Is the Supernatural Impossible?
(Arthur C.) Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
When I talk to individuals who do not believe in God or even “a god,” often the first objection they provide to me is that it is not possible for supernatural events or miracles to take place. I’d like to look at this in more detail.
To start off this discussion I’d like to introduce two concepts
Concept 1: SAT
Let’s introduce the concept of a group of beings with Arthur C Clarke’s Sufficiently Advanced Technology (SAT). Now I’m not promoting any sort of Erick Von Danikan theology here. Just stating a possibility. I feel comfortable doing this, because if I am discussing the concept of the supernatural with you and you don’t believe in it, then by necessity you must believe in Evolution. So, if it is given that you believe in evolution, you then have to admit that due to existence of billions and billions of stars and years, you must allow that somewhere out there, there is a rational non-zero possibility that there exists a race of advanced beings. Advanced in the sense that their technology is far advanced than ours i.e. they have Sufficiently Advanced Technology. You cannot eliminate them as a possibility. You cannot conclusively say they do not exist. The very fact that you believe in Evolution, forces you to admit that it is indeed statistically POSSIBLE for another race to be out there that started evolving before we did, or that has evolved faster than we did. For you to disagree with this possibility would be for you to have to disagree with evolution. Because it is impossible for you to say that it could ONLY happen once or that it could only happen the way it did happen here on earth. In fact Richard Dawkins recently admitted that this was what he believed happened to create life on earth (thus avoiding abiogenesis, at least for our race).
Concept 2: Multidimensionality
The second concept is the concept of extra-natural dimensions. For “natural” I intend to imply the 4 dimensions that most Atheists maintain are the limits of accepted natural science. Height; Length; Width and Time. Things that are currently physically measurable. I hope this is not a strawman as I’ve had these sort of statements made to me many times by atheists.
However, as I mentioned in my debate at the Commonwealth Club against Eugenie Scott and Eric Rothschild (the Lawyer who won the Dover case against Intelligent Design being mentioned in Schools), if you limit science to only 4 dimensions and any sort of extra dimensional activity as superstitious religious claptrap, you are then making a statement that the few thousand papers and the tens of thousands of attendees at String Theory conferences that postulate almost 26 dimensions are all written and attended by religion freaks.
Physics regularly postulates multidimensionality, and just moments after the Big Bang we can calculate that there were at least 10 dimensions if not 26. All but 4 of the dimensions have disappeared to our senses. But they are possibly out there, and string theory postulates that we can one day interact with them.
So the atheist that says there is nothing else real out there but what we can touch, taste, feel, hear, smell, or measure has just dug himself into a hole. (Not to mention ignored mathematical concepts completely).
Obviously, things that take place outside the realm of the 4 dimensions are not impossible, nor are they inconceivable or limited to religious fundamentalist wackos like me.
The Miracles
So given that introduction to expand the readers horizons and keeping in mind the “Super Intelligent race with Sufficiently Advanced Technology” let’s look at some of the miracles of Jesus and see if they are indeed “impossible”.
Let us start with some of the more generic healings that are claimed to have been done by Jesus. Could some of the healings affected by Jesus have in fact have been achieved by a modern medical doctor with modern technology? For example a blind man could have his corneas removed or vaporized to heal him from glaucoma. A paralytic could be administered to with a bone healing/growing stimulator or a spinal column growth stimulator. A manic could be given a direct infusion of medicines or herbs that would be Prozac or Lithium equivalents.
Of course your next two questions are going to be:
Q1. How did Jesus do this with no apparent equipment or drugs?
Q2. How did Jesus gain access to this technology?
Let’s answer the first one before moving on:
A1. Surely our beings with SAT could create nanobots that were virtually invisible and yet achieve the intended purpose even to the point of being able to administer drugs directly to the location that needed them.
A2. The question about Jesus having access to this technology will be addressed shortly.
Now let us move on to other sorts of miracles.
How about the feeding of the 5000? An individual with “SAT” could seemingly create food out of nothing if he had the technology that allows matter replication/conversion, where the very air molecules are taken and converted into new elements (all you need is lots of energy, perhaps a micro fission unit). Now it’s a given that we today do not have this technology, but one could theorize that one day we may. Think of it as a nanobot food replicator.
The point I am trying to argue is that it IS indeed possible for this to be the case. True, there is no hard evidence that such a race of beings exist, or of their abilities to create a miniature self powered food replicator. But the goal here is not to prove that Jesus did it., but that it is conceptually possible, it is physically possible and it is certainly possible within the realm of logic and science. Whether Jesus really did it or not is a case for a different discussion (and a valid case needs to be made for that as well, we cannot ignore that).
Now you’ll note that I have not yet even delved into the multi-dimensional aspect. So let’s do so. Consider the miracle of Jesus showing up in the locked upper room. The claim is that after the resurrection, the apostles are huddled in the upper room with the doors locked and all of sudden Jesus shows up.
Well it would be peanuts for a multi-dimensional being to hop over the 3 physical dimensions into a 5th dimension and into the room. The same way a 3D being would hop over a 2D prison (a drawing of a box) and suddenly appear inside the 2D prison. Can’t be done, you say? Physics says it maybe feasible. Ever hear of a wormhole? OK OK you argue no one could survive the journey through the wormhole? Are you sure? Is it impossible? Or just improbable. What if they had a very SAT spaceship or transparent spacesuit? You get the point.
So are miracles impossible?
Obviously, we now see that if you believe in Evolution you must admit it is POSSIBLE for beings with SAT to exist. And if beings with SAT could exist it, is possible that one of them showed up 2000 years ago and we decided to kill him. And this is the answer to Q2 above. “Q2. How did Jesus gain access to this technology?” He could have been a being with SAT.
The question now becomes not “Is it POSSIBLE for Supernatural events to occur?” but “Is it PROBABLE for Supernatural events to occur?” We can agree that it is possible now.
And strangely, the atheist has some common ground with this proposition on the probability issue. When you argue against the probability issue, an atheist is arguing against himself if he argues against this. For we all know that the probability of ab
iogenesis (life from no life) and evolution are very very very low, yet atheists believe they occurred. So why not this then?
Conclusion
Now I should clarify, I certainly do NOT think Jesus was a being with SAT. I just want to dissuade rational thinking people from assuming that it is NOT possible. I personally think that the science of the Big Bang shows that it is more rational to believe in an extra-dimensional non-mechanistic freewill that is powerful enough to create a universe, knowledgeable enough to fine tune the universe and able to move independently through the multiple dimensions (see Who was Agent X for the evidence for this). And once we realize that it’s more rational to believe in this first cause, surely we see the obviousness that this first cause would have the ability to manipulate molecules and bring about “supernatural miracles.”
Just some personal thoughts, I could be wrong of course, I have been wrong in the past after all.
Neil Mammen
Note: At no point am I postulating that this Being is able to do that which is actually impossible. E.g. making 1+1 = 3. If this confuses you then keep checking this blog, we’ll eventually clarify the difference between what is actually impossible and what is supernatural, in more detail.
First off, it seems like every post on this blog needs the following remedy:
Dawkins was not in any way shape or form claiming that he thinks aliens seeded life on earth. He Mark Mathis and Ben Stein are repulsive liars who intentionally misrepresented Dawkins’s position as such so they could get their congregation audience to point and laugh at him. In fact, what Dawkins was doing was almost exactly what you are doing now. What they did to him would be akin to me now running around screaming for the the rooftops “Neil Mammen thinks Jesus was an alien from another planet with nanobot food replicators who could move through wormholes.” For an explanation of the purpose of Dawkins extending the “science fiction olive branch,” as I believe he calls it, check this article by Dawkins himself.
Now, on to the your other statements.
I think we run into issues with whether we academically consider things to be possible or practically consider things to be possible. I think anyone who is being intellectually honest has to say that absolutely anything is possible. It is entirely possible that the universe was created last Thursday and all of our memories from before that time were simply implanted into our minds so we wouldn’t know. It’s possible, as Pastafarians believe, that the world was really created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and every time we make a scientific observation the FSM is there modifying the data with his “noodly appendage” to make us believe the world is 4.5 billion years old, etc.
We don’t actually believe any of these things though. They are “practically” impossible, and I would be willing to bet a sizeable chunk of money that neither is the case. I’ll freely admit that everything you listed is “possible,” as is your God, or the greek gods, or the Hindu gods, or the Buddhist cycle of samsara (reincarnation), the Taoist ideas of “The Way,” the Confucian/Shamanist mix of a nondualistic afterlife in which spirits roam the world and bring good fortune or disaster upon their living kin…you get my point. All of these are possible, but in a practical sense I have absolutely no reason to consider any of them to be true.
I think as far as the physics is concerned you are making stretches simply to accommodate your proposition. Again, I suppose we must academically consider your proposition that Jesus did his work in the other six dimensions (which, exciting as the I personally find string theory, we have no proof other than the mathematics yet) or in wormholes, but our current understanding of physics indicates that this is extremely unlikely (so much so, I would postulate, that you would probably have a higher chance of walking through a wall sometime in your lifetime), so we don’t consider it in practicality.
Can you explain why? I think you spent most of your post demonstrating that we must in some sense consider this possible, but haven’t actually explained why it is probable, which is what I think is needed for you to claim it a rational conclusion.
Oh, and anyone not familiar with string theory (or those who are who just soak this stuff up anyways, like me) should check out this talk by Brian Greene. It’s only 18 minutes long I think, and very clearly lays out what string theory is all about in a very basic sense. I know it’s practically unfalsifiable, which makes it essentially useless as a scientific theory, but it’s still a fascinating idea in my opinion.
“if you limit science to only 4 dimensions”
But 3 dimensions are actually observed and everyone seems to agree about a time “dimension”.
“and any sort of extra dimensional activity”
is a mathematical “trick” at this point. This potential mathematical explanation of reality is not actually observed at this point.
“as superstitious religious claptrap,”
which is also not observed. But this has no “explanatory” power except in your dreams. So it will never be “science”.
“string theory postulates that we can one day interact with them.”
I have about 10^26 atoms in me? But I am mostly “empty space” since my “real mass” is in the atomic nuclei and each atomic nucleus is way down there at 10 to the minus 12 or so centimeters? So the real physicists at CERN are spending many billions of dollars to build LHC to collide individual protons at extremely high energies.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/22/europe-day-3-cern-the-lhc/
But the “strings” in “string theory” are much, much smaller that individual protons (not to mentions those imaginary things called “quarks”). So it really does become a question of “possible” when you start to imagine actually detecting or using “strings”.
And then there’s the “Fermi Paradox”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
So, of course, it’s all too likely that the speed of light really is a fundamental limit and even a million year old civilization gets “tired” and does not even try to conquer the galaxy. What’s the point of that? Interesting artifacts from a dead civilization that cost a quadrillion dollars to retrieve and the retrieval takes ten thousand years?
“things that take place outside the realm of the 4 dimensions are not impossible.”
“Impossible” is a big word, but there really is not even any good scientific speculation on what it would mean to go into a 4th physical dimension or how a real object could do “time travel”. So, until there is good scientific speculation, “impossible” certainly is the proper adjective.
“look at some of the miracles of Jesus”
No, let’s not. Such things maybe happened 2000 years ago and if there was some intelligent alien species behind it, why didn’t they stick around to see how their religion turned out compared to the other existing religions?
“the probability of abiogenesis”
Now I see – bait and switch. Well, I’m not an idiot, so I’m ignoring your bait and refusing to switch. The probability of your 2000 year old miracles is 10 to the minus 1000 and the probability of abiogenesis is one. The Earth exists. Life exists. Therefore it happened.
“more rational to believe in an extra-dimensional non-mechanistic freewill”
I think that you are irrationally biased by a 2000 year old mythology. And even if there was a creator of this universe 13.7 billion years ago, there’s no evidence that it “hung around” to find out what happened and/or had any influence on yesterday’s or today’s events.
A creator of the universe is “beyond science”. So if you are going to invoke an entity that’s “beyond science”, there’s little need to try to actually justify “miracles” with “real science”.
In some sense, this is a similar problem to the one that they tricked Dawkins into. If abiogenesis did not happen on the Earth, what is another possibility? Space aliens did it! If someone really did perform “miracles” 2000 years ago and it was not supernatural, then “advanced technology” did it! I don’t think you really want to go there.
I think jjberg has done a good job addressing your points but one I want to address. You said “For we all know that the probability of abiogenesis (life from no life) and evolution are very very very low, yet atheists believe they occurred.” While the probability of abiogenesis might be very low, we really have no way of calculating it. The probability of evolution is extremely high. So high as to be inevitable.
Jjberg, you are correct in stating that I have not proved that miracles can occur, but that was not my purpose as I stated (obviously not very clearly – my apologies). My purpose was to try to show that if you believe in Evolution then miracles are probable just like abiogenesis and evolution is.
All I want to do is to get beyond the “this can never happen” statement to “OK if you accept evolution happened how can you say that that technology was not available back in 33AD.”
You don’t have to believe that it was available. My whole point is to show that if there IS a extra-dimensional agent, it is not too far fetched to imagine that he can manipulate molecules.
So let’s not get hung up on the impossibility of technology or multi-dimensional interactivity. I think we can all, theist and atheist, agree that the issue is not if they are impossible, but whether it is more rational to believe in a extra-dimensional agent given all the other evidence available.
Part of the purpose of this was to avoid this issue of miracles being a roadblock to further investigation.
Kendenny, you stated: “The probability of evolution is extremely high. So high as to be inevitable.”
But hopefully you can see why I think that this maybe illogical. After all this is the very issue at the core of the whole argument.
Let me see if I can use an analogy:
The prosecutor says: Jack killed the victim Fred.
To which the defense responds. No Fred killed himself.
The prosecutor says: How can you say that. Here’s evidence that Jack had the ability, motive and physical presence.
The defense: Well Fred is dead so there’s your proof that he killed himself. (Well we are here so there’s proof that abiogenesis is inevitable).
No one is arguing if Fred is dead. We are arguing if Jack did it or if Fred did it himself. To argue that Fred’s death is the evidence that he did it himself, seems fallacious.
So my opinion is that arguing that Evolution is inevitable seems illogical. We don’t know how we got here. We are trying to find out if it is more rational to believe that Jack (Agent X) did it.
In fact I hear that argument from many superstitious blind faith Christians who say: Well we are here, so isn’t that proof that God exists. Similar to “Well we are here so that’s proof that evolution occurred.”
At the end of the day we have to add all the evidences up and see if it leads us to a more rational answer.
This is just one piece of that evidence. Agent X (see the link is the other). Frank’s book “I don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist” lists most of them.
Jjberg,
thanks for the string theory multidimensionality link above. It’s a very useful explanation. I’ll make it available to others in my presentations and writings. I do appreciate you putting that up.
Jjbert you asked:
[Neil,] Can you explain why? [you said] “I personally think that the science of the Big Bang shows that it is more rational to believe in an extra-dimensional non-mechanistic freewill that is powerful enough to create a universe, knowledgeable enough to fine tune the universe and able to move independently through the multiple dimensions…”
Very valid question. There’s actually a link with that statement in the original blog to:
http://www.rationalfreethinker.com/sermon/TheSingularityWhoisAgentX.pdf
Feel free to take a look at it.
It should explain why I think the Extra-Dimensional being is more rational when you start adding up all the evidence.
Your thoughtful comments are welcome for, as always I could be wrong and would rather find out sooner rather than later.
Neil. As to your analogy of whether Jack killed Fred or Fred killed himself. In the case of evolution we have a suicide note written in Fred’s own handwriting as well as numerous witnesses who testify that Fred had been very depressed and dispondent lately.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. The fact is that you refuse to look at it. If God did create every “kind” separately he sure went out of his way to make it look like they all came from a common ancestor.
Kendenny,
forgive me if I feel that we again are begging the question. The existence or the suicide note’s author’s identity are precisely where we disagree and what we are arguing about. Many scientists agree that abiogenesis has it problems and speciation is hard to replicate or prove. Remember all cars and watches look like they come from a common ancestor as well. True that they don’t have self replication capabilities. But imagine if I were to create a self replicating von neumann machine that could over time improve itself. Imagine it this were a biological Von Neumann machine, we would still have not proven that it arose out of nothing.
So I think that saying that evolution is self evident ends up not being an argument but a statement.
onein6B, your responses maybe true but you have not refuted the argument nor proven that they are true.
We should be cautious of claiming that anything we are working on in Physics is a mathematical trick. The big bang theory was also laughed at as a mathematical trick. Professors were denied tenure, kicked out of Universities and mocked.
We can be assured that thousands of Physicists do not view multi-dimensionality as a mathematical trick. It’s natural to disdain and make fun of things we do not understand. In fact many times this is the accusation against religious people. I.e. religious people disdain science which they do not understand. So it would not be a good idea to emulate that. An argument should be refuted by refuting either the logic or the facts of the argument. Most other things end up being ad hominems or strawmen.
While it’s tempting to say: “Everyone seems to agree” this is not as strong a statement if we think about it. Remember everyone seemed to agree that evolution was false 200 years ago. We have to be cautious about using that as a point for an argument. It’s a point of interest, but not necessarily a fact. So if this is a statement to then go on to show that that everyone does NOT seem to agree about multidimensionality, it’s a nice piece of information but certainly you see it’s not really relevant to the discussion of IF there are other dimensions. While it’s nice if the scientific community were to be able to agree on everything, this is rarely the case for new theories. (Yet to tell the truth multi-dimensionality is not really that contested.)
The discussion of IF there are other dimensions should be based on the physics behind it. And if you recall my blog points out that science embraces multi-dimensionality at the point of the big bang. So we know they are scientific not mathematical tricks. Not as mathematical entities but are realities at some point in causality.
Some brief notes about your other comments:
Fermi’s paradox is well known except it makes some assumptions about will and desire about the aliens that cannot be answered. Anytime there is an intelligent being involved the “reasons why” become very complex. Also if space-time can indeed be warped (i.e. a wormhole) then interaction across millions of light years becomes a possibility.
Remember I’m not arguing that there ARE other intelligent species. I’m saying one cannot say they are impossible if one believes in Evolution.
You said:
“I think that you are irrationally biased by a 2000 year old mythology. And even if there was a creator of this universe 13.7 billion years ago, there’s no evidence that it “hung around” to find out what happened and/or had any influence on yesterday’s or today’s events.”
in response to my paper on Agent X and how it is more rational to believe in an extra-dimensional non-mechanistic freewill agent than to believe in multiverses or a collapsing expanding universe.
But this is a simple ad hominum fallacy. Surely you see that. In the paper Agent X, I provide an argument. To refute the argument you have to show either the facts are wrong or the logic is wrong. Saying that I am irrationally biased by a 2000 year old mythology (actually it’s at least 5000 years) is an ad hominum.
You said: “Now I see – bait and switch. Well, I’m not an idiot, so I’m ignoring your bait and refusing to switch. The probability of your 2000 year old miracles is 10 to the minus 1000 and the probability of abiogenesis is one. The Earth exists. Life exists. Therefore it happened.”
Again surely you see this is begging the question. Did Fred kill himself or was it murder (see above posts). Surely you see that biogenesis IS the issue at stake, giving it as the answer is circular thinking.
1in6b I’ve seen this exact statement multiple times from multiple atheists (almost like it’s from a someone’s talking points). Yet to me it seems like a very deficient argument. I.e. : “The probability of abiogenesis is one. The Earth exists. Life exists. Therefore it happened.”
Surely you see that this at the crux of it is pure blind faith. You’ve take 4 statements, the middle 2 of which are facts, the first and last are are conclusions and illogically tied the first and last together. But you have provided no argument that ties the existence of life or the earth to the reality of abiogenesis. You have not provided an argument. Just some statements.
I would expect something as such:
1. The earth exists
2. Life exists
3. Abiogenesis is the only explanation for life.
4. Therefore the probability for abiogenesis is one, it happened.
But it falls apart at 3. Because 3 has not been proven from 1 and 2. You need a lot more here to prove it. And that is infact what we are discussing.
This seems almost stridently religious in tenor. Can you present a simple argument to explain why the probability of abiogenesis is related to the existence of life. The probability would be one if and only if there were no other possibilities. So the only way you can blindly believe that there are no other probabilities is if you had a fervent faith that there were no other possibilities. But as I’ve said the argument is not on the existence of life, but on the origin of life. We ARE arguing about abiogenesis. The existence of life does not prove abiogenesis. Of course I could be wrong, but that’s what I’d like you to show me.
Neil, just a quick note to say abiogenesis happened. Earth originally had no life. It has life now. Therefore abiogenesis happened. The argument is not whether or not abiogenesis happened, it’s whether it had a natural or a supernatural cause.
Kendenny,
Yes you are absolutely correct. I’m assuming that you mean accidental non intelligently directed abiogenesis. I should have been more clear about that.
So I stand corrected. Readers, in the above statements please insert that definition. Writers, if you meant differently when you were writing, please do let me know as it is important to me to genuinely understand your argument. If I’ve misunderstood it, it’s my job to try harder.
3. Abiogenesis is the only explanation for life.
As usual, you keep leaving out the word “scientific”.
If you want to believe in non-scientific supernatural abiogenesis, I can’t stop you. I can just point out that there’s no actual, you know, evidence.
1in6b are you saying that abiogenesis is scientific?
If I recall correctly during my 8 years of Academia both in Physics and later in Solid State Physics, we had drilled into us that something can’t be called scientific unless you can repeat it, falsify it and test it.
It is my distinct impression that the scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. I’d be very interested if you can point me to some of this in relationship to abiogenesis which would be the way to consider it to be “scientific”. Until then it seems to be a fine theory that has not been proven. Adding a scientific prefix to it does not I perceive make it any more proven nor does it grant it any credentials.
But as always I have been wrong before.
“we had drilled into us that something can’t be called scientific unless you can repeat it, falsify it and test it.”
That view is too limiting. A “scientific” theory merely needs to have “plausible” science underlying it. That being said, there are many “tests” of abiogenesis theories taking place at present. There was one test described in the February issue of Discover magazine. It took 25 years to run this “test”! But you’ll never be able to falsify abiogenesis. It’s not just physics – it’s initial conditions + physics + organic chemistry + millions of years + possibly other stuff.
What would falsify abiogenesis would be to discover that life didn’t exist.
And though you cannot prove it or falsify it, you believe it. Sorry that doesn’t qualify as science for me — a practicing engineer and scientist.
Listen don’t get me wrong. It would be a great theory if there was not other evidence or no other theories to work off. But that’s not the case, is it?
Why is it that if it’s an atheistic concept today it doesn’t need to be proven or we can modify the concept of what is scientific, but when it’s a Christian concept that can be rationally arrived at you think it has to be proven using the approved scientific method (which is not that bad a task master to tell the truth).
I guess I just don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Is the Supernatural Impossible?, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.