MIRACLES,
MARVELS, AND
MAGICAL THINKING
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Skip down to Jung's "Synchronicity".
Skip down to Loftus psych study.
The able-mind vs under-mined!
Hart's Law of Miracles:
Statistics require miracles.JKH-1998

. . Skip down to the explanation.

As the paranoid tears up envelopes, to prevent the garbage-men from getting her address, so to, even a little magical thinking is destructive to logic.

Magical thinking is destructive to the growth of mature mental processes. It seems to go someplace, but only wanders in circles, lost in fog. A logical mind is unlimited, and goes straight to real places, and is permitted passions unfettered with superstitious does and don'ts.

While muddling in circles in the fog, they're vunerable to people whose minds are above it, and are willing to rip them off --to sell them more fog.

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Belief in "miracles" can rob you of clear decisions. Decisions based on faulty information are likely to be just as faulty. A miracle being: something good, extremely unusual, seemingly inexplicable, and beyond your control or influence. The connotation is that a miracle is a beneficial thing and done for your benefit by various supernatural powers. Whether these actually exist is not at issue here, only whether a person depends on them or would try to compensate for them.

Fog edges in over the shore, cooling it enough to edge in farther, some fog evaporating at the vanguard. Some people see in this process a Manichaeistic battle between personified fog and sun; good and evil. They need no TV to see stress and war everywhere. It's far better to see no danger, no evil, only the marvel of a thing happening, then another thing happening.

We are privileged to see, to learn, to participate. In time, all likely things happen; then some unlikely things. Occasionally, some wildly improbable things will happen; they must. There are innumerable happenings every day that vie for the title of miracle.

Arthur Clarke, a science fact/fiction writer (e.g., the movies 2001, 2010), said that any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic. (It seems that most very profound things are obvious once they are first said. But not before.) To people today, airplanes are not magic because we grew up with them and understand how they work. However, calculators and computers are magic; though we know we could learn their secrets if we wanted to. And that's the difference; we ask for an answer and we receive it, but though we accept the bounty as gratefully as if it were magic, we are aware that it's not. However, if we believed that there was even one effect somewhere that had no cause, our thinking processes and understanding of all things would suffer.

Clarke tells of standing in a tower --I think it was in London-- enjoying the view, watching the clouds scudding by... except, that is, for a single cloud. It defied the wind and billowed around in one spot. He watched a long time; other clouds came and went, but that one stood its ground, or rather, air. Most people would have simply yelled "miracle" and sold the story to the National Inquirer. Crowds would have come to see it; the tower could have charged admission. But Mr. Clarke is not the type. He knew there was a rational explanation, therefore he could look for it. Someone who wanted it to be a miracle would have to have his nose rubbed in the cause of it, and even then....

Mr. Clark looked upwind. Finally he found a smokestack that seemed inactive, but had a shimmer above it. Super-heated steam emerged, floated with the wind about a kilometer till it cooled and formed fog. It then evaporated into cool invisible vapor.

His first wisdom was to know that it was a marvel, but not a miracle. His second wisdom was having studied in the scientific method enough to be able to figure out what was really happening. Because of those two awarenesses, he had the determination to find the cause and learn from it. Galileo is said to have been like that. Doubtless such character is required of all discoverers and innovators.

One of the times that flying saucers were to come to a mountaintop to carry off all true-believers, a survey was made The crowd waited and waited. When nothing arrived that looked even remotely like a spaceship, the surveyors asked the people if their belief had lessened (as we might expect). But no, their belief had actually increased! It was the wrong day, or the saucer aliens had called it off....

Like the efforts of the violent/uncommunicative man to hold down his feelings, and the denial of the kid who says "I'm not gonna fall down" or "Santa Claus loves me", the maturing person may redouble efforts at belief in something that they begin to know is untenable. However, the very-public investment they made will hinder the change and growth that that knowledge would bring.

Our greatest deceptions occur because of the desire to believe; it's the influence of our ego-involvement. If a piece of magic would prop up our belief about something, we commonly go to great lengths to make it seem rational and to make others believe, too. It's very insecure to be alone in a belief. One way that proponents have created believers has been to make their belief into a complicated system that takes long study before becoming able to judge its worth. By that time, the novice has such an investment, he's much more likely to accept the belief. (S/he feels: why did I invest so much effort if it was for nothing?
Therefore, my belief must be true!)

  • (If every informed person disagrees with what I want to be true, it must be a conspiracy!)

    How many people have been convinced by likely-looking perpetual motion machines; by water-into-gasoline pills, flat-earth scripture, and "bio-rhythms"? It would be interesting if the gravity of other planets could explain some of our behavior. I 'spose I wish it could, but the fact is that the gravity of a fly on the wall is literally greater than that of any other planet; distance means a lot. If you want to know anything, remain aware --even suspicious-- of your desire to believe.

    The essence of wisdom is to remain suspicious of what you most want to be true.

    I wish there was a telepathy that was beyond chance results or logical assumption and intuition. I wish --very much-- that there had been canals on Mars. But I hope, if I had been that observer at the telescope, that I'd have been aware of my desire to see them, and could have set it aside and seen only what was really there. It would be hard to make up for the "loss" of a planet full of intelligent creatures, but nature is nearly always more beautiful and complex than the primitive theories.

    Deja-Vu can be fun. Deja-Vu can be fun. (Get yours today!) It feels so strange and mysterious. Like the magic calculator, it has an explanation that need not detract from its fascination; in fact there's even more to marvel at. The subconscious never forgets, and has all of your life stored away in its memory banks. When something happens that is very like a previous experience, including those in dreams, it alerts us to the reference as if it were an automatic and instant library. Previous experiences have had outcomes that one might apply to the present situation. What an amazing ability you have!

    The belief in fate almost belongs in a chapter on Shoulds. (See the section On Identity for that chapter.) This one is not as attractive as the feeling of deja vu. Like a should, fate is the belief in a power outside yourself that has absolute control (yet the connotation is not religious; predestination is religious.)

    Why would someone take up a belief in something that denies their ability to influence things in their life? The biggest reason (excuse) is probably "fear of freedom". Also, it's either that those who tend to give up easily believe in it, or that those who believe in it are influenced to give up easily. Whichever explanation it was, the second would follow, forming a vicious circle. It promotes weakness of character and lack of identity. It denies responsibility, and forfeits volition.

    The most basic and primitive learning method is the notice and connection of coincidences. (An incident is a happening, and "co-" means it's together.) There's nothing wrong in this; we learn most things this way. A baby pulls his sister's hair and she cries; that's coincident. Later, he learns that the pull was the cause and the cry was the effect. We then believe that one was related to the other: correlated (co-related).
    Sometimes we're wrong. If X and Y happen simultaneously, it's possible they're related, but we don't know it. "Correlation does not imply causation."

    It's natural and beneficial that the brain tries to understand all it sees. Indeed, it must have been frustrating for early man to have had so little explanation of things. So they tried to do it with what we now most clearly call magic. Witches, gods, omens, spirits, animism.... It's in our everyday language yet: "The wind is tryin' to blow, but just hasn't got the energy today." Do me a favor: try to excise these phrases from your repertoire.

    The world is as it is, and is nothing else. Nobody's belief that it's otherwise will change it until they do something to change it. (And even then, many things will refuse to change.) I could say that the world is flat, and even if I succeeded in convincing every last human being, the planet "wouldn't care", and would go right on being spherical!

    Someone once talked me into attending an extreme fundamentalist church. The preacher was ranting and pounding his bible, and I was getting more and more bored and disgusted. His noise slowly became a steady drone, like that of an enormous fly. My mind wandered, desperately seeking escape. I'm freer and more assertive now, and would simply leave as tactfully as I could, but I was then an iconoclastic Walter Mitty.

    I merely imagined a disruption; that an old man, a couple rows forward, would stand and walk forward to partake of his weekly salvation. I imagined that he fell down in the aisle, the people around got excited, picked him up, and carried him out. Scarcely had I time to reflect upon the Monty Python-esquity of the fantasy, when lo and behold, nothing happened and the preacher droned on and on.... No, actually a middle-aged man came down the aisle from behind me, fell down, people got excited and carried him out. I was struck, appropriately, dumb. (A condition not unusual in those years...)

    If you believe in a certain miracle, it (or something like it) could be true and "God-given". It may be interesting for you to make a list of the "miracles" that you merely want to believe are true, whether you really do or not. In your list, include, and then exclude, the things you believe are true, so as to separate belief from desire to believe.

    There are "contingency-believers: those who profess to believe, while consciously or not, knowing that their reason is merely self-serving. They believe "just in case". If there is a god, how do you think she feels toward such a person? Let's tactfully ignore the question of the existence of a god, and examine the use of prayer. Is it, then, a waste? Not at all. It is, at the very least, an introspection into your real and deepest desires.

    If someone believes a prayer's request might be fulfilled, they ask for what they really want, don't they? This can provide an insight into what you really want. If you half-believe, however, you might simply ask for what you think you're "supposed to" want.

    If you can think of one and only one explanation --that still does not prove that it's the explanation. One experience of mine took me weeks to figure out, and I almost didn't. In such cases, it's exasperating when others present would thereafter be unreachable, never learn of the cause, and perhaps tell others of the "miracle".

    I was standing in an unlit hallway near the front door. It was early night. The wall in front of me angled away to my left. A man stood between the wall and me, and just to my right. Suddenly, and just for a moment, a ball of light moved silently from my left, thru the empty air toward the man, then disappeared.

    Now, I'm used to seeing lights on things, but not flying independently thru midair! Indoors!

    I finally figured that a car (I do remember one) had turned the corner, and shined two beams of light thru the door window. I had focused my eyes on the man, a distance halfway to the wall. The two wall-spots, at twice the distance, combined into one at half the distance: Midair and beside the man. The car-lights swept on quickly.

    Beliefs even affect the autonomic nervous system. A small red indicator light in front of me now --once seemed to shine on the surface of a small area around it, which made it appear fuzzy. I happened to touch it and learned that it was actually recessed into the surface and could not have been shining above it. My eyes then refocused. The spot now has sharp edges and I can no longer see a red area around the light.

    There are coincidences (in the church), on top of the misapprehensions mentioned above. (smokestack-cloud, the two light spots.)

    If Clarke's smokestack had been behind a hill, he'd never have figured it out, but I'm sure he would not have made the assumption that the miracle was proven just because the cause wasn't found. Still, it can be fun to wait for your "miracle" and to figure out those you can.

    Here is the part to remember:

    Statistics require miracles.
    If, for example, a million little things happen around you every day, some of them must be noticeably unusual, but not remarkable. Every week, one remarkable thing must happen. Every month, a fantastic story for you to tell others must happen. Every year, a story of yours that others will repeat . must happen. Every decade, statistics require a miracle.

    Indeed, it would be a certifiable miracle if things we could call miracles did not happen!

    To paraphrase Arthur Clarke: Any coincidence, given enough time to happen, is indistinguishable from magic.

    From a Yahoo club:
    . . An example. When a major disaster occurs (earthquake, flood, plane crash), you sometimes hear about someone who had a premonitory dream about it, and even told friends and colleagues about it in advance of the disaster.
    . . Coincidence or precognition? Well, figure 250 million Americans. Say 10% of them remember their dreams on any given night. If 1/100 of 1% of those people had a vivid dream about the earthquake, flood, etc., it would hardly be surprising. That's 2,500 people. Maybe 1% of those dreams were incredibly intense -- so much so that the dreamer might tell co-workers around the watercooler. That leaves 25 folks who legitimately had, and recounted to others, the "clairvoyant" dream.
    . . gschwed (skeptic club)

    And, along that line:

    Jung's "Synchronicity".
    . . People usually take this to mean something magical. Nonsense!
    . . Two factors contribute to this fallacy:
    1: That, as I often say: "Statistics require miracles".
    2: Conditions worldwide make advances possible everywhere, quite quickly. It should not be a surprise that things happen, new thoughts are thunk, new devices devised... all at about the same time. Even in ancient times, ideas traveled fast.

    It's insulting to humanity to say that we couldn't've been clever enough to build the Pyramids, etc, etc, or transmit ideas quickly across the globe. They had horses, and even a century ago, Americans still used them to get messages across the continent in only a few days.

    .

    Oct 27th, 00 . . Good news --a new study by Elizabeth Loftus. "We are looking at the first steps on the path down to creating a false memory." . The research demonstrated that nearly 20% of those who previously said that demonic possession was not very plausible, and that as children they had not witnessed a possession, later said possession was more plausible *and they may have witnessed one. These changes in belief and memory were accomplished in several steps. Subjects read several short articles that described demonic possession and suggested it was more common than believed. Later they were asked to list their fears and then were told that witnessing a possession during childhood caused those fears.
    . . "When you realize what we did with a few stories and a suggestion and then think of the very vivid depictions that are in these movies, I know these films are going to have a very powerful effect," Loftus said. (Exorcist, eg)
    . . This study can help us understand how you can take normal people and create this kind of effect - make demonic possession seem plausible," Loftus said. "It normalizes this process and shows it can happen to a lot of people, not only to those who are considered to be 'kooks.'"

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