We haven’t used them - for a nuclear war - because there are logical reasons not to,
On the other hand, rebel soldiers in one of the old rebellions in the Congo were given amulets and told that they made the soldier bulletproof. So the soldier charged at the enemy. Magical thinking at work.
As for the state of the world before science, many babies died early, many women died in childbirth, medicine such as it was was painful and often worse than doing nothing, famines were common, etc., etc., etc. No thanks.
Again, that’s a fine logical argument you’re shooting for there – because of course you’re going to use logical thinking, not magical thinking, for such a goal.
Thing is, though, you started off by asking about logical thinking, not scientific thinking. Do you think that, say, Aristotle lived a mere few hundred years ago?
I don’t agree at all on why we haven’t had a nuclear weapon disaster. Why isn’t it logical that we destroy all our weapons?..
Mutually assured destruction is what you’re talking about. If we do have an incident it will be because of logic, not in spite of it. You can’t take the good without the bad.
I’m not going back to pre-medicine times either. But some day someone may have reason to think that you were superstitious to think what you did.
Of course you didn’t say it; were you out to make an argument magically rather than logically, we’d never know it, as you’d merely be wishing and we wouldn’t notice.
I believe you’re not justified in equating “magical thinking” with creativity.
“Magical thinking” involves a belief that the world and what we experience of it works through rules that are essentially unknowable, usually because those rules are the product of an unknowable non-human entity (or entities).
Scientific thinking, by contrast, is based on a belief that though we may not currently know all the rules by which the world and our experience work, it is possible that through observation and experiment we will come to know more of those rules. The rules are not inherently unknowable.
Neither of these modes of thought preclude creativity, and neither of them monopolize it, either.
It actually is hostile to science. Magical thought asserts that the world and our experience is ultimately inexplicable–that there is a mysterious, unfathomable something at the heart of it all.
Not so, science: science depends upon the principle that logical application of observation and experimentation has the potential to explain, with time and progress, the answers to all questions. It might take centuries of improvement in our tools and our techniques, but there is nothing that by definition cannot be understood.
You are predefining Magical thinking to be without merit. Read the OP. What are you all here discussing then?
There is no discussion except for what I have brought. I’m not religious. Creativity lies in the strange places. If you go from a to b and can’t imagine a to c because it has no logic to you, it may be that your creativity is restricted by your logical bias. Or that there is a logic you can’t see yet. That isn’t religious. It’s Einstein too. Not just wishes and pixies. It is the inspired people who thought differently.
If you are going to predefine everything you like as logic and everything you don’t as magic, I think you are lost. “I think therefore I am” is logic and couldn’t be more wrong. (From my moderately buddhist view)
Magical thinking is not the enemy of anything any more than you or I or science are. (Maybe If its used agressively or ignorantly.?) We do not know if we will understand the ultimate question, and science goes on imperfectly, like magical thinking does.
Lets put it this way:
I’m getting the sense that the thread feels that there are these magical thinkers out there that need to be curbed and made more logical or else…
If you’re talking about religion, and it’s violence and intolerance then I’m with you. But if you’re just talking about divergent thought I’m not.
And if you are defining creativity as separate from magic, or not part of this discussion, then you’re just loading the dice and piling on.
So yeah, bad magic is bad, good logic is good. That needs a thread?
The phrase “magical thinking” has a specific (though perhaps fuzzily defined) meaning. See Wikipedia or the Skeptic’s Dictionary. (Its meaning overlaps that of “superstition.”)
And here, for good measure, is an article from Scientific American called “Why ‘Magical Thinking’ Works for Some People.” (Basically through a sort of placebo effect, as someone mentioned upthread.)
Not sure why this “something” you talk about would ultimately be inexplicable or unfathomable, in said scenario. Clarke’s 3rd Law would seem to apply here; I don’t buy the dichotomy that you are attempting to draw.
And science can indeed explain the hows very easily; the why’s remain out of our conception. For example, the fact that water, a very common compound which is vital to life as we know it, is virtually unique in its property to be less dense as a solid than as a liquid is ultimately no less mysterious and inexplicable than any “magical” property that you care to imagine. Most scientists don’t bother to ponder such why’s too much, preferring (to their credit) to focus on the how’s-but that doesn’t make the why’s any less humbling. Even if this “something” which you allude to is nothing more than random chance doesn’t make it any less so.
Note that a well-designed fictional magical system (such as that in say D&D or any fantasy novel that you care to name) will typically be logically consistent.
Doesn’t Godel’s incompleteness theorem, chaos theory, and the uncertainty principle put hard limits to knowledge? Or how about black holes. Or what happened before the big bang. Anything about other universes, if they even exist. Basically anything outside of our light cone. Aren’t there physical processes where the prior state can not be reversed or known, even theoretically?
But here’s the thing. Imagine you gush excitedly about how useful logical thinking is, and I sneer and say, really, now; what can I do with good logic? I suspect you could provide me with answers, with examples, because I know you could walk me through how to do it and get results; I won’t even bother asking you for them, they’re already obvious to me.
So if you say there’s “bad magic” – and add that there’s also ‘good magic’ – figure I reply, hey, man, I’m from the Show-Me State; what can I do with good magic? How do you respond? What magic do you point at, or show me how to perform?
I’m not approaching it from a binary standpoint. Both logic and magic are present and necessary in life. So arguing one or the other is pointless to me. I was pointing out that emotionally, and spiritually logic is not sufficient. And that the religion of science will be what destroys humanity if it happens.
Well, you’re stating it, anyhow. I use logic routinely; I’m not aware of ever having used magic, which strikes me as neither present nor necessary.
I imagine what my life would be like if I tried to live it without logic; it’d be vastly different, and probably end pretty fast. I imagine what my life would be like without, say, anger, or without a library card, or without the occasional cold beer; it’d be different, but I think I’d still do okay.
I try to imagine my life without magic, and – uh, near as I can tell, I’m here.
Even after reading the Wikipedia article, I don’t have a clear understanding of what magical thinking is, but logic vs. magic doesn’t seem like much of a contest. Does anyone else think this discussion would be more fruitful if posed as logic vs. intuition?
