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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

> Naturalism insists that anything which is supernatural cannot be scientifically investigated, by definition.

No, that is not what naturalism is. That would be circular. Naturalism is the philosophical stance that things that cannot be observed do not exist.

Alleged supernatural phenomena cannot ever be definitively ruled out (because new observations may confirm their existence) but to date there has never been an alleged supernatural phenomenon that did not have an adequate naturalistic explanation.

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Under naturalism there can never be a supernatural phenomena that would prove supernatural things exist. Because once the phenomena reaches a state where it can be measured it ceases to be supernatural and becomes a thing of scientific investigation. And while its not in a state that could be measured there is nothing to investigate. Or put it another way - naturalism is a world view that would kill any supernatural interpretation even if/when its real. And as such it cannot be used to prove nor disprove supernaturalism.

Not quite, naturalism exposes the idea that the physical world is governed by natural laws not the whims of higher powers. Or as Wikipedia puts it “a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences”

It’s a worldview that reproducibility goes out the window once you introduce supernatural forces. If the weather where actually responsive to a god who regularly changed things because they got mad, then it would be inconsistent over short time periods.

It does classify things that are reproducible and testable as part of the natural world even if we don’t understand them such as gravity. Finally things that don’t have a detectable influence don’t exist.

This is subtly different from materialism or physicalism which both define how reality operates.

Naturalism could demonstrate the existence of things that today are called supernatural. Ghosts. Demons. Deities. All of these things could be demonstrated naturalistically if they were observable. In that case they would no longer be "supernatural" but they would still be qualitatively different from what is today understood to be "natural phenomena".

> things that cannot be observed do not exist.

I cannot observe propositions or truth claims or numbers or...

Besides, what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists? [0]

[0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/search?q=naturalism

> I cannot observe propositions or truth claims or numbers or...

Of course you can.

> what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists?

It changes over time. At the moment, "natural" is anything that can be accounted for by quantum mechanics and general relativity, and "supernatural" is anything that can't: Ghosts. Demons. Deities. Telekenesis. Stuff like that.

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