The so-called "interaction problem" of spiritual/physical

[AlbMagno]

Okay, I think that finding two photos is understandable, given a variety of factors:

1. It’s an event from the '60, when not many people had cameras.
2. It happened in Egypt, a country in developement, where people would have had even less cameras.
3. It happened decades before the internet, so there is the chance that not all the analogic photos are scanned.
4. Furthermore, it wasn’t an apparition so popular globally and as endorsed by ecclesiastical authorities as, for example, Lourdes, which makes it less likely to have scanned photos.
5. It happened in Egypt, so I think that, if there are more photos, they must be in arabic-speaking sources, while we search in english-speaking sources.

 

[Freddy]

Okay, I think that finding two photos is understandable, given a variety of factors:

Camera crews, the press, the president…and litterally hundreds of thousands making a special trip to see a regular appearance by the mother of Jesus…and two pictures were taken?

OK, you think that’s reasonable.

 

[AlbMagno]

I didn’t say two pictures were taken, I said that you found two pictures that were scanned.

It’s getting annoying how you change subjects and simplify my arguments. Better not to continue the discussion.

 

[Gorgias]

I think ‘deferred comment’ equates to ‘nothing to do with us…’.

No, it has to do with not wanting to step on the toes of the Coptic Church (as far as I understand it).

But check out the image of Mary in that link. She is portrayed exactly as if done by someone who wanted to convey an image of Mary and had seen countless pictures of Mary. All with a halo.

Or, you could say that the apparition took a form that would be familiar and recognizable to people. It doesn’t mean that it has to be a photographically accurate image; that’s not how apparitions have tended to work. In Guadalupe, Mary appeared as a native girl. In Rwanda, Our Lady of Kibeho appeared as “neither white nor black”.

Do you think the Virgin Mary decided to appear to millions of people and thought she’d better add some 4th century artistic iconography in case no-one recognised her?

You’ve read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, right? They didn’t recognize Him..

 

[Freddy]

Let’s take this back more in line with the op.

Let’s say that there was a claim that something spiritual was happening. In an easily accessible place on frequent ocassions over a period of months and seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

How do you think we could verify that it was indeed something supernatural?

 

[Gorgias]

Let’s say that there was a claim that something spiritual was happening. In an easily accessible place on frequent ocassions over a period of months and seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

How do you think we could verify that it was indeed something supernatural?

I would think that those who explicitly wished for empirical evidence would seek to gather such evidence, no? And, those for whom empirical evidence was less critical an issue wouldn’t be beholden to others to gather such evidence, don’t you think?

So, if folks from the former group were unhappy that there was no evidence collected, they wouldn’t reasonably be able to “blame” those in the latter group?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Let’s say that there was a claim that something spiritual was happening. In an easily accessible place on frequent ocassions over a period of months and seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

How do you think we could verify that it was indeed something supernatural?

I would think that those who explicitly wished for empirical evidence would seek to gather such evidence, no? And, those for whom empirical evidence was less critical an issue wouldn’t be beholden to others to gather such evidence, don’t you think?

So, if folks from the former group were unhappy that there was no evidence collected, they wouldn’t reasonably be able to “blame” those in the latter group?

Hey, this is your thread. If you want to know about the interaction between the spiritual and the physical then if we have what is claimed to be a spiritual occurence impacting on the physical then how about telling us how we could determine that it’s happening?

How do we tell if Mary actually did make an appearance in Egypt?

 

[Neithan]

How do you think we could verify that it was indeed something supernatural?

Trick question? We cannot verify anything empirically. Karl Popper taught us that.

Can you falsify it? If not, then is that evidence of something supernatural? If not, why not?

 

[Gorgias]

If you want to know about the interaction between the spiritual and the physical then if we have what is claimed to be a spiritual occurence impacting on the physical then how about telling us how we could determine that it’s happening?

My point is that, in general, we can’t. In a “one-off” occurrence, there’s no way to predict in advance that it will happen, and therefore, there’s no way to prepare measures to record or collect empirical evidence of the interaction.

In the event of a repeated occurrence, though? It’s a good question. Yet, upon whom rests the ‘responsibility’ of recording the event? On those who believe and are not asking for empirical evidence? Or upon those who do not believe and who are seeking empirical evidence?

I mean, you said it yourself, but I’m not certain you recognized what you said! You wrote “if you want to know about the interaction between the spiritual and physical, then…” – well, I already believe in that interaction. But if you want to know it, in a way that is sufficient for you… then I think you’d want to record / measure / capture it. No?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

How do you think we could verify that it was indeed something supernatural?

Trick question? We cannot verify anything empirically. Karl Popper taught us that.

Can you falsify it? If not, then is that evidence of something supernatural? If not, why not?

So you can’t think of any way we could check to see if it was real or not. No way at all. OK…

 

[Freddy]

I mean, you said it yourself, but I’m not certain you recognized what you said! You wrote “if you want to know about the interaction between the spiritual and physical, then…” – well, I already believe in that interaction. But if you want to know it, in a way that is sufficient for you… then I think you’d want to record / measure / capture it. No?

The question was not ‘is there a connection between the spiritual and the physical?’ It was ‘how would you tell if the apparition of Mary was genuine?’ Because you don’t know at the moment.

So if you had the opportunity to visit the scene and check for yourself, how would you.do it?

 

[Neithan]

The science of the supernatural is theology, which does not have an empirical method. So if we cannot explain it from natural observation, then we have some relevant evidence of a possibly supernatural event. From there, we use logical reasoning from revelation to discern whether the event coheres with what we know about Mariology. If it does, then we have some material evidence of something Marian.

 

[Neithan]

@Freddy I did a quick Google search and found a photo of Zeitoun that’s not in the Wikipedia article. (Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

So there’s at least three, and apparently many more photos available from reports of the Coptic Church’s investigation.

Our [Roman] Pope deferred the investigation to the Copts for ecclesial reasons, not out of some kind of fear that it would be disproved. You’re way offside with that conjecture. The investigations are intended to find a natural explanation. At best, the conclusion is that a supernatural revelation may be “worthy of belief” and they are never given some kind of infallible approval.

As for the halo, the same question can be asked of many approved miraculous images: why is any kind of artistic image used instead of realism? Consider that Zeitoun is a luminous apparition instead of a painting.

 

[Gorgias]

So you can’t think of any way we could check to see if it was real or not. No way at all. OK…

I think that’s a somewhat unclear way to state the case, don’t you? If we wanted to state it clearly, we might say “there might not be any empirical method by which we could verify it”… no? For believers, that’s a different statement than “if it was real or not”. For materialists – if they conflated the two notions – it might be the case that “empirical evidence” is presumptively the way “to verify that it was indeed something supernatural”. For a believer, though, that’s not necessarily the case. It doesn’t help us come closer together toward an agreement … but it does highlight the distance between our stances!

So if you had the opportunity to visit the scene and check for yourself, how would you.do it?

Why does this strike me as a silly question?

I think that, if I went there, I would presume that someone for whom the ‘evidence’ question was of paramount importance would be taking care of it, and I wouldn’t be mounting my own personal “Mystery Machine” investigation with Scooby and Friends…

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

So if you had the opportunity to visit the scene and check for yourself, how would you.do it?

Why does this strike me as a silly question?

I don’t know.

If you are suggesting, as per the op, that there is an interaction between the spiritual and the physical then you must have some idea how this manifests itself. And you must be able to show that someone is either mistaken about the evidence or is actually faking it or it’s genuine.

This is what the church does. And my point was that the church will only nominate an event to be miraculous if it cannot be disproved. Can Zeitoun be disproved? How do you think it could be? That’s effectively the question.

 

[Gorgias]

If you are suggesting, as per the op, that there is an interaction between the spiritual and the physical then you must have some idea how this manifests itself.

I would assume you’re talking about the physical effects of the interaction? Sure – it manifests itself as a physical effect! Why we would think that it is different than other physical effects doesn’t make any sense. What would be different in the manifestation, perhaps, is that there would be seemingly no physical cause for the effect. Of course, what we see from the naysayers is a predictable response – namely, that if we cannot demonstrate the cause, then we cannot predicate anything about it. (See? We’re back to the original issue – if we cannot empirically measure the spiritual… how can we demonstrate it? The issue isn’t with the effect, it’s with the cause! And, if the cause is non-physical, then it’s absurd to suggest we can measure it.)

And you must be able to show that someone is either mistaken about the evidence or is actually faking it or it’s genuine.

You’re getting back to ‘cause’, though, no?

Can Zeitoun be disproved? How do you think it could be? That’s effectively the question.

Hence the Church’s silence. Not a denial of the event, but merely choosing to defer to speak on it.

 

[Freddy]

Hence the Church’s silence. Not a denial of the event, but merely choosing to defer to speak on it.

I think it’s clear that they don’t consider it to be genuine.

 

[STT]

As I said being spiritual beings exist with the range of precision of our apparatus or senses without being detected.

 

[Freddy]

As I said being spiritual beings exist with the range of precision of our apparatus or senses without being detected.

So you can’t take a picture of them?

 

[Gorgias]

I think it’s clear that they don’t consider it to be genuine.

How so?

So you can’t take a picture of them?

Not as such, no. I think that @STT is asserting that they really are physical – but just undetectable by humans or technology. (I disagree.)

So… no. No pictures of spiritual beings. However, if God creates an apparition, then that apparition is detectable by humans. (Otherwise, it would be kinda daft to create an undetectable apparition!)

Note that “apparition detectable by humans” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s able to be empirically measured. The apparition might not be physical, right?