But if mentality exists on a spectrum, how do we know there is a sharp distinction between being mental and not? How do we know where to draw the line?

Nonrandom acausal decision-making.

So far, all decision-making (even the behavior of colliding rocks) is either random or causally reducible (to inert objects or the geometric shape of space-time, or often in fact, randomness, e.g. the second law of thermodynamics).

A supernatural thing would be where there is at least one decision-making event that is neither random nor causally reducible (e.g. Harry Potter says a word and a lightning bolt flies out of a stick at his chosen target…although there is a whole huge number of decision-events in that process without mechanism, as I explain for love potions in my original article on the supernatural).

How complex does a sensory system have to be before we can say it is producing a virtual model of the world?

Anything that has sensory input, memory of that input, and use of that memory to effect output, is running a virtual model. It can be a really simple and piss poor model. But still. This is similar to how we define computation as a Turing mechanism.

The only relevance this has, though, is that in such a case the question is, is the model entirely causally explained by components none of which is itself a virtual model machine, or not? If not, it’s supernatural.

Paranormal things are either natural or supernatural. Period. There is no middle category.

What makes them paranormal is that we don’t know yet which, or we don’t know yet what the causes are (even if we’ve concluded most likely they will turn out to be natural…or, were we living in Harry Potter’s world, supernatural).

That there is a very clear and definable difference between Harry Potter’s world and Forbidden Planet world, belies your attempt to claim that the difference is indefinable.

Could one respond that this is because the “natural” boxes are the easiest to open

That’s an ad hoc supposition. What is the probability that that would just coincidentally be the case? That the supernatural just happens to only exist in hard to open boxes, and in none of the easy to open ones?

Think this through and you’ll realize the organization required to make that so is vastly complex. Thus, vastly improbable.

Until you get enough evidence to change that assessment.

Again, this is exactly like grue.

I think it would be important to know whether this is generalisable to all mathematics, as you assert.

Attempts to challenge it appeared in the comments here.

No one found an exception.

It comes down to information processing:

(1) if anything behaves non-randomly, why?
(2) is it because of an assembly of individual parts each of which is the simplest possible act of processing (none logically simpler being possible)?
(3) or are there steps of processing being skipped–they have no mechanism, they just magically happen with no reductive cause?

A yes to 2 is naturalism. A yes to 3 is supernaturalism.

That’s the ontological distinction. Most obvious when comparing macro systems (the ontological difference between Harry Potter and Forbidden Planet is undeniable).

Reducing it to the smallest logically possible skipped-step distinction might make it hard to define, because it requires technically advanced distinctions, but no one really cares about such fine distinctions. Certainly there is some point where a single metabolic process in an amoeba can flip between being natural or supernatural, based on a single bit of information being skipped (i.e. a single bit of information being magically generated without cause, and yet in a non-random way). But we don’t have to explain to anyone why we shouldn’t believe such things exist. Everyone already knows such notions are silly, that they posit categories of power for which all prior evidence is against and none for, and for which there is no evidence now, nor any ideology dependent on them.

Just ask someone to place a large, scary bet of money on the supernatural option for the amoeba, for example, such that you would bet that completing an investigation of the amoeba’s metabolism will find at least one bit of information processing accomplished magically out of the blue, with no underlying mechanism. No one will place that bet. And that’s the point.

The fact remains that the ontological distinction is clear in macro-cases. So you clearly do understand there is a difference. The rest is just refinement of technicalities.

Then we get to the epistemic question: could we possibly be in a supernatural world that is just so coincidentally arranged as to prevent us ever finding any evidence of any such thing? The massive coincidence that requires is extremely improbable. Therefore positing it requires adopting into your prior an extreme improbability. Hence, it’s extremely improbable. Unless you get evidence. When you discover Hogwarts, now you’ve got some evidence. Is it enough? The same question then flips exactly around: after you’ve checked all the places you can think of for an underlying mechanism (e.g. you have verified the earth doesn’t have a gargantuan Forbidden Planet machine inside it), could we possibly be in a natural world that is just so coincidentally arranged as to prevent us ever finding any evidence of any such thing? The massive coincidence that requires is extremely improbable. Therefore positing it requires adopting into your prior an extreme improbability. Hence, it’s extremely improbable. Unless you get evidence. Like, for example, finding where the gargantuan machine is.

Yes, this does mean it’s possible you can be in a world that is 100% natural but looks 100% supernatural, a world massively coincidentally arranged in just such a way, such that you are warranted in believing it is indeed supernatural. But that’s warranted precisely because the alternative (which just by coincidence happens to be the truth) is extremely improbable. Hence all knowledge claims are claims to probability, not certainty.

You need to read the original article then. I addressed all of this there.

“You are talking about amounts of mentality, not the difference between being mental and not.”

But if mentality exists on a spectrum, how do we know there is a sharp distinction between being mental and not? How do we know where to draw the line?

I think there is an analogous question with qualia. In “Sense and Goodness without God” you write “…any process that produces virtual models, and analyzes and reacts to them intelligently, probably experiences qualia…And advanced computers, still pure machines, have achieved perception…I think it follows they have experienced qualia.” (pp.146-7) The key phrase there is “that produces virtual models” etc. That could be the place to draw the line, both for qualia and for mentality (if there is even a difference). But I think that just pushes the problem back a step. “Virtual models” might exist on a continuum as well. How complex does a sensory system have to be before we can say it is producing a virtual model of the world?

So would you agree that using your definitions – not everything that is not natural is supernatural? Some of it is paranormal. So effectively you are altering the general understanding of what a layman understands supernatural to mean. You are narrowing the definition of natural to ‘reducible to non-mental’ which determines a narrow definition of supernatural which results in another category of paranormal to pick up the remaining non-mental (previously supernatural items) such as Ghost Trees. So if mysterious forces exist in other dimensions that are not mental (they are like gravity but with quantum like indeterminacy) which produce effects in this world – they are? Paranormal?

My other objection was not based on our evidential knowledge of nature, it was based on lack of knowledge of supernatural. There may be nothing in this set, or a collection of things with properties beyond our conceptions. I agree we can define natural, but supernatural still insists on being simply Not-Natural by definition (even yours) and since we cannot predict what that might be, it is effectively indefinable.

“we find ourselves in a world where every box we open has the natural inside it.”

Could one respond that this is because the “natural” boxes are the easiest to open – they’re the low-hanging fruit? Suppose one day science hits a brick wall and our naturalistic explanations dry up. Well there are still unanswered questions (let’s say). In fact, we don’t know how many unanswered questions, because there are unknown unknowns. Maybe we’ve found so many naturalistic answers because they’re the only ones our brains are good at finding.

I’ve been going over your old posts on this topic, and I have an indirectly related question about something you said in a comment thread. In response to “there are concepts in mathematics which do not correspond, even potentially, to any physical quantity or property”, you said “Everyone who says that, isn’t aware of the actual physical underpinnings of mathematical formalisms … For example, the square root of negative one refers to a physical rotation operator, realized in actual physical systems like radio circuitry … Likewise, Fermat’s Last Theorem describes a geometric shape. Etc.” I think it would be important to know whether this is generalisable to all mathematics, as you assert. Is there a name for this position that I could look up? Could you recommend anything to read (even just a wikipedia article, something with a bibliography to get me started)?

As to mental and nonmental being a continuum, no. The demarcation is very clear (yes, ants experience distinctly mental properties that nonmental things alone by definition do not, e.g. intelligence). I don’t know why you are having a problem with it.

How do you know that ants have mental properties? You hinted that you also believe that a chess playing computer program has mental properties. Is that a correct statement of your beliefs? Are you sure you want to stick to that position w.r.t. a chess playing computer program? If a chess playing computer program has mental properties, why not the quantized fields of quantum field theory that comprise all of observable reality (module general relativity) ?

What is this bright clear unambiguous distinction between mental and non-mental? I don’t see one. I am not sure, but I bet my cited expert Dennett does not see one either. Note: If you try to explain this difference in terms of “displays intelligence”, it would just be moving the problem by one step, and it wouldn’t actually explain anything. You would then need to give a satisfactory distinction between “displays intelligence” and “does not display intelligence” which is not a continuum.

It sounds like I’m talking to a dualist, which is quite surprising considering everything you’re written on the subject of compatibilism and our personal conversations on compatibilism.

“There is what people mean in practice. (My definition comes from an analysis of how people actually use the words.) Everything else is a waste of time discussing.”
People who write dictionaries should be concerned only with what people mean in practice. People who do philosophy should realize that folk-terms need explication into clearer philosophical concepts, and that there isn’t necessarily only one useful way to explicate a given term.

What people mean in practice when they say “werewolf” is that a man changes into a ravenous wolf on nights of full moon. That has NOTHING to do with whether the world is fundamentally mental or not. It is ruled out, however, if causality is restricted to microscopic universal laws. My definition is superior on this front, which is why I said yours is false…

“How can it falsely categorize [werewolves as natural]? A definition is a tautology. To falsely categorize is an epistemic problem not a semantic one. You seem now to be confusing the two.”

‘False’ here signified that your definition deviates too much from the common usage of the word, e.g. failing to categorize huge swathes and paradigmatic cases of what people call “supernatural” as such. That’s the very criterion you raise above, essentially. Try to apply the principle of charity, please.

“[“God doesn’t work according to rules that apply to all things and across all space and time.]
Then you didn’t read my article Defining the Supernatural.”

I did, but it was a long time ago. If you feel there is any argument there that is relevant, do feel free to actually state it. If not, you’ll have to forgive me but reference isn’t an argument.

“Werewolves could be natural or supernatural (and when we don’t know, paranormal). Exactly as explained in Defining the Supernatural.”
Reference isn’t an argument. But if you do decide to make one, please do apply the principle of charity again, hmm? Remember I raised werewolves as an example of something paradigmatically supernatural. Treat it as-such. “Everyhing else”, to quote yourself, “is a waste of time.”

Finally, I note you haven’t answered my direct question. I’ll ask it again: consider a world following precisely our world’s laws of physics, but also where all things FEEL a certain way, all the way to the bottom. This world would contain nothing not composed of quarks and leptons and so on, and will not be measurably or physically different from our own. Why, aside your definition, would you be inclined to call this a “supernatural” world?