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The powerful role of magical beliefs in our everyday thinking

#1
C C Offline
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-p...-thinking/

EXCERPTS: Adults often deny believing in magic, but on closer inspection, much of our behavior is more magical than we think. Eugene Subbotsky, who for over 40 years has studied the development of magical thinking, has suggested that in adults, magical beliefs are simply suppressed and can be reactivated given the appropriate conditions. His research also suggests that when denial of a magical belief is costly, adults are happy to give up their belief in the power of physical causality and view the world in terms of magical explanations.

Subbotsky’s findings show that magical thinking is deeply ingrained in our day-to-day thoughts and behaviors, and that magical and scientific beliefs can happily coexist inside our minds. But why does such thinking exist in the first place?

[,,,] More recent studies have provided further support for this connection. During the 1990–1991 Gulf War, researchers observed more magical thinking and superstitious behavior in people who lived in areas under direct threat of a missile attack, compared to those in low-risk areas. In their study of superstitious rituals employed during high-stress examinations, Jeffrey Rudski and Ashleigh Edwards observe that the frequency of students’ exam-related magical rituals increases as the stakes increase. Intriguingly, students report that they frequently use these rituals while denying any causal effectiveness. Superstitious behavior therefore seems to give us the illusion of control, which can reduce anxiety during stressful situations and consequently improve performance. As with homeopathic medicine — which can have the same healing power as a placebo, suggesting that its effects are all in our mind — many of these rituals might actually work, albeit through unintended or indirect mechanisms.,,

[...] Risen argues that superstitions and other powerful intuitions can be so compelling that we simply cannot shake them off, despite knowing that they are wrong ... The idea that you would believe something that you know to be impossible seems rather counterintuitive. However, this is only one of many strange and counterintuitive properties of our mind. It is important to note that Risen’s new model of cognition does not apply exclusively to magical thinking and can explain a wide range of rather irrational behaviors.

[...] We’ve explored here our beliefs in “real” magic and the important role these play in much of our day-to-day behavior. The current research on magical thinking challenges many traditional views of cognition — in particular, the view that childhood magical beliefs are replaced by rational and scientific reasoning in adulthood. Instead, it has become apparent that rational and magical thoughts cohabit deep inside our minds. Most previous models of cognition have struggled to accommodate the coexistence of magical and scientific thought processes, hence the need to revise our models of cognition... (MORE - missing details)
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:The current research on magical thinking challenges many traditional views of cognition — in particular, the view that childhood magical beliefs are replaced by rational and scientific reasoning in adulthood. Instead, it has become apparent that rational and magical thoughts cohabit deep inside our minds.

I think our concept of causation itself has some magical thinking that backs it up. As Hume pointed out, the only reason we seem to posit causation, as an objective necessary link from A to B, is because it has been repeated so often. Is that a perception of causation? No..it is an inference based on habit of experience.

The sun will rise tomorrow because that is what we are used to it doing. This is magical because it roots causal necessity in a magical objective linkage between this and that. A linkage that has no existence in reality. This follows from that, not out of logic, but out of our own conditioning by repeated experience.

We feel we know what is going to happen because we tell ourselves a story about it. But to happen in a story is also magical thinking. There is a fatedness or intent in happenings. There is a "meant to be" property or plotline to the events that occur in our lives.
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