cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30986611
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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What's with all the fighting over supernatural vs science lately? First of all, science is a process of discovery, not a thing. Scientists are the people discovering (or not).
Is this super natural?
How the Emotiv EPOC Works
Lately? You mean, like, since the dawn of recorded history? Because I suppose on a geological scale, you could call that "lately."
Also, in response to the rest of your comment, what?
Is it supernatural to be able to read people's minds with a video game?
In the example given, no. The science of it is well understood.
No. Absolutely not in the least, so long as it is actually occurring. An inability to understand a phenomenon doesn’t transform it into magic. The supernatural is mutually exclusive to what is real, and what is real is discovered and understood via science.
Potato-potato. Seriously, this is all just semantics at this point. Electricity is PFM and is in our bodies. We now know that the US government says there are aliens among us. Life is crazy and can't be put into tidy little boxes that say science and non-science. Plus, I love mysteries, as well as probably most scientists do. That's the fun discovery part.
There are not aliens among us, but if there were aliens among us, it would not be a supernatural phenomenon. I disagree completely that things can't be put into science and non-science boxes. Science is when you look for the answers, and non-science is when you make them up. Let's take UFOs for example.
There's a blob in the sky. We don't know what it is. It is flying. It has some mass. That is, by definition, an Unitentified Flying Object. It moves in ways that seem impossible, and then suddenly vanished.
Science is looking at the evidence and trying to form a testable hypothesis. Perhaps it was an optical illusion? If so, we could probably recreate the conditions and replicate the illusion. Perhaps it was a human craft that has capabilities that were previously unknown to us? If so, we could probably describe a theoretical mechanism that could move or disappear the same way. Can we prove it was a craft? Can we measure accurately its behavior? Are the instruments and witnesses reliable?
The best bit about all of this is that any of them could be true whether or not aliens exist. Once you decide that, since nothing on earth can explain it, there must be aliens with some sufficiently advanced technology, you have abandoned science altogether. Why not fairies or ghosts? Maybe it was a magician or a superhero with mutant powers? Once you abandon the feasible to assume the supernatural, you leave the door open to any supernatural explanation. Maybe the reason we haven't found bigfoot is that he has an invisible flying vehicle that defies gravity.
Maybe aliens exist. Certainly I believe that life can exist on other planets. There may even be intelligent life capable of interstellar travel. I hope we find evidence of it someday.
It strains credulity to suggest that in all of spacetime, our sentient spacefaring species would overlap with another without any measurable evidence. The evidence we do have does not support the logical leap from Unidentified to Extraterrestrial.
There are conflicting reports:
UFOs are Real: What the Experts Said to Congress
What is hilarious about this to me, is no one cares. Regardless, ignore the alien stuff and let's talk about reading other peoples thoughts by hoking up electrodes.
Some people seem to like using “science” as a counter religion. Instead of being smug about believing in a god, they’re just smug about how much they don’t believe in one.
It does nothing but divide people more and I’ve honestly started questioning whether it’s all good faith or some kind of psy-op to divide the left a bit more.
It's not a psy-op, this has been going on for as long as I can remember. If anything, it's regaining the traction it once had before the atheist community imploded with sexism and large taking heads fell out of favor.
But it is a counter to religion at the most fundamental level: The scientific method sets out to find answers and the religious have answers and don't care to investigate. One is based on confidence (belief based on previous evidence) and the other in faith (belief without evidence). And I could go on. The two are irreconcilable unless you're willing to suspend your beliefs when dealing with one or the other, which is precisely what religious scientists do.
It is not a “counter to religion”. Religion and science are both ways to find explanations for things, but they’re not a binary nor even on the same spectrum. They both have aspects to them with no parallel from the other. Science doesn’t define morality and religion doesn’t engineer buildings for example.
I said “counter religion” because people treat it like a stand in for religion. Science fundamentally doesn’t declare truth. Scientific theories can and have been wrong, yet some people act as though it’s unquestionable and anything not scientifically proven isn’t true. Those people also tend to really identify with believing they’re right, almost exactly like any smug religious person.
I do mean that science is a direct counter to religion and without having to treat it as a religion. But if anyone is treating science as a religion they don't fundamentally understand science. The only way science can replace religion afaik is in the feeling of awe and wonder that it inspires. We have studies of that.
But it does, and it goes beyond that: it makes predictions. That's the real power of science. Without having an accurate model of reality you can't make an informed prediction, which means the majority of its proposals must be grounded in fundamental truths about the world. Also, don't forget science is integrative unlike religion, meaning a lot of scientific principles in one area will inevitably pop up in other areas without conflict.
I've yet to meet someone like that. Are you sure you're not misinterpreting their stance? I can think of times when I was in that position and the other person thought I was being a scientific zealot simply because I wasn't allowing them to use a weak justification for their point, which is fair if you're claiming things without evidence.
My partner and I were just discussing that. What is the end game on this? They're using people's thoughts to control video games, that's pretty fucking cool, but also something that is considered woo. I don't really care in the end, but they sure are downvoting the shit out of it.
Edit: Before you're downvotes start showering in, I agree with you that it's probably meant to divide. I was sort of venting at you. Sorry about that.