What is Supernatural?

[robvalue]

I posted something about this a little while ago which I think is worth repeating here.

On my website I've used the definition that the supernatural is the set of things that can act on the natural world, but can't be acted upon by the natural world. This removes the subjectivity element of whether or not we can explain these things. This does raise the issue of whether these supernatural things are a subset of the natural world though, having a one way relationship with the remainder of the natural world.

I realized the perfect example for this scenario is a computer simulation. Say our reality is a simulation, created by a computer in a different reality. That reality can act on us via the computer, altering our reality. But there's nothing we can do to directly act upon their reality. Our influence is limited to our actions possibly being seen by an observer of the simulation in this other reality. If we have any actual free will (doubtful in this scenario) this would afford us a small level of communication.

But what about this other reality? It may be one very similar to ours, following the same kind of laws. Maybe it could be something entirely different, there's no reason the simulation has to be modelling their own reality exactly. This may just be how a particular program they run manifests. Is their world natural? Probably.

So... If supernatural means anything at all, I think it's really an artificial divide in the natural world. To say these other things are "not natural" is to make a lot of weird assumptions and accusations about them, when by definition we can't know the first thing about them.

Do people like my definition? It also comes with the bonus that it is impossible for us to ever demonstrate the supernatural is anything other than an empty set. Even demonstrating a supernatural cause is impossible, because we'd have to first eliminate every natural cause and also the possibility of there being no cause at all. Like I said earlier though, it's down to the person arguing for supernatural to tell us what it means. This definition is just an attempt to write something meaningful out of what people seem to be trying to say. Like with God, I don't think people really know what they mean when they argue for its existence. They just want to talk about magical stuff.