Philosophers sometimes conclude that since nothing beyond this material realm can be proved, it either doesn’t exist or it’s not worth talking about.  Yet this is us looking at the immaterial from our point of view. This is the intellect’s point of view. The intellect – the human ego – like an infant, doesn’t think there’s anything beyond itself. Yet the Copernican Principle proves again and again that we humans are not the center of the universe. We’re not the end all and be all.

Perhaps the immaterial, which I equate with spirit, doesn’t seek to prove itself in our realm. It doesn’t care whether we material beings think it exists or not. The immaterial doesn’t seek authentication here, among us, within our brainy electrochemical plants, the proofs flowing from our lips, to our own ears. The world, being material, isn’t the jurisdiction of spirit.

The whole realm of spirit is of a quality – and not a quantity – that by its nature isn’t amenable to proofs.  It transcends proof. Simply because it surpasses logical analysis doesn’t mean that the immaterial isn’t real. The real can’t be confined to logic, mathematics or science.  

In one sense, the world isn’t the proving ground of the spiritual. By its indefinable nature, it’s beyond the grasp of all theorem and experiment. So the scientific method and the mathematics with which that method overlaps are not amenable to an understanding of the immaterial. The lexicons are different. The paths cross but don’t perfectly coincide. Spirit doesn’t care what science thinks of it. It doesn’t matter to the immaterial mind that the scientific method ignores its existence as nonfalsifiable. To the psychological aspect of the cosmos, science and logic are just a couple of channels which that mind uses to communicate with us, to express itself.

© 2026 by Michael C. Just