Do supernatural beings exist? - Like ghosts and genies and giants.

  • ⚙️ Performance issue identified and being addressed.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account

Does weird stuff exist?

  • Yes

    Votes: 59 73.8%
  • No

    Votes: 21 26.3%

  • Total voters
    80
I had a big thing typed up in which I tried replying to your assertions and conjectures nearly line-by-line - But summarizing it in an illustration is more fun/concise:

View attachment 5828539

It seems like your personal presumptions and presuppositions to do with how the universe "should" exist or function doesn't tolerate certain functional definitions - Which you insist speaks to the necessity of replacing the model of science itself, rather than your own. The problem we keep returning to is that "universe" and "nature" are inclusive terms; existing specifically to encompass everything - now or ever. If the boundaries of the universe were discovered to be larger or more alien than previously inferred or observed, the new information would simply be incorporated into our current understanding; and "universe" would then additionally include that. "Universe", "world", "nature", "earth," "land" - These words all previously described fewer things.

The model expands by assuming the least of the universe, and works outward by incorporating new information as it is discovered or inferred - Even if previously held conceits or previously workable models have to be revised or discarded for the new info to be incorporated. It doesn't work backwards from presumptions of deism or other ontological ideals - Your fart is considered only once smelled.
If you're defining "nature" as "anything that exists", and if you're defining any argument for God as "God of the gaps", then there's really no possible response to that. You've defined them out of existence. By your own words, anything that appears to be supernatural actually isn't, because from the start there's no such category. I have no idea what sort of evidence you'd be looking for at that point.

Don't confuse science being accurate with science being comprehensive. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it's incomplete. It's very, very good at the study of the physical world, and categorically the wrong tool for anything else. Just because something lies outside the bounds of science doesn't make it a meaningless question. Questions of morality, for example. Now if you want to be a completely, ruthlessly consistent Nietzsche style materialist and say that even things like consciousness and morality don't exist - I respect that. But that's a worldview, as unproven and unprovable as any other.
 
If you're defining "nature" as "anything that exists", and if you're defining any argument for God as "God of the gaps", then there's really no possible response to that. You've defined them out of existence. By your own words, anything that appears to be supernatural actually isn't, because from the start there's no such category. I have no idea what sort of evidence you'd be looking for at that point.

Any would be a pleasant surprise - Not to suggest that I'm looking. You can presume that a nonspatial mountain, nontemporal agent, or an instance of decreasing entropy either exists or *must* exist - But it's a tall order; given they're precluded from existence on a conceptual level. I'm not expecting you to provide the impossible - I'm saying, "The task, as presented, is impossible - So good luck with that. I'll be over here, digging into a moon pie." I have no reason to expect developments, good tidings, or anything, at all on that front. Jim Steinman didn't write "there ain't no Coupe De Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box" as a challenge.

For the sake of example: The reason I don't need to believe in infinity is because I already understand that it exists as a purely illustrative concept for relativity in numbers (e.g., "a googolplex is as far below infinity as 1"). An empirical example of infinity (as defined on the conceptual level) could never be measured; therefore it cannot conceptually be presumed to exist - Its existence would, in all sense of the word, be pointless. Someone is free to put their own, personalized definition or assertions to do with infinity as an ontological concept forward - But if it doesn't actually manage to serve a purpose beyond seeming profound to the person who came up with it, then others can't really be expected to replace the previous version with it unless it affords ass-pats of their own.

To some, that may seem like sound reasoning. Of course, you touch on why others would disagree:

Just because something lies outside the bounds of science doesn't make it a meaningless question. Questions of morality, for example. Now if you want to be a completely, ruthlessly consistent Nietzsche style materialist and say that even things like consciousness and morality don't exist - I respect that. But that's a worldview, as unproven and unprovable as any other.

If you really believed that all worldviews are unproven and unprovable, you wouldn't be bothering with holding a contrary one purported to be superior.

There are three degrees of certainty people routinely use in their day-to-day existence: Conceptual, empirical, and universal. Conceptual certainty is "I bet a good actor is someone who pretends so hard that other people believe it." Empirical certainty is "That actor's good because they pretended so hard that other people believed it." Universal certainty is someone asking me who the best actor is; and I respond that I haven't seen every actor to know that. Yet many people wouldn't even hesitate to decree who, or what, or where the "best" such-and-such is - Because they're full of shit. Of course, people can be hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek, or passionate in their opinions, all in a self-aware manner. But also, they're full of shit.

The most my worldview can ever amount to is the perimeter of my ignorance - And from its measure, the machinery may be inferred: Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, nociception, proprioception, vestibular sensation, thermoreception, magnetoreception, and even the can of worms that intuition is for people who insist there's wiggle room there for them to be special. Every experience I've attempted to use as a waypoint toward further understanding of myself has served only to be a model of my own nervous system. You're free to re-draw the lines by asserting that a worldview striving for objectivity is unprovable because one ultimately cannot trust their own senses - But it would only be for the sake of claiming that your worldview is no worse than mine. It doesn't manage to make yours seem any more compelling.

If you need a special place to exist outside the universe that can't be questioned, you're entitled to that need. But because I neither share your needs, nor have reason to, I read about it and only wonder what outside yourself necessitates it.
 
Finally, an irrefutable argument for the existence of Bigfoot.
Well Bigfoot is actually pretty simple. We HAVE documented evidence of Bigfoot-like creatures in the woods. There's ancient cave drawings depicting similar creatures across multiple tribes and societies. The problem with something like Bigfoot is that we like to pretend we're very good at navigating the wilderness and capturing photos and videos, but the reality is, that's just not true. The logistics don't work. If Bigfoot ran across my camp site, assuming I bothered to think about it instead of being awestruck and fearful, in the time I take to get my phone out, pull out the camera and video it, is more than enough time for ANY animal to run away. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence for Bigfoot existing or having EXISTED at some point. It's not like there's anyone digging around in the woods to find these remains.

Make no mistake, humans as a species SUCK at navigating the wild. A Japanese man met a long thought to be extinct dire wolf outside of Tokyo in the 90s. He got close enough to photograph himself with it. Several times. They're clear as day and he didn't realize what it was until later. He then spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of his life trying to find more evidence of wolves in general, in the woods outside of Tokyo. Over a decade of research, hundreds of security cameras, and tracking equipment, do you know what they found? They got one recording of a distant wolf howl. That's it. Animals are sneaky. Any hunter can tell you this. A toad the size of your fist can literally be sitting right next to your feet in the woods and you'll never notice it's there.

As far as the rest of paranormal goes, you either experience it or you don't. It's not something that can really be explained to you. You'll know when something is wrong when it happens. But you can go through life entirely without something weird ever happening to you. Or alternatively, you can have experienced something paranormal and simply never realized it.
 
Last edited:
Unexplained things happen all the time. There's so much shit we still do not know or comprehend that could easily be explained as paranormal or supernatural, just as easily as it could be explained with our existing knowledge. There's plenty of stuff that we can't prove or explain scientifically, we just hesitate to call it "supernatural" because of the meaning of the word. I envy the people in this thread who are so sure of themselves that certain things cannot possibly exist, they can't fathom anything beyond our current knowledge, when we as humans still can't even fully explain fundamental things about the world we live in.
 
Believing in something that doesn't exist is stupid. If someone were to make the claim that something that insofar only existed in myths, fairy tales is real they better have some proof to post.

To answer the question: Yes, and I am unhappy about it.
 
Yes, they absolutely do exist and I speak from personal experience. The vast majority of these things are not nice at all and will make you feel immensely unwell when you're in their presence.
 
Absolutely. I know it because my house is full of ghosts.
No i'm not schizo. Schizophrenia is when you think there are secret messages in radio white noise or some shit. I can't be schizo if i see shit moving and breaking on it's own in an unnatural manner and if i can feel the reactions of those actions.
 
Absolutely. I know it because my house is full of ghosts.
No i'm not schizo. Schizophrenia is when you think there are secret messages in radio white noise or some shit. I can't be schizo if i see shit moving and breaking on it's own in an unnatural manner and if i can feel the reactions of those actions.
might be a good idea to get the house blessed
 
man, if I saw a wendigo i would be horrified.
But if I saw a gnome my whole fucking world would change.
Fortean Times had a pretty interesting story about some people who made offerings to nature spirits and actively encouraged them. I'll see if I can find it and post it here.
 
The missing 411 is no joke, though I am skeptical that it is due to fairy bigfoot or whatever the hypothesis is.
 
Back
Top Bottom