Is the Tooth Fairy real?
My daughter, who recently lost her first tooth, keeps asking whether the Tooth Fairy is real. My wife and I decided to tell her the following — not, of course, in these exact words. This is Alan Moore’s response to the question, “Is there a conflict between what can and can’t be proven by Science?”:
I would prefer a two-state solution. My basic premise is that human beings are amphibious, in the etymological sense of ‘two lives’. We have one life in the solid material world that is most perfectly measured by science. Science is the most exquisite tool that we’ve developed for measuring that hard, physical, material world. Then there is the world of ideas which is inside our head. I would say that both of these worlds are equally real - they’re just real in different ways. The concept of a world of ideas, yes it’s intangible, it can’t be repeated in a laboratory, but pretty much the evidence for it is all around us. In that, every detail of our clothing, our mindsets, of the buildings and the streets and cities that surround us - that started life as an idea in someone’s head.
