@Ooze @TheBreadmonkey one of my favorite books is Beyond Supernature by Lyall Watson. It’s a collection of anecdotes superficially about how scientific explanations are often more wondrous than magical ones. But really it is about how beliefs based on magic can have unintended impacts explainable by unexpected science.

My fave is a story about how one group of Native Americans had a practice, as part of their hunting, of divining the location of their next grounds by placing an antler in the coals of a fire, and reading the resulting cracks as directions.

“Pshaw,” says rational man, “everyone knows those cracks are random nonsense.

Precisely, posited Watson; it was that source of randomness that helped prevent over hunting. The process was only nonsensical, when interpreted as a map from the perspective of the “rational” outsider.

Perhaps apocryphal, but certainly reasonable. That’s why I never poo-poo oracles outright. Sometimes it’s our biases and our maximalism and our rugged individualism that ruins us, and true sources of randomness, essential for balance, can be hard to come by.

It’s also why I look askance at quantitative academics who discount phenomenology entirely.

@Akki

This is an interesting take. I don't believe in anything and am sad all of the time. I recognise that people that have faith are invariably happier than I am. Erego I've often wondered how I might find something to hang onto.

@vonxylofon

Yes I deliberately took the headline away from any context to misunderstand it for comic effect. I don't really think technology news site The Verge is promoting actual sorcery. 😂