An Astrology Exchange/Challenge

[Brainache]

The Law Of Attraction? Seriously?

The Secret?

Here's what I think: Make up a load of rubbish, couch it in semi-mystical terms promising wealth for wishing for things, publish it in a multi-media format, get it endorsed by a big fat celebrity creduloid like Oprah and then feel guilty about it as you cash those huge cheques at the bank. Not so secret really.

 

[Hokulele]

What do skeptics think of the Law of Attraction?

Confirmation bias and wishful thinking. In other words, there is no such thing. It's rubbish.

OK, to try and get generally back to the topic, I know I have mentioned Popper and his theories regarding the scientific method of prediction and whether or not the same techniques can be applied to things such as human society (his opinion, it can't). Just recently there was a quote of his linked over in the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology sub-forum which ties into everything Dr. Tarnas stated in the interview, and Aquila's last post promoting "The Secret". I apologize for the length of this quote, but it explains the problem quite clearly using Marx and Freud as examples.

The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which "verified" the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasize by their adherents. A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation — which revealed the class bias of the paper — and especially of course what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their "clinical observations." As for Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, Although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."

What I had in mind was that his previous observations may not have been much sounder than this new one; that each in its turn had been interpreted in the light of "previous experience," and at the same time counted as additional confirmation. What, I asked myself, did it confirm? No more than that a case could be interpreted in the light of a theory. But this meant very little, I reflected, since every conceivable case could be interpreted in the light Adler's theory, or equally of Freud's. I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behavior: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact—that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed—which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favor of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.

Source: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

If you read the entire article, you can see how this ties into the Smit article I posted earlier (including the idea of a "moment of awakening"), and Popper even goes on to explain why astrology fails as a science, and as a sociological/psychological tool.

ETA: As I have said several times throughout this thread, if there is nothing that can indicate when an astrological interpretation is incorrect, the whole field is pragmatically useless, although artistically valid.

 

[Akhenaten]

I try keep things as simple as possible. Why use a hundred words when one will do?

Unless one is trying to confuse the issue, of course.

You mean like stretching a thread out to 176 pages when 'Gay Rodeo' would have covered it?

Only a fiend or a fanatic could do such a thing, Shirley?

 

[Akhenaten]

It's a puzzle to me too,one minute he sounds rational and then next he's spouting new age woo.

I think that's what happens when you've got a Pulsar ascendant in Uranus, or something.

 

[Sledge]

I am Shirley, and don't call me serious.

Wait...

 

[Akhenaten]

Mwahahahaha!

I've always wondered if that would work.

 

[PixyMisa]

Ideas, imagination, and thoughts are all material.

Please explain.

Fair enough.

Ideas, imagination, and thoughts are all mental processes.

Mental processes are brain brocesses; the mind is, after all, what the brain does.

The brain is, of course, a physical object. Ideas, imagination, and thoughts aren't physical objects (which is likely what confused you), but they are physical processes.

Running is an example often mentioned. Running is a straightforward physical process, but you can't dissect someone and find the running inside them. Thinking is a just a more complicated physical process.

 

[PixyMisa]

I do not agree with the way that Ageless Wisdom has been used by people with power complexes. It has been "borrowed" from Judaism and organized into secret societies like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, with initiation ceremonies and vows of secrecy.

Ageless Wisdom is neither ageless nor wisdom.

Anyway, the Israelites swiped it from the Babylonians.

It has been turned into an "old-boy" network at best, and an abusive holier-than-thou system of one-upmanship at worst. But I still think that there still might be some profound truths about consciousness underneath all that political stuff.

Like what?

What about the so-called "Law Of Attraction"?

It's crap.

You have probably all discussed this but how does science explain the phenomenon?

It doesn't happen. People are stupid.

I think that Rhonda Byrne, in her book, The Secret, tried to make the process of visualization and the law of attraction available to a world-wide audience, so that one didn't have to join some group or take vows of secrecy. As you probably know, she was just taking the principles that were written down in Wallace Wattle's book on how to get rich, which she reportedly found in her grandfather's attic. There were many such authors at the beginning of the 20th century, and their works fell under the umbrella term "New Thought".

I'm going to write a book called How to Get Rich by Selling How to Get Rich Books. I'll be rich!

Tarot would illustrate the principle of the Law Of Attraction with The Magician - or astrological Mercury (posted above) and the next tarot key The High Priestess or astrological Moon, which represents our sub-conscious minds.

No, the Law of Attraction is represented in the True Tarot by The Carnifex (and its subject, The Follower, astrological Cruithne), which represents our pineal glands.

If you can't even get that right there's no hope at all.

The former plants a seed in the "Virgin substance" or mind stuff and Imagination (key 3, The Empress - a pregnant woman) results.

Again, that's simply wrong. You're thinking of the Woman in Red in the True Tarot. The bastardised Common Tarot has no metaphysical significance whatsoever.

Tarot symbolizes "spiritual psychology" because what we do with our minds is supposed to be a mirror the big/cosmic picture of creation.

It's supposed to, but the Common Tarot you're talking about is just a child's version of the True Tarot; it has as much relevance to the nature of the Cosmos as a Monopoly game has to the World Bank.

What do skeptics think of the Law of Attraction?

It's crap. What's real is the Law of Distraction - getting people to look the other way while you steal their stuff.

 

[Aquila]

Confirmation bias and wishful thinking. In other words, there is no such thing. It's rubbish.

I'll get onto confirmation bias (from now on how about we just call it CB?) but just a few more points about the so called Law Of Attraction: I understand why it is rubbish from a scientific point of view, but back in the world of artistic astrology, it is, in fact necessary, to counteract the other rubbishy idea of fate/destiny.

Rather than our minds sending out "waves of attraction" to the objects of our desires, or whatever, CB says we simply concentrate on what we want, and ignore everything else. And it is self-conscious concentration or "attention" which is symbolized by the Magician key in tarot. This process is also our FREE WILL, and this counteracts any so-called influences from the planets, karma, or "fate".

..I know I have mentioned Popper and his theories regarding the scientific method of prediction and whether or not the same techniques can be applied to things such as human society (his opinion, it can't). ...

Source: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

If you read the entire article, you can see how this ties into the Smit article I posted earlier (including the idea of a "moment of awakening"), and Popper even goes on to explain why astrology fails as a science, and as a sociological/psychological tool.

ETA: As I have said several times throughout this thread, if there is nothing that can indicate when an astrological interpretation is incorrect, the whole field is pragmatically useless, although artistically valid.

Thanks for the Karl Popper link. I have never been under any illusion that astrology was a science, or a valid psychological tool (at least not apart from the realms of entertainment). But is CB responsible for all the so called subjective reports of evidence for astrology? Or indeed, for some kinds of paranormal/psychic phenomena?

Have you ever investigated the I Ching, for example? I think that you have had several people here on JREF who have asked how and why tossing three coins or using a computer generated I Ching reading always seems to give a relevant reading. Confirmation Bias would explain the fact that people will find relevance in anything if they interpret it the right way, but what about when the I Ching uses explicit words which refer to the question one is asking. For example, someone asks a question about their family and gets the hexagram called "Clan" or family (#37), or the one called "Youthful Folly (#4).

Suggestion: Metaphysics/Jung fans calls it "synchronicity" - but what is this really, in rational, scientific terms?

Just suppose for a moment, that astrology, the tarot and the I Ching, are not all CB and wishful thinking. Is there any sort of scientific explanation that would address them? I've already tried to tackle astrology with light and gravity, much to everyone's amusement, in the other thread, but with the I Ching, I've sometimes thought that there might be some sort of "subliminal cognition" going on. Similarly, when people dream about someone having their hair cut, and the next day when they see them at school, - there they are with short hair (I had a dream like this when I was a teenager) - what is really happening? I have thought that subliminally, I heard my classmate talking about having her hair cut, although it didn't register with my self-conscious mind. That night, my subconscious mind extrapolated this idea as a dream.

Finally, hope I'm not getting off track here, but when I was browsing the home page of the Critical Thought and Religious Liberty website, I came across this quote from Charles Darwin:

"There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." – Charles Darwin, On the Origin (1859).


What? I thought Darwin was an atheist . Where did these "powers" come from and what breathed them into new forms? Perhaps this isn't so off-track from the astrology thread, because I am concluding that the skeptics' world view is that consciousness evolved out of physical brain cells and humans, animals and plants are machines, without any need for anything "spiritual" or non-material to animate them.

Well, this might sound a bit naive, but in that case, what is the difference between a living plant and a dead plant, or a living human being and a human corpse?

My point is that scientific skepticism and atheism always seem to leave out the inner life "power", whatever we call it, and even Darwin seems to have resorted to calling on it. Is this power that science still has yet not explained, the same one that seems to run through the whole occult field?

 

[PixyMisa]

I'll get onto confirmation bias (from now on how about we just call it CB?) but just a few more points about the so called Law Of Attraction: I understand why it is rubbish from a scientific point of view, but back in the world of artistic astrology, it is, in fact necessary, to counteract the other rubbishy idea of fate/destiny.

Just like poking people in the eye is required to counterbalance kicking them in the groin?

Rather than our minds sending out "waves of attraction" to the objects of our desires, or whatever, CB says we simply concentrate on what we want, and ignore everything else. And it is self-conscious concentration or "attention" which is symbolized by the Magician key in tarot. This process is also our FREE WILL, and this counteracts any so-called influences from the planets, karma, or "fate".

Yes. Or rather, no.

Thanks for the Karl Popper link. I have never been under any illusion that astrology was a science, or a valid psychological tool (at least not apart from the realms of entertainment). But is CB responsible for all the so called subjective reports of evidence for astrology?

No, many of them are complete fabrications.

Or indeed, for some kinds of paranormal/psychic phenomena?

Many reports of paranormal and psychic phenomena are just confirmation bias. Dowsing is an excellent example; most dowsers are reasonable people who just don't have a solid foundation in statistics. Some are fraud, some mistakes. None of them stand up to scrutiny.

Have you ever investigated the I Ching, for example? I think that you have had several people here on JREF who have asked how and why tossing three coins or using a computer generated I Ching reading always seems to give a relevant reading.

It doesn't.

Confirmation Bias would explain the fact that people will find relevance in anything if they interpret it the right way, but what about when the I Ching uses explicit words which refer to the question one is asking.

It doesn't.

For example, someone asks a question about their family and gets the hexagram called "Clan" or family (#37), or the one called "Youthful Folly (#4).

Or they don't.

That's a big part of confirmation bias: You remember the hits and forget the misses.

Suggestion: Metaphysics/Jung fans calls it "synchronicity" - but what is this really, in rational, scientific terms?

No, it's complete nonsense.

Just suppose for a moment, that astrology, the tarot and the I Ching, are not all CB and wishful thinking. Is there any sort of scientific explanation that would address them?

No.

As everyone has been saying to you all along, there are two problems with astrology (and Tarot, and the I Ching, and all the other stuff):

1. They are impossible.
2. They don't work.

I've already tried to tackle astrology with light and gravity, much to everyone's amusement, in the other thread, but with the I Ching, I've sometimes thought that there might be some sort of "subliminal cognition" going on.

Except that the I Ching doesn't work.

Similarly, when people dream about someone having their hair cut, and the next day when they see them at school, - there they are with short hair (I had a dream like this when I was a teenager) - what is really happening? I have thought that subliminally, I heard my classmate talking about having her hair cut, although it didn't register with my self-conscious mind. That night, my subconscious mind extrapolated this idea as a dream.

Well, more like you noticed but then forgot, but sure. That's common enough.

Finally, hope I'm not getting off track here, but when I was browsing the home page of the Critical Thought and Religious Liberty website, I came across this quote from Charles Darwin:

"There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." – Charles Darwin, On the Origin (1859).


What? I thought Darwin was an atheist .

Later in his life he was certainly an atheist, but he started out as a Christian.

Where did these "powers" come from and what breathed them into new forms?

Nowhere and nothing.

Perhaps this isn't so off-track from the astrology thread, because I am concluding that the skeptics' world view is that consciousness evolved out of physical brain cells and humans, animals and plants are machines, without any need for anything "spiritual" or non-material to animate them.

Yep.

Well, this might sound a bit naive, but in that case, what is the difference between a living plant and a dead plant, or a living human being and a human corpse?

The chemical processes that are taking place.

My point is that scientific skepticism and atheism always seem to leave out the inner life "power", whatever we call it, and even Darwin seems to have resorted to calling on it.

Because there is no such thing.

Is this power that science still has yet not explained, the same one that seems to run through the whole occult field?

Yes indeed. And it doesn't exist.

 

[Hokulele]

I'll get onto confirmation bias (from now on how about we just call it CB?) but just a few more points about the so called Law Of Attraction: I understand why it is rubbish from a scientific point of view, but back in the world of artistic astrology, it is, in fact necessary, to counteract the other rubbishy idea of fate/destiny.

Rather than our minds sending out "waves of attraction" to the objects of our desires, or whatever, CB says we simply concentrate on what we want, and ignore everything else. And it is self-conscious concentration or "attention" which is symbolized by the Magician key in tarot. This process is also our FREE WILL, and this counteracts any so-called influences from the planets, karma, or "fate".

This is pure, unadulterated twaddle (the Membership Agreement prohibits my use of the language it actually deserves). Let me explain why I say this.

My paternal grandfather was a curmudgeon, a conservative, and ultimately a wonderful human being. He grew up during the Great Depression, served in World War II, met and married an absolute gem of a woman, and raised 4 kids to the best of his ability.

One of those children chose to marry a Japanese woman (remember, he was a WWII vet) at a time when such was almost unthinkable to a white, middle-class American. He accepted her into the family, although possibly with a little encouragement from his wife. One of those children chose to marry an African-American man at a time when such was almost unthinkable to a white, middle-class American. He accepted him into the family, although possibly with a little more encouragement from his wife. One of those children chose to marry his boyfriend (yes, that is correct) at a time when such was almost unthinkable to a white, middle-class American. He accepted him into the family, although possibly with a lot more encouragement from his wife.

These children went on to have children of their own, and life continued until this day. Sadly, not for him.

He died believing he was a failure.

At least, he didn't feel he accomplished everything he could. He wished he had more time to do and be the person he thought he could have been. I know this because of a straight-out-of-a-movie deathbed conversation he had with my father, who then repeated it to me. My grandfather died of stomach cancer, after a very prolonged and agonizing fight. He did everything he could and tried everything modern medicine could offer. Seeing as how both he and my grandmother were Christians and devoted members of their church, I have no doubt they often prayed for his health, and the members of their congregation did so as well.

And yet, he literally wasted away to a skeleton and died in great pain, so great, he could not recognize his wife of over 50 years at the end.



Now you, and the authors of "The Secret", tell me he could have been cured if he had simply concentrated harder. As if being cured, or even just in less pain, wasn't the object of his desire and didn't occupy his every waking thought and action. As if he were the one who somehow attracted cancer, agony, unfulfilled dreams, and death.

That just makes me outraged, sick, and full of contempt for those who would promote such filth.


So that is why I call the nonsense billed as the "Law of Attraction" rubbish and nothing more than confirmation bias. People only remember when it works to someone's advantage and either dismiss it when it doesn't, or worse, blame the victims for somehow attracting their misfortune.



As you can tell, this is a sore spot for me. I apologize that I cannot tackle the rest of your post right now, but I do promise to get back to it eventually.

 

[Aquila]

Now you, and the authors of "The Secret", tell me he could have been cured if he had simply concentrated harder. As if being cured, or even just in less pain, wasn't the object of his desire and didn't occupy his every waking thought and action. As if he were the one who somehow attracted cancer, agony, unfulfilled dreams, and death.

...
So that is why I call the nonsense billed as the "Law of Attraction" rubbish and nothing more than confirmation bias. People only remember when it works to someone's advantage and either dismiss it when it doesn't, or worse, blame the victims for somehow attracting their misfortune.

I'm really sorry for explaining my understanding of "the Secret" so clumsily, and I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. My husband died of cancer despite a very positive attitude, using modern medicine and changing his diet, and I don't think that either of these men's illnesses were "their fault", or that people attract misfortune to themselves.

All I meant by "concentration" in this context, was our ability to think, plan and organize our lives, rather than be told what to do by someone predicting our "fate" or turning us into a slave. To take a modern, scientific example, we now have genetic mapping so that a person can be told if they have a gene for breast cancer or some other disease. But even if we have the gene or chromosome, that doesn't mean that we will get the disease. We can eat healthily and exercise, not smoke etc. so that the propensity for developing that disease never actually happens. It's the "nature versus nurture" dilemma, with both principles inter-playing with each other - genes and environment.

On a psychological level we see the same idea. The goal of counseling is to help people steer a positive path through their life now, despite things - emotional hurts - which might have happened to them earlier.

So I was trying to bring balance to any remaining ideas that astrology is "fatalistic". Many people criticize "The Secret" for precisely the same reasons as you just did - and they are right. But I think that if we are going to investigate New Age principles at all, we have to keep them in balance, just like in the real world.

 

[Sledge]

Aquila: what does astrology do? I realise I've asked this before, but I'd appreciate an actual answer this time. No snarkiness, no "clever" comments, just an honest answer as to what you think astrology does that requires all the explanations you've attempted to explain it with.

 

[Pixel42]

Suggestion: Metaphysics/Jung fans calls it "synchronicity" - but what is this really, in rational, scientific terms?

Coincidence. As predicted by the law of probability. http://www.skepdic.com/lawofnumbers.html

One of our many inbuilt cognitive biases causes us to expect far fewer coincidences to occur than the law of probability actually predicts. Add our other inbuilt cognitive bias to attach significance to the ones that are meaningful to us and ignore the ones that aren't and you have all the explanation that is required for the perceived accuracy of tarot, I Ching, astrology, tea leaves etc etc.

 

[Akhenaten]

I'm really sorry for explaining my understanding of "the Secret" so clumsily . . .

<snip>

". . . but that's not going to stop me banging on about it."


I share Hokulele's disgust, for exactly the same reason.

 

[Brainache]

I wonder whether Mathematicians should start investigating the implications of the following equation:

2+2=5

Because that makes as much sense as Scientists engaging with Astrologers.

 

[Akhenaten]

Why stop at scientists? Anybody, anywhere, engaging with astrologers makes less than no sense.

I doubt that Hokulele had any intention of demonstrating that with this thread, but I'm afraid to say that the waddling and quacking is getting a bit hard to ignore.

 

[Brainache]

Why stop at scientists? Anybody, anywhere, engaging with astrologers makes less than no sense.

I doubt that Hokulele had any intention of demonstrating that with this thread, but I'm afraid to say that the waddling and quacking is getting a bit hard to ignore.

That's not a very nice thing to say about Hokulele. I know she's short, but "waddling and quacking"? That's just rude!

 

[Akhenaten]

Curse you, oh Gods of Ambiguity™! I am a dead man.

 

[dafydd]

But I think that if we are going to investigate New Age principles at all, we have to keep them in balance, just like in the real world.

I am glad that you realise that New Age principles have nothing to do with the real world.As for investigating them,why? There are much more profitable ways of using your time than investigating meaningless woo.