What Does It Mean To Be Supernatural?

Halloween is coming up, and popular culture is being filled its annual dose of references to the supernatural (including the recent season premier of the showSupernatural, which is probably not a coincidence). Ghosts, monsters, black magick, vampires, witches, and others all fall under this umbrella of “the supernatural.”

But what does it mean to be supernatural?

My dictionary defines “supernatural” as “(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.”

Being beyond scientific understanding is actually very mundane. Most of the way the brain works is beyond our current scientific understanding, but no serious researcher is throwing up his or her arms and declaring it supernatural. The relationship between mass and energy was beyond scientific understanding until Albert Einstein figured it out. The origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts were beyond scientific understanding until Lynn Margulis figured it out. Every issue of every scientific journal is filled with things that were beyond the understanding of science just a year or so prior. This is not what people mean when they say that something is supernatural. They mean the second thing — beyond the laws of nature. The word supernatural literally means “above nature,” or, more figuratively, outside or separate from nature.

But what is nature and what are its laws?

Consulting my dictionary once again, “nature” is defined as “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.” And once again, my dictionary fails to provide a completely cogent or useful definition. If humans and our creations are not natural, does that mean that the computer I’m writing on is supernatural? Again, no one would reasonably make this claim. The first part of this definition, “the phenomena of the physical world collectively,” is actually pretty good as it is. Nature, or the physical world, is made up of two things: matter and energy, which Einstein showed us are the same thing. Nature is everything that exists. It is all of the animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and all of the rest of life. It is all of the rocks and minerals and water and air. Even humans, which are animals, are part of nature. Everything beyond our planet is part of the natural world, as well. All of the undiscovered types and forms of matter and energy are part of nature. Every answer to an empirical question is part of nature, and it is the job of scientists to discover nature is it exists.

Are ghosts real? This is an empirical question because the answer is not subject to ideology or personal preference. Ghosts cannot be real for me but not real for someone else, any more than  the statement “the earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen” can be real for me but not real for someone else. Correct answers to empirical questions are correct whether you like it or not. Likewise, either ghosts are real or they are not. If they are real, they are part of nature, and are therefore natural phenomenon. It may come as a surprise to people that, if ghosts are real, it will be scientists who discover them. This is true of everything else that is commonly labeled as “supernatural.” If everything that exists is part of nature, then what does that mean? If something is truly supernatural, it doesn’t exist.

 

Chris Eppig is the Director of Programming for C2ST. This article was originally posted at http://christophereppig.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/what-does-it-mean-to-be-supernatural. Chris blogs about science at christophereppig.wordpress.com