Hi Ted,

Thanks for your response.

What you say here is very interesting, raising complex questions. Given our starting positions, it is unlikely that we are going to reach agreement, but here are some thoughts and questions for you to consider, and I’d be very grateful for any thoughts you have. (I sometimes publish conversations like these as Medium articles, in order to widen the debate.)

Firstly, what is your precise definition of the term supernatural, as you understand it in the title of your original article? It means simply ‘above nature’. So you then have to define what you mean by ‘nature’. One definition of that might be the spacetime universe, hence my reference to Wolf and Toben. If you say that what is beyond spacetime could become accessible to science, then it would seem that nature is expanding its previous limits, bringing what was formerly supernatural into the realm of the natural. According to this analysis, there is no such thing as the supernatural, only phenomena that we have not yet understood.

The supernatural is not only about esoteric theories, but about experiences. Here’s a simple hypothetical example. Most people would consider a ghost to be a supernatural phenomenon. If you actually saw a ghost of a dead human being of your previous acquaintance, in your own mind beyond any reasonable doubt, that would be an experience, not a theory. Because you had seen it, would you then call it a ‘natural’ phenomenon, even though its appearance would break the accepted laws of ‘science’?

Some extreme neuroscientists deny the existence of consciousness, the self, and even the mind, saying that it is an illusion and is ‘really’ only the interactions of neurons etc. From that point of view, you could argue that ‘mind’ is supernatural, and if science deals only with the natural, then the term ‘mind science’ would be an oxymoron. You presumably disagree, as would I, but probably from a different starting point.

Science has obviously made great progress in certain areas: medicine, technology, physics etc. You make reference to evidence in relation to science. Much of your article, however, refers to evolutionary theory, going back a long way into the past. I would say, therefore, that all this can only be hypotheses based upon certain assumptions, and can in no way be considered evidence, since no modern scientists were around to observe and conduct experiments. In any case, how you could even contemplate how to conduct experiments on the minds of primitive humans is beyond me. This observation would also apply to Jaynes’s theories, interesting though they are.

You say that science has successfully tackled some topics, including psychedelic experiences, and communication in plants. I would be grateful for some clarification on what you mean by that. Are you saying that science has provided natural explanations for what might otherwise have been considered supernatural? In the case of communication in plants, that might mean reducing everything to biology, chemistry and physics, instead of considering the (supernatural?) possibility that plants have some form of consciousness and are really communicating with each other. Or are you saying that science has concluded that plants are really communicating?

In the case of psychedelics, are you saying that science has managed to explain away apparent ‘supernatural’ experiences, e.g. past-life memories, out-of-body experiences, identification with the consciousness of trees and rocks etc.? Or are you saying that science is taking these experiences seriously?

Best wishes.