Inspired by lil_shepherd, but not aimed at her or anyone specifically

[avevale_intelligencer]

I dislike the word "supernatural."

Nothing in this universe is supernatural. Nothing outside it, assuming there is an outside, is supernatural. Nature is what is real. "Supernatural" means beyond real, which is another way of saying "not real." I don't like words that prejudice the discussion. (Alternatively, of course, it could be read as simply "beyond that which occurs in nature," in which case the Severn Road Bridge is supernatural, but I don't think anyone seriously uses it in that way.)

If there is any kind of deity, if any part of us exists apart from the body and survives its death, these things are part of nature and are therefore natural. We just don't see them, the way we don't see bacteria or dark matter unless we look with special instruments. There aren't any reliable instruments to see the "supernatural" yet, and since half of the people in our society who might be able to develop them are fully invested in proving the "supernatural" doesn't exist, and the other half are fully invested in being the only people who are authorised to deal with it, it's unlikely there ever will be.

There is nothing supernatural to life. But there's more than we can see.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I know you're not aiming it at me, but 'natural' is generally taken to be something of which we have good objective evidence of its reality, while 'supernatural' is the opposite. As soon as the evidence arrives it stops being 'supernatural' and becomes part of the natural world.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I see where you're going, but...the change from "supernatural" to natural is not intrinsic to the thing, whatever it is. The ghost of Aunt Mimsie or whatever doesn't suddenly change in nature when we get evidence of it. It's a change in our attitude and perception. The thing, if it exists, was "natural" all the time whether we knew about it or not. Like smallpox. This thing was killing people, and nobody knew why, and then we developed the instruments to look into its realm, and we found it...but before we had evidence for the existence of the bacillus, it wasn't "supernatural."

The word "supernatural" applied to the things I'm talking about presupposes not only that we have no evidence but that there's no point looking for any, even though it may just be in a place we have no instruments tuned to yet.

The counter-argument is of course that using the word "natural" presupposes that there is objective evidence, which (as far as I know, and discounting testimony from people whose testimony in a court would be trusted to send a person to prison or to set him/her free) there currently isn't. Maybe we need a new word.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

No, 'supernatural' means "beyond [literally 'over'] that which we know is 'natural'". So for instance lightning and thunder were 'supernatural' until we knew what they were and how they were caused (they might as well have been deities throwing things around). The same with rainbows.

So with what word do you wish to replace it? Because any word you use for that concept (and there needs to be something which divides "things we know about" from "things we don't") will very quickly get exactly the same divisive effect, with some people saying "I won't believe it unless I see it for myself, or someone I trust tells me it's real" and the other group saying "I'll believe it if I experience it myself, or someone I trust tells me it's real"[1], and with the 'scientists' saying "I can't see it so I won't investigate it" and the 'priests' saying "I have it by revelation so I won't investigate it".

The same, of course, happens all over human interaction. Software programmers blaming the hardware, and hardware engineers blaming the software, and no one being willing to actually investigate the fault. Politicians of one party blaming those of the other, and neither being willing to do anything about it. "Not my problem" rules.

Call it 'supernatural' or 'quobbledefluck', it's the same thing. There are things we know (or are at least pretty certain about), and things we don't know (or at least can't prove reliably enough to convince others). Demonising the word, though, does no good at all.

[1] Oh wait, those two overlap. Strange, that. It's just down to who you choose to trust...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

"Undetermined"? That at least is neutral in affect.

The meaning you quote would, as I said, apply just as easily to the Sydney Opera House or this machine I'm typing on. Neither of those are known to be natural. I don't believe it's commonly used in that sense.

But in any case I'm not demonising the word, good grief. I don't like it, just as I don't like, say, "peasant", because of the connotations it's acquired. Words are tools, and tools acquire a shape from the use to which they're put, and sometimes it's a shape which detracts from the tool's usefulness in another context.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

No, the meaning I quote doesn't apply to the Sydney Opera House (except that I have to take the existence of Sydney and any houses there on faith since I haven't been there). It only applies to your quoted meaning "beyond that which occurs in nature", mine encompasses anything which humans (or other animals) do as part of 'nature'. I am quite happy accepting that the Opera House and your PC, and for that matter you, actually exist somewhere and was created by 'natural' means which are well understood (less well understood in the case of human reproduction but still a matter of reproducible phenomena).

Yes, you were demonising it by saying that it prejudices the discussion. It doesn't, in itself, it only describes a set of phenomena about which we know little including whether they exist or are illusions. Scientists have been investigating such 'supernatural' phenomema for centuries -- for instance rocks which fall from the sky as well as the donner und blitzen mentioned before. The problem is with the attitude which says "I don't understand this therefore it does not exist / is an illusion / a conspiracy / a deception" and that attitude will not be solved by blaming a word for "prejudicing the discussion". If you get people to use 'undetermined' to describe those things then in a few years you will be able to blame that word as prejudicial, because that's how it will have become used.

Just as happened with N*****, N****, 'black', 'person of colour', etc. Indeed, it seems that the more words used to describe something are changed because they have acquired 'bad' connotations the faster the next word also acquires those connotations, because a large number of people actively want those connotations. They want to use racial terms as derogatory, they want to say that some lines of enquiry are unworthy. Changing the word doesn't change the attitude.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I am not demonising a word if I indicate a dislike for it.

Changing the word doesn't change the attitude? Well, that's George Orwell told then. Still, you're probably right. I've long believed that nobody ever changed anybody else's mind about anything--either they choose to change it themselves or they don't. So, no hope. Figures.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I believe will is supernatural.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Who's Will? Or whose will? (I love ambiguity and homonyms...)

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Anyone's, when it comes to manifesting a change in the natural course of events.

Cute joke. :)

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

If nature had a creator, wouldn't he/she/it be supernatural?

I think you're making the same fundamental mistake that both Richard Dawkins and many evangelical Christians. God as understood by most Christians, Muslims and Jews, isn't a phenomenon in the world which can be discovered, studied, measured. If she were, then Dawkins would clearly be right. But she is something utterly different, the source of everything in nature, and arguably the sum total of it too, but equally its complement.

I guess you *could* [re-]define the word 'nature' to include her too without making the Dawkins mistake, but people would misunderstand you, and you'd be left without a word for the other stuff.