Miraculous!
Over this Christmas break, I was in the mall and saw a decorative wall-block that had Only those who believe in miracles will find them inscribed into it. So, upon reading this I began thinking about the validity of such a claim. Ultimately, I broke it down to multiple psychological processes attempting to explain it, though I'm not entirely - though generally - against the idea of miracles.
For starters, such a claim is unfalsifiable - one of the requirements for any theory to have any value for it. It's in the same realm as one of Freud's defense mechanisms known as denial: If we think you have something wrong with you and you disagree.. Denial! Essentially, if you are labeled with something and you don't agree, well, you still have it (according to the diagnoser), you just don't want to admit that unpleasant little fact. Same goes for this little stone-inscribed gem: something good happens to someone who believes in miracles: Hey! It could be a miracle!; Something good happens to someone who doesn't: Hey! Something good happened! But, no miracle. The main problem with this is that it applies to everything, which makes it have no value. Seems kind of counter-intuitive that a theory which is so encompassing is worthless, but it's because it doesn't tell us anything new or of use. Everyone has undetectable parasites in their body? Great, nothing we could do about that, then. Right?
It's self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. I say "of sorts" because it doesn't quite fall into the simple game of provoking the outcome that it predicts, but seems related, doesn't it? Maybe this should be considered under the labels of confirmation bias and flashbulb memory. Confirmation bias acts the same way my example at the end of the previous paragraph goes; it's unfalsifiable. People who choose to see miracles may see them everywhere, in specific places, or only very rarely, but they are the only ones who are able to set their own subjective criteria. They will only look for confirming information and not dis-confirming information, but in the realm of the spiritual/supernatural, neither are to be found, really. For flashbulb memory part, well.. people tend to remember events of personal significance. This could be just something out of the ordinary, or a very emotionally charged event. In this case, a miracle would probably have both of those qualifications and would be much more memorable than other things. To illustrate how this works, your first kiss with someone is probably more memorable than any other kiss in that same relationship. Or, suppose you're walking down the street and a street lamp goes off over your head - strange, isn't it? No, in fact, it isn't; you only remember the bulb going out because it's out of the ordinary, but you neglect to pay attention to all the times that the lights stayed on (falls a little into the realm of availability heuristic)
My final thought on this block is one I don't have a label for, but falls under evolutionary psychology. According to evolutionary psychology, we'll sometimes see something that's not there because it's safer to do so. For example, it's safer to jump at a shadow, thinking it's a predator, than to dismiss a predator as a shadow. Humans also have a psychological need to make sense of the world around us. We are constantly constructing hypotheses about how the world works, looking for consistencies to help us out in our search. My professor made a joke yesterday related to this: young children will drop items over and over in an attempt to construct an idea of how things work; they're testing the gravity theory, if you will. But, if you were able to make the spoon (the one that they repeatedly drop) float in the air... Well, you'd have the makings of a very early psychotic. This is also why paranoid schizophrenics have the most hopeful outlook for treatment of the types of schizophrenia: they are still able to construct a story, despite things not necessarily making sense. If you keep seeing/hearing things, either you admit to yourself that you're crazy, or you make sense of what information you've been given. And who wants to admit that they're crazy?
A study related to this had two experimental groups: one who had a solvable problem, and one who had an unsolvable one. They were then given a screen with static on it and asked if there was a pattern to it. People in the unsolvable one were more likely to see a pattern, whereas the solvable problem one's didn't normally find anything. Researchers explained this by talking about control: the unsolvable problem took control away from the participant, frustrating them. By finding a pattern in something with no pattern, they were taking some control back. As they say, discovery is the first step to mastery.
Anyway, I've talked long enough. Share your thoughts, if you would.
Following your confirmation bias thread, I would say that seeing miracles becomes a part of the person's identity--if they are religious then there would be peer pressure to see miracles and appreciate everday events as if they were miracles (which, depending on your faith, can be a way of appreciating god). So in this area, seeing miracles almost becomes a selfish means of getting closer to God. No one is learning anything from you saying that rain is God's miracle, but you feel better about your spirituality and possibly about your own identity. It's a means of constantly reassuring yourself that your faith is both a good thing, and really who you are.
I think the Internet has given a voice to someone who needs more experience in what life truly means before he can comment on it in his recently learned University speak.
Ouch! Harsh words from someone anonymous. Thanks for your opinion, I guess.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein
Also, I believe the harsh comment above is immature. Tearing down psychological theory and studies applied to real world phenomenon without providing any further insight or useful criticism is not something to be thankful for.
Same from first post:
I would like to clarify--I do not mean to insinuate that a religious identity is a bad thing. To the contrary, having this constant appreciation of the world around you as miracles, and making this appreciation apart of your identity is actually very adaptive. Optimism and appreciation will get you very far in life, and has been found to be correlated with marital satisfaction as well as longer life spans. What I do mean in the first post, is that the constant re-articulation that everything is a miracle is only really useful to the person who is doing the articulating. If, however, you are trying to spread the optimism by talking about miracles and thus, helping the people around you to achieve the same level of life appreciation, that's a different story. I have no evidence of the success rates of spreading optimism, but it could be something interesting to look into.
The original 'anonymous' reply sounds like an 'older' person(meaning more life experienced) who believes that your university enlightened mind has so much more to learn- probably not too far from the truth, since the 'quantity' of life experiences are somewhat limited simply by ones age. Although critical, they do have a point, albeit however harsh.
In this case, you have no potential to ever win against that argument, simply because the 'older'(wiser?) person can never be proven wrong since more years on earth means more experiences (that equating to obviously knowing more of what life 'means', however only in ones own mind and therefore self fulfilling)and no amount of arguing can change that.
However, no one can know if those(older) experiences are simply the same ones repeated(in a dull life for example) and therefore very limited, vs a wealth of life's varied experiences by someone regardless of age.
The 'anonymous' viewpoint sounds like a well educated person, however to be critical of young university minds due to lack of life experiences, is a jab that shows their limited patience to those who are not as experienced(in their mind 'educated')
They should challenge your intellect not your experience.
To suggest you should 'shut up till you know more' spanks of superiority. If this person only has this to say, they should stay off the blog since there is no benefit to the comment.
I think the point of your blog is to openly exchange views for constructive interaction which in itself assists in forming(hopefully) a more enlightened view.... being critical in such a manner is to attempt to stifle the exchange process, which to me is counter-productive to educating and the whole idea of a blog.
Keep up the exchange regardless of those who feel 'superior' in their 'experienced' wisdom.
Since I generally don't comment in blogs, I don't know how to post this other than another by 'anonymous'.
I agree with the above comment.