Defining Magic and The Supernatural

[theboombody]

What's supernatural? What's magic? I would say a supernatural event would have to have two properties:

1) It cannot be explained with current logic and science.
2) There is logical and scientific proof that there will never be a logical or scientific way to explain it.

The second condition is particularly difficult to fulfill. Most things that aren't explained now might easily be explained a few decades in the future. It's really tough to prove something can NEVER happen logically. The last proof I know of that accomplished this was Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Do I believe events are possible that might fit both of these two properties? Absolutely. In fact, I think that the universe is so big there are MORE events that happen that cannot be explained than events that can be explained. Do human beings really think that the mind that they've been given and the sensory organs that they've been given can come near to explaining even a small percentage of everything in the universe? But thankfully, human beings have been given a lot, and can accomplish a lot with it. It's actually pretty impressive at what human beings have been able to accomplish with what they have been given.

G-rated Shock Value
"No bad words. Just bad ideas."

 

[Flutterguy]

It's a broad thing, but for the majority of what people deem 'magic' it is just them not understanding the cause of natural phenomenon. A key moving around on top a table could be called magic, however all thats happening is a trickster sliding a magnet around on the bottom.

Our minds are also very susceptible to hallucination, which accounts for the majority of supernatural. Sure some argue their hallucinations are reality, but seeing as other people cannot see them or be effected by them, and the fact they cannot be recorded or measured makes it a pretty obvious lie.

The one true field of magic is illusion. Even that is just the phenomenon of the brains functioning. This one is used everywhere, basically the disuading of a persons belief to suit what you want from them. Relationships, religion, marketing, ownership, cults are all a practice of illusion. Persuaded to believe marriage. Persuaded to believe in Heaven. Persuaded to believe in Macintosh. Persuaded to care about what console sells better.

'Magic' For when living on this planet is just too hard for you. I'll stick to substance based self-destruction and cynicism for now myself.

 

[kurokotetsu]

How is Gödel's incompleteness theorem a proof of something magical? It just concerns absctarct math, nothing more. It just partains about the completness of sets based on Peano's arithmetic, not anything about the physcial world. And it is just logic. Those statements and be added into the theory as axioms (such as the axiom of choice) and be perfectly fine. It is still logical. I don't see how that counts because it is still logic. I really don't.

Also, I doubt that there is a way to "proof" that something can never be xplained. As far as I know there are ways to proof that something is not provable (see axiom of choice), but one thing is a provable mathematic statement and other is a high order statement about the universe. Say, how would you do it? How would you prove that something is imposible to explain?

Also, we aren't given anything. We just evolved. And are still evolving. I don't see why our comprehension has to be limited, as we keep growing, and making new things to help us understand. When we weren't a species yet, we couldn't comprehend anything. Now we can comprehend some. Why should we stop?

So, no, I don't agree, neither with your definition nor your conception that there is more than is understandable.

FInally, what discussion value is there? You are just expresing your opiinion.

 

[Arakasi]

I've always thought it was a rather redundant phrase, that is, if you believe in the supernatural. For you see, to name it 'super'-natural it has to be above nature, but what is nature other than simply the way things are? So if the supernatural is real, then really, it is just natural.

Even were it real, science would have a word in it, all science does is relate cause to effect, and I'm yet to see a conception of the supernatural that doesn't involve some element of cause and effect. Hell, even if it didn't, the scientific community isn't even leaning towards a deterministic worldview anymore, with the advent of quantum mechanics many are leaning more towards indeterminism, which if some element of the supernatural were utterly random, would fit into that category.

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

Supernatural is to natural what superheroes are to heroes. Or something. I guess.

 

[Ratty]

What's supernatural? What's magic? I would say a supernatural event would have to have two properties:

1) It cannot be explained with current logic and science.
2) There is logical and scientific proof that there will never be a logical or scientific way to explain it.

Well you're making the assumption that the supernatural exists. When it is by definition something that cannot be proven or disproven by science, which relies on observation of the natural and the material. But just because something isn't currently or may never be explained by science doesn't mean that it is supernatural, because it could still have natural, material and logical causes.

I mean there are lots of things that we used to be unable to explain, the way tides work for example, that we later explained scientifically. Those things didn't suddenly switch from being supernatural to being natural, they were always natural and we just understand them better. If you think something being unexplainable by science/incomprehensible to the human mind automatically makes it magical then you're falling into the "God of the Gaps" fallacy.

 

[Therumancer]

What's supernatural? What's magic? I would say a supernatural event would have to have two properties:

1) It cannot be explained with current logic and science.
2) There is logical and scientific proof that there will never be a logical or scientific way to explain it.

The second condition is particularly difficult to fulfill. Most things that aren't explained now might easily be explained a few decades in the future. It's really tough to prove something can NEVER happen logically. The last proof I know of that accomplished this was Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

Do I believe events are possible that might fit both of these two properties? Absolutely. In fact, I think that the universe is so big there are MORE events that happen that cannot be explained than events that can be explained. Do human beings really think that the mind that they've been given and the sensory organs that they've been given can come near to explaining even a small percentage of everything in the universe? But thankfully, human beings have been given a lot, and can accomplish a lot with it. It's actually pretty impressive at what human beings have been able to accomplish with what they have been given.

G-rated Shock Value
"No bad words. Just bad ideas."

Well technically a "Supernatural" event that exists outside of the natural order as we understand it, but is part of the world. A "Paranormal" event is something that is normal elsewhere, but odd here. As a general rule something say coming in from another dimension, or another planet, is defined as being paranormal, where something that occurs on it's own and is more or less supposed to happen but doesn't abide by the rules of physics and science like a ghost (this is what can happen when people/things die, which is supposed to occur since everything living dies eventually).

As I see things magic and a lot of supernatural phenomena, IF it exists, is probably just something we haven't figured out how to tap into or control (or have forgotten). Indeed the more civilized a culture became the more you started seeing beliefs along those lines through things like "Alchemy" developing alongside, or turning into, other sciences that we use today.

One of the cool things about humanity is that we're actually not limited to our somewhat feeble, and limited senses, we constantly develop devices and tools that let us perceive, and ultimately interact with, things that we cannot normally detect. I have faith that if something is out there, we'll eventually find it.

For the most part my thoughts on the supernatural and paranormal are ambigious. I've both experienced and heard of a ton of weird garbage that I can't explain, but at the same time I don't believe that it's beyond explanation. What's more I don't think it really matters too much. I mean sure, that odd flicker out of the corner of your eye, or that noise you hear, or some creepy experience with a feeling of foreboding could be something truly weird that we can't explain, but at the end of the day even if it is, it doesn't much matter. If the paranormal or supernatural were real on any signifigant, dangerous, scale people would be dropping like flies, and especially in the information age no conspiracy could really conceal without becoming so large that pretty much everyone would be a member anyway. So really if there is some boogie out there that isn't doing much more than giving people an occasional case of the heebie jeebies when it wanders by, who cares? So pretty much whether this kind of thing is proven doesn't matter to me, at the end of the day like with most people it doesn't really effect me one way or another if some of the weird crap that goes bump in the night is real or not as long as that's all it does. Same thing with aliens, if a bunch of UFOs buzz the earth once in a while, it would be cool to know for the purposes of developing our own space programs (we know it can be done),
but otherwise does it really matter? I mean if they've been doing it for decades, and nothing really happened, it's not like we should be getting ready for an impending invasion or whatever.

I guess the bottom line is I'm pretty laid back when it comes to this kind of thing. Makes for fun fantasy and stories, but in the real world it seems fairly irrelevant as far as ordinary people are concerned.

 

[DestinyCall]

One of the funny things about magic ... if you explain how it works, it doesn't feel so magical anymore.

However, I would disagree with your second property for supernatural events. While having no reasonable scientific explanation for the event is pretty important for maintaining belief in something being supernatural, requiring that there can NEVER be an explanation seems way too much. For one thing, you can't prove a negative. And for another, if you are willing to believe in a supernatural explanation in the first place, chances are pretty good you'll keep believing, even if people can provide you with MANY logical and scientific explanations for the supernatural occurrence. On the other side of the argument, if you aren't willing to believe in the supernatural, a lack of data won't change your mind. It just means we haven't developed the right tools or asked the right question or approached the problem from the proper direction.

Ultimately, real world magic and the supernatural is more about belief than it is about proof (or lack of proof). A person who does not believe in the supernatural would simply classify paranormal/supernatural events as "unknown but not unknowable" - something we don't understand yet and may never understand, but not necessarily beyond our understanding.

After all, if we don't understand it, how can we know if it is really beyond understanding?

 

[Something Amyss]

The second condition is particularly difficult to fulfill.

It requires the absolute knowledge that we cannot know something, so I'd say it's blood impossible. The rest is all speculation. Can we ever hope to explain the whole universe with our senses? Probably not. But "Probably not" doesn't translate to "no." When you think about how much our knowledge has advanced in the last hundred years, it's ridiculous to assert what is unknowable. Think about what was "unknowable" 100 years ago, or 200 or 500. We may never know everything, but history looks back at people who have tried to define the limits of human understanding, the "supernatural" if you will, and laughs.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Magic is real if you consider magic as the art of illusion rather then spells and curses. Magicians (or illusionists as they are also called) still draw in crowds, some of them are quite famous. Every magic act has an explanation and method that is deliberately obscured via misdirection. Some Magicians hold onto the mysticism of the art form for dramatic affect, while others straight up tell you are being tricked and the wonder is in the how (which is rarely revealed until someone cracks it themselves). They work in terms of entertainment and are a great exercise in teaching people to filter bullshit (especially for the people who practice the acts themselves).

The supernatural refers to events that occur beyond what is viewed as natural. More accurately it is a default term for people not satisfied with "we don't know". To these people, the absence of knowledge must mean the existence of something beyond the natural sciences (physics, biology and chemistry).

The absence of knowledge does not mean there is no explanation, it just means we haven't come to understand it. The irony of believing and pursuing the supernatural (such as paranormal investigators) is that if they actually found something, it doesn't mean it isn't natural. The fact something can be observed in nature means that it has a natural explanation.

So do things exist outside of nature? Maybe. We have absolutely no means to detect it and our current scientific fields are not capable of studying what we can't detect.

That said, it's better to settle with "we don't know" then jumping to conclusions like those spirit science fruits and all their "woo woo good feelies" bastardisation of real science. By the simple fact the supernatural can't have a natural effect (otherwise it would be detectable and be open to scientific scrutiny, which would make it natural by default) it means it can't have any impact on our lives.

I don't believe in the supernatural as it is viewed in popular media. However I do love exploring the impossible through imagination. To me that's the only place where the supernatural exists, in our own heads.