"If we can measure the metaphysical," Paul suggested to me, "then maybe it's not the metaphysical."  An atheist for most of his life, Paul holds to atheism for two principal reasons:  the "suffering of innocents" and "why can't everyone have a road to Damascus [how the apostle Paul came to believe in Jesus] experience?"  A third one, I learned as we talked over coffee and tea one afternoon, is our inability to measure the metaphysical.

     Paul has a good point.  How indeed can we measure something we cannot see?  It seems to be a non-starter.  Let me suggest that maybe the problem lies in how we look at measurement.  When we measure something, we are assuming that the instruments with which we do the measurement are accurate and reliable.  We also assume that how we are measuring is reliable and true.  Put another way, we measure according to how we have chosen to trust, frame, and understand the world.  While this usually works, it is not as effective when we must measure something we do not necessarily understand.  Or something we cannot see.  Consider dark matter.  We only know of its existence by measuring its effects, that is, the spaces between stars and galaxies, the gravitational pull that seems to hold the universe together, the expanding universe.  We cannot see it. But we assume it's there:  what else could be "there"?
     It seems that we might detect and measure the metaphysical in the same way:  understanding what we cannot see by looking at what we can.