What is the meaning of this term "supernatural"?

"Remember MAYTAG - no reason at all for you to post to that guy anymore.", because of his admitted ignorance of the subject matter of 'supernatural' and his inability to comprehend standardized definitions.

 

Thanks and good luck.

 

I don't rely on 'luck', but thanks for the thought anyway.

 

If you think Twain, because he used a pseudonym, was fictional, then you have lost the semantics debate on points.

The name may be fictional, but there was nothing fictional about the writer, in spite of his being a writer of fiction.

So you think your expertise is semantics, huh?

 

So where is your argument. You seem to have clearly understood what I was saying because you covered the entire playing field in your attempt: Mark Twain is a fictitious name and Samuel Clemens did write fictional stories.

Lame try... Quit trying to guess at what I think... Your projections are telling.

 

Language is riddled with vestigial details that bear evidence of historical ideas long abandoned in more modern thought. "Disasters" actually were once believed to be caused by "bad stars," and "museums" actually were first meant to collect the products of the "nine muses," the daughters Zeus and Mnemosyne who were the goddesses of human inspiration.

Most of this vocabulary has been completely decoupled from its origin, and essentially nobody persists in any genuine attachment to the more atavistic meanings. But not so with "supernatural."

"Supernatural" is not a term that can be considered in anyway synonymous with "unexplained," although there is powerful historical correlation between the two words that I'll get to in a moment. Something that is labeled "supernatural" actual is explained... although the explanation might not be true. And the explanation is that the "supernatural" thing is the product of beings or contexts that are literally "above" nature. It's not that they "do not yet have a natural explanation," it is that they have an explanation that is explicitly superior to that of any more prosaic, potentially natural explanation.

In short, labeling something as "supernatural" is not evidence of an open mind, it is evidence of a mind that has closed on an explanation that is not a natural one.

The historical correlation between the two is direct and causal. The further one looks back into history, the supernatural domain (in human understanding) becomes more pervasive and comprehensive. There was a time in human history when the conceptual natural domain was quite tiny, while the continual supernatural domain was huge. Almost everything was explained via the supernatural. The rising of the sun, the blowing of the wind, the passage of the seasons, the fury of the storm... all were believed to be the operation of gods or goddesses or spirits or demons... what Carl Sagan called "the demon haunted world." These were not unexplained phenomena... they were fully explained. But their explanations were supernatural.

History is not a record of unexplained things becoming explained (at least not until the dawn of modern science). It is a record of supernatural explanations being replaced by natural ones. As the wag wrote, "The progress of science has been the path to God's retirement. As we learn more and more about the natural world, there is less and less for God to do."

Unlike "disaster" or "museum," the word "supernatural" maintains its original meaning. But outside of popular entertainment where it is represented these days primarily by romantic vampires, it is reserved for those sectarian religious beliefs that persist in retrograde opposition to its increasing irrelevance. The shrinking domain of the supernatural is best represented on these boards by those many discussions in which the religious position collapses to some tiny and trivial last stand dependent entirely on the ever narrowing catalog of the "unexplained." Debates against evolution become nothing more than hand wringing about abiogenesis. The Kalam Cosmological Argument becomes an endless quibble about the Big Bang singularity. Science is humble enough to simply admit "we do not yet know" the answers to some questions. Religion is not.

While so much of the world has learned from history that the lack of a natural explanation for something is probably not a good indicator that no natural explanation exists, there remains a strain of human irrationality and hope that still defaults to explanations dependent on gods, goddesses, spirits and demons.

And that is what "supernatural" means.

 

Straight semantics, expert.
Twain was not a fictitious writer.
Interesting you make the same point I've made to you often. Your semantic posts are boring and stupid, because you know exactly what people mean by their posts and derail the discussion to focus on irrelevant minutiae.
Wanna call me a "projectionist" again?
LOL!!!

 

No kidding. So why then did you say that Twain used a pseudonym?

"If you think Twain, because he used a pseudonym, was fictional, then you have lost the semantics debate on points."

What pseudonym did twain use? Twain is the pseudonym used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Therefore, Twain (as in Mark Twain) is a fiction, is fictional, and Twain did not use a pseudonym. Learn how to write.

Don't need to when you admit it. Your failure to deny that label only verifies that label.

 

The man, by any name, was not fictitious.

I have never run a movie projector in my life.

You see how stupid conversations with you become, and so quickly.

 

Twain (or Clemens, if you prefer) had a point. There is no operational definition of "supernatural". It might refer to gods, it might refer to natural things not understood, it might refer to non-answers to ill-formulated questions, it might refer to the purely subjective, it might not have any meaning at all. Most of the time it seems to refer to something we WISH were true, but either there's no evidence for it or the evidence points in another direction - "believing what you know ain't so."

 

You seem to be the only one pressing the idea of 'the man' being a fiction. I said he (Clemens aka Twain) was a fictional writer. Clemens was the writer operating under the fictional name of Twain, thus making Twain a fictional writer. Mark Twain was a 'legal fiction'.

You might never have run a projector in your whole life, however you project parts of your character.... thus making you a projectionist.

The conversations only become stupid, when people such as you attempt to out wit the dictionaries.

 

Am I the only one amused by the multiple breathtaking examples of linguistic incompetence demonstrated by that post?

 

Baaaa zing! +1 to your rep.

 

Nice coined term there flintc. What is the meaning of that specialized term. I looked it up in the dictionary and I was redirected back to the standard definition of "definition". So, because there is no definition of the term 'operational definition', then I can only assume that the standard definition would apply. Subsequently, the 'operational definition' of 'supernatural' would be the standard definitions for the term 'supernatural'.

Unless you desire to use the explanation given at wikipedia:
"An operational definition, also called functional definition,[1][2] defines something (e.g. a variable, term, or object) in terms of the specific process or set of validation tests used to determine its presence and quantity. That is, one defines something in terms of the operations that count as measuring it.[3] The term was coined by Percy Williams Bridgman and is a part of the process of operationalization. One might use definitions that rely on operations in order to avoid the troubles associated with attempting to define things in terms of some intrinsic essence.

An example of an operational definition might be defining the weight of an object in terms of the numbers that appear when that object is placed on a weighing scale. The weight then, is whatever results from following the (weight) measurement procedure, which should be repeatable by anyone. This is in contrast to Operationalization that uses theoretical definitions."


In using the wikipedia response, there would be no way for the 'operational definition' to be applicable to 'supernatural'.

"su·per·nat·u·ral (spr-nchr-l)"
adj.
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
4. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
5. Of or relating to the miraculous.
n.
That which is supernatural."

 

Google is your friend. When I plugged "operational definition" into Google, I got 4.6 MILLION results. And you can't find it?

Yes, that's correct. So you DID find out what it means. It's a term that's been around a long time, and it lies at the center of the scientific method.

Yes, that's it.

That's also correct. There is no possible operational definition of supernatural, which means that there is no possible intersubjectively verifiable observation, such that people could agree on whether the supernatural was or was not detected.

In science, a term which cannot possibly be given an operational definition, is a meaningless term. Semantic noise. There might not BE any such thing as "outside the natural world". How would THAT be operationally defined? There may not BE any forces that are "beyond natural" and if there are, how would they be detected? As for gods, they may exist or they may be imaginary, and there is no way to tell the difference. And science is founded on the axiom (among others) that there are no miracles, that everything is explainable in terms of what can be operationally defined.

ETA: You might also have provided a definition for "operationalization", which is related. This is "the process of defining a fuzzy concept so as to make the concept clearly distinguishable or measurable and to understand it in terms of empirical observations."

 

Do you see the highlighted text above? Two very interesting words. But of course, there are two other words which are more appropriate for the section of this forum in which we are having this discussion. Those other two words are "In religion". That's right, this being a religion section of the forum, why do you insist on interjecting the demands of another section of this forum.... to wit.... the 'science' section? That seems to be the biggest problem with people such as yourself. You tend to make demands that others adhere to your philosophy regardless of where you are holding a discussion.

You started off with a little slam against me and my ability to search things out (especially using Google) then upon further reading, you found that you had to back peddle because I did do my research. Then you switch to another specialized term, again not relating to 'religion' per se': however, in doing so, you failed to recognize that anything that you meditate upon, becomes a subjective thing while that meditation process is taking place. . . that would include all those sweet wonderful little scientific notions that you come up with.

As for the 'Intersubjective_verifiability' is concerned.... Just ask any Christian and they can verify the things that they know about the 'supernatural'. It is called spiritual discernment. Of course you reject that process because your precious yet inadequate science cannot deal with such matters.

Have a nice evening.

 

No, I'm not demanding anything. I'm pointing out the difference between science, where words MUST mean something, and religion, where words MUST NOT mean something. The distinction is pretty dramatic.

You started off by saying you had to stick with a dictionary definition. THEN you switched gears and went to Wikipedia, which you quoted but apparently didn't digest. Looking things up is a good start. Understanding what you read comes next.

And you prefer to wallow in pure woo. I understand. Good for you. Sure beats, you know, LEARNING anything.

Yes, of course you can Make Stuff Up to your heart's content, and call it "spiritual discernment" and that makes it Come True By Magic. And of course I can do the same. And the stuff I make up might be completely different from yours, but if we use the SAME WORDS to describe it, that makes it, you know, exactly the same. Woo woo!

Your WORDS have no external meanings, no referents. They are purely subjective, meaningful only inside your head. And that's fine, so long as you don't pretend otherwise. But you wouldn't do anything like that, would you? Surely "spiritual discernment" would prevent you from, you know, prevaricating.

 

'Supernatural' just means above nature or not tied to so-called 'natural' things or occurrences. Similarly, a 'super' structure is a structure on top of another structure. It's just a way of describing things. One should be careful when trying to attribute emotional meanings to words.

 

A fictional writer could never have written a thing. He's a real writer, and Twain is a pseudonym. Look that up.

You also forget that I posted the definition from your favorite dictionary source of the word "projectionist". The way you are trying to use it is incorrect. If you want to prove me wrong, find the dictionary that supports your usage and post.
Or admit you are the farce that everyone recognizes you to be.

 

One of the great things about science is it is verifiable and repeatable. Spiritual discernment is not, as those that claim it come to varied and incompatible conclusions, making reliance on it impossible.

 

"fic·tion (fkshn)
n.
1.
a. An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented.
b. The act of inventing such a creation or pretense.
2. A lie.
3.
a. A literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact.
b. The category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels and short stories.
4. Law Something untrue that is intentionally represented as true by the narrator.
[Middle English ficcioun, from Old French fiction, from Latin ficti, fictin-, from fictus, past participle of fingere, to form; see dheigh- in Indo-European roots.]
fiction·al adj.
fiction·ali·ty (-sh-nl-t) n.
fiction·al·ly adv.
Word History: To most people "the latest fiction" means the latest novels or stories rather than the most recently invented pretense or latest lie. All three senses of the word fiction point back to its source, Latin ficti, "the action of shaping, a feigning, that which is feigned." Ficti in turn was derived from fingere, "to make by shaping, feign, make up or invent a story or excuse." Our first instance of fiction, recorded in a work composed around 1412, was used in the sense "invention of the mind, that which is imaginatively invented." It is not a far step from this meaning to the sense "imaginative literature," first recorded in 1599.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved."

You also post a lot of lies. So what else would you like to say?

Prove that I am incorrect.

You first little guy. You made the first claim of me being in error on usage... so prove me wrong.

 

I am still patiently waiting for your proof Bruce.

 

That was done long ago. The only one that doesn't know it is you.
Start a Twain thread. I'll be right over.
By the way, the word you were asked to look up and ignored was "pseudonym", not fiction.
Your boring derails have lost you almost all credibility on these boards. More and more people post to comment on your infantilism. It's a veritable tsunami of discerning people finding you wanting on so many levels.

 

I notice you have ignored this post, Inc, which has more relevance to the thread.
I think it's because you can't argue topics, and like you have admitted before are just a troll that enjoys watching people dance to your semantic jigs. You called it your agenda.