the belief that an object, action or circumstance not logically related to a course of events can influence its outcome. In other words, stepping on a crack cannot, given what we know about the principles of causal relations, have any direct effect on the probability of your mother breaking her back. Those who live in fear of such a tragedy are engaging in magical thought and behaving irrationally.In my last post, I wrote about neurochemistry and physical law as opposed to free will. It had become an obsession, and it was not the first time I'd become obsessed with this opposition. I began wondering, during lessons, on the tram, while boiling pasta, Has anyone ever made a free decision in their life? Or are we all riding along like cars on a roller-coaster track, every turn predetermined, every rise and fall entirely beyond our influence, which is in fact nonexistent. And if we are not free to choose our everyday actions, then what is the meaning of freedom? Is democracy a farce? And so forth.
The notion of magical thinking also touches on our tendency to see meaning in coincidence. If we consider my aforementioned state of obsession concerning the opposition of science & free will, then magical thinking suggests I am likely to observe something that speaks to this topic. I am likely to come across such information not because I will attract it to myself in any way, but because it was always there and I am merely more sensitive to its presence. I do not cause the coincidence; my obsession connects otherwise unconnected events.
Less than a week later after I wrote my last blog post, I read this:
When Michel received the letter he was in despair over a theoretical crisis. According to Margenau's theory, human consciousness could be reduced to a field of probabilities in a Frock space, defined as a direct sum of Hilbert spaces. Such a space could be created by elementary electrical activity at a microscopic synaptic level. Normal behaviour could therefore be seen as the elasticity of the field and free will as a rupture within in it; but in what topology? There was nothing in the natural topography of Hilbert spaces that might give rise to free will. Michel was not entirely convinced that the problem could even be posed except in the most metaphorical sense. One thing he was certain of was that a new conceptual framework was needed.
--Michel Houellebecq, Atomised, 267
Back in his kitchen, he realised that belief in the notions of reason and of free will, which are the natural foundations of democracy, probably resulted from a confusion between the concepts of freedom and unpredictability. The turbulence of a river flowing around the supporting pillar of a bridge is structurally unpredictable, but no one would think to describe it as being free. He poured himself a glass of white wine, opened the curtains and lay down to think. The equations of chaos theory made no reference to physical space; their ubiquity meant that they applied as effectively to hydrodynamics as to meteorology, group sociology or the genetics of a population. As a tool for devising models they were excellent, but their predictive capacities were non-existent. On the other hand, the equations of quantum mechanics made it possible to predict the behaviour of microphysical systems with exceptional precision, even perfect precision if one was prepared to accept a purely materialist ontology. It was certainly premature to try and establish a mathematical link between the two. It might even prove impossible. But Michel was convinced that the physical nature and evolution of attractors in neurons and synapses held the key to understanding human actions and opinions.
--Michel Houellebecq, Atomised, 270 - 271.
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Because someone invented the term magical thinking, we know that this is entirely meaningless.
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