Is It Possible to Measure Supernatural or Paranormal Phenomena?

[Warren Stupidity]

Where the known meets the unknown we are tempted to inject paranormal and supernatural forces to explain unsolved mysteries. We must resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed

The history of science has beheld the steady replacement of the paranormal and the supernatural with the normal and the natural. Weather events once attributed to the supernatural scheming of deities are now understood to be the product of natural forces of temperature and pressure. Plagues formerly ascribed to women cavorting with the devil are currently known to be caused by bacteria and viruses. Mental illnesses previously imputed to demonic possession are today sought in genes and neurochemistry. Accidents heretofore explained by fate, karma or providence are nowadays accredited to probabilities, statistics and risk.

If we follow this trend to encompass all phenomena, what place is there for such paranormal forces as ESP or supernatural agents like God? Do we know enough to know that they cannot exist? Or is it possible there are unknown forces within our universe or intentional agents outside of it that we have yet to discover? According to California Institute of Technology physicist Sean Carroll in his intensely insightful book The Big Picture (Dutton, 2016), “All of the things you've ever seen or experienced in your life—objects, plants, animals, people—are made of a small number of particles, interacting with one another through a small number of forces.” Once you understand the fundamental laws of nature, you can scale up to planets and people and even assess the probability that God, the soul, the afterlife and ESP exist, which Carroll concludes is very low.

But isn't the history of science also strewn with the remains of failed theories such as phlogiston, miasma, spontaneous generation and the luminiferous aether? Yes, and that is how we know we are making progress. The postmodern belief that discarded ideas mean that there is no objective reality and that all theories are equal is more wrong than all the wrong theories combined. The reason has to do with the relation of the known to the unknown.
...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-it-possible-to-measure-supernatural-or-paranormal-phenomena/

[rug]

1. No.

Next question.

[Lordquinton]

15. Why not?

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Because it doesn't exist.

Well, I don't want to put words in Rug's mouth, but that's the correct answer anyway.

[Lordquinton]

18. Well, yea.

I just wanted to hear it.

[beergood]

2. good article

thanks for sharing

[Warren Stupidity]

3. It is, as is Sean Carroll's book, on which Shermer's essay is based.

I do note that the post above yours, as usual, is all snark and no cattle. The poster obviously has not read the article, or if it has, has failed to understand the implications of his answer.

[rug]

4. I did, warren. He answers the question by denying the premise.

He suggests there is nothing supernatural at all.

What about a supernatural God? Perhaps such an entity exists outside nature and its laws. If so, how would we detect it with our instruments? If a deity used natural forces to, say, cure someone's cancer by reprogramming the cancerous cells' DNA, that would make God nothing more than a skilled genetic engineer. If God used unknown supernatural forces, how might they interact with the known natural forces? And if such supernatural forces could somehow stir the particles in our universe, shouldn't we be able to detect them and thereby incorporate them into our theories about the natural world? Whence the supernatural?

[Warren Stupidity]

10. It still doesn't understand.

[rug]

11. And you remain as passive-aggressive as ever.

A terrible way to spend a life.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. QED

[struggle4progress]

5. It's sad to see this silly stuff in Scientific American

Science concerns itself with natural explanations of natural phenomena

So "supernatural phenomena," by definition, cannot intersect the scientific realm

The question, whether there actually are any supernatural phenomena is mildly interesting, I suppose, but cannot be resolved by any scientific method

It is not uncommon, of course, for people to introduce a terminology -- such as "supernatural phenomena" -- and then to presuppose that wherever there is a name, there must be some corresponding "object" to which the name refers. A more sophisticated version of the same logical error is to presuppose that a terminology, coupled with adequately-developed logical theory, somehow proves the existence of an "object" to which the semantics refers

In fact, the apparent-name "supernatural phenomena" cannot by itself show that it actually names anything at all

But since science must only recognize natural phenomena, the mere failure of science to discover any "supernatural phenomena" also proves nothing about "supernatural phenomena" -- even if there is no such thing

We can certainly be cheered by the fact that, in the last few centuries, diligent experimental and observational work, combined with careful analysis and clever mathematical tools, has greatly extended the body of natural phenomena for which we seem to be able to provide good natural explanations. And it is entirely unsurprising that such advances result from persons who believe natural explanations can be given, rather than from persons who believe we must content ourselves with "supernatural" explanations: the scientific enterprise involves long and hard labor, in which no one would engage without hoping for some result

[longship]

6. SciAm has been at the forefront of debunking this crap for many decades.

They aligned with Harry Houdini to take on the mystic scammers. There is no science in this crapola, so SciAm's position is entirely appropriate.

[struggle4progress]

7. Actually debunking scammers is an excellent activity

As a child, I got great pleasure and insight by reading accounts (say) of spiritualists exposed as using cheesecloth on long knitting needles to fake "ectoplasm" or how Robert W. Wood discredited Blondlot's N-ray claims

But, unlike the article in the OP, those were actual (and convincing) investigations, not philosophical ramblings

[longship]

8. We'll, let's start with his final paragraph.

This is what he concludes. I will add my interpretation after.

It is at the horizon where the known meets the unknown that we are tempted to inject paranormal and supernatural forces to explain hitherto unsolved mysteries, but we must resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed, not even in principle.

I am fairly well familiar with Michael Shermer. I agree with much of what he says about science, but not always. I disagree with his libertarian politics, for instance. However, much of what he says here is correct.

Let me put my spin on this, if that is the correct term. I will borrow from my favorite skeptic, Steven Novella.

Science is a process, not a table of facts. Like Novella, I am a firm adherent of methodological naturalism. I suspect Shermer would also be. Note that this is different from philosophical naturalism.

Methodological naturalism states that in order to learn things about the natural universe one must presume that measurements and theories abide by rules by which would allow such measurements. If there are things outside of such a natural order, our methods have nothing whatsoever to say about them. <- this last distinction is important.

The philosophical naturalist says that there is nothing outside the physically measurable world.

Maybe that's where Shermer is going here, but I am not sure. Certainly he seems to be but he has previous indicated otherwise. I don't think that he is a philosophical naturalist from my reading of him.

Note: I too think that there is no such thing as ESP, ghosts, etc. But science does not tell me that, other than the total lack of any credible evidence. Philosophically I cannot exclude these things. Regardless, the methods of science tell me that they do not exist. I will modify my opinion if sufficient evidence is ever revealed. However, the bar is rather high for that evidence as the prior plausibility is essentially nil and one should always consider such things.

So I might state things just the way Shermer has here. For instance, science tells us that homeopathy cannot work. So too ESP, etc. And that has nothing whatever to do with philosophy, but of known methods.

My best to you.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. If you are going to assert that a supernatural force exists, a force that can act on particles

in this universe, then you will have to both amend the core theory to account for this new force and demonstrate that this force exists. Good luck with that. On the other hand if you just want to be comforted by myths of gods that do not interact with the universe, there is no conflict with science.

[Cartoonist]

13. Coincidence?

I've just begun reading an account of Scientific American's first effort to deal with spiritualism.



Here's a line I like, it's the church's response to psychics

Priests warned that Christians were not permitted to seek knowledge from the dead.

[longship]

14. That is awesome.

Thanks!

[trotsky]

17. Of course not.

Despite the claims by believers that the supernatural/paranormal can have an effect in the real world, they are always conveniently defined as unmeasurable, undetectable.

Don't even try to apply logic to that. They don't. And as the saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

[Iggo]

19. If you could measure it, it'd be natural and normal. (n/t)