On Natural Law, miracles and Time

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
1

When someone would approach me and say that miracles cannot happen because it defies natural law, I always look dumbfounded and kind of ticked off because:

  1. I believe that natural law are not unchangeable.

  2. I believe that it is heavily based on our finite human understanding of what we can only observe.

  3. I really don’t buy into the whole time thingy, because it is a human concept, hence what is past is just us remembering, and what is the future is just us anticipating, nothing more.

  4. It is unscientific to exclude the possibility of the supernatural.

  5. Science has no right to cross outside its respective territory.

  6. What cannot be observed does not necessarily follows that it is not existing or true.

Please do enlighten me if you believe what I believe or otherwise.

2

When someone would approach me and say that miracles cannot happen because it defies natural law, I always look dumbfounded and kind of ticked off because:

  1. I believe that natural law are not unchangeable.

I think natural laws are unchangeable. They may just appear to change just because previously we might had faulty understanding of them and now we may acquire better understanding of them.

  1. I believe that it is heavily based on our finite human understanding of what we can only observe.

Yes. Limitations of our understanding system doesn’t let us fully understand the actual and real law of nature. We can only move towards better and better understanding of them.

  1. I really don’t buy into the whole time thingy, because it is a human concept, hence what is past is just us remembering, and what is the future is just us anticipating, nothing more.

I don’t think like this. Rather than calling it “human concept”, I would like to call it “German concept”. Idea that time has no objective existence has foundation in German Philosophy. This is a point of view, not a fact which should be acceptable to all.

  1. It is unscientific to exclude the possibility of the supernatural.

For many cases, it is right. Like I exclude this possibility that when I will drop a ball from hand in quite ordinary situation, it can go upside rather than going downside. I very confidently can exclude this possibility. More strictly, I can treat nature to be quite fixed. So nothing that actually happens can be supernatural. It can seem to us supernatural just because of our own faulty understanding of law of nature. When we shall rightly understand the underlying law of nature, then we will not find any supernatural aspect in real happenings.

  1. Science has no right to cross outside its respective territory.

Right. Science itself limits itself to only empirically verifiable things. So it loses its supremacy as well.

  1. What cannot be observed does not necessarily follows that it is not existing or true.

right

3

Can you link me to some info on scientists who’re asserting that miracles can’t happen because they defy natural law?

4

I think natural laws are unchangeable. They may just appear to change just because previously we might had faulty understanding of them and now we may acquire better understanding of them.

Yes I do agree if we only talk of this particular universe, we could follow with its law, but I do think that there is a supernatural law that overides and this natural law compensate to it in this universe.

Yes. Limitations of our understanding system doesn’t let us fully understand the actual and real law of nature. We can only move towards better and better understanding of them.

Agreed.

I don’t think like this. Rather than calling it “human concept”, I would like to call it “German concept”. Idea that time has no objective existence has foundation in German Philosophy. This is a point of view, not a fact which should be acceptable to all.

Haha, cool. Well I personally don’t like Kantian philosophy, but I must clarify when I mean does not exist in this context is it does not exist in the physical world; it is an abstract idea, like numbers.

Must time be acceptable to all? I don’t believe so, that is a Newtonian assumption and you see time is very relative unlike mass, or weight, or gravity.

For many cases, it is right. Like I exclude this possibility that when I will drop a ball from hand in quite ordinary situation, it can go upside rather than going downside. I very confidently can exclude this possibility. More strictly, I can treat nature to be quite fixed. So nothing that actually happens can be supernatural. It can seem to us supernatural just because of our own faulty understanding of law of nature. When we shall rightly understand the underlying law of nature, then we will not find any supernatural aspect in real happenings.

You do really hate German concept of causation, haha. All the same natural law is right if it is in its own universe, but if another reality overlaps it, well there we have the problem. Now if we are closed minded to something, however real, well there lays again the problem. Can you really understand something you do not want to accept?

Right. Science itself limits itself to only empirically verifiable things. So it loses its supremacy as well.

Agreed.

right

Wait what is your stance about this, I assume this is a sarcasm.

5

Richard Dawkins is a good example who denies God because he asserts that God is a product of the human mind and evolution as a whole.

Good author, love his works, but I have to disagree with him.

6

Yes time is abstract idea. But abstractions are not totally independent of material things. Abstractions also come from the existence of physical things. Abstractions are generally of two kinds.

(i) non-touchable qualities of physical objects. Like “beauty” (non-touchable) of flower (physical object) and;

(ii) non-physical relationship between physical objects. Like “love” (non-physical) between young boy and girl (physical objects).

And yes idea of time is abstract entity. But it is not independent of physical objects. Idea of time totally depends on the movement of physical objects. Movement of physical objects generates “events”.

What is time…???

Time is “duration” or “interval” between those events.

See “if” another reality overlaps ours, then it is a conditional hypothesis. then i can accept “if it is so then that would be so” etc. You see i will accept only in the sense of a conditional possibility.

You are right. Your statement is right: What cannot be observed does not necessarily follows that it is not existing or true."

Mere fact of non-observance cannot validly lead us to the conclusion of non-existence. But non-existence can be indirectly confirmed if the situation contradics with the known realities.

regards!