What it’s Not

Where thoughts come from

Every feature has a natural counterpart. There is no up without down nor fronts without backs. Yin has yang and there are no one sided coins. Positive and negative, whether attitudes or poles, one needs the other to manifest, like inside goes with outside.

So what about nature? Is nature natural or created, which would make it unnatural? If this is the real world, where is the yang to this yin? If this is an unnatural world where is the natural one?

But if this is a naturally occurring accident of Big Bang and billions of years tuning trial and error, it would still have the opposing side of its nature. Not supernatural, but as to darkness and light, we can’t have one without the other, unless you must draw the line here and no further, to deny what may be an uncomfortable truth—that there may be more than meets the eye.

Is it a matter of antimatter, the darkness that pulsates between the light, the trough behind every crest, that part of the wave you cannot see unless you’re in it?

Or is the whole of humanity just unnaturally mad? If you will deny the human perception as natural, where do such thoughts come from?

“There are two distinct classes of what we call thoughts—those that we produce in ourselves by reflection in the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord“—Thomas Paine

From where do thoughts arise in your head?

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists“—Nikola Tesla

Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

88 thoughts on “What it’s Not”

  1. Nature is mostly natural but man can change it, so that’s not natural. Or is it? Since we are natural, we are just natural manipulating natural.
    Then the whole universe is natural. Turtles all the way up and down.

    So even the unnatural and created, is still natural because it’s all natural. However if it doesn’t naturally occur in nature, then no, it is not natural, but has been created through natural means. Think atomic energy..

    As for the ying and yang….maybe there’s a anti matter, anti time, anti gravity universe too….but then it would still be natural…

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    1. Sure it’s all natural, but those parts we can’t seem to get a hold of that spawns so much curiosity.
      “ The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence”
      Nikola Tesla
      It seems though a lot of the scientific minded don’t want to go there with any veracity. Some are very proud of their total atheism and won’t even consider alternate ways of being.

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      1. Same on the other side, some theists have become so spiritually minded that they won’t engage science.

        Personally, I think it’s just laziness combined with stubbornness. Everyone thinks they know enough to be the best kind of right (and it’s easy to be that way)

        Challenge them and they only have two ways to respond: Anger or Run Away.

        Nikola Tesla was right:
        “ The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence”

        And the same is true for religion. When Islam studied science it made more progress than the rest of the world combined.

        ”Nothing in Europe could hold a candle to what was going on in the Islamic world until about 1600,” Dr. Jamil Ragep

        But when closed-minded philosophy came in… it was all over.

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    1. It’s very common. It’s even common for creative types to predict future events when they are “in the zone”. Multiple artists and writers unknowingly predicted 9/11. Dean Koontz even unknowingly predicted corona virus and named Wuhan and also the year

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            1. A friend of mine sent it to me. Lander and I have been collecting these types of evidence to document the data stream. There is a lot of this going on. It’s pretty good evidence for something going on behind the curtain.
              “ The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence—Nikola Tesla

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            2. The real problem is, science won’t go there. Only pseudo-scientists can. Having said that, when I had my first LSD-inspired Near Death Experience in 1969, I distinctly remember saying, a scientist would want that event duplicated to prove it was real. So, the next time I took acid I waited to see if I could reproduce the experience, and 4 hours into the trip I did exactly that. Mind you, the product of the experience was completely different. I was “TOLD” if I ever tried again before I actually died, I would not be returning to the “rawgod” body ever again. I took the warning very seriously, I never touched LSD ever again, though there were times I was tempted.
              Touching “Eternity” is a very powerful magnet.

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            4. Partly true, partly false. The text of the book wouldn’t mean anything to anyone had we not had an outbreak. Interesting analysis

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            5. The first half of the image above is from something even more interesting than Koontz’s novel.

              https://realitydecoded.blog/2020/03/25/a-psychic-made-a-prediction-in-2004-and-2008-about-an-illness-attacking-lungs-in-2020/

              Back to Koontz’s novel (second part of the image)

              Not to shoot down Snopes but there is no proof of one of their assumptions:

              They stated: “In Koontz’s novel, “Wuhan-400” is a human-made weapon. The coronavirus, on the other hand, was not.”

              The jury is still out on that one. Just saying

              What I find even more interesting that I didn’t know was this from the snopes article:

              They Stated: “While the page from Koontz’s novel displayed above is genuine, other iterations of this book used a different name for the fictional biological weapon. In fact, when we searched a 1981 edition of this book available via Google Books we found no references to “Wuhan.” In that edition, this biological weapon is called “Gorki-400” after the Russian city where it was created.”

              Does the 400 have any meaning?

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            6. First, I put absolutely NO faith in “psychics.” Browne’s “prediction” is interesting, but not that unusual since viruses and plagues have been around for a long time. That she picked a “year”, IMO, is coincidental. Plus, all of this is based on the validity of the image since even the one that Jim posted was “altered.”

              Secondly, I used the Snope website as reference since it’s familiar to most people when, in fact, there were several sources that discounted this “prediction.”

              I suppose it boils down to each person’s level of speculative thinking.

              Not sure what the “400” refers to … except perhaps the 400 years of silence between the old and new testaments?

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            7. I think both sides of the argument are close enough to the line to call either fair ground on this one.

              As for the 400 I don’t think it’s biblical (to far out of context). Maybe 400 means something in the medical field or maybe it’s related to the DOD.

              Someone will decode it, there’s an army of curious people out there with free time on their hands.

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      2. Happened once with me and a play I wrote. I got stumped at act 3 and gave up, but a year later was watching an arts program and a French composer was interviewed who’d just written and produced an opera which was, you guessed it, EXACTLY my story. Minus the ending, of course, because I never got that far. Same setting (Charles de Gaulle Airport bar), same story drivers, same number of protagonists, same *reasons* for the drama. In the interview he even described the writing process and, you guessed it, he was penning it at the EXACT same time. Weird, huh?

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        1. That’s fascinating. I’ve been in a long conversation with another atheist about evidence, and these types of things are not good enough evidence to consider there might be a little more than meets the eye. They are to me though.

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            1. Baryonic matter is that composed of “ordinary” matter such as atoms. Anything not containing protons and electrons composed the rest of the universe (hypothetically) There is a lot we don’t know, to even pretend we know anything but the basics

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        2. Fascinating, something is going on there. If only it could be directed. We live in a world that spends millions on the nonsensical but near nothing on the abilities that could change lives.

          Maybe we will get tired of the Kardashians one day and grow up as a species.

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    1. There are those types of thoughts that originate in our head, but many of the great inventors detail other breakthroughs that came from somewhere outside of them. Knowledge they did not have in any prior sense

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      1. Levity was my target. I just hate it watching it go splat.

        My message is that talking out of ones ass is a common feature among the general population. I know it’s demeaning but there it is. I received a shock to my sensibilities when I believed my government for the justification they used for the Iraq war and then had to preform a mia culpa to family and friends. Discovering my wrongness is now an opportunity to learn. What a thrill. I do so like learning form my errors and miss understandings.

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  4. Hey, Jim, did I not make a comment on this post about an hour and a half ago. Or did I just dream I did? It had nothing to do with other comments above, which have been very interesting, and to which I will add:
    A science fiction story I wrote back in the 60s, about a date-unspecified future event, had the first humans leaving the Solar system in a ship called the Challenger II. Why did I name it that? No idea. It just didn’t feel right to call it the Challenger. The story never got published, and eventually I lost the manuscript while moving all over Canada coast-to-coast. After a while I forgot all about it, until in January of 1986 the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up 73 seconds into its take-off flight.
    It hit me strong because while I did not predict the disaster, it was like I predicted that the Challenger II in my story was being named after a “non-existent” prior ship that had somehow been destroyed in a memorable way. My ship was named in honour of the first one, I do remember that.
    Was it my fault the Challenger blew up? There’s no way! But yet, my story niggles at me. Why did I call it the Challenger II?

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    1. Part of what’s intriguing about other disciplines is the fact that anything that has ever happened or will happen is recorded in the data stream. There is nothing new under the sun, but in your experience with Buddhism and it’s goal to view the ultimate reality, they frequently describe that there is no time and everything is universally present. Correct me if I’m mistaken (not an expert on Buddhism) but these moments of connection reveals the play and that we are the entire thing.

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      1. In my experience of Buddhism, the great avatars stopped searching after they reached nirvana. They were satisfied nirvana was an end in itself, just like heaven would be to a christian. What I found was that there is no end, at least not within our ability to comprehend the “ALL,” whatever that might be. In my spiritual search I bypassed nirvana, seeing too many spirits stalled in their own journeys, including the journey of the present Dalai Lama.
        Yes nirvana was a timeless place with everything connected to everything else, but it was in a bubble that needed to be burst. I am not the person/spirit to prick that balloon, but I see my way around it. This brings me to the George Harrison song, “My Sweet Lord.” He wrote the line, “I really want to see you, Lord [Vishnu], but it takes so long, my Lord.” This line haunts me, because a part of me wants so badly to see what comes next, and it is so easy to screw everything up while waiting to die. As I said above, to touch Eternity is a powerful magnet, but one that cannot be rushed. I want the full experience of whatever is to come, and that means this life as well as my coming death.
        If it is all some kind of fantasy, though I don’t expect it is, I want to be able to say I did it all, no matter what. There are shortcuts, I know, but I don’t want to take them. And that is not easy.

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        1. That’s a good point. It’s like these child prodigies that climax at 14. Now what? It’s tough when the pinnacle of your life happens to early. If you teach nirvana, then what? Retreat and wait to die because you’ve seen the game.

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          1. I like to think I am always reaching for more, but having to realize some of the “mores” cannot be accessed from this level. Your analogy is actually quite good, what does happen to child prodigies who peak very early? We never seem to hear much about them, like they die or go insane. (Insanity can be a happy place to be. Check out the 1966 movie, King of Hearts.)

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        2. I think that we have the best spiritual journey right here right now.

          What I’m about to say is serious, I’m not joking.

          How many worlds had to rise and fall before we had pizza and is it not beyond amazing.

          People keep seeking more but I think we are missing what is right in front of us. The discovery is here, on this world, right now. There is so much to gain being here and so much to loose leaving it.

          Just saying

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          1. Well, Lander, if you want to eat pizza for eternity, all you have to do is learn how to avoid dying. I think it’s a bit like learning to fly: keep throwing yourself down at the ground until you learn how to miss.

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            4. That’s what life is about. For a big part of my early life I believed I was immortal, like Lazarus Long. Then I discovered I have to die in order to live. Now I hope my younger self wasn’t right.

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            7. Interesting. I hear there are people alive today that may live in that state in the future given the rise of technology.

              You never know

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            9. Technology is an extension of the human brain. Science seeks its spirituality and salvation through electricity. Where do you seek yours? Same energy without the extenders

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            10. Technology is an extension of some human brains, I will give you that, But how many of us truly understand the technology we are using. Could you build a cellphone from scratch? I can’t. I cannot even repair a car, or a toaster. I use things I do not understand every day. Were electricity to suddenly stop right now, and all the electricians to die from C-19, how long would the human race last. We can use cryogenics to appear to extend human life, but we still don’t know how to bring things back to life. Good luck with that!
              I seek my energy from life. And life is but a microsecond from death, no matter what the science of medicine has to say about life. The day technology makes us immortal, that is the day I will commit suicide.
              Not sure if this responds to your comment, but this is how I look at life.

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            11. I can “feel” this comment, and it agrees with my philosophy of life also. (Except for the suicide part, but I know what you mean: to be stuck here forever? With no real change, ever? No thanks.

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    2. As for the Dean Koontz novel, I have been a fan of his since he published his first novel, “Star Quest” in 1968. I do not remember if I read the book you noted above, but last year when writing for a Word Press blog contest, I called my story “The Eyes of Darkness.” Another coincidence, or just a forgotten memory. The title came to me ready-made. I guess I must have read it, then forgot it. Very strange.

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      1. Crytomnesia is a form of accidental plagiarism, where you’ve forgotten or overheard in conversation but don’t recollect having heard it or read it.

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  5. if we take nature to be something that is manifested (came into existence) there must be a counterpart, the unmanifested (that which hasn’t been born yet) this is really a hard concept to digest, and not really practical to us. enough to be aware that there exists a field of infinite possibility- like the thoughts you follow up with and become concrete and those you let slide, but could have easily grown roots and flourished into reality.
    much like the seed of a tree contains the possibility of a tree, but hasn’t yet become that.

    the buddhists call this field the ‘void’ or nothingness. this isn’t a material thing or ‘observable’ anymore than the grown tree is observable into that baby seed. this ‘void’ contains all possibilities available in the universe, and more. it is like an inexhaustible source of manifestation.

    the question where do thoughts come from is not easy.
    buddhists maintain that mind is not synonymous with brain. mind is a ‘principle’ independent of the body, and it is everywhere, without dimension or form. the brain only catches ideas that are already floating out there, almost in an ether-like environment. this fits very well with the quantum field theory. in that space, there is only one mind. information is transmitted instantaneously, as all particles are in a state of entanglement. i like to say “mind is one, opinions are many”.

    like you said, some states cannot be known unless you are in that state. so the scientist observing is immediately in a position of observer and observed, a dual state.
    that’s why they will never fully understand the nature of consciousness, because the observer, the act of observation, and the object observed are all simultaneously occurring within same consciousness only appearing as 3 separate things. these 3 are never separate. such is the nature of reality.

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    1. gonna add, on the idea of potentiality, there is nothing in the butterfly egg that says anything about the metamorphoses it will go through or that it will become a butterfly. so… how can we measure what we see, when the deepest transformations are so mysterious and wonderful??

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      1. Mysterious, and wonderful (as in awe-inspiring) but still predictable, and completely natural.
        As I understand life, it happens on many levels at the same time. But that does not mean it happens on every level at the same time. Nor does it mean it happens “the same” on every level where it does happen. Each level has its own existence separate of others, even while each level is connected to others and to the whole.
        These things are difficult even to conceive, especially if you are living in physical reality without acknowledging other levels of reality. There is so much going on in our “cosmos” that it is next to impossible to even imagine.
        There is so much I would like to say about things like this, but I am not going to allow myself to do so. There is more to life than life as we know it. Have fun searching to see what you might find.

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        1. yes, there are layers as man himself is not just a physical body. he has the physical (made of food), an energy body (the chinese ‘chi’) a mind body (made of thoughts) a consciousness body and a bliss body (which is underdeveloped in most)
          these are the ‘sheaths’, all of which disintegrate upon death except the bliss body… which could be said to be cosmic awareness. this is the one that survives death, and it is of course, universal, not individual.

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          2. You Stated — “he has the physical (made of food), an energy body (the chinese ‘chi’)”

            My Response — From the perspective of science, food and the body are simply particles of energy.

            Just Saying

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            1. and is not all matter made of moving particles of energy? including the thinking brain?
              but, are you any of these? all forms of energy undergo change. find the one thing about you that has never changed

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            2. You Stated — “find the one thing about you that has never changed”

              My Response — There is nothing about me that hasn’t changed.

              The particles I started out with are long gone. Change is a constant.

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            3. ok. are you a different ‘i’ than you were as a child? your perception, thoughts, desires, etc have changed. but is that what you are essentially? change is the best proof of unreality.

              look deep. something has always remained the same. observe from outside

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            4. You could say I’m still a male with the same color hair.

              But matured male with new hair.

              If you draw the line of what change is down to a perception based on an 8000 foot view, then I would say you could claim no change has occurred.

              But make sure never to look closer or deeper.

              The parts that make the whole in all things change… ergo change is a constant.

              Atoms decay
              Thoughts change
              Cells are replaced
              Energy passes through
              Even space stretches due to gravity (and everything in it)

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    2. You Stated — “that’s why they will never fully understand the nature of consciousness”

      My Response — Isn’t the opposite true. Isn’t the nature of consciousness the easiest thing to understand.

      Consciousness is an engine designed to cause a change in states. It has never done anything else.

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        1. I don’t think “no change” is possible. There may be moments when an individuals consciousness is not making changes but change continues to occur due to other active individuals.

          Example: A book may not change but the number of them and the impact on new readers causes change within those individuals and thus to the world.

          Ripples

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            1. I understand the concept of pre-thought existing before our conscious awareness but either way both equal change.

              There is no evidence of the absence of activity anywhere in existence and thus “no change” may not be possible.

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            2. Just curious, Lander. What do you call it when you decide not to act? How does that create change. You cannot say something changed because I chose to stay my hand, because I took the potential of change away by not doing as expected.

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            4. Change is the only constant. I have been saying that since I was old enough to understand it. Nothing ever remains the same.
              Where I first heard it or read it, I don’t remember. I was too young to know what quotes were. I know I did not make it up.

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            5. You Asked — ” What do you call it when you decide not to act?”

              My Response — A decision.

              I would also add that not acting often leads to a grater level of change in the world. Like for instance when so many people don’t act to stop police abuse and how we now find ourselves caught in a storm of change.

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            8. You Stated — “can ‘truth’ undergo change?”

              My Response — Truth never changes. Perception of truth continually changes. Acceptance of truth ultimately changes.

              You Stated — “if all changes, can it be true?”

              My Response — Yes. There is truth and change and no evidence that the absence thereof is possible.

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  6. I agree with Nikola Tesla, that is, “in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

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    1. When you think of yourself, do you feel that you are just a body, or that you have a body? It’s strange really to me that someone actually would feel at the core of who they are, as just organic evolution and when your dead your dead, all the collection of memories and experiences…gone. If that were true, why does the same person value experience so much, if in the end they no it was all for naught? It takes some serious disconnect to think that about yourself.

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      1. Hey, Jim. I have a body, and it feels to me like I am not only inhabiting it, but able to control it on certain levels, such as directing myself to write this sentence at this exact time. This I call mind level. Other times I am willing to let my body do what it wants to do; I call this ego-level. But, also, there is a level when I cannot feel my body around me, and I live in a place of thought, and imagination. This I call spirit level.
        Yet, I am all three together, just selecting which level I want to inhabit at any given time. Does this help?

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      2. My personal awareness is as an infinite/eternal mind engaging events around the (also infinite) cosmos. One of those “engagements” brought me to this solar system billions of Earth years ago, experiencing many physical forms, all of them very restrictive and constraining yet necessary to developing understanding. The physical form is for the local experience; to get the local flavour, so to speak. The body is a vehicle, I’m the driver. What I would really like is the opportunity to switch bodies, human to mammal or bird; female to male or vice-versa. I would also prefer it if I could, on occasion, or for whatever reason, simply park the body and go off exploring in pure mind freedom. Unfortunately there are strict rules to this “game” and like any game, it could not work without the rules, even the ones that make no sense to real life. Those individuals who pursue experiences and knowledge yet believe in absolute termination are living a dichotomous reality. As long as one aspect doesn’t infringe on the other they remain unaware of living a bipartitioned life.

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        1. One of the interesting aspects of Tesla, he would describe what he envisioned in electrical term like he saw things as they were, like the lines of code you see in the matrix. He did not credit his own genius but all his inventions were given to him.
          When Albert Einstein was asked what it like to be the smartest man in the world, he replied, “I don’t know, you’d have to ask Nikola Tesla”.

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      3. I’m not sure a person necessarily considers it “all for naught” in the end. My perspective is that while we’re conscious of our existence, we experience. Once that consciousness ends, we are no longer aware, thus the reality of our participation ends.

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      4. You Asked — “When you think of yourself, do you feel that you are just a body, or that you have a body?”

        My Response — Either is used depending on the person. Both are also acceptable given our lack of perception and limited understanding of the reality we live in.

        We now have better reference points for these conditions since we made AI.

        We have given AI robotic bodies. They are now able to identify themselves when looking in a mirror, but we know for a fact that the mind of an AI is in two places at the same time (in the robotic body and on the computer terminal). The AI is not aware of this and to be honest it doesn’t matter. If a few AI were to become aware of this, (and some will), it will not be a truth for all AI’s nor will it matter to them as a whole.

        The complex nuance of that existence has a plethora of challenges and connections to our experience. Are we in more than one place? Are we getting data from sources outside of our direct senses? Can someone read our mind like a terminal screen? Can they alter our code? It brings up some interesting surreal questions when observing AI.

        You Asked– “If that were true, why does the same person value experience so much, if in the end they know it was all for naught?”

        My Response — Good question! Difficult to answer and beyond my reach at the moment unless you want vague preachy conjecture on my part ;).

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  7. Features describe relationships between objects to facilitate communications. Up and down have no meaning for someone floating in the vacuum of space. Nor would the directions east, west, north and south.

    Silence is the absence of sound. Darkness is the absence of light. Bad is the absence of good (which in themselves are subjective).

    Coins have two sides by design, but nothing (outside of cost, perhaps) precludes the manufacture of multi-sided coins. Positive and negative also have a third option: neutral. As does time: past, present and future. Clockwise and counter-clockwise are dependent on the viewer’s perspective. (When viewed from the right side, the tires on a forward-moving vehicle rotate clockwise; when viewed from the left side, they rotate counter-clockwise.)

    And what is the polar opposite of round, or square, or triangular, or rectangular (other than non-round, non-square, non-triangular or non-rectangular — i.e. the absence of that shape)? Or red, blue, green, orange, pink, etc? (other than non-red, non-blue, non-green, non-orange, non-pink, etc. — i.e. the absence of that particular light frequency)

    So why should we suspect that anything exists outside of of the natural world?

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    1. Uh “Bad is the absence of good (which in themselves are subjective).” I think that this is a problem. The absence of bad or good is merely neutral, which I argue is our natural state … nothing good or bad happening right now. This is also why I do not think that evil needs to exist in order for us to have anything good. Good and evil are not a dichotomous pair. We could all live lives quite comfortably (and we do) in which we have periods of good and not good/neutral.

      The free will argument against the problem of Evil misses the point. A creator god could endow us with free will, limited merely by thee will to do evil. Think of all of the times that you exercises whatever you think of as your free will. Were you ever inhibited by not having a will to do evil? I think not. Any one who would not trade off the will to do evil for there being to evil in the world (human originated anyway) is probably a bit short-sighted.

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      1. Atoms don’t have a state of good or evil

        You are made of atoms

        What if you woke up one day and had a thought that you were living in a world that didn’t have any good or evil. You told one friend of your discovery and they responded by saying that such a thought made you a good person and the other friend told you that your thought made you an evil person.

        Did you just end the world you discovered by telling others?

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    2. I agree that it’s all the natural world. I also can comprehend other legitimate ways of being and perceiving that our culture cannot comprehend. To paraphrase Wade Davis of Nat Geo; the Kofan identify 17 different species of ayahuasca and mix them with one other of 80,000 species to inhibit MAOI’s so it can be digested. When asked how they knew they said the plants speak to them, and they identify the different varieties by the vibrations they emit during a full moon. They stumped the Harvard botanists who realized they actually knew nothing of botany compared to the Kofan. So, are they lying and have some secret lab somewhere, or do the plants actually speak to them and they understand?
      I see people like my wife who is an organic shaman, was sought out by the babaylan before she knew boo about the baylan. She cracked the passwords on four iPhones at the school using her intuition. There are many legitimate ways of personal tuning and experience that I don’t understand, but I just have had to learn to appreciate the varieties of life without judging them. There are people that are deeply connected, but myself really have no spiritual inklings at all.

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      1. Is there any empirical evidence to corroborate the Kofan claims of sound identification? And if you were a betting man, which seems more likely: that their medicinal knowledge was derive via sound vibrations from the plants, or that they derived it via decades (or perhaps centuries_ of trial and error?

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    3. “Silence is the absence of sound”

      There most likely is no such thing as an absence of sound. Silence for some is deafening for others depending on what part of the spectrum they can hear. Sound is simply a wave function and wave function exists everywhere we can observe. Just saying

      “Coins have two sides by design”

      Not according to a quantum computer.

      I think I agree with what I think you are saying. That perspective defines reality to the individual.

      You Asked — So why should we suspect that anything exists outside of the natural world?

      My Response — The answer seems obvious… because our definition of natural is limited, subjective and self-serving. As is our attempt to define supernatural.

      This is to say, that the world and all of existence can’t be defined by one minuscule word and then extended to a second even more vague one.

      Maybe the world and all of existence are beyond definition as a whole because we lack the ability to experience the full range or breath of it. We can’t see everything around us, we can’t observe everything that is happening, and we can’t store enough information to understand it even if we could.

      Just a thought

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      1. You’re correct: there most likely is no such thing as a complete absence of light and sound in a universe filled with moving particles. But my overriding point was that all such classifications are based purely on human perceptions of the universe. IOW, sight and sound describe the range of frequencies perceptible to the human eye and ear (or more broadly, to all living organisms capable of perceiving those frequencies). And that we do so to ease communications with others.

        Moreover, by definition, the word ‘universe’ describes everything that exists, has existed, or will ever exist; and by definition, the words ‘nature’ and ‘natural’ describe the material phenomena and forces at work within the universe — the detection of which relies entirely on human sensory perception and/or the aid of physical instruments fashioned from materials contained within that universe. So asking whether or not something exists outside of ‘everything that exists’ seems nonsensical. The real question should be: are there forces at work that we are still unaware of? And if so, how do we go about detecting them and making reliable predictions about their behavior?

        As such, I agree with your assessment that we lack the ability to experience the “full range” of universal experience. However, I disagree with those who argue that the unknown gaps in our knowledge should be filled with ‘supernatural’ explanations.

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        1. You Stated — “So asking whether or not something exists outside of ‘everything that exists’ seems nonsensical.”

          My Response — If we are in a box known as the universe then asking about what is outside the box is reasonable. There could easily be something outside of our perception and possibly even something outside of our reality. That would make the object unnatural. This is accepted in the, “bubble universe theory”, where there could be other realities that are opposed to any form of natural acceptance within our own. This is to say that the laws of our reality would not apply. One could call this supernatural, anti-nature, unnatural, and so on, simply because it does not fit or reality and is in opposition to the laws or natural state of the reality we exist within.

          You Stated — “I disagree with those who argue that the unknown gaps in our knowledge should be filled with ‘supernatural’ explanations.”

          My Response — I agree. We cannot fill a gap with an, “explanation”, but we can apply a label of our choosing for what does not have a current classification, ergo supernatural.

          Note: I understand the concept of “everything is within nature” but simply not fully discovered yet.
          I also accept the possibility that there could exist something outside of our nature not connected to our universe. We simply do not know and lack the ability to know currently so the classification is accurate but anything beyond that is conjecture.

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