I always hear this term bandied about, and it always annoys me: magical thinking. Actually, Wikipedia’s definition isn’t very concise. This one is much better, I think.
1. The conviction of the individual that his or her thoughts, words, and actions, may in some manner cause or prevent outcomes in a way that defies the normal laws of cause and effect.
2. A conviction that thinking equates with doing. Occurs in dreams in children, in primitive peoples, and in patients under a variety of conditions. Characterized by lack of realistic relationship between cause and effect.
The biggest question these definitions raise for me is: what exactly are the “normal” or “realistic” laws of cause and effect? I’ve never heard anybody articulate these laws, really. So how am I supposed to know whether or not I have a realistic understanding of them? Skeptic’s Dictionary has a quote in its entry on magical thinking which I actually find very very useful:
According to psychologist James Alcock, “‘Magical thinking’ is the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link. For example, if you believe that crossing your fingers brought you good fortune, you have associated the act of finger-crossing with the subsequent welcome event and imputed a causal link between the two.”
Let’s repeat the most important part of that: “interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link“. Wait, if you don’t have any concern for the causal link, then why would you believe one caused the other? That seems to contradict itself, so I’m going to temporarily toss it out to see what we are left with. And what we’re left with is actually very revealing: magical thinking is thus the “interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other“. Wait one fucking second… that’s the definition of a cause and effect relationship! Isn’t it? So does this mean that magical thinking is essentially the same as a cause/effect relationship?
I might try to define a basic cause/effect relationship like this: in a sequence of actions, the first action changes conditions in such a way that the second action occurs. Examples: (1) I push on a door, (2) the door opens. Or, (1) I sneeze, and (2) people say “God bless you!” It seems like in every day life, cause/effect relationships generally require some kind of proper connection in time and space. If I push on this door, a door somewhere else isn’t going to open. People aren’t going to say “God bless you” before I’ve even sneezed. But these aren’t good examples because they are easily broken by adding in more factors. What if I have a building where a sensor is rigged so that when you push on one door, all of them open? In this case, effects may be hidden or imperceptible (or if you’re at one of the other doors and it mysteriously swings open, the cause is hidden). What if somebody sees that I’m about to sneeze, and says “God bless you” and then I don’t even sneeze? I’m then left with an effect which both preceded and nullified it’s cause. According to “realistic” and “natural” laws of cause and effect, I’m operating in some kind of impossible fantasy world. But things like that happen all the time! So is cause and effect really so fixed and consistent as we are dogmatically told? Hardly.
Let’s switch gears and look at this from another angle. Wikipedia explains on magical thinking:
Noting the great similarity of magical thinking in all types of human societies and eras of recorded history, some cognitive scientists suggest that these ways of thinking are intrinsic to humanity. Many articles in neuroscience have shown that the human brain excels at pattern matching, but that humans do not have a good filter for distinguishing between perceived patterns and actual patterns. Thus, people often are led to see “relationships” between actions that don’t actually exist, creating a magical belief.
But what are patterns? What are relationships? Do patterns and relationships actually even exist in the world independent of our perception of them? There’s no way for us to find out. A relationship or a pattern consists simply of things that are grouped together. So how can there be any such thing as relationships which don’t exist? If you look at two things in relation to one another, then they have a relationship.
Anyway, the other part of this passage that annoys me is that they are saying that they are finding magical thinking in all cultures, and that it’s probably part of neurobiology. So if it’s biological, then that means it’s rooted in reality, right? If it’s rooted in reality, then that means that magical thinking is also rooted in reality.
Those bastards over at CSICOP also have an article about this where they almost say what I’m saying, but then back off quickly:
So similar are some of these principles among all human populations that some cognitive scientists have suggested that they are innate to the human species, and this suggestion is being strengthened by current scientific research. [...] When we ask “why people believe weird things” we might consider that at least some beliefs derive from a natural propensity to think in certain ways.
But wait, if we naturally think in certain ways, we do we do that? Is it because that’s the way things actually are? That’s the question that really needs to be answered here. Also, if we find that these ways of thinking occur in all people everywhere, doesn’t that mean that we also exhibit them? Aren’t our scientific ideas of cause & effect just as “magical” as the laws of similarity and contagion?
Even in the history of the Western world, our ideas of causality have varied greatly. Aristotle taught four separate forces of causality, not all of which were linked in temporal sequence. And then there’s David Hume:
The philosopher who produced the most striking analysis of causality was David Hume. He asserted that it was impossible to know that certain laws of cause and effect always apply - no matter how many times one observes them occurring. Just because the sun has risen every day since the beginning of the Earth does not mean that it will rise again tomorrow. However, it is impossible to go about one’s life without assuming such connections and the best that we can do is to maintain an open mind and never presume that we know any laws of causality for certain.
Anyway, this is a really deep vein of thinking and conversation, so I’m just going to stop here. There are any number of different directions this could be taken, and I need to do a little more considering before moving forward.
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21 Comments
psychiatrists like the rational definition of magical thinking because it gives them one more reason to medicate. lookout shamans,mystics and magicians everywhere. there were points where robert anton wilson and his friends doubted thier sanity at the edge of semantic reality. r.a.w. explored this in the cosmic trigger. without magical thinking we have no intuition and consciousness it`sself freezes.
I guess what I was really trying to get at though is that there’s no such thing as magical thinking. Magical thinking is actually just “thinking”. All thinking seeks patterns and relationships, whether or not they really are there. And certainly thinking is magical, or at least amazing as shit.
I might try to define a basic cause/effect relationship like this: in a sequence of actions, the first action changes conditions in such a way that the second action occurs.
What’s the relationship between the first event and the change in conditions? Cause and effect. Same with the new conditions and the second event. You’ve simply added another link in the causal chain, which doesn’t help explain what the cause/effect relationship is.
So if it’s biological, then that means it’s rooted in reality, right? If it’s rooted in reality, then that means that magical thinking is also rooted in reality
You seem to be playing on the ambiguities of the word “rooted.” All misperceptions are strictly rooted in reality in the sense that they arise from cognitive events that are really occuring; that does not mean they are not MISperceptions.
But wait, if we naturally think in certain ways, we do we do that? Is it because that’s the way things actually are?
No. Why would that be the case?
But I agree with you that “magical thinking” is a BS category invented to marginalize any notion of causality that doesn’t fit into a mechanistic idea of the world.
if you want to get all fussy and latin about it, the logical fallacies of “false cause” are cum hoc ergo propter hoc and post hoc ergo propter hoc.
but are you saying that chocolate never causes acne in teenage boys? cogito ergo sum? it`s only when we manage to stop talking to ourselves for long enough to we stop outsmarting ourselves into denying our own divinity. the one little piece of chocolate that produces acne in a teenage boy is the magical event that is the work of the cosmic trickster that keeps the uncertainty going. ergo……….just ask richard keel.
When I’m trying to describe the worldview of medieval thinkers to my friends, I’ve often said that these guys posited an “alternative causal model” of the universe, more of a precession (thx B.Fuller) than a temporal stack of causes and effects.
The various qualities (4/5 elements, emanations, “names”) in many cosmographies could be imagined like colored gels mounted on some machinary with a light shining through them. As the gears turn, the gels rotate around each other and allow different combinations of light to shine through, in ever-varying combinations. The world works more like a kaleidescope than a pool table.
If magical thinking is hard-wired in humans, than it must be beneficial, or the “magical-thinking gene” would not have been naturally selected. It has kept the human species going for a million years.
I say, go with what works.
But the tendency to think this way is hard biology, even if you call a specific instance a “misperception.” If we think this way, it’s because nature selected that way of thinking, because it works.
Indeed.
And that should be the motto of science.
If you were to ask a philosopher about magical thinking, I think they’d be a lot kinder than a scientist would. Philosophers have become accutely aware that some aspects of science are logically unprovable, but are “good enough” because they work (and we apply them every day to work out what works, and what doesn’t).
Yet scientists (or should that really be skeptics) often beleive that their current interpretations of causality are the only ones that are valid. But this doesn’t make them valid for all times and all contexts.
I think the only form of magical thinking that is unassailably magical is the concept that belief in the existance of something can bring that thing into existence. I think many defintions of magical thinking like James Alcock’s can be reduced by careful analysis to nothing more than sophisticated name calling. But maybe that’s because I find this way of thinking fascinating.
To really understand magical thinking vs. scientific thinking (for want of a better word), maybe we should compare their abilities to generate paradoxes, or demand leaps of faith.
Finally there are some interpretations of quantum theory that seem to imply magical thinking. Unfortunately there seems to be no evidence for these interpretations, and yet, no evidence against.
o.k. let`s look at the magical thinking prevelent in culture today.
1) the big bang.
2) we evolved from apes.
3) we will find life in the universe using radio telescopes.
etc…………
the scientist will defend this saying that these are theories or “facts emerging”. i`d like to be given that much latitude regarding u.f.o.s, telekinesis, the i ching, plant ethogens, etc. mr.randi? oh, sorry, he`s dead.
the only adjective that needs to precede thinking is sloppy. anything else is redundant. actually, sloppy is redundant more than half the time so scrap that too. thinking is what it is, no guarantees, no refunds.
if magical thinking seems like an attempt to badmouth magic, at least they didn’t use a k, which gives me an idea. magic is concerned with illusion (hidden cause), whereas magick is concerned with energy (i don’t mean newage “raise your vibration” energy, simply energy in its broadest sense)… so…
when scientists talk cause/effect, they refer to movement of measurable energy (which is why the billiard ball examples never include human thought in the equation, too hard basket). the door moved because the hinge was the path of least resistance when you applied force with your fingers. the required energy was produced by your metabolism and the accountants are happy.
but, you decided to open the door. the thinking process burned some atp, but that energy wasn’t equivalent to the force required to open the door and it didn’t travel wholesale down your neck and arm, a signal did, a signal encoding the desired action.
notice that there is an integral part of the cause that is not a direct transfer of an amount of energy, but is instead an act of signal translation/transduction.
not convinced? you decided to open the door because the sign on it said “open door”. how much energy did the sign transfer to you? none, right? and yet the door moved. so there are more kinds of “energy” than are currently measured on the scientists e-meters, and we’re only just flirting with the kmagic at this point. perception, language encryption, chi, consciousness, sigils, emergence, qm, love, scalar whatever! shit, scientists wish it was just billiard balls. oh, there’s an adjective for thinking: wishful
“oh shit, did you see that? i’ve never seen that before, oh fuck. what was that? if i ignore it, maybe it will go away. fingers crossed. oh god. get a grip. ok, tell yourself the universe is dead. the universe is dead. the universe is dead. oh please let the universe be dead. don’t let it see me…”
dan’s question is excellent: if thinking is “just magical” then why has evolution selected for it?
the scientists obsessed with quantification will tell you that pattern matching reveals the orderly nature of a geometric universe of comforting regularity. but the truth, as always, is more visceral.
humans excel at pattern matching because patterns reveal behaviour.
whose behaviour? shit, if you can’t work that out you’re as good as food.
shit, what does that tell you?
i would go as far as saying that humans are programmed to find patterns, whether they`re there or not.
Part of my point is that it makes no real difference if the patterns are really there.
What does it even mean for a pattern to “really” “be there”?
Positivists would say a pattern is real if and only if it has predictive power. I can’t think of any other predicate that could distinguish genuine patterns from “imaginary” ones.
your guess is as good as mine. the fact that we are guessing suggests creativity. i like the idea that we are creating our own reality. dsm iv be damned. i don`t get hung up on the definitions so much as the process.
are people patterns? do they have predictive power?
I just found a brilliant comment about magical thinking on a friend’s Livejournal (hopefully he’ll forgive me quoting him):
yeah that’s pretty much what i took from it: if it’s perceived it’s real
all of the guys who said “you’re just perceiving stripes, i don’t think that’s a tiger at all” were eaten by tigers. they are not our ancestors. objectivity is a practice guaranteed to lead to extinction, because we’re not dealing with objects, but creatures of intent
indeed it will be, along with all its followers, because dsm iv says some patterns do not reveal behaviour. so if i wanted to wipe out, enslave, or otherwise abuse the human species i would simply disguise my behaviours as those “symptoms” that appear in dsm iv, and my behaviour becomes effectively invisible. devil’s greatest trick, right? it’s the modus operandi of the illuminati and the naughty djinn, hell they wrote the damn book, didn’t they?
when someone tells you something isn’t real, they’re putting your life in danger. because mothra may indeed be the cause of all these hurricanes, but we’ve blinded ourselves to the possibility and the carnage continues.
we don’t need to waste time determining the truth of it. believe the lie. deception is a behaviour, and as such will be revealed by our excellent pattern matching abilities. unless we try to filter out the “unreal” beforehand.
herbert shines again: only ask “now what is it doing?”
btw, james russell, i saw the “stop vietnam war” graffiti in ‘92 i think, and it was quite aged. i remember thinking “wow. it worked.”
let the reality priests (dis)prove the mechanism of cause/effect, while we just paint another one that says “stop dsm iv”. eventually someone’s going to read the graffiti and say “wow. it worked.”
(wishful thinking, i know i know)
So it’s been there that long after all? I’ll be damned. Can’t believe it took me so long to notice its existence…
The phrase “magical thinking” is simply one more example of the fact that whoever uses a word gets to determine its connotations. For instance, if people with liberal political views are the ones who use the word “liberal,” it will have positive connotations. If the detractors of liberalism are the ones using the word, the word will have negative connotations.
So why would the phrase “magical thinking” sounds something irrational? Because most of the people who use it are against the conceptions of causality that they label “magical thinking.” Doesn’t mean that every user or hearer of the phrase has thought the issue through fully.
We should be aware of this principle: that the people who use a word determine its connotations. For instance, “supernaturalism” should be a descriptive term, applying to a certain kind of metaphysical views. And it seems that many people, whose philosophy is supernaturalistic, hesitate to use the word “supernaturalism.” The naturalists, on the other hand, do use the word frequently. But if most of those who use word “supernaturalism” are against the concept of the supernatural, why then, the word will sound like something negative. It’s a general linguistic principle: Labels that everyone uses have neutral connotations; they become negative if detractors are the only ones who use them.
I agree; Wikipedia’s article is quite biased. First of all, the guy who wrote it was a proponent of “skepticism,” the only “ism” you can hold to while remaining unbiased (irony). Any kind attempt to take a “neutral point of view,” as Wikipedia does, will tend to replace unconscious bias with the conscious kind. Here’s one take on the matter: