Let’s say that it’s scientifically proven that ghosts exist. Would they then stop being supernatural and become natural, thus making it impossible to ever have proof of the supernatural?
Let’s say that it’s scientifically proven that ghosts exist. Would they then stop being supernatural and become natural, thus making it impossible to ever have proof of the supernatural?
Your source doesn’t specifically say the word “superorganism”, but that is what the idea of the superorganic points to - a higher level superorganism, the same as a bee hive, a termite nest, or an ant colony…
It doesn’t refer to any ability/inability to understand culture, which was my main point.
Yeah, because they believe in ghosts, they don’t know they’re real…
If you can’t definitively, scientifically prove ghosts exist, then there is no way to understand how they work in nature, ergo they’re supernatural. I don’t think it’s that vague…
We don’t know the exact cause of life on earth, doesn’t mean all life on Earth (including you) is supernatural.
Of couse it doesn’t say superorganism, that’s just plain wrong. My source is also any intro anthro textbook. It’s over your head it seems.
The term superorganic was coined by Herbert Spencer while discussing the idea of the social organism, that society itself acts like an organism - guess what concept that is?
Oh right, the superorganism.
Just because it doesn’t say that exact word in your source doesn’t mean it’s wrong…
And again, that wasn’t even my main point, that was an aside that you started.
What is wrong is acting like gravity is some supernatural mumbo-jumbo because we can’t exactly pinpoint it’s exact cause, despite the fact that we can observe, predict, and calculate it with pinpoint precision.
Not understanding the cause of something =/= not understanding the concept of something
Ghosts are supernatural because we don’t even know if they’re real, nevermind their cause…
If we were able to prove their existence, we can understand the concept and learn how they work - with sufficient understanding of how they integrate into nature, they would no longer be supernatural.
It isn’t that vague or subjective, either something fits into humanity’s understanding of the natural world or it doesn’t.
Anyways, I’m just about done with this, so hope you have a good one.
Bye