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

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

#21

Post by oblib »

wanderer_ wrote: post #10

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.

Yeah... that's a good summation.

I have some personal experience with this kind of thing. Back in the `70s my father had a small group of "followers" who considered him to be a sort of "guru". We lived in Hollywood, so there were a lot of folks into that sort of thing.

They believed he had mystical powers. Truth was he was only looking to get laid, and he hurt a lot of women who fell for his BS, and their husbands/boyfriends.

I have a family member now who claims he's a "God". He lived in Hollywood too when he "realized" this. He's not quite as convincing as my father was, but he's pretty good at getting others to believe him.

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

#22

Post by IceMetalPunk »

giantg2 wrote: post #15
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if something is unknown, you can either believe it's true or you can believe it's false. If you believe things are true before having any real evidence, then you open yourself to a literal infinity of internally contradictory beliefs. If you instead assume nothing is true until there's evidence, then you do not invite any internally contradictory beliefs.

I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy. One could withhold judgment so as to not hold a belief either way. Some people may answer "I don't know" when asked if they believe something. They hold no conviction one way or the other. It's this curious state in between that provides the most potential for people to explore new ideas. One could believe in things and not care about proving them to others, yet this will no…

There's an important distinction between knowing and believing. Saying "I don't know" is a statement of knowledge, but that is different from a statement of belief. For instance, I am an agnostic atheist: I don't know if any gods exist, but I don't believe they do. One can be entirely capable of believing or not believing while still being open to the idea that their beliefs may be wrong because they don't know. Saying "I believe gravity pulls me towards Earth" doesn't preclude me from changing that belief if, say, evidence presents itself that I'm actually being held down on the ground by an invisible demigod's barbell -- it just means I currently believe gravity to be the cause.

"One could believe in things and not care about proving them to others, yet this will not convince others nor produce any evidence."

Sure, but just because someone believes something doesn't make it true, so beliefs without evidence don't matter. That is, except when those beliefs inform the person's behavior; then they matter greatly, because they affect people around them despite not having any basis for their behaviors (since they have no basis for their beliefs).

"One could also hold the view that everything is false and not worth looking into unless someone else provides proof. This will not produce evidence either."

"Someone else" could also be "that same person"; but even if it's not, then it would still motivate the production of evidence by requiring someone to look for evidence in order to convince said person.

"But I still think those willing to entertain ideas without accepting or denying them can better explore that topic and use those thoughts cross domains. A world without strict self imposed mental boundaries can be beneficial."

I agree completely. And the biggest imposed mental boundary is equating "I believe" with "I know" :) "I don't know" is valid and, indeed, generally the best approach, epistemically speaking; "I neither believe nor disbelieve" is apathy at best, self-deception at worst.

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

#23

Post by IceMetalPunk »

meerperson wrote: post #12
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Many renowned scientists and researchers were also mystics. Mysticism is a personal, subjective framework for insight and self-improvement that doesn't have to follow the rules of the scientific method.

And the guy who discovered the first evidence of the Big Bang was a priest. But both facts are irrelevant. A thing is not more or less valid because of who believes it; the only thing that changes the validity of a claim is evidence about why the claim is (or isn't) true.

"Mysticism is a personal, subjective framework for insight and self-improvement that doesn't have to follow the rules of the scientific method."

Anything that makes claims about how the world works does, in fact, need to follow the scientific method. Why? Because it's a process that's literally designed to counteract the most common mistakes and biases that humans make in order to find the truth, and because so far, it's been the most accurate and effective method of predicting the future.

If you want self-improvement or mindfulness, that's fine and personal, but making claims about the nature of the universe isn't a personal opinion, it's a statement of fact about things external to yourself that is either true or false irrespective of your own experiences.

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

#24

Post by IceMetalPunk »

giantg2 wrote: post #13
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

What about situations where a known affect is well documented, but the 'how' is unknown and not explained? We accept some of these as real, such as the use of many medications - we can see that they work or produce an affect, but don't know how. I'm not saying that we should accept metaphysical claims as true, but our world does not strictly follow the null hypothesis either.

The claim "this medication produces this effect" is a separate claim from "this medication produces this effect via this process ". In those cases you mentioned, the first claim has enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis, and the second... well, if we don't know how it works, then we have yet to find such a claim that has rejected its null hypothesis.

For instance, aspirin works as a pain reliever. This has been shown with empirical evidence. However, if I said "aspirin relieves pain by infesting your blood with microscopic fairies who kiss your boo-boos from the inside out" -- that claim does not have enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis.

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

#25

Post by IceMetalPunk »

giantg2 wrote: post #20
twelve40 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the null hypothesis and the burden of proof applies to a specific claim that "this is how it works". There are plenty of phenomena "officially" unexplained by science yet, and that's ok. But claiming that some cards have some magical meaning doesn't make sense.

True. Calling BS on magic is fine. But it could also be wrong to claim tarot is complete BS. It's possible the effects of a tarot reading are explainable by things like observation bias, the subject changing their behaviors due to the reading, or the reader using some sort of body language reading to influence their "interpretation" of the cards.

Let's be clear in our definitions here: when people say "Tarot is BS", they don't mean "it can never get the right result"; they mean "it doesn't get the right result through some mystical, spiritual, or divine knowledge as the practitioners of Tarot often claim it does". Additionally, if a Tarot practitioner does not make such claims, and instead points to any of the psychological explanations you mentioned, then the cards are no longer relevant to the practice anyway since they are not involved in the true mechanisms.

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

#26

Post by dmfay »

Nothing metaphysical about tarot, but it can be useful to challenge how you naturally think. The random cards you lay out force you to reconcile them with the story you tell yourself about where you are or a specific situation, and can show you connections and angles you might otherwise have ignored. Same goes for other methods of "divination" but tarot has a richer symbolic language than most.

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

#27

Post by wanderer_ »

oblib wrote: post #21
wanderer_ wrote: post #10

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.

Yeah... that's a good summation. I have some personal experience with this kind of thing. Back in the `70s my father had a small group of "followers" who considered him to be a sort of "guru". We lived in Hollywood, so there were a lot of folks into that sort of thing. They believed he had mystical powers. Truth was he was only looking to get laid, and he hurt a lot of women who fell for his BS, and their husbands/bo…

Those are some sad stories. It's a crazy world out there, with lots of people trying to take advantage of their fellow humans.
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