What is the source of this prevalent trend in human psychology? Whats its function etc.
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Magical thinking
- Thread starter GrowingSmaller
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Personally I think its linked to symbolic languages. Magic is the breach of the rules of everyday reality through an act of will, perhaps?
So the reaity of the senses is breached, and we have an ontological rift or splitting off between the level of ordinary awareness of object space - like stones, creatures and clouds etc - and objects of transcendent meaning: like hieroglyphs and idols etc.
In brain science this may be the relationship between the old hind brain - the basic level of awareness, and the fore brain, home of the more elaborate thinking skills. As mediated by the mid brain, with an emotional "wow" at the transformation of reality to a "new level".
If we have the "key" though "initiative learning", we are able to decipher the "code", and then we have something like "magical power". The articulate understanding can control things the simple cannot.
Also, as language allows advancing technology and social organisation, theres thus a link there too.
But magc is often opposed to logic also, so theres maybe the idea that we can influence the complex realty we face in ways that no one can calculate. Yet we attempt to do so with the same old tools of action and intention etc.
So the reaity of the senses is breached, and we have an ontological rift or splitting off between the level of ordinary awareness of object space - like stones, creatures and clouds etc - and objects of transcendent meaning: like hieroglyphs and idols etc.
In brain science this may be the relationship between the old hind brain - the basic level of awareness, and the fore brain, home of the more elaborate thinking skills. As mediated by the mid brain, with an emotional "wow" at the transformation of reality to a "new level".
If we have the "key" though "initiative learning", we are able to decipher the "code", and then we have something like "magical power". The articulate understanding can control things the simple cannot.
Also, as language allows advancing technology and social organisation, theres thus a link there too.
But magc is often opposed to logic also, so theres maybe the idea that we can influence the complex realty we face in ways that no one can calculate. Yet we attempt to do so with the same old tools of action and intention etc.
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“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary...but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics.
I guess I wouldn't believe in anything anymore if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”
― Steve Martin
Researchers say that:
Cognitive scientists are becoming increasingly aware that a metaphysical outlook may be so deeply ingrained in human thought processes that it cannot be expunged.
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GrimKingGrim
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GrimKingGrim
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Well magical thinking belongs in fiction. I can't rationalize it outside of that
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You have no choice. Not thinking logical is hard wired, according to researchers.
For example, all animals bond to their parents no matter how
they are treated or how competent they are.
When you are born, you treat your parent as a god. It's human nature
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GrimKingGrim
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Okay but I can explain that without magic. I tend to explain anything I can without magic
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dgiharris
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I think another factor that lends itself to our propensity for magical thinking is an inadvertent consequence of our abilities of pattern recognition.
We take it for granted and it is so ingrained in us and so intuitive that we don't even give it a second thought... but our brains are the most powerful pattern recognition tools on the planet. We can see a face in clouds, a bear or tiger in a few stars, etc. Our brains are constantly scanning for patterns and associations, so much so that we will see patterns when they aren't even there.
There is a famous study done on association, pigeons and mice were given food pellets at random time intervals. Whatever the subject was doing at the time of its food pellet became an act the subject would do whenever it was hungry. It only took a few coincidences of getting the food pellet while it was doing whatever act for the association to form. So, a pigeon was bobbing its head when the first food pellet arrived. Then later, the scientist waited until the pigeon bobbed it's head and then he administered the next food pellet. Often that is all it took. From that moment on, whenever the pigeon was hungry it would bob its head like crazy (sometimes for hours) thinking that its action were summoning the food pellet.
I submit that magical thinking with people is a similar byproduct of association. Somewhere in our development, we associate our wanting something with us obtaining it. We come to believe we can impose our will on the physical world by hoping or wishing for something. We can hope or wish for hours, days, weeks, and months and then when that something occurs we can claim victory and proof that it was our magical thinking that resulted in the action taking place. Whether that action was something within our control or not almost doesn't matter.
I want it to rain, I imagine rain clouds forming, I do a rain dance, and a few days later it rains. Obviously, it was my doing.
We take it for granted and it is so ingrained in us and so intuitive that we don't even give it a second thought... but our brains are the most powerful pattern recognition tools on the planet. We can see a face in clouds, a bear or tiger in a few stars, etc. Our brains are constantly scanning for patterns and associations, so much so that we will see patterns when they aren't even there.
There is a famous study done on association, pigeons and mice were given food pellets at random time intervals. Whatever the subject was doing at the time of its food pellet became an act the subject would do whenever it was hungry. It only took a few coincidences of getting the food pellet while it was doing whatever act for the association to form. So, a pigeon was bobbing its head when the first food pellet arrived. Then later, the scientist waited until the pigeon bobbed it's head and then he administered the next food pellet. Often that is all it took. From that moment on, whenever the pigeon was hungry it would bob its head like crazy (sometimes for hours) thinking that its action were summoning the food pellet.
I submit that magical thinking with people is a similar byproduct of association. Somewhere in our development, we associate our wanting something with us obtaining it. We come to believe we can impose our will on the physical world by hoping or wishing for something. We can hope or wish for hours, days, weeks, and months and then when that something occurs we can claim victory and proof that it was our magical thinking that resulted in the action taking place. Whether that action was something within our control or not almost doesn't matter.
I want it to rain, I imagine rain clouds forming, I do a rain dance, and a few days later it rains. Obviously, it was my doing.
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