A Rational Defense of the Supernatural

Ghosts, magic and angels might be real, just not in a way that we can understand

Photo by Duncan Sanchez on Unsplash

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
— Arthur C. Clarke

This quote, often repeated by thinkers like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, is pretty straightforward in its meaning.

But there is a corollary to it, and it is that humans can go beyond first impressions.

To explain this, let’s ask ourselves a question.

Question―If aliens came down and showed us their sufficiently advanced technology, what would happen?

Answer―We’d all eventually know it was technology, no matter how much it looked like magic.

If aliens visited, their technology would undoubtedly impress us — but we’d know it was technology and not magic — Photo by Brian McMahon on Unsplash

Why?

Because even if a technology is advanced beyond our comprehension, humans of the modern age understand the concept of technology quite well, and we know that it is wholly removed from the supernatural.

Think of The Matrix film series. The films certainly hold elements of spirituality, but at their root―the characters are interacting with programs.

Neo’s character in The Matrix held a certain amount of spirituality, but his the root of his powers lied in an explainable program

The Matrix had really, really cool programs―programs that often give the appearance of magic, but we all knew they were not magic.

And we’re not exploring programs in this article, even ones tinged with spirituality.

We are going to explore magic, ghosts and angels in this article.

We are going to explore the real supernatural.

To do that, we need to go beyond mere technology, even the kind wrought by The Matrix or aliens.

We’re going to look at the universe itself, and consider all that we can’t observe, and all that we can’t understand.

And we’ll see that this area of the unknown is where the supernatural lies.

Parts of this Article

This article will attempt to make a rational explanation for magic, ghosts and angels―with the caveat that magic, ghosts and angels do not necessarily exist in their titular form, nor in a way that we can understand.

In short, magic, ghosts and angels might hold some underlying truth to their existence, but they’re not necessarily magic, ghosts and angels―they are something else entirely, perhaps something beyond our comprehension.

And this article will argue this assertion in a few parts.

• Part 1 — Understanding how much of the universe we cannot perceive
• Part 2 — Exploring this gap in perception with the metaphor of an amoeba beneath the Aurora Borealis
• Part 3 — A tale of a Data Engineer who experienced mild premonitions
• Part 4 — Tying this all together, and exploring how the supernatural may be a part of the unobservable and incomprehensible parts of the universe that have reached us in some way
• Part 5 — Conclusion — A reminder to beware the charlatans and embrace the Enlightenment, but still — something might be out there

Part 1 — Understanding how much of the universe we cannot perceive

Before we discuss how much we can’t perceive, we should note that we can perceive a small part of the universe, and that is extraordinary

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
— Carl Sagan

Do you ever feel insignificant?

You’re not insignificant, even―and perhaps especially―when set against the vast expanse of the cosmos.

You can observe, you can think about what you have observed, and 99.99999[many more 9s]% of the rest of the universe cannot do the same.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 220,000 light years in diameter and is over 10 billion years old — but you experience more in a second than the vast majority of this galaxy experiences in its entire lifetime.

You are incredibly, incomprehensibly small compared to the size of the universe―but there’s a whole lot of nothing out there, and when there is something, whether it’s matter or energy― 99.99999[many more 9s]% of the time it is unfeeling, and unobserving as well.

So let’s establish this first―

You and your powers of perception are incredibly rare and incomprehensibly valuable when set against the vast, unfeeling cosmos.

But―

There is a lot of the universe that we cannot perceive

Though your abilities of perception hold incredible value, and are a heck of a lot more than the universe’s median perception of zero, there is a lot more out there that you aren’t seeing.

And we don’t even have to get abstract when we contemplate this, for example―thinking that we are all sitting in Plato’s cave.

Plato believed we are all metaphorical prisoners who saw only shadows cast by firelight on a cave wall — but we don’t need metaphors to understand how much of this universe we can’t observe

We can quantify what is out there unobserved, or rather one specific part of what is unobserved―and from that we can gain insight into how much else we are not able to perceive.

Was the above sentiment abstract enough for you?

All right―let’s de-abstract this notion a bit, and give a solid number to what we can’t perceive.

We’ll get to the rational defense of the supernatural afterwards, but for now, let’s quantify just how much we can’t see of a part of the universe that we seem to think we know well― visible light.

You can only see 1/28,000th of what is around you

This image — by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash — is incredible, but there is more here that we can not observe

We can only see .0035 percent of the visible light spectrum―or about 1/28,000th.

Let’s put this in not entirely accurate, but understandable terms.

Take this image―

Photo by Ricardo Frantz on Unsplash

This image is 6.2 megs, or 6,200,000 bytes.

If this peacock image was the universe’s true message, we’d only be able to observe 1/28,000th of it.

6,200,000/28,000 = 221 bytes.

So let’s take this image of the peacock, and try and get it down to 221 bytes.

Compressing this image as much as we can, reveals this image―

An image of a Peacock compressed to 1/28,000th its size

Full disclosure―the image above is a bit more than 1/28,000th.

We could only compress the image to 1,200 bytes, and to display it within this article we had to blow it up and set it against a white background, which ended up at a 30kb image―30,000 bytes.

So the grayscale image of the peacock above is over 135 times better resolution than we should see.

But for this argument, consider that the universe is showing us a peacock, and all we can see is that grey square, at best.

In short, there’s a lot all around us, all the time, and we can only perceive a small, small amount of it.

Part 2 — Exploring this gap in perception with the metaphor of an amoeba beneath the Aurora Borealis

And of course, light is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the universe’s tale

There are countless other bits of the universe’s tale flowing through it at any given moment, many of which we might not even be able to comprehend, let alone observe.

To get a sense of how many things we can’t comprehend, consider the gap in understanding between an amoeba and a human, and then extrapolate that upwards from a human to a―

Let’s just call it a being of higher understanding.

If we are more advanced in understanding than an amoeba, what would a creature as advanced compared to us be like?

Let’s consider that we’re an amoeba, and we are about to experience a natural phenomenon―one that is incredible, but still understandable to humans.

We are an amoeba are in northern Sweden, below the Aurora Borealis.

Photo by v2osk on Unsplash

And to us, the amoeba, we do not see the Aurora Borealis, let alone understand it, but we do sense something.

We sense―

A bit of heat where there should not be heat.

Wait―what?

Here is the full story of what happened to the amoeba beneath the Aurora Borealis

OK, we’re humans again, but only for a brief moment.

Photo by Kezadri Abdelhak on Unsplash

Here is what happened―

1. Solar winds collided with our magnetosphere and ionized particles in the sky
2. The particles in turn, shed this energy infusion by giving off light known as the Aurora Borealis
3. Many tourists came to see the Aurora Borealis, like they do every year
4. One set of tourists camped above the amoeba in question, and the tourist made a campfire
5. That campfire gave off heat, and the amoeba was able to sense it

OK, we’re back to being an amoeba again.

And our conclusion―

There is a bit of heat where there should not be heat.

We just experienced a bit of the supernatural―something supernatural to an amoeba at least.

We humans know that it wasn’t magic, but to the amoeba―it felt like magic.

All right, we’ll explore what this means shortly, but first another tale, and this one of a human―a highly rational human at that.

Part 3 — A tale of a Data Engineer who experienced mild premonitions

The Data Engineer and the premonitions

A while ago, one of my co-workers pulled me aside and said that he needed some advice.

The advice he needed certainly wasn’t about work though―he was seeing glimpses of the future, and wanted to know how this was possible.

He told me that these experiences weren’t portentous, and they weren’t malevolent.

They were small things.

He’d see a vision of his friend getting engaged, and then a few days later―he’d get a call that his friend was getting engaged.

In other words, this wasn’t The Sixth Sense, and he wasn’t a Precog from Minority Report.

But he was experiencing instances like this over and over again, and he wanted to know why.

We decided to get to the bottom of this together

Despite the open-mindedness required to explore such an assertion, this was a hyper-rational individual―so we first went with the ultra-rational explanation for his unintentional foray into mild augury.

We arrived at this possible conclusion―

The human mind can act as an algorithm. It can take in the world’s oft-unrelated data, and aggregate it into a conclusion.

Here is an infographic showing what might have happened―

A person receiving many inputs from the world, inputs that his subconscious turns into a premonition

Has anything like that happened to you?

Even if it didn’t manifest itself as a premonition, something along these lines may have.

Your subconscious is more powerful than you think

Do you ever wake up in the morning and suddenly remember a song that you have been trying to remember for a few days?

That’s your subconscious working in the background, trying to retrieve the song’s name for you.

And since we are constantly bombarded with data―quite a bit of data, even though we can only observe a fraction of what the universe sends our way―perhaps our subconscious processes the inputs around us, and leaves us with a conclusion.

Perhaps it’s a feeling, or a dream, or a premonition.

And keep in mind that many of these inputs may be beyond our understanding―we could sense another person’s vibrational energy, for example.

Still, this really only gives an explanation for one problem―how come some of us know things that we shouldn’t know?

So the premonitory friend and I went a little deeper. We decided to delve into all that we didn’t know about the universe, and see if we could explain a bit more than just a bit of foreknowledge about a wedding.

Part 4 — Tying this all together, and exploring how the supernatural may be a part of the unobservable and incomprehensible parts of the universe that have reached us in some way

There is a lot we can not observe, but sometimes it interacts with us, and we might experience it as something supernatural

Let’s again take a look at the discrepancy of what we can observe of the universe, and what we can’t observe.

The discrepancy between all that is in the universe and what is in the universe that we can understand

Again, the reality we experience around us is sufficient for our own existence, but it’s a small, small fraction of what is really going on.

But what happens when one of the unobservable parts of the universe finds a way to interact with us?

An unobservable part of the universe reaches us

When something happens like this, it’s equivalent to―

The Aurora Borealis occurs > This brings in many tourists > One of the tourists makes a campfire > An amoeba in the ground senses heat, in a place where there should be no heat

In this chain of events, the amoeba isn’t quite able to piece everything together, and certainly isn’t able to understand the full nature of the Aurora Borealis.

But the amoeba senses something, and this something has a very real foundation―even if it is a foundation the amoeba will never understand.

To the amoeba, the sudden sense of heat was a supernatural event, of sorts.

And perhaps something similar can happen to humans as well.

Let’s say there’s an occurrence in the universe that we humans can’t quite observe or understand

Perhaps this event is―

• Something outside the visible spectrum of light
• Something from a higher consciousness
• Something occurring with dark matter, or dark energy
• Something that occurs in four or more dimensions
• Something else entirely―something so beyond our comprehension that it cannot go into one of these bullet points

And then that occurrence finds a way to reach us.

We experience it in some fashion, and come to a conclusion.

It is not a natural event to us―it is a supernatural event.

Take a look at a few ways this might play out in the infographic below.

When an unobservable part of the universe reaches us, we might come to inaccurate conclusions — but the underlying cause of our inaccurate conclusion holds a real truth, even if we can’t observe or understand it

The conclusion may only show a partial truth, or a truth that is in fact an inaccuracy.

But that observation―be it a premonition, a ghost, a haunted house or anything else―suggests a real foundation.

So if you think your house is haunted, from this perspective, we could say―

No, your house is not haunted in the sense that you understand the concept of haunting. But there may be something beneath your observations―the universe might be attempting to show you something very, very big in fact.

So can these experiences pass the test of repeatability?

Probably not.

A supernatural experience may neither be repeatable nor reproducible.

If it was, it wouldn’t be supernatural.

Here’s an example of something that isn’t supernatural―the experiment where physicists shot electrons at impenetrable walls, and some electrons still got through.

We don’t fully understand the process, but we understand it enough to give it a name―quantum tunneling―and the phenomenon certainly is both repeatable and reproducible.

Quantum tunneling isn’t a mystery―it’s physics, or rather quantum physics.

Quantum tunneling is repeatable and reproducible, and this means it isn’t magic, and it isn’t the supernatural.

So if you observe something you can neither explain nor repeat, nor reproduce―it’s a supernatural phenomenon?

We’re not quite arguing that.

We’re stating that just because we can’t reproduce an experience doesn’t mean it’s not real, or rather doesn’t have a real foundation.

Bertrand Russell argued — correctly — that we should not believe unfalsifiable claims because we cannot disprove them — photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

And we’re not delving into Russell’s Teapot territory―where Bertrand Russell deliberately made an unfalsifiable claim that there is a small teapot in orbit around the sun, always out of the view of our telescopes.

Russell was making a point that the burden of proof should not be on others to disprove such a thing, because in the case of this teapot, such an assertion cannot be disproved.

We’re arguing that most parts of the universe’s message go beyond us, but occasionally one of these manifold parts may reach us, and though we would surely misinterpret the underlying truth―

In that moment, would experience a supernatural event, an event with a real foundation.

Again, imagine you are the amoeba experiencing the warmth of a campfire made by a tourist who has come to witness the Aurora Borealis above.

Photo by Sidney Pearce on Unsplash

You wouldn’t be able to understand or reproduce the heating―after all, you’re an amoeba―but this doesn’t mean that nothing is there.

The campfire was there.

The tourist was there.

The Aurora Borealis was there above.

And the Aurora Borealis is caused by solar winds colliding with our magnetosphere and ionizing particles in the sky until they give off light.

But you, the amoeba, just experiences a sudden warmth where there should be no warmth.

That is supernatural to you.

Now let’s return to being a human again.

A woman possibly encountering a supernatural event — Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

We humans might experience our own version of the amoeba that senses warmth.

It’s not what we experience directly, and it’s not what we think it is, but it may be real.

The house isn’t haunted, and we didn’t get visited by a ghost―but we may have experienced something very real.

Part 5 — Conclusion — A reminder to beware the charlatans and embrace the Enlightenment, but still — something might be out there

Be wary and stay that way

No matter what the underlying truth of the universe may be, we should remain skeptical.

There might be truths beyond our understanding, but we should avoid giving money to the guru who claims a talking cobra told them the secrets of life.

We should remain skeptical, depend on evidence, and always ask for a bit of repeatability―and reproducibility while we’re at it.

François-Marie Arouet — also known as Voltaire

Voltaire ushered in The Age of Enlightenment so long ago, and we should keep it going.

But we should also keep in mind that we can observe so little of this universe, and that sometimes those unobservable things find a way to reach us.

Those supernatural events most likely aren’t caused by ghosts, or anything we can conceive of.

But those supernatural events might have a real foundation―and we shouldn’t discount them just because the foundation is beyond our powers of observation, or even our powers of understanding.

Magic, ghosts and angels aren’t magic, ghosts and angels in the way that we understand them.

But they might be something.

The universe is too big to discount that.

Jonathan Maas has a few books on Amazon, and he can be reached through Medium or Goodreads.com/JMaas.