In any form or fashion. If you do believe in a supernatural thing(s) what?
I believe that people have experiences they can’t explain, and that this happens far more often than most would imagine. Imo a lot of it has to do with how our minds handle probability — we imagine that ‘highly improbable’ things never happen, at least not to us, so when they do, we experience it as ‘supernatural’
If “supernatural things” were to exist, they would be part of nature and therefore natural by definition.
There are two unexplained phenomena that I currently believe in (but either could change at any time - by being explained or by being shown not to exist.)
They are dark matter and dark energy.But ghosts and stuff? Certainly not.
Now that almost everyone on planet earth has a small camera with them at all times, it would have been really cool to have discovered some supernatural stuff, be it ghosts, Big Foot, Nessie, whatever (and someone still might, who knows?), but instead all we get is police brutality. 🙁
we get is police brutality.
The existence of which is just as controversial as UFO sightings in conservative media.
I know the natural explanation is coincidence, but those etsy witches cursed Charlie Kirk and he died only like a week or two later. I like to believe magic does exist.
Tim Minchin summed it up wonderfully for me.
Because throughout history
Every mystery
Ever solved has turned out to be
Not magicNo. I believe there are unexplained, and probably unexplainable things, but they all exist as part of the natural universe.
Isaac Newton put it best:
“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
It’s completely stupid, short sighted and ignorant of us to think that we know everything there is know about the universe and natural world. There is still so much more to learn about and understand and probably far more than we can even comprehend.
But we also have to regulate how much we know and don’t know and how we can understand or not understand … because as Richard Feynman put it …
“Keep an open mind … but not so open that your brain falls out”
And honestly a lot less is left unexplained than most people seem to assume. Or maybe just most believers.
Sometimes, (more often lately) I wish I did believe in that stuff or that they did exist because it would make me feel a whole lot better about the way the world is now, vs just greedy and shitty people doing greedy and selfish or malicious things to others for greedy, selfish, and malicious reasons. The existence of a physical manifestation of evil and it’s ability to influence others would at least make the world make more sense sometimes. I want there to be more good in the world and it feels rotten to think that the reason there isn’t there are just shitty people manipulating us or harming us and getting away with it vs some force of nature.
But, I am sadly not that person, I don’t believe in that stuff. I am open to it should it be presented to me but for now, I have no evidence of it.
yes: human consciousness, personhood, sapience, whatever we call it. I think people are a little bit special.
No. But I love them for storytelling purposes.
Thank you for your direct answer.
No.
I work in 911 dispatch, and it absolutely feels like on and around a full moon our calls get weirder
We’re not necessarily getting more or more serious calls than average, so it’s kind of hard to point to any measurable statistic that would back up that assertion, and it’s not just people with psych issues calling and ranting at us, so you can’t even just go by mentions of callers “rambling” or “not making sense” in the notes of our calls, a lot of them are just bizarre situations that seem really unlikely or convoluted.
I’m kind of loath to label it as supernatural though. I feel like if there is actually a correlation and not just confirmation bias on my part, it probably has some reasonable scientific explanation.
Tbh, a full moon means a lot of increased predatory activity, I wouldn’t be surprised if we subconsciously become more anxious and rash, and I wouldn’t consider that any more supernatural than the tides (provided there’s actually at some point a link discovered).
I’m not sure which version of my comment you replied to because I kind of waffled a bit on my last paragraph and edited it about 3 or 4 times in rapid succession probably about the same time you were replying because I didn’t like how it sounded, it felt a little rambly trying to cram it all into the comment, so sorry about that.
But yeah, I’m basically on the same page there, one of my versions did touch on that, lots of animals have instincts tied to the moon, more available light gives them different opportunities and risks, and we are, at our core, still animals with some weird instincts driving our decisions, and of course there are things like the tides as well, and who knows what other little effects the moon is having on us and our environment that might make us act a certain way, all with a reasonable, if not immediately apparent scientific explanation.
Sure feels supernatural though.
No. Or maybe. Depending on your definition of each particular supernatural thing.
Do I believe that every “UFO” spotted in the sky is a craft from an alien race? No. However, do I believe people genuinely see things that can’t be explained or identified in the sky, that could plausibly be extraterrestrial, inter-dimensional or top secret in ways we generally don’t currently understand? Yes, absolutely.
Do I believe that we all have souls that exist outside our physical form, that persist after death? Absolutely not. But do I believe people who aren’t lying genuinely see people or entities that we would generally refer to as “ghosts”? Yes. But beyond believing people really do “see” these things, I don’t know if they are always hallucinations or if people are witnessing some kind of other phenomena.
I’m a sceptic at heart. There’s nothing I won’t believe for ideological reasons, but evidence is key. Things that there is currently no evidence for could theoretically still exist, but will always require proof for me to actually believe in.
If enough people say they’re actually experiencing something is that not proof enough to believe in something? First hand experiences that are all very similar and have been known throughout human history. What else do you need?
That’s proof that many people experienced something. It’s not proof of what that something is.
What if enough people say what it is?
That means that’s what they think/believe it is. Might be what it is, might not be.
Yes, exactly this.
As a personal example, when I was very young, possibly about 5, I saw a “ghost” of my mum, at home one evening when she was out. My mum is very much as alive now as she was then.
I don’t clearly recall the event directly anymore, and we would generally agree a child is a less reliable witness than an adult (although believers would counter that the child’s brain is somehow more open to such things). Although I remember that I wasn’t making this up, and I could describe the clothing and jewellery I saw her wearing.
So does my experience prove ghosts exist? As always it depends on what you mean by that. Scientifically the experience doesn’t carry enough weight to prove anything. It does add credence to the view that people who are being truthful report seeing such things.
But also, most people who believe in “ghosts” think they’re the spirits of the dead - which my experience actually runs completely contrary to. So from one point of view you could say my experience of seeing a ghost disproves ghosts!
I believe in aliens if that counts.
Indeed, any good alien subreddits on Lemmy?
You could start your own . . .
None that I know of unfortunately
Aliens count? As “supernatural”? Well gosh golly, do squid count too? I guess it really isn’t that straightforward what “supernatural” means, is it?
You weak bug. Aliens that have what we would call psychic abilities or can shift through space I would count as supernatural yes
What about aliens that are just living beings not from Earth with no special abilities?
What’s up with you people. Are you all atheist and hard edge scientist who believe in nothing unless you already saw it. If they are just living beings then that’s what they would be… I’m talking supernatural though
And I’m trying to find out what you think of as “supernatural”. It’s not “aliens”, as we’ve established, it’s “aliens with supernatural abilities”. See why it’s important to discuss these things?
What does it really mean to be supernatural? What’s the difference between, say, a ghost and dark matter? We don’t really know what either one is. Is it that we can reliably find evidence of dark matter, even if we don’t know what it is, so it’s not “super” anymore? It seems to me that “supernatural” is just a name for the ones we don’t actually believe in.
