a coup attempt." - it is certainly believed by many to be that, and it was an insurrection (according to the technical definition), but whether it was actually a coup attempt in "base reality" is a function of (among other things) the number of people who genuinely intended to commit a coup. (non-accurate)

> Agreed. But if you offer the explanation “magical pink laser did it”, then I say, “going to set up some lenses and sinks and mirrors to study this phenomena”, then you say, “nope, it’s magical, your dorky science equipment can never contain it”. Then what?

Then I would suggest you ask me to present any supporting evidence for my claim because I have a burden of proof, as I am doing to you here for your claim (with implicit claims made explicit - feel free to criticize my translation):

>> "How can you perceive the supernatural? If you perceive it, then it’s [only] sense data. So photons and sound waves [only and necessarily, nothing else is going on]".

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