Arthur C. Clarke famously said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Consequently, we use magical thinking to deal with advanced technology.
This is very evident to me when I watch other people use computers, which I understand better than they do. Sometimes I catch myself doing the same thing, for example when I have to do something with Vista and Microsoft has changed the terminology or behavior to make it more confusing (to me).
As technology advances, any one person will understand less and less of it. We will have to use more magical thinking, not less.
Or maybe there is a synthesis, a scientifically informed magical thinking. With branded chemicals, such as Benadryl, I understand that diphenhydramine hydrochloride has a predictable effect on my body. I believe that I am capable of understanding the chemical reactions involved if I put in some effort, although I do not presently understand them.
There is also a false magical thinking, as when people pay as much extra for the Benadryl brand as they did for the diphenhydramine hydrochloride. The false magical thinking is encouraged by the advertisers, who aren't thinking magically at all.
7 comments:
I always thought that Clarke's saying simply meant that when one saw a result of advanced technology, like a program that draws a circle (in the very early days of computers), one might be prompted to say, wow, that's magic, as one might say when seeing a rabbit drawn out of a hat. I'm not so sure that it transfers to "magical thinking," which I understand to mean that one thinks that one is accomplishing something by some action that effects a certain result, even though the two actions are unconnected - especially when this is done repetitively or in as a ritual. For example, when one thinks that eating yak butter and dancing in a circle will bring rain. This seems to be somewhat different than performing a computer operation that one doesn't understand, like pressing Ctr-Alt-Del to reboot a computer. One may not understand how this works, but it is different from the rain-making example because, (1) it does work most of the time, (2) there is a real cause-effect connection between the action and the reboot, and (3) one may have some general idea about how it works - electrons running around a circuit board somewhere. But I may not really understand your argument and would enjoy some further elucidation on the subject.
P.S., I do understand and agree that preferring the brand name over a generic chemical is a good example of magical thinking.
There is a lot of territory here to explore in further posts. For now, let's replace your example of pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot a computer with the notion of rebooting a computer to fix an error in retrieving email.
I can approach the problem scientifically, form a hypothesis (my connection is down), and conduct an experiment (try to get the Google page in my browser). In other words, I can play CSI and follow the evidence.
Or I can recall that last week when I couldn't print, the techie came in and did five different things, including rebooting my computer. Rebooting is the only one of the five things that I know how to do, so why not try that?
If there was an intermittent problem with the mail server, this might actually appear to work.
We're getting there. The notion of magical thinking seems to include the idea that the actor knows nothing about the process that he is attempting to influence. Like the Cargo Cult people trying to draw down aircraft by making wooden representations. So we must posit a computer user that knows almost nothing about the computer he is using (not a hard assumption to make). Your example is apt. How is this one: whenever something goes wrong with the computer, the user assumes that it is a virus and runs a virus program. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes when it seems to, it isn't actually the virus program that fixes the problem. With respect to the Arthur C. Clarke quote, I vaguely remember that there was more to it, like "to the untutored mind," or "to the 'primitive' mind" advanced technology appears to be magic, but so far I haven't been able to find any context for the quote. And I may be wrong about it.
From a collection of trivia from Superman Returns (2006 movie, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348150/trivia):
Lex Luthor says, "To the primitive mind, any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic," which is a paraphrase of an Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" ("Profiles of the Future," 1961). Clarke is mentioned in the closing credits of the film for this reason.
To me magical thinking means a specific state of mind/feeling out of which to think. But it is ineffable. The thought concept that is below or maybe above the language. I have a friend who was born deaf and who didn't learn language until 8 or 9 years who has memories before she had language to capture them.. I find that fascinating to consider.
Now, another story of magical thinking and it was told to me as true but I don't remember the location or the date.
But there were steam ships plying some river where tribal people with a strong belief in supernatural beings were trained to man the boilers. They kept blowing up the boats even though they had been told exactly how to manage the technology. Finally, someone told them that a demon lived inside the boiler and that they needed to keep it fed, but not overfed and there was a line on some gauge they needed to watch closely so that the demon wouldn't get angry and blow u the craft. Once the locals started to take care of the demon, no more boats blew up which proved that demons live in the boilers, right?
As long as it works, does it matter? When people complain that computers don't work and that tech-teases are always changing them what they might be saying is that no amount of magical thinking can cope with the hassle of dealing with computers. Yet they (both the techs and their machines) appear to be like the whimsical gods from Olympus, playing havoc with our petty little lives.
CET - the Biddy Boomer
I guess I have a different understanding of magical thinking. I have always thought of it as believing in the obviously impossible. Stuff like: I don't need to save for retirement because I'll win a really big lottery. So I can buy a boat now, and big screen TV, and borrow money for a great trip. Or: If I ignore the leaky roof and the termites, the house will be just fine. Or: I am so tolerant that I will allow large numbers of people who want to have the state murder people like me move into the country, and they therefore will return my respect and not murder people like me. That's magical thinking.
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