Natural vs. Supernatural:
How can we draw the
line?
Taner Edis
Department of Physics,
Truman State University
Supernatural fiction
• Stories of ghosts, gods,
spirits, magic, the occult.
• Personality and agency
(“spirit”) somehow
fundamental to how the
world works.
• Top-down world, not
bottom-up.
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Cognitive science of religion
• Sharpen understanding
of supernatural agency:
violations of intuitive
ontology. Talking statue,
bodiless person, …
• Violates but also
underlies commonsense
natural order.
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Counterintuitiveness
• Unlike counterintuitivity of modern
physics, “supernatural” violations more
limited. (But can be developed by
theology—Pyysiäinen.)
• Reinforces commonsense dualism of
folk psychology.
• Personality and agency remains
fundamental.
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Ambiguities
• No sharp distinction? The natural can
gradually shade into the supernatural.
• Theologian David Ray Griffin: Psychic
powers part of the natural order.
“Naturalistic theism.” Personality
remains fundamental in a mind-first,
top-down view of reality.
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All becomes “natural”?
• Dr. Who and other science fiction:
Psychic powers a natural capability.
Mind-over-matter events are not
miracles; maybe some quantum feature.
• (Note: Not real QM!)
• Some magic can be
assimilated into a
natural order?
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Sharpening the definition
• Nothing wrong with ambiguity. But we
might do better.
• Draw on intelligent design (ID) and the
theistic tradition. ID claims to distinguish
between what is mindless
(physical/natural) and what is irreducibly
mindlike and purposive.
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Intelligent design
• William Dembski’s
version.
• Claim rigorous ID
detection: eliminate
chance (randomness)
and necessity (rules);
left with design.
• NFL theorems.
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Physical explanations
• Combine rules and
randomness––what
has to be listed
explicitly, without a
pattern.
• Is there anything we
see that “chance and
necessity” cannot do?
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Physicalism
• Philosophical tradition of “chance and
necessity”—understood in impersonal
terms. Rules and randomness.
• We have confidence in the success of
physics, in our ability to describe nature
mathematically. Bottom-up view.
• (Compare to Melnyk—more emphasis
on randomness.)
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Random = Patternless

Disordered: No correlations. ~ Fair coin
flip. Pass all possible statistical tests.
No predictability. No pattern.

Ordered: Correlated. Has pattern––
predictable.
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Algorithmic randomness
0100011011000111101…
• Kolmogorov, Martin-Löf, Solomonoff,
Chaitin…
• No algorithm correctly gives more than
a finite subset of the infinite sequence.
• = No correlations, fair coin flip, pass all
possible statistical tests.
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Random ~ incompressible
• Complexity ~ cost minimum.
• Algorithmic complexity H(s): minimum
program size required to produce s.
• s = 01010101010101… compressible.
• Incompressible s: H(s) ≈ |s|.
• Random: infinite limit of incompressible
sequences.
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Combining rules and dice
• Machine with RNG:
combines algorithms with
randomness.
• Every infinite bit sequence
(function) 01001011110…:
s = algorithm +
random part
• Is algorithm always finite?
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Completeness
• Completeness theorem (Edis 1998).
• Combinations of rules and randomness,
where the algorithmic structure is
always finite, describe all bit sequences.
• Machines with RNGs can perform all
tasks not requiring specific random
infinite sequences.
• Gödel does not stand against AI.
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The claims of ID
• Mindless physical processes, combining
rules and randomness, cannot achieve
certain outcomes, such as life or mind.
• In particular, the Darwinian combination
of variation and selection is not creative.
• We need something nonphysical (mind,
intelligence—supernatural!) to achieve
“specified complexity.”
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Of scientific interest?
• Interesting claim:
Detecting intelligence.
• Proposing new
mathematical tools
done all the time.
• Not obviously crazy.
• Interesting question
about limits of physics.
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Taking ID seriously
• Physicists, biologists,
computer scientists, etc.
address the best of ID.
(Dembski and Behe.)
• Young & Edis, Why
Intelligent Design Fails
(Rutgers UP 2004/6).
• ID fails badly.
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Failed design detection
• Dembski’s math:
lots of technical
errors.
• ID design-detection
proposals overlook
combinations of
rules and
randomness.
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Not fixable?
• Completeness: No
dependence on specific
random infinite sequence
proposed by ID. (Not
doable: infinite
information.)
• Biology is accessible to
rules and randomness.
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Oracles
• One thing could
still be the
signature of the
supernatural: an
oracle. Access to
infinite information;
performing a
purposeful task.
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A Halting oracle
• Example: no device can
solve Turing’s Halting
Problem.
• No combination of rules
and randomness can.
• Nothing in physics as
we understand it can.
• Supernatural?
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Finding an oracle
• No definite test. (Noncomputability,
finiteness of data.)
• Might have experimental data that
makes it very plausible.
• A black box that looks
like it could compute
Turing’s Halting
Function.
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The Halting Box
• Results always correct according to
finite approximations to the Halting
Function.
• Very fast, always at same speed.
• Just like quantum RNG in terms of
speed etc., only meaningful rather than
random.
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Alien technology?
• Black box far beyond our capabilities.
But may be an alien super-technological
finite approximation, not a true oracle?
• (Goes for any physical miracle claim,
such as healings.)
• After a certain point, it becomes
perverse not to allow non-physical,
supernatural possibilities.
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Intelligent design?
• A Halting black box would
demonstrate supernatural
ID.
• Beyond chance-andnecessity. Achieves
meaningful task—mindlike,
purposeful properties
come first.
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Naturalism as a theory
• Naturalism (my physicalist version) is a
broad theory—that the world is a
bottom-up place where life and mind
emerges from rules and randomness.
• Not just a methodological or regulative
principle.
• Could empirically shown to be false.
Find an oracle. Make ID succeed.
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No oracles
• Such counterevidence is nonexistent.
• Naturalism is very successful.
• Good reason to conclude that gods,
ghosts and ghouls are implausible. No
supernatural
agents appear
to exist.
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Books
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Thanks for listening
• Questions?
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