NATURAL AND PARANATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL ACTION

by F Richard Singer III         edition date 11/07/07

website: www.conceptualstudy.org      email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net

PNDP: Altho I freely use concepts from PNDP (the public net for descriptive psychology), I augment them or further explicate them. The concept of the real world is that taken from PNDP as the state (sate of affairs) that includes all other states. The universe IS that part of the real world that is within or strongly linked to space and time. Space and time IS whatever there is that underlies our understanding of these concepts. This includes both our ordinary intuitions of space and time, as well as the scientific models we use for thinking about them. The concept of an individual is used broadly, including anything we can refer to by the pronoun ‘it’ when we want to identify it for any purpose. An individual may be a person, a fish, or a mountain, a building, the set of natural number, a concept, a weather system, a city, the real world, the act of eating an orange, etc. The concept of an actor is broadened in a way that allows inanimate individuals to be actors. If it makes sense to ask "What is it doing?" then the individual in question is conceptualized to be an actor. Furthermore, the standard PNDP concept of a behavior description is extended to apply to the actions of all such individuals, altho some of the parameters may be omitted or conceptually modified. This broadened concept will be called an action description.

Choice and Chance and the Causal Flow: States are followed by new states, and they do so in a ways that we largely think of as determined by some type of causal flow. My alarm clock was silent and the it begins to ring. No surprise, it was set to do so, and so given my ordinary understanding of the causal flow, this is what I expected. The surprise would be have been if the new state had not emerged, I would have looked for a cause. Furthermore there is nothing technical or scientific about this concept of the causal flow. I do not need to know how the clock works to expect this outcome, altho my description of the causes involved may make use of such knowledge. Had the electricity failed during the night. If so why did it fail? Did someone turn off the alarm? If so why? Altho I might not be able to understand what happened, my inclination would be that if I just knew enough it would be perfectly clear to me why this happened. There are two caveats to this expectation. I am willing to admit that what happened could involve the insertion of a first cause into the causal flow, either in the form of as impersonal chance or personal choice. Altho what William James calls ‘my sentiment of rationality’ wants to consider chance as an illusion due to having cause too complex to take account of, to deny chance as a possible first cause is to use a conceptual bias to settle a paraceptual matter. To demand that personal choice be totally an outcome of the causal flow would mean that I would have to deny what for me is vital knowledge about the competence of persons. I want to emphasize again that the causal flow, along with chance and choice, are ordinary concepts. They have been around at least since recorded history. Whatever roots they may have in the way the world works, they are part of what we use to describe the actions we experience.

Localizes Action Descriptions: We describe most of the activity that we experience or imagine as taking place in space and time. Furthermore we think of the X actor and the action Y as localized within some region R of space and time. This means that we think of X as inhabiting R and Y as taking place within R, altho the exact boundaries of X and R need not be precise. Furthermore we would normally consider Y as taking place in within X or a region directly accessible to X. We think about Y as localized in its outcome, i.e. effects that Y has beyond R first impacts proximate locations and then propagates beyond them in a manner involving spatial-temporal contiguity.

Example: We may describe a storm system X as engage in the action Y, which may include building up internal energy, causing a tree to topple in R, etc. We would not think of Y as including the destruction of a barn miles beyond its location, altho we may think of Y’s effects as spreading well out beyond it location as time elapses. Nor would we think of Y as having instantaneous outcomes miles away from its location. Of course we may think of this storm as an element of a broader weather pattern, in which case the broader weather pattern inhabits and acts within a broader region and thus may act on the storm.

Commensurate Action Descriptions: Localizes action descriptions are the most basic type of what I call commensurate action descriptions, namely they are spatially commensurate. In general, for a commensurate action description the outcomes are commensurate with the action. This means that we only include O as an outcome of Y when O seems like something we could normally ascribe as an effect of R, i.e. it must take into account how the describer thinks about what normally happens within the causal flow. Mostly we do this from an ordinary point of view, but on occasionally we may buttress this from a scientific point of view. Note that what person P1 considers a commensurate may or may not seem like a commensurate outcome for another person P2.

Some of what we think about as commensurate involves being physically commensurate. We would be unlikely to describe the collapse of a sturdy house as do to the action of slight breeze (even if we were totally ignorant of the science of physics). However being commensurate involves more than expectations that we think of in physical terms. We also think of outcomes as biologically commensurate. A rock may fall into the water, but I would not describe this as leaping into the water, regardless of the path it took. Nor would a walnut leap into the water. However I would describe a frog as leaping into the water. We also think in terms of personally commensurate outcomes. We might say that Joe’s sudden changes in attitudes are not commensurate outcomes of his continuing routine patterns of behavior. He is either faking it or something we do not know about is going on.

Note: The term personal refer to attributes we normally use in thinking about the actions of persons, such as value we assign to the C parameter in an intentional action description.

Example: I would describe light from a lamp as a commensurate outcome of the action of electric lamps. Furthermore giving such a description does not depend on any technical or scientific knowledge about electricity. It only depends on the social practice of dealing with electric lamps. Anyone not familiar with this practice might not be able to give a commensurate description of what was happening. Furthermore if the electricity went out and the lamp continued to emit light then I would be hard pressed to give a commensurate action descriptions, unless I knew about the backup battery inside of this light.

Action Descriptions: The concept of a commensurate action descriptions will be used to help conceptualize three main types of action descriptions {natural, paranatural, supernatural}. No existential or paraceptual commitments are involved. Using a supernatural behavior description for the action of vampires does not commit one to a belief that vampires exist or to a belief that such actions have ever happened or could ever happen. Such a description could still be useful in order to understand the role of the vampire concept in fiction or in the belief systems of some people. Likewise giving a purely natural action description of the activity of a volcano is not incompatible with believing that that a supernatural action description would be both more faithful and more adequate .

Essential Parameters: All three types of action descriptions will always include some values for the I (identity) and the P (performance) parameters. They will also at least include (perhaps implicitly) one value for the O (outcome) parameter. The O parameter is a version of the A (achievement) parameter, in which the outcome is merely anything resulting from the action. Simply put, any action description will includes and actor doing something with some outcome.

Paranatural Action Descriptions: The paradigm case of a paranatural action description is one in which the actor is a person and all the parameters are explicitly used or at least implicitly understood. A paranatural description must specify at least one noteworthy portion of the S parameter. It must also specify at least one interest or value for the C. P is restricted to being localized. The achievement parameter is also localized in the near term, altho it may start a train reaction. It is also restricted by only allowing its natural outcomes to be accomplished in ways that can be described as natural action. Its personal outcomes on the actor need not be so restricted, but they must be personally commensurate.

Actions: The concept of an action description is not a conceptualization of action. The concept of an action is presupposed as one of our most basic subconcepts. The various action description concepts merely provide tool for bringing various aspects of actions into focus. Which parameters to use and the detail to which they are developed will depend on the observer’s purposes in giving the description. Also presupposed are the ordinary subconcepts we use in thinking about types of individuals. Specifically we distinguish between animate and inanimate individuals. More important we classify some individuals as persons on the basis of the types of actions which form a noteworthy portion of their history. The case of a person acting is the one that forms the core of the paranatural action, so called because persons usually act within the natural world for reasons that can only be understood using personal concepts. The case of natural action is a restricted version of paranatural action, while the case of supernatural action goes beyond paranatural action in a noteworthy manner of allowing for other cases of outcomes that are not commensurate with the performance.

Paranatural Action: Paranatural action is action for which there is an adequate and faithful paranatural action description. Altho paranatural action does not lend itself to a purely natural action description. To classify an action as paranatural IS not to think of it as unnatural. Such action may very well be related to and involve natural action. My paranatural action of teaching earned me money that I used for the natural action of obtaining food. Nor does paranatural action conceptual imply transcending causality. The concept of paranatural relates to operational conceptualizations. Nor does a belief in paranatural action commit any ontological beliefs. Believing that I can prove the Sylow Theorems does not mean that I that I must claim that my ability to do so is independent of the natural attributes of my brain. I classify giving such a proof as paranatural activity because any comprehensible description of it would have to be at least a paranatural description of significance, and no supernatural description would seem to be called for.

Examples: The motion of the planets is an example of natural action as is the action of genetic material. The action of creating an amendment to the constitution is paranatural. In fact the vast majority of human action is paranatural.

Natural Action Description: A natural action descriptions may use only physical and biological concepts (either ordinary or scientific). It will treat the causal flow as deterministic, except to the extend that It may allow for chance. A purely physical action description will not use biological concepts. It will revolve primarily around the P parameter, with some indication of a value for the O parameter, altho the O parameter may not be called an achievement. Biological action descriptions may also include KF or W or KH or C. They may describe outcomes as achievements. Natural action descriptions will definitely not use an S parameter. The KF parameter may not include knowing options. Altho the actor may have personal characteristics, these cannot be used as part of the C parameter. Thus the C parameter will not include any interests or values, but it may contain other types of powers characteristics.

Natural Action: Natural action IS action for which there is an adequate and faithful natural action description, i.e. natural action IS any action that is physical or biological in the sense that it can be adequately and faithfully described using physical or biological concepts.

Examples: Plane acting on auto pilot, cat catching a mouse, blood circulating in human body,

Note: A scientific physical action description IS one that uses only concepts and models from physics and chemistry or astronomy or geology or other science for thinking about such matters. Physical action descriptions are not limited to what we currently include in our physical sciences. In fact they have been given long before the invention of our sciences. Furthermore much of our talk about physical action effectively makes use of ordinary concepts not included in any of our sciences. We can easily talk about erratic motion without indicating what velocities are involved, and I doubt if our concept of erratic motion has a precise scientific counterpart.

Supernatural Action Descriptions: A supernatural description may use all the behavior description parameters. It does not have any of the restrictions of a paranatural action description. In fact, it must go beyond a natural and paranatural description in some manner. For instance the actor need not be localized, and may even inhabit the whole universe or may even exist beyond the universe. Even with a localized actor, the description need not be restricted to commensurate outcomes or to the way we ordinarily think about how choices can modify the causal flow. In fact the outcomes need not even be within the universe. For instance the biblical description of Jesus ascending into heaven involves his leaving the universe.

Supernatural Action: Supernatural action is action for which there is an adequate and faithful supernatural action description.

Examples: Creating the universe, answering prayer, divine revelation, placing an effective hex on a person, demon possession, changing into a werewolf.

Reductionism: Physical reductionism is the claim that everything can be reduced to physical laws and concepts. Altho I am unclear about what this might mean, I do not understand how anyone could pragmatically classify all action as physical. Biological action is directed either towards the maintenance of life or towards reproduction. While reproduction may involve considerable physical action, the concept of reproduction and the ability to observe and classify such action as reproductive involves understanding concepts not available in our net for thinking about physical matters. Even someone who seems to be thinking of reductionism from some scientific perspective is not going to find concepts for thinking about an ecological system in any physics or chemistry course one is likely to encounter in the foreseeable future. This is all I mean by classifying biological action as distinct from physical action. It does not mean that biological action occurs outside of the physical world. It neither denies nor asserts that biological action also involves something that is essentially not physical.

Likewise while schooling may involve biological action, the concept of a school and the ability to observe and classify such action as educational involves understanding concepts not operationally reducible biological concepts. It does not mean that paranatural action occurs outside of the natural world. It neither denies nor asserts that natural action also involves something that is essentially beyond or perhaps parallel to the natural world. That it does, is something that I find highly plausible. On the other hand, supernatural activity is conceptualized in such a way that it does involve something that is essentially beyond the natural world.

A Further Note on Reductionism: Even in mathematics, where we can define geometric concept using numerical coordinate concepts, this is merely a formal reduction. Without an understanding of geometric concept, such a reduction would have not utility, nor would it have been accomplished in the first place.

Types of Actors: A natural actor is one who is only capable of natural activity, except perhaps on rare occasions. A paranatural actor has a history in which paranatural action plays a substantial role but for whom supernatural action is absent or at least mostly unavailable. A supernatural actor has a history in which supernatural action plays a substantial role.

God Concepts: To be a god is to have a realm of interest and some major responsibility for the wellbeing of that realm. Furthermore a god will have special powers for its realm, perhaps even sovereign power. At any rate it will not restricted to what we normally consider commensurate action, altho there may be limitations due to supernatural principles.

For a polytheistic god, the realm may be a domain, such as the seas would be for Neptune. It may be an area of endeavor, such as love for Venus.

God: The capitalized term ‘God’ will be reserved for an actor whose domain includes the whole universe and whose actions enhance the spiritual wellbeing of the universe. Furthermore, God’s powers are beyond the comprehension of any other actors. limitations, and if God has any limitations these also are beyond the comprehension of any other actors.

To discuss the multitude of claims about God we need some additional concepts. God is deistic if god created the universe, exists outside of the universe, and does not act within the universe. God is monotheistic if God created the universe, deliberately act within the whole universe, but God’s existence in independent of and goes beyond the universe. If God is monotheistic God has no physical embodiment. God is pantheistic if God’s embodiment is the Universe and acts within the universe. God is personal if God’s works directly to enhance the wellbeing of each individual person.

More examples to be added: