So, Oprah is sending The Secret back to Australia. It's starting to get TV coverage here. Oy. Look guys, when we export Woo to the US, we really don't want it returned, OK?
The Secret appears to be (backed by "leading philosophers? Yeah, right) basically the idea that if you really really want something, and visualise it, it will happen. Imagine what the universe would need to be like for that to happen...
First of all, it would need to care about human desires. The universe really, really doesn't care. The universe is entirely indifferent to us, our goals, preferences and desires. Most of it would rapidly kill us if we were there. Even much of our planet is inimical to humans. There's a small amount of the surface of the earth, not too high or under water, not too cold or too dry, where humans can live unaided. Effectively, in terms of sheer volume, to a very close approximation, none of the universe likes us. Basically, we are hoping it never really pays us attention.
Second, desires would need to be able to affect the way things are. Sure, they can, if we actually do something to bring our desires about. This means either taking action, or influencing other people to take action. There is no "principle of attraction" in the world - unless you are talking about gravitational or electrostatic attraction. People may be attracted to positive and confident individuals, as a side effect of our social dominance hierarchical detection kits. But merely thinking about things in a particular way will not get the universe to comply.
There used to be, at the end of the medieval period, an alchemical tradition that went back to Plato, known as the "macrocosm/microcosm" notion, that "as above [in the heavens], so below [in the head]". The universe was thought to be like an organism, and there was a two-way connection between the suitably enlightened head and the universe. So if you concentrated really hard, on the right sort of ideas, they would come true, because of the resemblance between the contents of your head and the world.
In short, this was the basic idea both of witchcraft and alchemy. It is called "sympathetic magic". It was abandoned as a viable idea back in the 17th century. We seem to be returning to an era of superstition, led by television and film stars, and in this case, a television producer.
And people wonder why I am such a proponent of science education.
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In your enthusiasm you've missed the biggest point, which is that we all want different and incompatible things, so if we all wish hard enough (and if Oprah's right and if you've reported The Secret correctly) then mutually contradictory things will happen!
So it's empirically confirmed?
I'm proof positive it doesn't work. I'm still stuck on this lousy planet instead of being in command of a starship.
No, John. Obviously it only works for people who are really skilled in The Secret. You need to persuade everyone that you are a leading philosopher, and offer expensive courses in The Secrets of The Secret. It'll work - you just have to believe in yourself.
Bob
Isn't this just a type of vulgarization of Schopenhauer? Seems like these ideas repeat every so often, they get 'rediscovered'. Whats next, ariosophy?
re: empirically confirmed
20/20 did a bit on religion the other night and included a bit on 'the secret', and they implied that its been 'shown that people that do this sort of thing are happier, etc'. Which, misses the point, of course people that think happy thoughts are happy, but clearly wishing, praying, meditating for something ain't going to make it happen.
Didn't, infact, the group behind the 'Natural Law Party' (in the US, I forget the name) try to do a 'meditation experiment' where they meditated in DC to lower the crime rate, and it.....went up?
Anyway, 'the secret' types will certainly convince themselves that it works, and that in itself will be cited as 'it working'.
John,
The universe wouldn't have to care for The Secret to work. All you really need is the will to affect the universe in some way, and a mechanism whereby the universe could be affected. Like, say, a backhoe were it your will to see a ditch dug. (What symbolizes ditch dugging better than a backhoe?)
The mechanism is what's missing here. If it were possible for will, wanting it, to alter even a tiny part of the universe, The Secret would be no secret at all, but taught in school and used to fix potholes. We would have a fairly good idea on how it works, what it can and can't do, and the physics behind the phenomenon.
Desire, skill, and mechanics. Other than being structured to allow it, the universe would have no role at all.
What really grinds my gears about The Secret is that one of the 'super' team that promotes it claims to be a metaphysician. No, not the sort of metaphysician that wonders if we need an ontological category of a universal or argues that laws are nomic necessitation, a metaphysician from the school of 'making shit up'. As someone who took metaphysics as part of my degree, the promotion of the strange belief that metaphysics = spiritual really makes my blood boil.
That and the 'blame the victim' mentality that The Secret promotes; Africans starving? Well, its their fault for not thinking positively enough. Durrr!
Isn't "the secret" just fancy (and marketable) language for "putting yourself in the right frame of mind to get something done"? I do that sometimes when I have deadlines, and have occasionally had limited success. Other frames of mind seem to have measurably adverse effects, such as those brought about by beer.
Of course, if you buy into "The Secret," then one conclusion of this blather is that if bad things happen to you it must be your own fault because you don't want good things badly enough or think positively enough. All those soldiers killed in Iraq? They must not wanted badly enough for good things to happen (like making it through their tours of duty unscathed). And don't get me started on the Holocaust...
Hey Wilkins, we are arguing about Darwin over at PZ's. Can you come set us straight? :)
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/05/religion_philosophy_homeopat…
John,
Sympathetic magic didn't fall out of "science" until the 18th century. Newton died in 1727, and he was primarily an alchemist. As above, so below. Solomon's gold and all that jazz.
And thanks for setting us straight!
By pure chance, as I'm in Cains, Australia for a 4-day live-aboard dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef (heh, heh), I saw the Oprah-endorsed ad for "the Secret" on TV last night. I'm wishing to see lots of hammer-head sharks. Loads of them. Lots!!!!
In the mean time, William Dembski is wishing that an intelligent designer made anything that is specified and complex...
Hang on, this crap's from Australia? I think that may count as an act of war . . .
Politically, I consider The Secret as being in the same category as the execrable Who Moved My Cheese - think happy thoughts (or sniff and scurry to find new cheese), never banding together to change things; all problems are ultimately your fault for not trying hard enough (why was the cheese outsourced to another country, and why is the new cheese smaller and slightly moldly? Oh, stop your hemming and hawing!).
And John hits it in the head, here - in terms of The Secret, we're talking magic. Under what conditions (beside ignorance) do people feel like they need magic?
Mr Wilkins wrote:
frog wrote:
I think it is time for a historian of Renaissance Science (moi) to pontificate!
There were three interrelated areas of occult studies based on the "macrocosm/microcosm" principle that were followed by serious and reputable scholars in the Renaissance; alchemy, astrology and natural magic. "Natural" magic was differentiated from "black" magic, the later depending on communion with demons and thus considered sinful for Christians whereas the former operates, like astrology and alchemy, through celestial influence. Because of this dependence on celestial influence the correct collective term for the three areas is astrologia, not to be confused with "judicial astrology" (horoscopes etc), one part of astrology. Although the concept of celestial influence can be found in several schools of Greek thought it was more the philosophy of Aristotle rather than that of Plato that was used to justify these studies in the Renaissance and it was the collapse of Aristotelian philosophy as the foundation of science in the 17th century that led to their demise. Also of importance in this context is the so-called "prisca theologia" which is the theory, held by many in this period, that one does not discover knowledge but rediscover knowledge that had been known at an earlier more perfect period of human existence.
Astrology ceased to be reputable around 1660 with the final acceptance of Keplerian cosmology and astronomy and the rejection of the Aristotelian cosmology and the Ptolemaic astronomy. Natural magic, which includes Mr Wilkins' "sympathetic magic" and had always had problems keeping its distance from black magic, lost out a little earlier its last serious proponent being Kenelm Digby (1603-1665). Of the three areas alchemy survived the longest.
To say that Newton was "primarily" an alchemist is wrong although he did devote a lot of time and energy to the study of alchemy as did his friends Boyle and Locke. Newton was primarily a prisca theologian who studied alchemy because he believed it to be the oldest form of knowledge and thus closest to the "original" knowledge that he had devoted his life to "rediscovering". He even believed that he had been chosen by God to fulfil this task. Newton's alchemy does not involve sympathetic magic. Interestingly after Newton alchemy simple disappeared from serious academic discourse. All three of the areas of occult study enjoyed a renaissance in the nineteenth century, that is still continuing, but were no longer considered reputable by the world of science.
Thony, thanks for that. There is also a nice summary at the Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
Well here I was planning to blog on just this subject and found yours. Well hopefully my take will be different enough. I'll certainly link to this. :)