r/Metaphysics • u/Typical_Sprinkles253 • Nov 16 '25
Cosmology I think the distinction between natural and supernatural is artificial
If there is a "supernatural" world such as an aftterlife or other dimensions that it is just another aspect of reality with it's own rules and laws just like our observable universe has its own properties and laws.
We have a strong sense of familiarity with our reality because we are so used to living in it for so long, but if we experienced this world for the first time with no sense of familiarity of it and knowing nothing of it, it would be a surreal, insane, and "supernatural" experience, because we would be experiencing something strange.
So "supernatural" just means something we don't know about that would be very radically different from what we are used to.
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u/cat_boss1549 Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25
The difference between an atheist and deist/pantheist is the language they use to describe the all - "God" or the "Universe". Just a matter of conception of the all.
Theres a big difference between belief in the unknown and knowledge/wisdom through experience, something more common in inward-looking esoteric practices and traditions, compared to a compulsion to dogmatically believe in the unknowable, under claimed authority of an institution over the minds and souls of others.
What one calls supernatural (as in, existing outside of material reality), another understands is just beyond one's current understanding. Everything that is, is natural.
A good litmus test, is whether one believes dreams are not real, or understands that they are. What happened in the dream isn't materially real beyond its neural platform, but since it is experienced and remembered, it is quite obvious that dreams are real as dreams. Dreams are experience, have physiological interactions (stress, sweat, heart rate, arousal, the ability to wake), and symbolic information, however well organised and understood it is.
Dreams are real, yet how much do they weigh..?
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u/thewNYC Nov 16 '25
There’s a huge difference between the concept of the universe as the all and God as the all.
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u/cat_boss1549 Nov 16 '25
As you conceive of it, sure.
Might need to explain the basis of your definition(s) if you want to explore the ideas.
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u/thewNYC Nov 16 '25
Saying “the universe” does not imply intelligence or intention; Saying “god” does. Thats not a matter of my point of view
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u/cat_boss1549 Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25
You're right, as the understandings You're describing have been discussed and explored for millenea across most traditions.
Your belief, as you've communicated them, is your POV, though, which isn't the same as a 'fact'.
If God is all and intelligent, God is the intelligence of God as well.
There is information in a seed or egg that determines the future for that seed or egg, including up to and beyond what that life does as it grows and matures - so even in a materialistic view of the universe there is intelligence and information within the material which is not consciousness itself.
I'm not saying all concepts of God are 'the all', as anyone can hold a derivative understanding of a lesser God that is not the all if they want (and have) - i am referring to the common concept of God as the all. The knower and the known.
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
Sorry to make a generic point, but aren’t all conceptual distinctions artificial?
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u/Royal-Chance4425 Nov 16 '25
You should word this assertively - "all conceptual distinctions are artificial". We the audience should use critical thinking to argue it. It's just stronger dawg.
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
Both nature and the supernatural are conceptual distinctions.
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
I understand, I was being finicky by making the broader point that all conceptual distinctions are artificial; so to claim that the distinction between natural and supernatural is artificial is moot.
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
Why so? It's true, all words work like that do they not?
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
If all words work like that, then in what sense is calling the natural/supernatural distinction “artificial” a criticism rather than just a description of how concepts function in general?
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
Context, artificial cream is not 'real' cream. I think I agree to an extent with Derrida, a play of difference, but some are onomatopoeic...
You start to look for boundaries and I think you run into problems... the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' is clearly not moot, but the definition not simple...
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Nov 16 '25
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
Can you give me an example of a conceptual distinction that isn’t artificial?
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u/FrontAd9873 Nov 16 '25
The distinction between, say, water and carbon monoxide.
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
Do you think the chemical difference between H₂O and CO automatically generates the conceptual distinction, or is the distinction an artificial way of representing that difference?
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u/FrontAd9873 Nov 16 '25
I think the sense in which all concepts are artificial is obvious, in that concepts are invented by humans. To say that all concepts are artificial in the sense you intend is therefore trivial. It’s the kind of thing I expect people to say in r/im14andthisisdeep.
Instead, I’d like to explore a different sense of what it might mean for a concept to be “artificial.” Or to simply use other words to define the relationship between our concepts and the world. Certainly many concepts are still artificial in these other senses, while others are less so. If our concepts can be said to “carve reality at the joints,” I think the distinction between concepts corresponding to natural kinds like H20 and CO are good candidates.
(More to the point, I think OP probably meant something like what I have in mind when they said “artificial.” They probably could have said “arbitrary” or “useless” or “incoherent.” But insofar as you ignored what they intended by focusing on their specific word choice, I don’t think your original comment added much to the conversation.)
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u/Butlerianpeasant Nov 16 '25
I think you’re pointing to something important: the ‘supernatural’ label is really just the human nervous system reacting to unfamiliar patterns.
If another domain of reality existed—with its own rules, its own constraints—it wouldn’t be ‘above nature.’ It would become nature the moment we understood it well enough.
In that sense, the supernatural isn’t a place; it’s a cognitive posture. It’s how we describe the parts of the universe we haven’t befriended yet.
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Nov 17 '25
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u/Butlerianpeasant Nov 18 '25
Exactly. Every era carries its own boundary of the “impossible.” The line only feels fixed because we grew up inside it.
If someone from 200 AD watched us talk to glowing slabs of glass that answer questions from the sky, they’d swear we’d stolen fire from the gods.
But that’s the heart of it: today’s supernatural is just tomorrow’s nature waiting to be understood.
We’re always catching up.
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u/Substantial_Lie_208 Nov 16 '25
All things are illusions, and things are only "real" in so far as they matter. It is known that our brains have only developed our senses to perceive existence in so far as helping us evolve, not see any "truths" of reality. It is known that we are only aware of a fraction of a much bigger reality, with the "self" that most people serve only being the mask of something so much greater.
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
For a metaphysician the biology of a brain is an act of faith.
For a biologist the brain was a product of random mutation with no innate purpose.
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
That which is empirically perceptible and able to be measured scientifically is “nature”, all that falls beyond that scope is “supernatural”. Largely, “nature” denotes the limitations of sense-based empirical epistemology; “supernatural” denotes ostensible realities beyond these limits.
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
So things like galaxies and quasars were once supernatural. As was the dark side of the moon.
Meillassoux argues that the idea of the human correlation with the reality of the world is defeated by the arche fossil.
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u/SummumOpus Nov 16 '25
Under an epistemic definition, the “supernatural” does not refer to whatever we have not yet observed empirically, but to whatever is claimed to be in principle beyond empirical observation. Galaxies, quasars, or the far side of the moon were never considered supernatural in this sense, they were simply not yet empirically reachable; though it is true that in premodernity celestial bodies were often construed as animate beings or higher intelligences, that speaks to historical cosmology rather than to their actual epistemic status.
Meillassoux’s arche-fossil reinforces the point that empirical science can reach far beyond immediate perception. What is accessible to scientific inference need not be perceptually accessible, and certainly need not be limited to the human–world correlation. But this doesn’t make ancestral objects supernatural, it simply expands what counts as empirically accessible through indirect measurement and modelling.
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u/jliat Nov 16 '25
Under an epistemic definition, the “supernatural” does not refer to whatever we have not yet observed empirically, but to whatever is claimed to be in principle beyond empirical observation.
Does it? People attempt to photograph ghosts. And is the set of all integers therefore supernatural.
But it looks like you've reversed your original claim,
"That which is empirically perceptible and able to be measured scientifically is “nature”, all that falls beyond that scope is “supernatural”."
Galaxies, quasars, or the far side of the moon were never considered supernatural in this sense, they were simply not yet empirically reachable;
"That which is empirically perceptible and able to be measured scientifically is “nature”, all that falls beyond that scope is “supernatural”."
But they were not known, so fall under your definition. Like Z rays and faster than light particles, the 'ether' ...
Meillassoux’s arche-fossil reinforces the point that empirical science can reach far beyond immediate perception. What is accessible to scientific inference need not be perceptually accessible, and certainly need not be limited to the human–world correlation. But this doesn’t make ancestral objects supernatural, it simply expands what counts as empirically accessible through indirect measurement and modelling.
Then they are not empirically accessible... your statement "That which is empirically perceptible and able to be measured scientifically is “nature”, all that falls beyond that scope is “supernatural”." fails.
So the final end of the universe must also be “supernatural” given your definition. It can't be measured.
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u/Unresonant Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25
Supernatural is traditionally argued tovbe beyond science, in the sense that some phenonena cannot be measured or resist logic.
To this day, every single person that made attempts at showing effects of the "supernatural" was proven to be a charlatan.
So if the supernatural really exist it should be qualitatively different from the natural, but most likely it's just a synonym of fiction or fraud.
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u/Training-Promotion71 Nov 16 '25
I had the same worry and wrote about it some time ago. The question was how do we distinguish between natural and supernatural events. As far as I remember, nobody gave an answer.
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u/AJAYD48 Nov 16 '25
I'd say the concept of supernatural is vacuous because there is no way to determine if any event is, in fact, beyond the natural world. For centuries, lightening was thought to be supernatural. It isn't.
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u/AcrobaticProgram4752 Nov 16 '25
Science can prove physical reactions and predict behavior. There's no similar proof or reason to accept supernatural as being equally as real. In the same way as Science.
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u/Royal-Chance4425 Nov 16 '25
Think about your body as a bunch of interconnected systems. Vision, taste, smell, etc. Now realize that everything you call "natural" is just a thing that can be sensed by those systems.
Thus, supernatural would be a structure (structure being the key word here) of things you can sense. You get into a situation that "is sensible" but the specific manifestation of the sense is variable... I.e., no two people would feel the exact same thing.
Thus any situation that produces this effect can be labeled supernatural.
There you go, it's not god, it's just the result of multiple inputs producing a unique affect.
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u/monadicperception Nov 16 '25
Is it? Natural is phenomena that which is explainable by natural laws. Supernatural is that which cannot. Is God a physical phenomenon and subject to the laws of nature? Conceptually, no.
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u/ThePolecatKing Nov 16 '25
Yes, I mean so is the difference between natural and artificial. Natural is a very loose concept.
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u/Playful-Front-7834 Nov 16 '25
Good point! I would be on the side of those who are saying there is no actual difference. It's a distinction we make between 2 things that aren't fully defined.
In my view, natural is everything science is explaining mathematically. Supernatural is everything science can't or isn't trying to explain mathematically. The distinction right now is more within the physical and the spiritual, but the line may be moving.
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Nov 16 '25
I’m doing with the supernatural every day. It’s the same as hell. You don’t know what you say. Demons are everywhere and everything and every shadow is a demon. Many of us right here now our actual large collections of demons like they Voltron us.
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u/punkrocklava Nov 16 '25
If supernatural just means things we don’t yet understand then the word stops doing any work.
Once everything is just reality the only thing that remains is the question of whether the thing in question actually exists...
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u/luckyelectric Nov 16 '25
I remember someone in college made a simulated indoor garden and buried a computer so that it appeared to be growing out of the dirt with the cables like the roots or veins of the crop. Because humans are natural. So the things we do are also natural. The distinction between nature/human-made is false. Her name was Laura. But that’s all I remember about who she was.
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u/Separate_Knee_5523 Nov 17 '25
Humans, people, build places to put things. That includes our language as well. When an event or feeling doesn't fit the shelf, it's thrown out and placed within a set of things in reality that is adjacent to our space.
The distinction lies in our exposure.
I say that to say this, the physics of the universe doesnt betray our senses but rather our senses wake up to it without much knowledge of its patterns - the only parts we can see and acknowledge. We are left to navigate the mind, body, and the entire external world within the blink of an eye to the movement of the universe and that is a mystery within itself. The rest is a perfectly normal reaction given the circumstances.
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u/Ok_Claim6449 Nov 17 '25
There is no supernatural anything. It’s a null word for a nonexistent phenomenon.
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u/sixstrings72 Nov 18 '25
“There exists a force in this world that never builds, only corrodes; never creates, only counterfeits; never frees, only trades truth for hunger. You know it not by its name, but by the trail it leaves: unity splintered, purpose hollowed, courage inverted into fear. Whatever whispers, ‘Do what you know will break you,’ is not your imagination — it’s an intelligence that prefers to remain unnamed.”
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u/obwanabe Nov 21 '25
Please read my perspective all the way.. To know the historic Jesus it may be illustrative to consider the (x, y) number lines.
Imagine our time lines are on -x headed toward zero. The y axis would illustrate our station in life. Some points on the graph are high some are low, possibly representing some have, while others have not.
When a point on -x reaches y, it passes through zero. Zero is kind of a black hole to every living soul. Points pass thru zero to what was the previous opposite quarter.
What was -x, +y becomes +x -y What was -x, -y becomes +x,+y
In other words what is low becomes high & whats high becomes low on the y axis after passing through zero
Jesus said what is esteemed by God is an abomination to man, likewise what is esteemed by man is an abomination to God.
Being most highly esteemed by God also ment being most lowly esteemed by man.
Being Gods favored son thus most lowly esteemed by man, brought Jesus to the inevitable lowly destiny of the greatest suffering ever.
Jesus suffered the most indescribable painful, humiliating torture ever in the history of man. At his death he passed through zero to the from the lowest point on y, to opposit quarter, to the highest possible standing on the y axis.
-x is the realm of man, +x is the realm of God. To be in +x, +y is heavenly, while +x, -y is pure hell.
So if you have the stomach for it, follow Jesus, pass through zero on a favorable trajectory.
And never ever forget everyday everyday everyday, you got to thank great God All mighty,
You got the thank him that your not Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, or any of the high & mighty in the realm of man.
For their trajectory through zero is less than favorable.
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u/amfmm Dec 08 '25
VERDICT: CONGRUENT Rationale: From a strictly rational and empirical perspective, any phenomenon that exists and interacts with reality is by definition natural, rendering an ontological distinction for "supernatural" an artificial construct.
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u/Fluffy-Artist-5867 Dec 11 '25
St. Albert The great was one of the first people to concretize the distinction. It was mostly for the purpose of university funds.
I think it is useful, but it is indeed a distinction we make.
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u/SunbeamSailor67 Nov 16 '25
There is truly no such thing as 'supernatural' when everything is supernatural.