Comment by Brendinooo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brendinooo | Hacker News Reader

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How do you define empirical evidence? I’m seeing it as “information acquired by observation or experimentation”.

Either observation can include stuff that was observed and recorded a long time ago, and we therefore have evidence of the supernatural, or it’s meaning something more like observation in a more “scientific method” sense, which automatically excludes certain categories of potential reality.

> Um, no? "Supernatural" just implies that there's something outside the "natural". To the NPCs in World of Warcraft, you are supernatural, since you exist outside the rules of their system.

I suppose so, but I don’t think that’s how most people define supernatural. Regardless, this is a great illustration! I don’t think the WoW characters know anything about C++, yet it is the basis of their reality…

> How do you define empirical evidence? I’m seeing it as “information acquired by observation or experimentation”.

Consider the story of Gideon. He has a spiritual experience, where he's told to go do something very dangerous. So he prays, "I'm going to put this wool out overnight; if that was really you talking to me, make the wool wet and the ground dry." Next morning, the wool is wet and the ground is dry. So he prays, "I'm going to put this wool out; if that was really you talking to me, make the ground wet and the wool dry." Next morning, the ground is wet and the wool is dry. So, he goes ahead and does the dangerous thing.

Assuming for the sake of argument that Gideon's experience was as described, does that count as empirical evidence (from Gideon's perspective anyway)?

I mean yeah, it's not something you can replicate 100 times, and then someone else can independently replicate, for the same reason "Will my brother pass me the salt when I ask him" isn't something you can replicate 100 times: people can choose to behave differently, and typically do when you start to treat them like a law of nature rather than a person. (Which, as you say, excludes this potential reality from that kind of empirical verification.)

Or consider Elijah and the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18. Pretty good empirical demonstration there.

Of course, if the priests of Baal had the equivalent of a modern Christian apologist in their ranks, things might have been a little different: http://apastasea.blogspot.com/2014/10/elijah-and-apologist-o...

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