Talk:Magical thinking/Archive 2

Permission from the publisher
The contents of this article were copyrighted. Thus it was necessary to secure permission from the publisher before posting it on Wikipedia. I explained to the publisher why I thought that this article was important, and after a few letters I received this reply....(deleted) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RK (talk • contribs).

Permission from the publisher was revoked today due to concerns from the original author. I understand his hesitation to allow others to possibily adapt his original work. In line with his request, I am removing the text. RK


 * Stick it on sourceberg... -'Vert

07:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Two adjacent but disconnected-seeming sentences
''Adherents of magical belief systems often do not see their beliefs as being magical. In Asia, many coincidences and contingencies are explained in terms of karma in which a person's actions in a past life affects current events.''

Are these two sentences related in any significant way? The second seems disconnected from the first and also unnecessary.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.169.117.90 (talk • contribs).

06:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Removed section
Here is the section I removed. Does any editor have cites for any of it? Ashmoo 02:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Science and magical claims
This does not cite its references or sources. You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations. Any scientific analysis of magical claims will be dogged by problems related to causality, coincidence and statistical validity.

Personal experience
When looking at the possible effects that magical thinking or actions may have purely on the individual concerned, science needs to be most careful. Issues related to self-confidence and other psychological influences on a person's body, mind or behavior can be very complex. It is very difficult to entirely discount possibilities that magical thinking is capable of having quite profound and measurable effects on the practitioner him or herself. Self-fulfilling prophecy, including the placebo effect, is an example of this in practice.

02:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Added section on magical thinking in science
Cited Cargo Cult Science as a possible case of magical thinking in science, on the grounds that it depends on the fallacy of contact - for it assumes, on some level, that if scientists are brought into contact with data, it will become scientific, regardless of the methods used to generate it. I did this largely to address the concerns raised above that the article is simply a dismissal of marginal beliefs, but I think that, even absent those claims, this is worth bringing up. It would be irrational to assume that all scientific thought is non-magical, or that all mystical thought is non-scientific. (Someone who performs a controlled experiment in ESP may be barking up the wrong tree entirely, but, if they do the right controls, they're still thinking scientifically on some level.) Wells

15:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarke quote again
I don't mean to insult whoever thinks this quote is relevant, but this is bordering on the obtuse. As defined by the article itself, "magical thinking" is:

"described in anthropology, psychology and cognitive science as causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as the law of contagion, correlation equalling causation, the power of symbols and the ability of the mind to affect the physical world."

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the "magic" of Clarke's third law, which simply refers to a situation where an observer without an understanding of the operating principles of technological marvel X might as well say it works by magic. This does not imply at all that the person is guilty of magical thinking, because magical thinking is NOT the belief that something works by magic.

A significant number of people have no idea how a refrigerator keeps their food cold, apart from saying "it uses electricity to make things cold", likely not knowing the first thing about electricity either. To all intents and purposes, the fridge works "by magic" in the Clarkean sense.

If these people were guilty of magical thinking as it is properly defined, they would think that the food stays cold in the refrigerator because they always close it standing on their left foot, or wearing their favorite shirt.

The quote has been shoehorned into this article, and while the current wording is less blatantly absurd, it is even more important that it be taken out, because it's more subtle and therefore more likely to mislead.

As to lacking a "universally accepted definition", please. Within the fields where this term is actually used, i.e. psychology and cognitive science, this is a very clearly defined concept. Also, the whole section on Frazer's anthropological study of magical practices belongs in Magic, not this article, which should be about the psychological/cognitive term, because it is a concept that exists and is meaningful irrespective of whether belief in magic is involved.

I repeat: "magical thinking" refers solely to the cognitive phenomenon, and the article should stick to that. Any belief systems or anthropological studies that this phenomenon is included in should have their own pages. And guess what - they already do! Unigolyn (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Strong Disagree. I have nothing to add to what I've typed above. David in DC (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * While I think restricting the article to Fraser's 'magical thinking' might be going a bit far, I think the article' scope should be narrowed a bit. As it is, it is so wide than the article doesn't really explain much, except to be a series of anecdotes with the word 'magic' in them. David in DC, what do you think the scope should be? As it is, or would you support any change? Ashmoo (talk) 14:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the scope of the article should be to cover those aspects of individual or group thinking that attribute otherwise unexplainanble (by the observer) events to non-scientifically provable causes.


 * I came to this article by way of the "Magical Thinking in Mental Illness" paragraphs after noticing that, when personally in the midst of a clinical depression, I felt a compulsion to drive to Atlantic City. I've read all the books on blackjack and know that, statistically, scientifically, the odds are inexorably in the house's favor.  That's why their buildings are thirty stories high and my home is a split-level.


 * But the depressed person's symptom, a predisposition to "magical thinking," nearly led me to ignore the scientific facts and go gamble the mortgage. I was sure that, somthing hadda break for me.  Fortunately, I resisted and still have a home and a mortgage, and my depression is well-medicated.


 * I'm also a science fiction fan and well-familiar with Clarke's Third Law. After the personal demons were at bay for another day, I reread the article. I noticed that the apparantly non-empirical belief of those individuals or groups who believe in non-scientific explanations for  phenomena empirically explainable to us 21st century thinkers fit quite closely with the beliefs of cargo cults. Or of the unsophisticated natives in science fiction novels where advanced technologies are disclosed to primitive societies or individuals unable to comprehend them as anything but "magic".


 * Please read my description above of the transport of Ethiopian and Yemenite Jews to Israel, or WP on cargo cults if you doubt such magical thinking occurs today.


 * Long answer, sorry. Thanks for asking. David in DC (talk) 16:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the problem with Clarke's Law is it assumes magical thinking as a given. If you showed an automatic door to a medieval mill owner who believed in magic, he would probably assume it was magic, but if he examined it closely he would probably recognise the rack-and-pinion drive system and could conclude that while he didn't understand how the motor worked, it was probably a work of craftmanship rather than sorcery. Equally, when scientists didn't understand nuclear fusion, they could tell that no known mechanism could explain the power of the sun, but they didn't assume that meant the sun was magic.


 * Since an analytical mindset discards magic because it offers no satisfactory answer to how something functions, no technology, no matter how advanced, would ever be regarded as magic by those who possess such a mindset, unless the magic in question possessed a testable natural mechanism (and therefore by definition was no longer magic). Herr Gruber (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Pretty Stupid
Einstein taught us that causality doesn't exist in the universe, everything is really rather relative. This is why pharmacy works and psychotherapy doesn't particularly work well. Learn to read books and actually apply the knowledge across fields. -Dimensio —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.241.208 (talk) 04:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Dimensio, how about that long list of contraindications that every pharmacy carries around, effects that *may* or *may not* surface, with measured probability. Maybe you should stop reading books and instead start to practice, or does your personal analysis paralysis prevent that and you instead rely on magical thinking - that is - thoughts of others fixed in form of a book? 77.180.178.138 (talk) 06:00, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

-Dimensio remember that wikipedia is not about insulting other people. Just improve the article please rather than comment on the intelligence of people you disagree with. Paul Conway, Instructor, Introduction to Child Development, Fall 2012, King's University College Canada 00:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pauljosephconway (talk • contribs)

06:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Magickal Thinking = Superstition?
Would this article not be better added to the Superstition article? I dont see much difference between either term. Can someone elaborate on the differences between Magickal Thinking and Superastition? Cause i dont see it.

07:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This article is grossly misleading, if not completely biased and disrespectful
Associative thinking is far too broad of a topic, to be reduced to 'magical thinking'. It's clear to me that the author here has only disrespectful intentions, which are aimed against any evidence toward the notion, that associative learning contributes to human reasoning. This is another article that makes Wikipedia look really bad - this time because it allows for such one-sided attack against anything that threatens the (western) cultural-dominance of logical thinking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.238.115.40 (talk) 01:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * A cursory examination of any remotely sophisticated Eastern culture will find they are just as adept at determining that things should make some kind of actual sense. Herr Gruber (talk) 12:35, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

'Associative thinking' should not redirect to 'magical thinking'. Associative thinking, in the modern and broad sense, is regarded as essentially, probabilistic reasoning, and involves drawing relations based on spatial(physical)/temporal similarities. But for most people associative relations, are generally upheld as conscious assumptions - and not as certain relations. Associative thinking may also involve cross-checking products of thought, through other lines of reasoning, and therefore allowing for constructive support. 'Magical thinking', on the other hand, is when draws a certain conclusion, based on (typically weak, superficial) similarities. The redirection from 'associative thinking', is blatantly misleading in forcing the notion that associative thinking involves certainty. There is a lot of recent literature reflecting the importance of the associative factor in human cognition (Currently, the dominant theory of intelligence, CHC, even includes it, in conjuction with long term retrival fluency, as a proxy for general intelligence. And the associative factor gMA, has latent factor g loadings that exceed even that of concept formation). I can only advise this article needs to be restructured...~


 * Agreed. Especially the non sequitur inclusion of a photo of the laying on of hands. Hands are simply a sign of making a covenant in prayer -- though there are some faith healers who claim to be able to transfer spiritual energy from their hands. Are we to throw prayer in the same category with "magical thinking?" If so, I think we need to take a closer look at the subject. 204.65.210.2 (talk) 16:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Archiving this page
I have set up auto archiving for this page. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:45, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Specific area of application
Magical thinking is very specific, limited psychological phenomena. It almost never exists alone and can't be generalized. For example, primitive people were easily influenced by shamans into believing they had power to cast lightning or eclipse, where the later were just calculating exact time. Thus people would perform rain dances or occult actions, due to them being influenced into believing this works this way. This is related with Cargo cult. Scientific methods of isolation were created to oppose and filter such influence out.

However, there is second possible application to this, in materialism versus idealism, where magical thinking is used as an effort to imply that thoughts have no power. This is incorrect, as its well proven that thoughts possess carrier substance and hence thinking does influence the physical processes within organism (endocrine gland activity, cell membrane transmittance, brain activity). Not believing into material side of thoughts - is equal to not believing in electricity, but worshiping the power of wires. Or not believing in existence of information, but accepting only the alphabet. Western culture is particularly obsessed with (pointless) splitting of the carrier from its state, and issuing crusades of proving which side dominates, where eastern culture has long discovered the multifaceted nature of the substance.

Now the point of this article is not a (pointless) crusade for domination, but separation of fantasies (within a brainpan of individual) from scientifically proven connection. And this point is nowhere mentioned in the article. 77.180.178.138 (talk) 05:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Specific area of application
Magical thinking is very specific, limited psychological phenomena. It almost never exists alone and can't be generalized. For example, primitive people were easily influenced by shamans into believing they had power to cast lightning or eclipse, where the later were just calculating exact time. Thus people would perform rain dances or occult actions, due to them being influenced into believing this works this way. This is related with Cargo cult. Scientific methods of isolation were created to oppose and filter such influence out.

However, there is second possible application to this, in materialism versus idealism, where magical thinking is used as an effort to imply that thoughts have no power. This is incorrect, as its well proven that thoughts possess carrier substance and hence thinking does influence the physical processes within organism (endocrine gland activity, cell membrane transmittance, brain activity). Not believing into material side of thoughts - is equal to not believing in electricity, but worshiping the power of wires. Or not believing in existence of information, but accepting only the alphabet. Western culture is particularly obsessed with (pointless) splitting of the carrier from its state, and issuing crusades of proving which side dominates, where eastern culture has long discovered the multifaceted nature of the substance.

Now the point of this article is not a (pointless) crusade for domination, but separation of fantasies (within a brainpan of individual) from scientifically proven connection. And this point is nowhere mentioned in the article. 77.180.178.138 (talk) 05:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarks Law
Just reading the archives for this talk section I find some amazing misapplications of Clarks law "That any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic." The law can certainly be read in quite a number of ways but to only focus on the ones that back arguments against magic totally misses the point.

Clark was a physicist and in physics 'indistinguishable' is sometimes used as a way of saying 'equal'. The law is an argument about the point where science itself becomes magic or so like magic that the two are literally indistinguishable. It is not an argument against magic it is an argument that says that magic is real and is merely very advanced physics. Putting all three laws together only highlights this. Clark was a science fiction author and scientific futurist and confronted these kinds of questions many times in his books like the 2001 series. Are the monoliths magic or are they science?? the answer of course is both. - Clark may or may not have believed in magic but he certainly believed in the possibility of magic. Lucien86 (talk) 10:48, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. When Clarke addressed "magic" he was talking about the ability to do things by supernatural means. His argument is that anything sufficiently advanced will appear supernatural, not that the supernatural is anything we do not currently comprehend (aka God of the Gaps). Herr Gruber (talk) 10:55, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Badly in need of framing
The fact that one of the major sources cited on the page is titled "How Natives Think"--all of them, all the time, and certainly unlike us!--ought to raise more than an eyebrow or two. One imagines the English gentleman, on safari, ruminating on the character of the intelligence of the savage (or the ape, for that matter), imagining himself therefore to be deeply engaged in the application of Divine Reason--dispeller of magical thinking, he.

The "Westerner" finds magical thinking among all the world's various flavors of "savage" just as the "white" person always finds characteristics distinguishing himself from the various "colored" peoples: he has, from the outset, defined the terms of his engagement with the topic. The conclusion follows automatically. The person who believes he or she is "white" must, in order to uphold this belief, identify distinguishing characteristics of the other "races." He or she never questions what function, exactly, it serves him or her to believe he or she is "white." Likewise the Westerner will uncritically use his "reason" (standing in for any and all contemporary erudite cultural practices he accepts, give or take some erudite humility) to examine the savage's speech and behavior; he will never subject the actual human practice of "reason" to the same scrutiny. What is the scientist doing, personally, with his "reason"? What is the linguist doing, personally, when he pursues relativist theories of cognition? The answer, in both cases, is that he is justifying his preconceived idea of himself and the authority of the group to which he pledges allegiance, and from which he draws his methods.

I think this article would be improved if a historical context is provided for these sources. Even the history of science (and any other field invoking "reason") is littered with self-justifying figures and institutions, because history is always, finally, about human beings. Better yet, I think this article would be improved if it is restructured to make clear that "magical thinking" is a term used by various individuals and groups, historically as well as currently, in diverse contexts. The fact that the scope of "madness" is now shrunk to psychiatric and psychological confines does not mean the reader should not be aware that a much broader context--all savage peoples--was once deemed appropriate. -2601:241:8401:DAED:F9D4:50BC:27B3:A669 (talk) 14:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it means what you think it means
I've been taught and have been teaching that magical thinking means a kind of reversed logic, that is, I need it therefore it is available. It's taken some odd cases where users become convinced that an action or some odd combination of switches results in the intended behavior. It's most common with undefined behavior, that is setting a paradoxical set of switches that we failed to block, but sometimes it appears where they've got some strange belief to our eyes as to what something is. In practice, this manner of thinking is reinforcing for a long time because for awhile these things will be things thought of and built before. But sometimes they just aren't and they get stuck with the dissonance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CCCF:9039:56A0:50FF:FE57:101D (talk) 02:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Removed a See Also
I've removed Quantum Psychology from the See Also list. Rather than discussing magical thinking as a phenomenon, it simply seems to promote general pseudoscience, and it doesn't really belong here. 84.93.81.252 (talk) 17:30, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Definition
The article mentiones the "attribution of synchronicity between events that cannot be justified by observation or reason" as a sufficient criterion for the establishment of that thought process as "magical thinking". I do not think this definition is quite correct; the attribution of synchronicity to events is always justified by observation and attributing synchronicity is in itself a very ordinary thought process. Assigning causation to synchronicity is symptomatic of psychopathology, but even that does not fall under the definition of magical thinking according to any modern broadly-accepted interpretation, neither is the definition given in this article supported by the work cited as reference to that passage; the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology lists "magical thinking" as "Thinking that one's thoughts on their own can bring about effects in the world, or that thinking something amounts to doing it.", which tallies with the definition given in many other medical dictionaries. I will not discount the possibility of a divergent definition in anthropology or ethnology, but that should be separately given and, most importantly, sourced. --Halemyu (talk) 21:57, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Or no, let me revise that assessment. I think the general problem with this article is that the author(s) (perhaps there was an original author who was the incipient of putting this spin on it) have taken a term of definite, well-sourced meaning in psychology, and have begun conflating the article on it with matter concering the thought patterns underlying practices recognized as "magic" - which, though perhaps justified from a semantic consideration (i.e. the underlying thought patterns are perhaps really the same, or closely related, and many researchers in the field do acknowledge that) and terminologically not entirely without precedent, is much harder to source in any scientic publication.
 * --Halemyu (talk) 23:44, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment
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Piaget
" "egocentric," believing that what they feel and experience is the same as everyone else's feelings and experiences." - I am not disputing that he stated this, but believing in universality of experience is in a sense the opposite of ego-centric, it is rather being unaware that ego is an ego (That I am a me). When we use "egocentric" about adults we mean persons who are aware that other people have distinct inner lives, but who dismiss these others as unimportant or irrelevant. By contrast "believing that what they feel and experience is the same as everyone else's feelings and experiences." is quite a different thing.137.205.101.81 (talk) 08:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)