That’s my point. They aren’t ontologically basic, yet most people would consider them “supernatural” for all intents and purposes. At least, I would. The definition of “supernatural” offered is deliberately incoherent, which is great for winning arguments but bad for making predictions.
Wait, could you explain (or taboo, if that’s easier) what you mean by “incoherent”? I don’t see what’s incoherent about “event which happened because a nonreducible basic element of the building blocks of the universe has complex causal influence on the universe using complex internal rules”. Is that the wrong way to interpret “events involving ontologically basic mental entities”?
By far the best definition I’ve ever heard of the supernatural is Richard Carrier’s: A “supernatural” explanation appeals to ontologically basic mental things, mental entities that cannot be reduced to nonmental entities.
This is the difference, for example, between saying that water rolls downhill because it wants to be lower, and setting forth differential equations that claim to describe only motions, not desires. It’s the difference between saying that a tree puts forth leaves because of a tree spirit, versus examining plant biochemistry. Cognitive science takes the fight against supernaturalism into the realm of the mind.
Why is this an excellent definition of the supernatural? I refer you to Richard Carrier for the full argument. But consider: Suppose that you discover what seems to be a spirit, inhabiting a tree: a dryad who can materialize outside or inside the tree, who speaks in English about the need to protect her tree, et cetera. And then suppose that we turn a microscope on this tree spirit, and she turns out to be made of parts—not inherently spiritual and ineffable parts, like fabric of desireness and cloth of belief; but rather the same sort of parts as quarks and electrons, parts whose behavior is defined in motions rather than minds. Wouldn’t the dryad immediately be demoted to the dull catalogue of common things?
I’m not sure I agree with the statements that say “this is incoherent a priori”, but I haven’t explored the question in depth yet. It seems as if one could envision a universe where a certain specific quark (or replace with whatever most-elementary thing turns out to really be most elementary, if any) does unpredictable things and interacts with other selected quarks in the universe in specific ways that maximize the odds of a certain specific event happening later on, “as if” this quark had the intent of making this event happen.
Would this not be a mental entity that cannot be reduced? Perhaps this is exactly the kind of “confusion” Eliezer was talking about.
That’s my point. They aren’t ontologically basic, yet most people would consider them “supernatural” for all intents and purposes. At least, I would. The definition of “supernatural” offered is deliberately incoherent, which is great for winning arguments but bad for making predictions.
Wait, could you explain (or taboo, if that’s easier) what you mean by “incoherent”? I don’t see what’s incoherent about “event which happened because a nonreducible basic element of the building blocks of the universe has complex causal influence on the universe using complex internal rules”. Is that the wrong way to interpret “events involving ontologically basic mental entities”?
Does this help?
-Eliezer Yudkowsky, Excluding the supernatural
Well, re-reading the whole post did help a bit.
I’m not sure I agree with the statements that say “this is incoherent a priori”, but I haven’t explored the question in depth yet. It seems as if one could envision a universe where a certain specific quark (or replace with whatever most-elementary thing turns out to really be most elementary, if any) does unpredictable things and interacts with other selected quarks in the universe in specific ways that maximize the odds of a certain specific event happening later on, “as if” this quark had the intent of making this event happen.
Would this not be a mental entity that cannot be reduced? Perhaps this is exactly the kind of “confusion” Eliezer was talking about.
I think it would have to be conscious? Maybe? Hmm, that is confusing...