What is the best evidence you can find for the paranormal or supernatural?

[trenton]

11 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I would define the supernatural as those things not having a natural explanation. 

The problem with this definition is that it easily becomes unfalsifiable. For example, if I point to something that doesn't have a natural explanation, then the counter is that it actually does but we haven't figured it out yet. The god of the gaps argument makes it impossible for anything to lack a natural explanation. From this position, everything is necessarily natural. 

Secondly, defining natural would be a challenge. It is a good try to define it in this way, but I think it remains circular. How do we determine what counts as a natural explanation if we need to define natural?

[trenton]

@Nercohype I definitely had sleep paralysis episodes like those. There are tons of stories like these. It includes seeing family members who are distorted and violent. The distortions make them look like an imposter trying to harm you while you can't move. 

I was wondering about skin walker and this explains it. That's awesome.

[Breakingthewall]

12 hours ago, LastThursday said:

would define the supernatural as those things not having a natural explanation.

That use to be that you can't understand it's natural explanation.  Nothing can be supernatural. For example quantum entanglement is supernatural for now, until we understand how it works. 

[oOo]

 

[Nercohype]

@trenton Wow! That sounds awful to experience. 😵 I've never had sleep paralysis myself, but my ex used to experience it too. Hopefully, you don't experience it anymore!😁👍

[Oppositionless]

The Monroe institute has classes where they claim to teach you spoonbending in 6 hours 

 

[emptiness dancing]

On 10/13/2026 at 5:20 PM, Carl-Richard said:

Now do it naked 😊

Like duh... , it's obvious that his robes gave him his powers. 

[PenguinPablo]

On 11/2/2026 at 11:55 PM, emptiness dancing said:

Like duh... , it's obvious that his robes gave him his powers. 

He's cheating for sure.

[LastThursday]

On 13/10/2026 at 10:01 PM, trenton said:

On 13/10/2026 at 10:25 AM, LastThursday said:

I would define the supernatural as those things not having a natural explanation. 

The problem with this definition is that it easily becomes unfalsifiable. For example, if I point to something that doesn't have a natural explanation, then the counter is that it actually does but we haven't figured it out yet. The god of the gaps argument makes it impossible for anything to lack a natural explanation. From this position, everything is necessarily natural. 

Secondly, defining natural would be a challenge. It is a good try to define it in this way, but I think it remains circular. How do we determine what counts as a natural explanation if we need to define natural?

I get the circularity. However, we do have the word supernatural which basically means "above natural", so there is a sense in which that word is contrasted with things being natural. What is natural? 

If I throw a ball up in the air, it is natural for it to fall again. If it doesn't then something else is going on and we can justify calling it supernatural. In this case the natural explanation is "what goes up must come down". If the ball doesn't come down again, then there is no natural explanation for it. Things have an inherent nature which they follow, and we intuit that if they don't follow that nature, it is supernatural.

[eos_nyxia]

On 2026-10-12 at 4:20 PM, trenton said:

I think this is an important part of spirituality in terms of demonstrating the limits of the materialist paradigm. I have been running into some problems with formulating a cleaner position for something like atheism. The problem happens if the atheist over claims in terms of how much is natural versus how much is supernatural. If too much is claimed to be natural such that everything is natural, it becomes indistinguishable from everything being supernatural or everything being God. I also noticed that there is no real principled line to draw between natural and supernatural.

For example, imagine ghosts were real. Why would we call a ghost supernatural if a ghost is still a naturally occurring phenomenon? We may as well just call ghosts natural. The lack of a principled distinction between natural and supernatural is part of why I feel inclined to reject this distinction as it doesn't seem tenable, especially if either everything is God or everything is not God. There is also the problem of what counts as proof and who gets to define these proof standards and the problem of why the naturalist explanation should be privileged over the supernatural explanation as that is a bias.

This is a sort of language game if you take it at face value. If you change the category from "natural" to "unnatural" for one specific phenomenon or another, it only changes how you (the perspective-holder) wants to cut up the pie that is reality to categorize and explain, it doesn't change the raw phenomenon itself. 

IMO it's also a form of naturalistic fallacy, like anything designated "natural" == true (valid, good, justified, etc.). This sort of critique has been a bread and butter criticism from postmodernism to modernism pretty much since the very beginning, and there are no supernatural roots in pomo at all (it's all just conceptual headstuff). (Which is to say that pomo perspectives usually agree with you here.)

[trenton]

@eos_nyxia I like that critique of the naturalistic fallacy. I think this is the simplest way to reject natural law entirely. We can say all kinds of things are natural but not good.

In the animal kingdom rape is natural for many animals, plotting assassinations are natural for monkeys, war is natural for ants, and so on. Why don't we call rape and war natural?

We might even say some unnatural things are good like having a legal system, having an educational system, having technology, and so forth. There is also the case of should you save your child or five children not related to you? The natural thing would be to save your own child or your own dog due to emotional investment. The unnatural thing is to save five children who are strangers to you at the cost of your own child or dog. I think the human psyche is too flexible to constrain it with a narrow category of what counts as natural or unnatural. 

I think I would rather reject natural law as a moral philosophy entirely rather than debate the details of what counts as natural as if to make a thing good.

[Oppositionless]

Consciousness is supernatural . Science can't explain it, doesn't get any more cut and dry than that.

[trenton]

@eos_nyxia I found the smoking gun.

Vaccines are considered unnatural among religious groups which appear to have contributed to resistance of vaccines during COVID-19.

Speaking of smoking gun, conservatives also like guns despite them being unnatural. I don't see a second amendment in the Bible. Why don't I say guns are unnatural and therefore demonic as they violate God's law? I could oppose technology generally in this way.

The idea that morality is derived from nature leads to all kinds of absurdities. I like this idea of the naturalistic fallacy.