I was speaking more about materialism-derived worldviews as they currently stand, as opposed to what they're capable of acknowledging.
Gotcha.
In my understanding, supernatural refers to things that are by definition beyond our ability to ever fully grasp, meaning things that we have the potential to experience, but don't have the potential to understand or exercise control over. Might these phenomena be continuous with the material world, but linked to it in a way that's beyond our ability to test or measure? Sure. But if we'll never unravel them, then they might as well be not of our natural world.
I think I follow your meaning here, but there remains a persistent epistemic echo throughout: What does it
actually mean for something to be "contiguous with the natural world" and not explicable in perfectly natural terms? This is a somewhat different issue from the one we've just discussed, but it sure sounds like philosophically dangerous territory - another difficult epistemological circle in need of squaring. Isn't this another example of the kind of 'semantic sophistry' which you so deplore (just newly employed for different purposes)? The impressive track record of the natural sciences has, in my opinion, already worked out the issue of explicability beforehand - without recourse to some haphazard inductive proof, I can simply point out the numerous successes of science when placed in new territory, many of which include a thorough and effortless debunking of the old mysterian notions of what could and could not be explained as a plus. Just as Scrooge has no way of telling anyone that Gabriel
certainly doesn't exist (and perhaps for the same reasons), no one could ever tell Scrooge that Gabriel, if ever discovered, would be forever beyond the ken of natural science. Before you invoke David Hume's critique of induction, recall that this is
not an attempt at a logical explanation of why Gabriel
necessarily must, if empirically observed, be subject to legitimate scientific enquiry; but don't you think that the odds in this example are overwhelmingly in science's favor? Call it unwarranted optimism if you like, but if I can observe it, I can, at least
in principle (more on this below), explain it scientifically. Wouldn't you agree?
Such a simple sentiment can go a long way in molding entire worldviews (which are usually, as you say, markedly aspiritual, even antispiritual - I just want you to understand that this fact is not lost on me).
I just don't feel that any worldview that negates a higher purpose or goal, beyond the apparent material world that we behold every day, to one's life, falls under the dictionary definition of "spiritual". It's similar to how bald is not a hair color. To me, attempts to square a pointless human existence with spirituality smack of semantic sophistry, and don't use the word "spiritual" anything close to the way most people would understand or define it.
Putting it that way, you're probably right. I guess I was just nitpicking.
What is "potentially empirically verifiable"? How do you deem something such? How do you know what's possible to witness when you've never witnessed it?
Well, I'm not really sure what impedes your understanding here. I consider the concept itself to be self-explanatory. Conversely, it seems to me that these questions, whether rhetorical or not, almost answer themselves. The fact that I had never seen nor inhaled xenon prior to the year 2011 had nothing to do with whether or not xenon was very probably a real/material substance capable of being empirically observed, measured, blah, blah, blah. Same goes for my putative Gabriel or yotta-scaled Dyson sphere. I would deem some object or event to be "potentially empirically verifiable" if said event is postulated by someone (you, or qwe, whomever) as though it may ("potentially") be somehow ("empirically") observed and recorded (i.e., "verified"). If this postulated entity were explicitly described in other terms (as intangible, for instance, or as 'belonging to the astral plane'), then, as I said, it surely wouldn't fall anywhere near the jurisdiction of the natural sciences - nor, by extension, the purview of materialists. The minute said 'astral being' (whatever that means) intervenes in material affairs, its epistemological jurisdiction is then immediately - and, I think, legitimately - claimed by science, by default as it were.
I say sometimes it's useful to draw a distinction between things that predate humans and things that are man-made, coming into existence only via human action upon the world. This is not committing the naturalistic fallacy, because nowhere am I saying [un]natural equals good across the board. Nor am I claiming this distinction is helpful in all the instances it's commonly invoked. But I do not agree that the terms are meaningless and that this distinction is never useful or meaningful. Same way with "natural" and "supernatural".
That's fine, but you must at least concede that, if not science proper, then something very "science-like" (in the future, perhaps) could be deployed to great effect in the event of a "supernatural-but-contiguous-with-the-natural" phenomenon taking place (being observed). Or, if you'd prefer, this outcome is quite
likely to be the case.
why don't I encounter more materialists who are open to the possibility of a [wholly natural] external purpose to human existence or their life, if such a thing is technically possible? Where are they all? Why do I only seem to encounter ones who've settled on human existence being inherently pointless? I think this says something about the temperment and motivations of most people who are drawn to the scientistic worldview (as it currently stands). It's a temperment that's clearly uncomfortable with using the imagination to liberally fill in the blanks of what we don't know, and doesn't seem particularly friendly to the notion of insolvable mysteries. It's clearly a temperment I don't possess.
This is a more difficult topic to broach in a single post - it could easily occupy its own thread, and probably already has. To answer your question as simply as possible: I emphatically believe that, contrary to your suggestion, materialists possess the same or similar faculties of imagination as anyone else. Rather, there is something that materialists possess in much greater quantities than do most others (whether to good or to bad effect, depending upon your worldview): in a word, this attribute is called
skepticism. But like I said, this is kind of a weighty topic for discussion in and of itself, and is too divergent from the actual topic of this thread to be of any use here. In fear of sounding too repetitive, you must bear in mind that I'm not trying to promote a materialistic worldview here. I'm just offering my opinions on the subject.
For what it's worth, I am a methodological naturalist in that I think that science (and politics) should deal only with those phenomena which are well-established by test data to be a part of the consensus material reality we all apparently share.
it's not that things beyond our ken don't exist or never effect us, but that none of us understand what they are or how they operate, and therefore none of us is in the privileged position to make decisions that affect us all based on them.
This is a popular and reasonable attitude, but unfortunately, it does not appear to be shared by most humans on this planet who consider themselves to be 'spiritual people.' Take a good look at my above post featuring two wildly contrasting, but nevertheless thematically kindred, expressions of a spiritual worldview. Though I may be guilty of some off-color humor there, the deeper (but still admittedly shallow) meaning that I was trying to convey wasn't intended to be abrasively flippant nor tongue-in-cheek. Someone upthread (maybe you) wondered why people have such a hard time with the word 'spirituality' and the definitions that 'spiritual' people tend to offer. I think that such nuanced views as the one you endorse could do the world a great deal of good, but presently, I don't see any reason to be optimistic about an enlightened future in which spirituality can be so conveniently separated from the 'real' world to which materialists tend to confine themselves. For these reasons and other, similar ones, many a [former] spiritual seeker that I've met has come to abandon the quest in disgust and frustration, defaulting to some brand of faux nihilism or materialism response. I hope that this may help to answer your final question regarding the evident correlation of philosophical materialism and spiritual skepticism.
[FTR: I'm well aware than Quang Duc was engaged in political as well as spiritual protest, as may be the (ostensibly) Muslim jihadists depicted above. However, I don't think this detracts in any way from the central issue I raised re. certain spiritual ideologies and their unfortunate real-world consequences.]
