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Big_Joe
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Human beings are very interesting creatures. We have something that, as far as we can tell, no other creature has, a thought process. We also have the ability to control and form this process but this requires discipline in ones own thoughts. When a person begins a formal education one of the required courses is "Critical Thinking." Many people never attain this even after taking the course. What usually happens to those that don't think critically is they fall into the "Magical Thought" process. This occurs because human beings are very good at recognizing patterns but not always good at differentiating patterns that exist in reality or are just "in their minds."
This perceiving patterns that are not real is known as the magical thought process. There are many examples of this in human experience. Some African slaves had a habit of burying coins. They called this “seed money.” Their experience was when one buried a seed in the ground it grew and produced more of the same kind of seeds. Therefore the burying of the coin should produce more coins. This is a recognition of a pattern that is not in reality. Modern humans also have this form of magical thought process.
Here I will give a contrived example of a modern humans magical thought process. One day I go to the shoe store and see they have a sale on “Rain Making Red Shoes.” It says they are Rain Making Red Shoes right on the box. I am so happy with my new rain making shoes that I wear them everyday for three weeks and sure enough it rains. Gee how cool my rain making shoes actually worked.
It is easy for us to see that this is nonsense because we know that there is no such thing as rain making red shoes. But we see this same type of thought process expressed all the time on this forum. A very good example is in the brouhaha over “Tylers Liver Detox.” The example takes the form of: “Oh my god I went to the doctor and he told me my liver values were too high. I took Tylers for a month and when I went back the doctor told me my liver values were fine. Isn't Tylers great stuff.”
This is the exact same thought process as the rain making shoes. The difference is the person with the high liver values wants Tylers to work because he doesn't want to suffer and die. It's this desire for a connection that reinforces the assumption that there is a connection. Just as with the poor slave burying the only coin he has.
This is not to say that the rain making shoe story or the Tylers liver detox story is without value. There is value in the contrapositive. The one thing we can say for sure about the red rain making shoes is that they did not prevent it from raining. And the one thing we can say about Tylers Liver Detox story is it didn't increase the persons liver values. So with that aspect we can say that, most likely, Tylers doesn't do the liver any harm.
So why would I write this and post it to an AAS forum? Because many people are using the magical thought process to make decisions that will effect them for the rest of their lives, see the thread about “Should I freeze my Sperm?” I hope that in reading this some will stop to think if the decisions they are making are based on critical thought or magical thought. And in so doing save themselves from harm.
This perceiving patterns that are not real is known as the magical thought process. There are many examples of this in human experience. Some African slaves had a habit of burying coins. They called this “seed money.” Their experience was when one buried a seed in the ground it grew and produced more of the same kind of seeds. Therefore the burying of the coin should produce more coins. This is a recognition of a pattern that is not in reality. Modern humans also have this form of magical thought process.
Here I will give a contrived example of a modern humans magical thought process. One day I go to the shoe store and see they have a sale on “Rain Making Red Shoes.” It says they are Rain Making Red Shoes right on the box. I am so happy with my new rain making shoes that I wear them everyday for three weeks and sure enough it rains. Gee how cool my rain making shoes actually worked.
It is easy for us to see that this is nonsense because we know that there is no such thing as rain making red shoes. But we see this same type of thought process expressed all the time on this forum. A very good example is in the brouhaha over “Tylers Liver Detox.” The example takes the form of: “Oh my god I went to the doctor and he told me my liver values were too high. I took Tylers for a month and when I went back the doctor told me my liver values were fine. Isn't Tylers great stuff.”
This is the exact same thought process as the rain making shoes. The difference is the person with the high liver values wants Tylers to work because he doesn't want to suffer and die. It's this desire for a connection that reinforces the assumption that there is a connection. Just as with the poor slave burying the only coin he has.
This is not to say that the rain making shoe story or the Tylers liver detox story is without value. There is value in the contrapositive. The one thing we can say for sure about the red rain making shoes is that they did not prevent it from raining. And the one thing we can say about Tylers Liver Detox story is it didn't increase the persons liver values. So with that aspect we can say that, most likely, Tylers doesn't do the liver any harm.
So why would I write this and post it to an AAS forum? Because many people are using the magical thought process to make decisions that will effect them for the rest of their lives, see the thread about “Should I freeze my Sperm?” I hope that in reading this some will stop to think if the decisions they are making are based on critical thought or magical thought. And in so doing save themselves from harm.
