tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post9027492885140207771..comments2024-03-28T13:23:50.623-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: The magicalAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-12225712626466014542016-05-18T08:41:05.867-05:002016-05-18T08:41:05.867-05:00I don't think "merely natural" or &q...I don't think "merely natural" or "naturalism" are sufficiently well defined here to make any conclusion about them from those experiences. <br /><br />The same problem tends to come up with "physicalism" or "materialism," since we don't know what can or can't be material, or what being material implies (you have raised some of those questions yourself, e.g. whether being a material object requires continuous quantity or not.)entirelyuselesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12422102436356978880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-48258064790975977242016-05-17T22:16:20.961-05:002016-05-17T22:16:20.961-05:00What is the relation between the world and our exp...What is the relation between the world and our experience of it? This, as you say, is a puzzle for naturalists and non-naturalists alike. But is the magic of a magical experience any <i>more</i> mysterious than the standard example, the everyday experience of redness when looking a red object?<br /><br />The light of the setting sun is objectively unusual. It is redder than usual because it is filtered through lots of atmosphere. Unusually, it hits clouds from below, making then appear yellow, red, pink and purple. “Unusual” is not quite “magical”, but it is surely part of the story.IanShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00111583711680190175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-12411583644967328472016-05-17T16:42:42.143-05:002016-05-17T16:42:42.143-05:00Naturalism is false because there is nothing "...Naturalism is false because there is nothing "merely natural." All of nature is magical, i.e. built on a structure of "subnatural" being, so to speak. Sometimes we get a glimpse of the magic that lies beneath the crust of physical reality we normally see. Love really does make the world go 'round. Planetary angular momentum is merely one physical manifestation of that love.skiphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10520842342447922799noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-32048978041313982882016-05-17T16:25:15.611-05:002016-05-17T16:25:15.611-05:00To answer how these experiences could go beyond th...<br />To answer how these experiences could go beyond the mere natural, I'd want to say that the transcendent feelings of sunsets and other like experiences produce knowledge of truths about reality. "There is a God who loves me", "The world was, despite its enormity, made for me to come to know God", etc. <br />We can have very real emotional, spiritual, and physical responses to (perhaps) abstract concepts like true propositions. Even if two worlds were identical, a godless world is genuinely lacking something concrete.<br /><br />While these experiences are certainly beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, this is consistent with the dourness of naturalism. From what I can tell, when you say 'if naturalism is true, such experiences are all deceptive' you mean that these experiences suggest false propositions.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15866183975457333315noreply@blogger.com