In A World Where Magic Exists...

[triqui]

The problem is, of course, that ultimately all of our models are variations on this theme. No matter how much research one does, one can never actually see causation, and there is always a chance that further investigation will disprove a currently held model.

There's a difference between futher investigation disproving a held model, and making a fallacy as "I went to Lourdes and Healed, therefore going to Lourdes heal people". That's why we use logic, to begin with.

In one old issue of Dragon, there was an article on gypsies that included a random "tarot card reading" generator. Despite the fact that the players knew it was random, there was enough coincidence inherent in the game to make them believe it might not be. Hence, superstition can play a role even for PCs.

That's the point with Oracles. Once you are cryptic enough in your speech, anything can fit your prediction. When Nostradamus said "there shall be a war uppon the black land", you could bassically make it fit anywhere you want. A war on a black land can be a war on Ucrania (whose land is dark). Or a war in Africa (being a land of black people). It might be a war on Persian Gulf (becouse the oil is black). So it's quite easy for him to be right: almost any war that happen, you can twist it to fit into the prediction comortably well.

Once Crasus went to the Oracle, before his war with Julius Caesar. The Oracle did say him: "if you both go to war, a great roman man will be defeated". Yeah. Go figure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There's a difference between futher investigation disproving a held model, and making a fallacy as "I went to Lourdes and Healed, therefore going to Lourdes heal people". That's why we use logic, to begin with.

Well, no disagreement here!

Although, I imagine that the actual thinking goes "I went to Lourdes and healed, therefore going to Lourdes sometimes heals people".....and there is no way to disprove that statement. Which is why statements of that type are of no use in terms of scientific investigation.

But, of course, that statement may still be true. "Chewing seaweed sometimes prevents goiter" was a superstition until the relationship between iodine, seaweed, and goiter was recognized. Now it is merely a non-scientific statement of an observed principle.

It is not always easy to determine what is a superstition and what is not. We may well scoff where we see no possible causation, but that doesn't mean that the observed principle is untrue.

Once Crasus went to the Oracle, before his war with Julius Caesar. The Oracle did say him: "if you both go to war, a great roman man will be defeated". Yeah. Go figure.

Your horoscope for the day: Somewhere on the Internet, someone is wrong. Somewhere on the Internet, someone thinks you are wrong.


RC

 

[triqui]

Although, I imagine that the actual thinking goes "I went to Lourdes and healed, therefore going to Lourdes sometimes heals people".....and there is no way to disprove that statement. Which is why statements of that type are of no use in terms of scientific investigation.

Which is my point: sometimes, people heal. That's a fact. So it's not surprising that, sometimes, people who ussually go to Lourdes heal too. Just like some of those people that spontanously heal like country music. That show no correlation to "listening country music heal people". To say that, you need a statistically relevant number. If 4 guys healed they cancer, among the millions that have visited Lourdes, I can claim, without any doubt, that visiting Lourdes is unrelated to healing.

Compare that to:

But, of course, that statement may still be true. "Chewing seaweed sometimes prevents goiter" was a superstition until the relationship between iodine, seaweed, and goiter was recognized. Now it is merely a non-scientific statement of an observed principle.

There you go. But there IS a statistically important number of people with goiter out of the group of "people who chew seaweed" compared to the group that "do not". So, even when we did not know the *cause* of that, we can make such claim. It's not the same case that Lourdes, where there is not a statisitically relevant evidence of correlation, just a logic-flawed fallacy of "post hoc ergo propter hoc". It's so ridicoulus as saying that having a black pressident in the US make the world more vulnerable to earthquakes, becouse Chile and Japan ones happened with Obama as president.

We may well scoff where we see no possible causation, but that doesn't mean that the observed principle is untrue.

That I was born, and then Vietnam become a Socialist Republic is an observed and true fact. That both are related, however, is not. That someone, somewhere, once in the history went to Lourdes (or a Homeopath for that matter), and healed, might be an observed fact. That he healed becouse of it is a completely different issue.

 

[Umbran]

The irony is this sarcasm is actually a valid thought process for most people that dabble into superstition.

I am not sure sarcasm qualifies as a thought process. Sarcasm is a mode of expression. Do you mean skepticism, or cynicism, is a valid thought process?

Using logic, it's a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy: two things can come one after the other, without being related.

Or, in English: "Correlation does not imply causation."

People tend to have a huge lack of reasoning skills and logic abilitiy.

It may not be quite as you think - the human decision machine is designed originally to deal with 1)short term issues and 2)paltry information. Basically, we are geared to jump to conclusions because our system is originally designed to deal with immediate crises like, "How do I avoid that leopard?" and "Should I spit out this mouthful of questionable food?" For fast decision making, "going with your gut" is usually a pretty good idea, as your gut-feelings developed to serve exactly that need.

As the amount of information and the time for risk to develop increases, the ability of our ingrained systems to deal with them decreases, and we can be fooled by injecting an emotional component into the data.

It is not always easy to determine what is a superstition and what is not. We may well scoff where we see no possible causation, but that doesn't mean that the observed principle is untrue.

Yes. And, ironically, in some cases the superstition is the source of causation:

"I always bowl better when I wear my lucky bowling shirt," may well be true - the very fact that you think it is lucky can change your state of mind enough to affect your performance bowling.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If 4 guys healed they cancer, among the millions that have visited Lourdes, I can claim, without any doubt, that visiting Lourdes is unrelated to healing.

Of course you have no doubt, but equally true, that knowledge is not actually sure. Because you can assume another causation based on statistics doesn't actually mean that there is another causation, or that the odds of the causation occurring are not vanishingly small.

In terms of world model, that the odds are vanishingly small makes going to Lourdes a bad bet, unless you also imagine that there is another factor, such as "those 4 guys were extremely faithful" or something like, which changes the statistics (in your view).

The scientific/rational models are extremely useful because they create models offering predictable results. Expectations that the world will react as the model predicts are extremely deep-seated, but are nonetheless not sure.....and, as Hume pointed out, derived from something other than strict logic or rationality.

That someone, somewhere, once in the history went to Lourdes (or a Homeopath for that matter), and healed, might be an observed fact. That he healed becouse of it is a completely different issue.

Overall, I agree with you. I just go one step farther -- that they are not related is also open to question, as is any causation. We can know what we observe, we can make models that seem to offer a high degree of predictability of many observations, but we cannot know that the model is correct, we cannot know that our understanding of causation is correct, and we cannot model will withstand tomorrow's observations regardless of how many times it has proven correct in the past.

Moreover, the scientific method cannot answer questions about any observation that cannot be repeated.......and, often, does not answer questions about any observation that cannot be repeated under controlled circumstances. It also relies fundamentally on the ability to create controlled circumstances (so that the result of your experiments is not, say, actually caused by something happening half a galaxy away), which must be accepted a priori as it cannot be proven.

So, while I accept and endorse that the scientific/rational models are superior to quasi-magical thinking, and certainly regard logic as the key to determining what is actually known about anything, I don't feel that people who fail to use these methods are not using their brains any less than I am (some cases, obviously, aside), but rather either (a) don't have the same toolset or (b) don't have the same base assumptions, or (c) both.

And the value of the scientific/rational models is not that my conclusions are more likely to be right (for, as Hume demonstrated, they are not) but that they create a more useful model despite being, as far as we can tell, equally likely to be wrong.

Yes. And, ironically, in some cases the superstition is the source of causation:

"I always bowl better when I wear my lucky bowling shirt," may well be true - the very fact that you think it is lucky can change your state of mind enough to affect your performance bowling.

Indeed!

In conclusion, all worlds are likely to be rife with superstition, and those people holding said superstitions are not less intelligent for doing so. Some very smart people have drawn some very questionable conclusions about the nature of the universe.


RC

 

[triqui]

And the value of the scientific/rational models is not that my conclusions are more likely to be right (for, as Hume demonstrated, they are not) but that they create a more useful model despite being, as far as we can tell, equally likely to be wrong.

First, Hume is far from being the universal truth. He's just one example of a philosophist (err... Filósofo in spanish . Can't spell that in English). There are dozens, hundreds of them. Most of them have a personal view of knowledge, experience, nature and metaphysics. So if 100 of them argue in a room, I rest assured that at least 99 of them are wrong

Second, those models aren't equally likely to be wrong. Let's assume Hume is right (even if he hasn't proved so). Let's say that we can't be sure tomorrow the sun will be out there in the morning. Let's say, as well, that's *possible* that tomorrow someone goes to Lourdes and get healed. That do not mean both things are equally likely. If you disagree, however, I'll accept any bet on the issue. I bet 1000$ with you that tomorrow there will be sun in the moring. And I'll bet you 1000$ that tomorrow, none of the thousand visitors of Lourdes will get healed.

 

[triqui]

I am not sure sarcasm qualifies as a thought process. Sarcasm is a mode of expression. Do you mean skepticism, or cynicism, is a valid thought process?

I mean that the sentence that the poster I was quoting, while being a sarcasm (he said it as irony), was, sadly, part of serious "thought" in some individuals.

Or, in English: "Correlation does not imply causation."

Correlation does not imply causation is not exactly the same that post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Correlation implies that there is a relation between both premises. Although this relation is not strong enough to be sure there is a causation. For example: there is a correlation between being tall, and playing well to basketball. Tall people tend to play better basketball, and basketball players tend to be tall. The relation, however, is not strong enough to show a causation: some people who is short play really well (such as Tyron Bogues), and there are a lot of very high guys that have zero skill at all.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is even weaker than that. It means that one event is preceded by another, but does not show any kind of relation at all. Just both happened in sucession, and superstition, or bad logic, made me think they were related, when they weren't. For example: I bought lottery right after I ate peanut butter for breakfast, and I won. Therefore, I conclude that peanut butter "gives me luck", and I start to eat peanut butter every time I buy lottery. Those aren't related. At all.


This kind of "two events in a row" are a classic mistake of superstition. People do not realize that every single event must be preceded by another, just becouse events do not happen in a vacuum. For example: if I win the lottery, it's obvious that I have eaten something before. Be it peanut butter, or anything else. Whatever that food is, I would call it "my lucky food".

It's like when people say world will end in 2012 becouse Mayans only made calendars up to 2012. That's a flawed logic argument as no other. Once Mayans started to make calendars, they had two options:
1) make an infinite number of calendars, which is physically impossible.
2) make a finite number of calendars.

As 1) is impossible, they have to do 2). So if they make a finite serie of calendars, that serie has, by definition, an end. That end was 2012. But had they chose another year, there will be an end, anyways. So paranoic superstition people would use that other year, instead. Be it 2012, 2015, 2099, 54933, whatever, they'll use the same logic "Mayans only did calendars up to year X, so year X is the end of the world". The only way they wouldn't say that, is if Mayans would do an infinite amount of calendars. Which is impossible.

 

[Raven Crowking]

First, Hume is far from being the universal truth.

No, but he's made an excellent argument that has not, AFAICT and IMHO, been adequately answered. And he raises some interesting questions that he, himself, makes no real attempt to answer.

Second, they aren't equally likely to be wrong. Let's assume Hume is right (even if he hasn't proved so). Let's say that we can't be sure tomorrow the sun will be out there in the moring. Let's say, as well, that's *possible* that tomorrow someone goes to Lourdes and get healed. That do not mean both things are equally likely.

Perhaps I worded that badly.

Let me try that again:

(1) From a purely logical standpoint, the likelihood of both occurring is equal. Our observations can only show us what has occurred; they cannot show us what will occur. Our models can only look to the past; they cannot confirm the future.
(2) From an experiential standpoint, we believe that the likelihood is not equal.
(3) Despite the logical problems of accepting (2) as valid, we nonetheless do strongly accept (2) as valid, and, in the vast majority of cases, accepting (2) as valid works.

(It is the interplay between 1 and 3 that is actually of interest in Hume's work, and that Hume suggests is worthy of further inquiry....And it is also this interplay that is of interest, to me anyway, in the intersection of the scientific/rational models and quasi-magical thinking models.)

So, even if your statement of odds is correct (and we will certainly accept that it is correct in the past, and, using principle 3, that we believe without knowledge that it will be so in the future....say, tomorrow), the odds that your explaination of why those odds are correct is no better than that of the pilgrim going to Lourdes if and only if both match the available observed data.

IOW, it is rational to say that Occam's Razor is of value when creating a model, but there is no rational way to determine that Occam's Razor reflects the reality that the model attempts to predict.

Also, you need to specify what is meant by "get healed" before you make a bet like that; I feel quite certain that some of those visitors would argue that you owed them money had they taken it. Even if you or I wouldn't accept that there was an actual causative relationship between the flu coming to an end.....or that any causative effect was not due to, say, the placebo effect.

There is enough fuzziness in "getting healed" that the pilgrim can create a model that matches his observation, which is the gist of my point: The pilgrim is not stupid to believe as he does. He is, rather, using a different set of observations, mental tools, and/or base assumptions to draw his conculsions than you or I are. Understanding why the pilgrim believes as he does is useful in an rpg context when describing NPCs in any milieu, and, in particular, the sets of beliefs that might arise in a world in which this healing might well be confirmed fact.


RC

 

[steeldragons]

First, Hume -snip- just one example of a philosophist (err... Filósofo in spanish . Can't spell that in English).

"Philosopher" is the term you were looking for. "One who engages in philosophy" or, more simply, "One who philosophises"...in other words, "One who thinks about stuff"

Just for future reference. No harm. No foul.

That was all...carry on.

--SD

 

[triqui]

(1) From a purely logical standpoint, the likelihood of both occurring is equal. Our observations can only show us what has occurred; they cannot show us what will occur. Our models can only look to the past; they cannot confirm the future.

Our Models can predict future, and do so on a regular basis. For example, I can predict when will be the next solar eclipse, when we'll have full moon again, or how long will last the fall of a ball of lead from 10 feets

So, even if your statement of odds is correct (and we will certainly accept that it is correct in the past, and, using principle 3, that we believe without knowledge that it will be so in the future....say, tomorrow), the odds that your explaination of why those odds are correct is no better than that of the pilgrim going to Lourdes if and only if both match the available observed data.

The underlined sentences aren't true. That's the difference between scientific thought and magic thought, between experiments and anecdotes, between logic and superstition.

Also, you need to specify what is meant by "get healed"

Speaking of cancer, it's the difference between having a cancer, and no longer having it. And I'll bet my 1000$ to any pilgrim you want. To all of them at same time, actually. Gladly