Is God the Biosphere? - 5 - Superstition

The Hidden Power

It is no secret that the various tribes and bubbles of our world have wildly differing beliefs about things. Why can't people just accept the truth? But the truth is so contentious. And framing is so contentious. And all these people seem to have the most outlandish superstitions.

An abiding feature of these podcasts, as we've highlighted many times, is this thing called Systems Thinking, and while this is a broad enough discipline to be fairly tribal in its own right, one key feature of this Systems Thinking is thinking about your thinking.

In this episode we review some of the things in normal western life that have the character of superstition, and explore to what extent our innate capacity for gullibility and naïvity might be used to our advantage, in evolving a more constructive mindset; in connecting better with Nature, and specifically in nurturing the health of our habitat.

Talking Points:

An experience with a palm reader

The power of belief and ritual in performance

Listener comments - a bishop, a yogi, and a reflection on who we are

Some superstitions - recognisable, and hidden

Like Science - eg impact of false HRT Study warning cancer

To what extent are your superstitions working for you?

Heuristics and humility regarding knowledge

Good and bad fairy-tales

What you do and what you think about it

Whatever gets you through the night

We all need superstitions

Faith as an alternative to cynicism

Faith in your own human system

Faith in our project of a viable habitat

The Good Place - it's impossible to be "Good"

The system is fundamentally bad

The challenge is bigger than all of us

And that is why we need faith in a higher power to sustain us

Links:

Fundamentalism as a superstition about text:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/armstrong-battle.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

On the placebo effect:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

On a scientific Truth that turned out to be untrue - HRT and cancer -

https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/cancer-clinical-archive/study-linking-hrt-to-breast-cancer-was-wrong-26-01-2012/

William James (Philosopher and psychologist)

On pragmatism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Pragmatism_and_%22cash_value%22

On the Variety of Religious Experience (Wikipedia preçis)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Philosophy_of_religion

Timothy Morton:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Morton#Ecological_theory

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