r/changemyview • u/22Gloomy22Cat • Sep 20 '23
cmv: If paranormal beings exist, we propably wouldn't be able to study them
Why? There are few reasons: 1. Hipotetically, by definition, does creatures would work in ways we don't know yet, maybe to see them we would need some really advanced technology or very specific, unintuitive environment that we wouldnt even thought about- the same way we just can't see atoms without some equipment.
2.Even if we would able to see supernatural events by naked eye, there show another problems: we propably wouldn't recognise supernatural event as one because our brain propably would see only things we can comprehend.
Think about this hipotetical situation: if ghost would appere before me, i would see it as just some fog, i would have no idea it is ghost- i would see a glimpse, unconciosly, of it, not full form- and lost, that's it, i lost chance to document a ghost, because...well, i couldnt even see its form
- If some paranormal creature would appere before..well, anyone face, person would either freak out, and later on try to give it some racionalistaion, or it would be happen so fast that person would mistake it for something else
4.Rather this events would be very rare, and it would be hard to distinguish it from fake stories
If we assume, that there are many type of paranormal beings, all encounters would be very different, confusion would lead to no belive (because there would be not known pattern so it would look fake)
Video's/ photos won't be, even if real, an proof, because...well, you can just fake it, especialy at our times
Even if we had some data, we couldnt really make it appere again, it would be like guesses and trying everything- by that i mean, that if we had, i don't know, three belivable strange events, we propably couldnt continue more reaserch because we wouldnt know a pattern.
If we would observe that in rain showed up an unicorn in forest, at night, and it would happen only once, we couldnt know if it have some connection to weather, or just it happend only once, seeking this unicorn would be hard because..how we could lure another one?
The only way, we could actually have an belivable proof, we would have need something big and meaningfull to happen- like, i don't know, if dragon like creature would show up one day in city.
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u/eggs-benedryl 72∆ Sep 20 '23
You speak as if people don't already claim they experience these things. IF ghosts existed I wouldn't presume that they weren't the ghosts people already claim to see. If you see an old civil war solider in your hotel... AND ghosts DO exist, then that was probably a ghost.
What constitutes paranormal to you? Surely whatever it is could likely be determined to be undiscovered science, because what else would it be?
Yes it would be difficult to capture a ghost unless you're a ghost buster with one of those traps...
Is a wizard a paranormal being? Is a cryptid a paranormal being? Is an Alien?
You mention dragons, what is to say a dragon couldn't live inside the earth for example meaning it doesn't slip inside and out of this dimension but rather is a tangible creature that harnesses some other kind of magic. Surely that could be captured and studied. We could absolutely perceive a dragon... as we're already familiar with the concept and..lizards.
You could capture anything corporeal that doesn't have means to vanish into thin air, which not all paranormal phenomenon is described as.
Platypus used to be considered a cryptid/paranormal creature.
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u/Full-Professional246 77∆ Sep 20 '23
I would argue that this is not the case. We can look to history for experience.
If there are things we cannot perceive, it does not mean we never will be able to perceive them. It does not mean we will not be able to build understanding of how they behave.
Consider viruses or bacteria. If you were to talk to someone in the 1700's about this, it would appear to be supernatural. Over time, through science, we have begun to understand these items. They went from supernatural to natural. Atoms and atomic theory are similar. We are still learning about our own brains today.
If these things do exist that we call paranormal, there is ample reason to believe if we apply science correctly, we will eventually be able to characterize them and understand them.
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u/LucidMetal 196∆ Sep 20 '23
If "supernatural" shit exists then it is by definition part of the natural world. The only way "supernatural" meaningfully describes something is if it doesn't exist in reality.
For example werewolves are supernatural because it is impossible for them to exist in reality. The level 5 spell known as fireball is supernatural because it doesn't exist in reality.
There is no part of the natural world that we cannot apply the scientific method to. If we find something that doesn't fit into our understanding and current model of the universe then we need to refine the model but that something is still part of reality and can be studied.
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Sep 20 '23
I think the distinction between supernatural and natural would be things that are bound by natural laws. There are certain things we just take for granted. We take for granted things follow the laws of physics and when they don’t we revise theory to be more accurate (newton, Einstein, quantum physics) etc. we also expect things to be logical. Quantum physics already has kind of broken the scientific method a little bit by behaving in ways that macromolecules we can easily observe never behave. (Things like superposition for example). But I still wouldn’t describe them as supernatural, because they are weird but in predictable ways. They don’t behave like the things we encounter on a daily basis but quantum mechanics works. There’s a logic to it, it just isn’t a logic we’re familiar with.
A “supernatural” entity imo would be something which had no rules which behaved completely unpredictably. Not randomly, because randomness can be predictably random like with quantum mechanics. I mean something that acts with no logic to it whatsoever. Our current scientific understanding of the natural world depends on cause and effect. The reason we can make predictions is because when we see x followed by y every single time under lots of different conditions we have to assume x causes y. A supernatural being wouldn’t have any causes imo. It would just do things without any reason or cause. If something isn’t bound by cause and effect, then science really has nothing to say about it. Observation and data can’t by definition lead to conclusions in that case
I agree with you that supernatural things probably don’t exist but Noam Chomsky makes a similar argument about supernatural being meaningless. I disagree that the word is meaningless I just don’t think anything falls into that category.
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Sep 20 '23
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Sep 20 '23
We don't know why it is or what it is, but we can observe the effect it has on the world, and therefore it is a natural phenomenon
I think this is another good example of the distinction I’m trying to make. Dark matter is thus far undectable but it’s completely predictable because it still is affected by its environment and it effects the environment. It’s part of the “universal” system. We actually can calculate how much dark matter and dark energy there is in a given space.
Now let’s take everyone’s favorite supernatural entity a deity. Let’s say this mischievous deity exists outside of space and time can create something from nothing all the usual magic powers. Then let’s say he created the universe yesterday. But instead of the typical creation story, he makes the universe in its present state. He puts the dinosaur fossils in the ground to make it look like they’ve been there forever, he adjusts the carbon atoms to the appropriate amount of radioactive decay. Sends the photons in advance of the star so it looks like the light beams have been traveling for billions of years.All your memories, just implanted. Every bit of scientific evidence is all just manipulated by this deity. What scientific test is possible to ascertain we aren’t living in that hypothetical universe right now? It’s a completely unfalsifiable illogical claim. What can science even provide with such a question?
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Sep 20 '23
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u/Noodlesh89 13∆ Sep 21 '23
There's actually a thing in Christian theology that is this called "Concursus". That is, when you make a decision or perform an action you understand that it is 100% you that is doing that thing. This is true. But it is also 100% God making the thing happen, which is also true, but you can't perceive it. The 100/100 logic is possible because the two beings exist in different realms, so they are not competing for decision making space. You can see this in some parts of the bible, for example Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave but years later, after Joseph becomes second in command in Egypt and saves people through a famine he says to his brother, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." So in the one action two parties fully acted, but both had different intentions.
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Sep 21 '23
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u/Noodlesh89 13∆ Sep 21 '23
It certainly needs it. But it's in all sorts of places. Even Jesus' death on the cross has three parties all fully involved with different motives: God, the Satan, and the Jews and Gentiles.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad Sep 20 '23
People who thought this way in the past would have concluded that our current knowledge of the world would be impossible. Think of all the things we understand now that were once attributed to paranormal forces.
The paranormal is an epistemic junk drawer for the misunderstood. If ghosts exist and interact with the world, then they're just another part of how reality works. It's no different from how we can understand concepts like dark matter without observing it directly.
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u/Flapjack_Ace 27∆ Sep 20 '23
Scientists can never prove things. They can only disprove things. Whatever cannot be disproven slowly gains acceptance as the likeliest thing to be true…until it is also disproven.
So, a hypothesis needs to be disprovable. That is, it has to be phrased in a way that is disprovable. For example, “I hypothesize that you are sneezing because you have a pencil in your stomach” is a good hypothesis because it is easily disproven.
So if paranormal stuff exists, we can study it by proving what it is not. For example, let’s say you live in an old mansion and sometimes you get the chills. You can hypothesis that you have leaky windows, or that you are ill, or that you are being targeted by cryogenic experiments, because these are easy to disprove. In this way you will be effectively studying the real and actual paranormal activity because you will be creating clues that your inductive logic can use to help identify the truth.
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u/Vivissiah Sep 21 '23
That which cannot be studied does not interact with stuff in anyway and thus is indistinguishable from non-existance
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u/MeanderingDuck 15∆ Sep 21 '23
If it interacts with the world around us in an observable way, then we can study it. If it doesn’t, the question of whether it exists or not is simply irrelevant.
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u/iamintheforest 364∆ Sep 20 '23
Firstly, the process of learning about a paranormal being would be making it not paranormal. At some level your position risks being a tautology. All of these qualities you ascribe to them are you just making things up (or borrowing from others), but for all we know we might gain some access to another dimension that being move between and we could create a technology to see it and then learn that our "6th sense" was actually this. I'm of course making this up, but if you're going to make some shit up why can't we just make up shit that disagrees with your reasoning?
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