Ask HN: What do you guys think of Tarot or other metaphysical things?

The null hypothesis holds

Why do you say that?

In the UK, the Spiritualists National Union[0] is very popular among people who have an interest in mediumship / metaphysical, and the Churches across the country are widely accepted.

[0]: https://www.snu.org.uk/

In philosophy, there's a concept called the "burden of proof", which basically says "a positive claim must be supported, a negative claim can be assumed". This is because, to simplify the formal logic quite a bit, it's logically inconsistent for everything to be true, but not inconsistent for everything to be false. Therefore, if the truth is unknown, it can be assumed to be nonexistent until further evidence arises.

In science, this burden of proof idea is called the null hypothesis: we assume nothing is true, and look for experimental evidence to "reject the null hypothesis" -- that is, we assume a positive claim is not true until we find evidence that it is. There's a fairly straightforward inductive syllogism for why that approach is the most reasonable, which I'll leave out here (unless you'd like me to outline it?) for brevity.

Therefore, Tarot, ghosts, an afterlife, psychics, etc. are all subject to the same burden of proof / null hypothesis rejection process as any other positive claims: until there's empirical, reproducible evidence supporting them, we must assume they are not true. And after centuries of asking for (and looking for) evidence, and even a long-standing million dollar prize for any that can be found, all we've ever had in that regard is... personal anecdotes and deeply-held beliefs. Neither of which constitute objective evidence, and neither of which manage to be consistently reproducible.

So the null hypothesis stands: they aren't real, and I genuinely invite anyone to find the evidence to reject that assumption, as long as the evidence they find is logically consistent, objective, and reproducible without confounding factors (i.e. if such evidence can only be reproduced while someone is on hallucinogenics, or while someone is in a house with a carbon monoxide leak, or while other factors could more plausibly explain the results, or...)

Searching for meaning for these things is a trap. It can be a harmless hobby, but for many people it becomes something more and can tear them apart (e.g. inducing anxiety or obsession with it).

Many (but not necessarily all) people who sell this type of paraphernalia or services are con artists looking to make a buck off of desperate people who are looking to make sense of their lives in places where they won't.