For gods' sake
Jun. 25th, 2016 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyranoI've been reading a lot of self help books lately, because I need a lot of help.
One of the commonly recurring themes is that they ask you to think of the universe as an orderly directed plan instead of a cold place that doesn't care about you and will crush you if you step into its path.
Which is all good and fine, except that (a) most of the reasons why they tell you to do this boil down to 'because it makes you feel better' rather than 'because it might be true'. A lot of their support is full of confirmation bias and the 'cold reading' skills that get used by people talking to your dead relatives from beyond the grave. (Example: Have you ever been thinking of somebody and had them call you at that moment? That's proof that there's a god or something. Except, how many times have you been thinking of somebody and they *didn't* call you?)
I know that, in theory, I'm reading these books and I can take what's useful and leave the rest. But it gets underneath my saddle and irritates me. I Will Try Harder.
One of the commonly recurring themes is that they ask you to think of the universe as an orderly directed plan instead of a cold place that doesn't care about you and will crush you if you step into its path.
Which is all good and fine, except that (a) most of the reasons why they tell you to do this boil down to 'because it makes you feel better' rather than 'because it might be true'. A lot of their support is full of confirmation bias and the 'cold reading' skills that get used by people talking to your dead relatives from beyond the grave. (Example: Have you ever been thinking of somebody and had them call you at that moment? That's proof that there's a god or something. Except, how many times have you been thinking of somebody and they *didn't* call you?)
I know that, in theory, I'm reading these books and I can take what's useful and leave the rest. But it gets underneath my saddle and irritates me. I Will Try Harder.