Humans often see ourselves as being separate from nature, but we’re not. Since humans are animals, anything humans do to the environment is a natural process. Skyscrapers and beaver dams differ fundamentally in their scale, material, and function, but not in their nature. Things that are artificial are still natural.

The true dichotomy, then, is between the natural and the unnatural. But does the unnatural really exist? Consider that the supernatural is beyond nature and therefore not a part of it. Supernatural phenomena must be unnatural. Right?

Well, I have a couple problems with this. First, supernatural phenomena have never been demonstrated in a controlled environment. Our evidence for the supernatural comes exclusively from anecdotes about strange, unexplained occurrences. I find it highly plausible that such occurrences could have natural explanations if we understood the situation well enough. It is undeniable that strange things happen, but facilely deniable that supernatural things happen.

The second problem is that it’s still unclear to me how a thing could be unnatural. Would it have to be uncaused? Or caused by something outside the universe (what does outside the universe even mean)? This is in fact the main reason I consider myself to be a naturalist. From my perspective, naturalism is not a claim about what exists or is possible (ghosts, telepathy, miracles, etc.) but rather a claim about what those things are like if they are real. Namely they must be natural.

Alternatively, one could interpret my naturalism as saying what kind of thing nature is. It is a broad meaning of “nature.” Colloquially, the term “nature” is used to distinguish the world outside of human influence, and while it is a useful distinction, it’s not philosophically meaningful.