Sal2: Actually, methodological naturalism just does its work, observing, measuring and manipulating its phenomena, with the conceptual (verification priciple, falsifiability) and empirical (techology, statistics)tools that it has. Metaphysical naturalism is the presence of an assumption against supernaturalism, while methodological naturalism is simply the absence of any search for anything besides the observable, measurable, manipulable phenomena that constitute the natural world.

Right. One says “pretend like it is true” and the other “assume that it is true”. You sure do like talking.

Actually, no I am NOT wrong. All that empirical tools can investigate are the natural world. If they can completely explain the phenomena in question by recourse to natural explanations, then mystery solved, by default. But if natural explanations ever do not suffice, there exists no such thing as empirical recourse to supernatural investigation.

Oh pish. If I could empirically identify ghosts or fairies, then that’s what I’d call them. If a transparent ectoplasmic being in the shape of my dead great aunt Celia strated inhabiting the teapot I got from her house, and told me stiff only she could know, and t was witneessed and videotaped etc etc. etc. Then I’d have a ghost on my hands, full stop, and I’d have to consider previos speculations on the subject, and they would include all kinds of spooky things. The fact is that such a thing WON’T happen, but its also silly to say that if I did, I’d be reduced to shrugging mutism. “Cmon. A bit of common sense here.

If you should see a giraffe neck, you would most probably cognitively entertain a meme, and that meme would be Hey! That’s a giraffe’s neck! But that doesn’t mean that the giraffe’s neck itself is a meme; it just conjured its memetic description out of you. And you could tell your friends that you saw a giraffe’s neck. But the meme would most likely not replicate far, and would go extinct, unless you jazzed it up with a catchy story.

Oop. earlier you said that some objects acted as symbols (instantiations of memes). I’m saying that a giraffe’s neck does that for me and about a dozen other people, and I tld you why. Whether or not it goes extinct is an empirical question you cannot answer by mere argument, and is thus irrelevant here: you apparently cannot tell the difference between a meme and a non meme. Thanks!