AnssiH,
Good stuff. I agree with most of what you said, except of course, I reach a different conclusion.
This brings about an interesting question. If a worldview (say materialism vs. idealism) cannot be reached through pure reason, what is it that it is based on?
As far as the question of...
Perhaps we are using a different definition of "supernatural". I am using the one that relates to the philosophy of metaphysics, not the one from the X-Files.
I just have a quick question on the site guidelines:
Just out of curiousity, what is the purpose of this policy? It just seems like this might prohibit or limit the free exchange of ideas.
I'm not sure what "explainably supernatural" means, but as far as empirical science is concerned, it doesn't matter. If it is not explainable by prior natural events, then it might as well be supernatural.
I am talking about the force that causes an object to continue in a spin so that it does not travel linearly. For example, with a tetherball court, the tetherball only spins around the pole because the rope is proving a constant force to maintain the angular momentum. If the rope broke and...
This one fits pretty well (dictionary.com):
1. of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
Your first cause events would fit this category. If they are not determined by prior events, then they would not be explanable...
Someone in another forum posted this link: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Newton_bucket.html
It seems to conclude that Newton's bucket only demonstrates that acceleration is absolute and not relative, which is entirely compatible with SR.
Philosophically, I agree with you -- it just seems to go against the spirit of naturalism (which I do not believe in). Naturalism generally rejects anything supernatural and it seems like it would be difficult to say that a first cause (one that does not have a causal relationship with prior...
AnssiH,
A well stated argument. I certainly agree with it when assuming a naturalistic framework. However, my inability to reconcile freewill with naturalism caused me to reject naturalism entirely.
If you look at things from a purely functional perspective, then yes. However, this...
SR does not use angular momentum as the basis for reference frames -- it uses linear momentum. The two possibilities are incompatible.
As I said before, I believe the fallacy with the thought experiment is that it has to treat the spinning bucket as a unified reference frame. An observer...
But doesn't there need to be a constant force/acceleration to maintain the spin? At any instance of time, the momentum vector of any particle is linear, not angular. If the bucket wall fractures, the water will not continue spinning; instead it will spill out according to its preferred linear...
What if we were to say that something is supernatural if it cannot be mathematically represented in principle, as opposed to something that cannot be mathematically represented yet?
I can't think of a reason to object to that. It seems to be largely compatible with my proposal. Afterall...
Sorry to walk into this discussion late, but could we not consider "supernatural" to mean anything real that cannot be described with mathematics? If something cannot be quantified or reduced to mathematics, does that mean it must be considered unreasonable or impossible?