Rudolf Rocker suggested that magical thinking was just a mode of normal
thinking. Dan Sperber suggests that the symbolic mechanism of which magical
thinking is an expression runs in the background of logical and
common-sense thinking and kicks in to fill the gaps when they come up
short.
On Tue, 1 May 2018, 17:47 Stuart Nolan, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It probably is in its common usage but Gell sometimes uses it in a way
> that implies that it’s an essential imaginative process in the development
> of science. And Subbotsky explores magical thinking as an essential part of
> childhood development. They might both think magic is false but they don’t
> use magical thinking as a term of abuse.
>
> s
>
>
> On 1 May 2018, at 17:34, Noah Gardiner <[log in to unmask]
> <[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Isn't "magical thinking" typically a term of abuse that relies on the
> notion that magic is false?
>
> - Noah
>
> On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 12:26 PM Stuart Nolan <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Very interesting. Though magic would seem incompatible with #2 the
>> institutions and practitioners of science are in fact riddled with magical
>> thinking. My particular interest in in how magical thinking occurs in our
>> views on emerging technologies such as A.I. Big Data, and Robotics. Of
>> course this raises the question of how we wish to distinguish between magic
>> and magical thinking.
>>
>> S
>>
>>
>> > On 1 May 2018, at 17:13, Snow Crocus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > The definition of magic is, in and of itself, an interesting question,
>> and I don't wish to sidetrack that inquiry, as such.
>> >
>> > But the conversation originated in a comparison of magic with science,
>> and so it is apposite to also clarify what 'science' is.
>> >
>> > It seems to me, there are roughly three ways that the word 'science' is
>> typically used:
>> >
>> > (1) Systematic, rational exploration of the regularities of human
>> experience of the physical universe by means of empirical observation.
>> >
>> > (2) A certain cultural practice originating in the Western intellectual
>> tradition that works by means of institutions and networks of practitioners
>> to systematize, formalize, and carry out projects of the sort described in
>> #1.
>> >
>> > (3) Faith in the results generated by #2: that they have actually been
>> obtained; that they can be replicated; that they are reflective of some
>> metaphysical reality. Here, the results of science #2 function as a sort
>> of myth.
>> >
>> > Part of the difficulty that comes up in discussions of this sort is
>> that, in Western culture as it is now, it is extremely difficult to
>> disentangle these three meanings, when one utters the word 'science'.
>> Although each of the three refers to quite different things, they are
>> conflated semantically.
>> >
>> > The _process_ of science that we have now -- science #2, with our
>> research institutions and graduate students and peer-reviewed journals --
>> although it is extremely successful, it is not the only way to carry out
>> #1. Indeed, being dependent on culture and institutions -- and, perhaps, a
>> Kuhnian paradigm -- it is mutually exclusive with other implementations of
>> #1, that are differently situated. Even Western science of 50 or 100 years
>> ago is sometimes unrecognizable from the perspective of current concepts
>> and institutions (cf especially psychology).
>> >
>> > There are some in the scientific world who do not believe that this is
>> so. They believe that any _real_ regularity in the workings of the universe
>> that a person can observe -- at any time and in any culture -- will also be
>> observable within #2, and so it is meaningless to draw any distinction.
>> >
>> > I believe that this is a case of a fish being ignorant of water (ie,
>> the scientist ignorant of the culture of science and its limitations --
>> some of which are deliberately self-imposed). But for this reason it can
>> also be difficult to make the case, to someone who buys it hook, line, and
>> sinker.
>> >
>> > In the case of comparison of science with magic, to the extent that
>> magic engages in #1 at all (which it might or might not, depending on how
>> you understand 'magic'), it operates within a cultural (or subcultural)
>> context that is incompatible with #2.
>> >
>> > Furthermore, a person who takes #3 to excess, and believes that _only_
>> things discoverable within #2 are metaphysically real ('scientism') may be
>> particularly antipathetic toward a more inclusive metaphysical point of
>> view.
>> >
>> > a
>>
>
>
