Magical Thinking Is Good For You 467
Hugh Pickens writes "Natalie Wolchover says even the most die-hard skeptics among us believe in magic. Humans can't help it: though we try to be logical, irrational beliefs — many of which we aren't even conscious of — are hardwired in our psyches. 'The unavoidable habits of mind that make us think luck and supernatural forces are real, that objects and symbols have power, and that humans have souls and destinies are part of what has made our species so evolutionarily successful,' writes Wolchover. 'Believing in magic is good for us.' For example, what do religion, anthropomorphism, mysticism and the widespread notion that each of us has a destiny to fulfill have in common? According to research by Matthew Hutson, underlying all these forms of magical thinking is the innate sense that everything happens for a reason. And that stems from paranoia, which is a safety mechanism that protects us. 'We have a bias to see events as intentional, and to see objects as intentionally designed,' says Hutson. 'If we don't see any biological agent, like a person or animal, then we might assume that there's some sort of invisible agent: God or the universe in general with a mind of its own.' According to anthropologists, the reason we have a bias to assume things are intentional is that typically it's safer to spot another agent in your environment than to miss another agent. 'It's better to mistake a boulder for a bear than a bear for a boulder,' says Stewart Guthrie. In a recent Gallup poll, three in four Americans admitted to believing in at least one paranormal phenomenon. 'But even for those few of us who claim to be complete skeptics, belief quietly sneaks in. Maybe you feel anxious on Friday the 13th. Maybe the idea of a heart transplant from a convicted killer weirds you out. ... If so, on some level you believe in magic.'"
That;s not what the evidence says (Score:5, Interesting)
IT says the people have a natural predisposition toward accepting the unknown and putting it into a little box, and confusing Correlation with causality.
But you can develop skills to ward against it
Re:Baloney (Score:4, Interesting)
fact-based
Good luck evaluating all those 'objective' facts coming in via your senses.
Recommended: Some WITTGENSTEIN.
CC.
Bias must be recognized to be corrected for. (Score:5, Interesting)
People also prefer people like themselves. Unchecked this can turn into an unrecognized racism, a common bias. Bolstered it can become the ideological racism most people abhor.
Re:Baloney (Score:5, Interesting)
But even for those few of us who claim to be complete skeptics, belief quietly sneaks in.
Nope. Not a bit of it. In my experience, only believers believe that everyone else must secretly be a believer. The rest of us live a fact-based life.
I think you are thinking of a complete belief in magical thinking, whereas this is talking about the "magical" type of thought that "this car does not like you to use full throttle until its warmed up", or feeling anger at a beer bottle with a top thet "doesn't want to come off". If you stop and reflect of course you know its nonsense, but I bet you sometimes have those thoughts anyway.
I've found that that kind of anthropomorphization is useful as placeholders for other, complex causations. Perhaps the car has a mechanical or design flaw that makes full throttle when it's cold problematic. Perhaps the beer bottle has a manufacturer defect making it extra-hard to open. In either case, anthropomorphizing it can be a useful placeholder for the exact cause of your difficulties.
Stupidity. (Score:3, Interesting)
A day doesn't pass on this site without some asshole presenting a debunked, discredited and obsolete idea (hardware virtualization, non-network-transparent graphics environment, free market, now religion and superstition) as something new and useful, without even presenting an evidence that he is familiar with the reason why it is considered debunked, discredited and obsolete. Leave alone, making an argument against those reasons.
Madness stronger than Rationality (Score:5, Interesting)
Forgive me for posting anonymously. I have some comments I'd like to make, but for practical reasons I'd rather not attach my name.
I am a graduate-level student who has been a life-long agnostic, pretty close to an atheist. Last year, I began hanging out with a Christian religious group. At first it was for the free food (which is excellent, much better in quality and quantity than any other organization on campus I've tried. Apparently they get funding from Christian donors), but over time I've come to enjoy the companionship and philosophical discussions -- I just have to sit through the occasional anti-abortion presentation and such. I make no effort to hide my religious stance, and to them, I have become something of the "token disbeliever" in the group.
To me, religion is irrational, verging on madness. But what I have come to realize is that their "madness" is stronger than our rationality. Compared to their peers, they are more likely to form relationships and to marry -- it's how eHarmony manages such high levels of marriage out of their dating arrangements (try signing up for their service and identify yourself as an agnostic or atheist, and see how far you get through the vetting process). Their strong bonds allow them to coordinate effectively and gather/distribute resources (like the donor network that funds their free food), allowing them to host events and bring in speakers at a much more often than that of other student organizations, including some really big-shot speakers on non-religious topics that have drawn quite a few listeners from outside their group. They network very effectively, forming relationships with Christians they bring on-campus, including some rather highly accomplished individuals (think CEO-level) who serve as mentors.
It would offend them for me to say that Religion was invented (or worse, to say it memetically evolved), but increasingly I can see the benefits for why it would have been so. I still can't force myself to Believe, but at this point, I am seriously considering converting sheer practical benefits (hence why I'm posting anonymously).
Re:Baloney (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found that that kind of anthropomorphization is useful as placeholders for other, complex causations. Perhaps the car has a mechanical or design flaw that makes full throttle when it's cold problematic. Perhaps the beer bottle has a manufacturer defect making it extra-hard to open. In either case, anthropomorphizing it can be a useful placeholder for the exact cause of your difficulties.
I think that's a very good distillation of TFA. I would go a little farther and question the inherent difference between something you can't explain and magic. I think of the supernatural as things that we can't yet understand rather than things that no one can ever understand. As Arthur C. Clarke said, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. [wikipedia.org]
So much of what happens around us is far to complex for to understand in every detail. So to make up for what we don't understand, everyday life requires operating on many assumptions and intuitions that can't be tested scientifically. Just because I believe that there exists a rational explanation for everything that happens, it doesn't follow that I do or ever will know all those explanations. Indeed, without omnipotence, how can anyone be sure that there is a rational explanation for everything? Operating on that unprovable assumption is what enables scientific discovery.
Re:Conundrum... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps I can help you. Beauty exists in structure and order. The universe is amazing and beautiful because it has a structure of which we can catch glimpses. The reason why there is no god is that the most parsimonious structure is the most beautiful. The most economical explanation is the most satisfactory (and due to information-theoretical considerations the most likely).
Intelligent Design quacks are onto something when they give the example if the aboriginal finding a watch and figuring out it has a designer. They are fundamentally wrong in thinking that the designer is right. What the aboriginal recognises is structure, order, logic, sense. Now they may think this implies a creator, but in reality, more beautiful explanations exist in figuring out how the watch came to be without a creator. Humans are really good at picking up patterns.
Of course, in this case, the watch has a creator, but only a proximal creator: the watchmaker came to be without itself being created, and thus the watch needed no god to be. Simply the laws of physics, some randomness, natural selection and History conspired for this watch to be on this beach.
Re:Colossal arrogance (Score:3, Interesting)
It's arrogant to assume that you don't believe in things that you have inadequate or no evidence for -- you just refuse to acknowledge those beliefs or assume that you have adequate evidence, even if that's not the case.
Go on, take a minute and you'll find that you have a ridiculous number of beliefs that have inadequate or no evidence. It's difficult to function day-to-day otherwise!
Take something as simple as the belief that the mind is a product of the brain. Even if you're a credentialed neuroscientist, you notice immediately that this is based on a set of metaphysical assumptions and that you don't actually have adequate evidence to support such a belief to the absolute degree that that belief is held.
There's a reason that rational people stay away from the "Rationalists". They're typically the most irrational and poorly educated people you'll meet -- having little more than a superficial understanding of science and philosophy.
Re:Baloney (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just solipsism. The statement "BlueScreenO'Life's messages were written by a human being, and not by a confused monkey given a netbook in a zoo for the purpose of re-writing Shakespeare" is a leap of faith in exactly the same sense that "God does not exist" is a leap of faith. You could argue that maybe you have enough personal information on the net for me to find your address and track you down, but that assumes the information is not part of an elaborate deception.* And anyway the idea that there is any objective reality at all outside of my own thoughts is the same sort of leap of faith. The Occam's razor position is a reasonable default in most cases.
There's some parallel in that example to one common Young Earth Creationist Apologetics argument where dinosaur bones were placed in such a way as to give the appearance of age, but creation actually happened ~6000 years ago. That, too, is an unfalsifiable claim. But the leap to say that a being, even an omnipotent being, arranged an elaborate deception, writing in a convincing backstory for all sentient creations, is not the same as a leap to say that the world is probably substantially older than 6000 years old since all signs point to it being older than 6000 years old.*
I'm not an angry atheist. You want to believe, fine, whatever, so long as you don't actively harm people around you or your children then that's cool. People are wrong about a lot of things and often it doesn't really matter a whole lot, and entertained by all kinds of things I think are boring, and bored by things that are clearly awesome. And if you truly have no opinion, fine. But the argument that the atheist has faith in a sense comparable to the religious faith is at best an equivocation.
* I know there are YEC-ers on slashdot, that would either claim that isn't their position, or that the position is valid. If you are one and you're tempted to reply, remember the context is that I'm claiming YEC people have faith. I think that's difficult to deny.
Re:Conundrum... (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, everything I see seems to demand a creator.
I don't think this is an indefensible belief on your part, necessarily... although you should read some Dawkins, perhaps, to balance the Behe.
Collins is an interesting case, as a prominent scientist who doesn't feel compelled to hide his religion the way most of the rest of us non-scientists have to hide our atheism. He's told the story of his own epiphany [wordpress.com]... but what he's never explained is why it led him to the specific god of Abraham, rather than to simple Deism. He encountered a frozen tripartite waterfall, and he somehow instantly connected enough dots to draw the Holy Trinity. Is this the act of a rational human being, much less a scientist responsible for helping us understand the way life works? It seems that Francis Collins trusts his own perceptions far more than any scientist should.
Maybe I worship the God of truth through study of his work ( scientifically ) and they worship Him by throwing parties in his name at someone else's expense
It's one thing to carry a Deist's admiration for the architect of all creation, even if that architect can be described as a God of the Gaps. The Universe does not owe us an accounting of itself, and it's safe to say that there are weirder things out there than our observations will ever reveal to us. One could potentially consider the existence of the Universe to be the result of a conscious act of creation, and apply the term "god" to the creator. At no point will science ever be able to contradict such an outlook.
But buying into the specifics of the Judeo-Christian faith? Buying into hundreds of pages of demonstrable bullshit written by a Bronze Age tribe of nomadic goat-herders? Buying into the idea that the god of creation, omniscient and infinite, who dwells outside all space and time, was disappointed because somebody once rejected him in favor of a talking snake, and wants me to vote Republican?
I can't see that as anything other than wishful thinking at best, and psychosis at worst. Religion as we know it today is arguably a mental illness that threatens all of civilization. It seems clear that a lot of smart people are going to have to waste a lot of valuable time figuring out how to stop it. Ultimately, what side of the line do you want to stand on?
Re:Baloney (Score:5, Interesting)
Theism is about belief. Gnosticism is about knowledge. You can be an agnostic atheist, agnostic theist, gnostic atheist, or a gnostic theist.
The parent did confuse knowledge and beliefs. Saying "I don't believe any gods exist" is the same as saying "I believe that no gods exist" -- What he's trying to say is that he's not asserting knowledge about his belief. He doesn't believe that any gods exist but makes no positive claim about the nonexistence of gods. Consequently, he's an agnostic atheist.
Re:That's not what the evidence says (Score:2, Interesting)
two criteria:
a) It's based on interpretations of "empirical" sense data (and the interpretations, as well as which data to use, are based on their present context), and
b) It's a non-trivially complex system, and more or less adheres to an internally-consistent set of principles and rules.
The main difference between theism and science (to generalize this somewhat) with respect to point a) is the nature of the "sense data." Theism's has a flaw—it is not inherently replicable, something the diversity of religions (and the existence of atheism) is a testament to. In contrast, science's is replicable; the results of all properly done studies are theoretically capable of being reproduced. I assume, of course, that we are discarding solipsistic and brain-in-a-vat-type viewpoints. It follows, then, that science is a "belief system" of a different sort—it is based on many individuals' "sense data."
Note that many clinically insane patients adhere to belief systems that meet the above criteria. It makes total sense to them, but since their beliefs are not aligned with the beliefs of the majority, society is quick to dismiss them.
As you have correctly pointed out, many cases of insanity are caused by the sufferer experiencing a different reality. This is exacerbated by the fact that we are incredibly inclined to trust our senses, even when it might be irrational to do so. This being the case, consider the following scenario. Consider an individual, arbitrarily male, whom it befalls to contract a mental disorder—in particular, let the result be vivid hallucinations, which he, on account of their nature, perceives to be as real as his former reality. Let the man have previously possessed rationality and have lived long enough to be aware of the nature of such disorders. Suppose, then, that the man is able to overcome the severe pressure of his disturbed senses and reasonably consider the possibility that the changes in the landscape of the world around him are the result of his contraction of the disorder. As many characters around him are undoubtedly pointing out that he is losing his grip on reality, that should reaffirm his suspicions, allowing him to resist accepting his hallucinations as reality.
In this scenario, the most improbable part is the man's denial of his own senses. However, if he is capable, it seems that he, and thus all who would really consider the possibility of their own illness, should be able to prevent his insanity.
With that point made, it is worth nothing that he denies his senses on account of his (prior) senses. How, then, would he be able to come to the correct conclusion if he was originally born in the Matrix and was taken to the real world? It seems reasonable that some evidence would be able to be offered to him to illustrate the fact. However, we can equally well imagine that a sufferer of hallucinations believes he has been taken out of the Matrix and shown evidence demonstrating his normal existence in the Matrix. The way out of this most apparent to me is that the proffered evidence be knowledge of what he could not possibly otherwise know, as confirmed by individuals he is fairly certain are not just products of his possibly deranged mind.
In conclusion, then, it seems that a rational individual should be able to select which of several different realities his mind presents him with is most likely the true reality through reason, granting that he can doubt his senses. Specifically, rational hallucinating individuals should be able to realize their condition and avoid insanity.
To reconnect this with the quotation, I believe this lumps your example of insane individuals in with theism, as someone who is insane is, unlike with science, basing his view of reality mainly on his own "sense data." Thus, I maintain that science is, to repeat, a "belief system" of a different sort.
TL;DR: Science is not really a belief system, at least not in the sense that theism is.