I agreed with many aspects of the video and how the thought life of a person heavily influences their attitudes and actions. But to me, where they really left reality was when they took those truths and tried to push their claim that the Universe instinctively is listening to your thoughts and wishes, and it will respond accordingly if you just keep asking and believing. Eventually the Universe will give it to you. It may be soon; it may take some time.What is the most convincing part of The Secret? Why are people convinced it is true? Is it solely what it claims that is convincing, or also what you can experience based on its claims? Can we take bits and pieces of truth from it, or does The Secret as a whole count for truth? Does it live up to the expectations that it sets? Any ideas? Thoughts?
Correlation vs. Causality
I would claim that they are violating a basic tenet of statistical analysis: correlating events and then claiming causality*. If I rub my belly every morning I get up and repeat to the Universe that I want to win tickets to an event, and one day I win it; did the Universe respond to me and give me what I wanted? Is it only coincidence? There is a correlation (rubbing my belly that day and I won the tickets), but not causality. The belly rubbing did NOT cause the ticket winning. It's just that it so happened at the same time. We can conclude this based on the statistical probability of rubbing my belly and getting an expected result. If most times or EVERY time I rubbed my belly, something happened that I was wishing for, then that would be grounds for more than mere coincidence. The only thing needed to help consider support for it, would be that the chances are statistically improbable, not that it happened every time I rubbed my belly or even most times when I did so.
Followers of The Secret would likely dismiss this claim, because they would state that these things don't just come right away and that it would be facetious to believe so. Okay. What factors determine when the Universe decides to align things to 'happen' for you? What are the personal characteristics and mechinism(s) of the Universe by which it makes these decisions? Does the Universe decide whether to act now or later based on the results of entering your request into the massive database of events for the Universe to see if it can still accommodate your request along with the requests of others potentially at the same time? Help me understand how one can know that the Universe did it and that it wasn't due to some other factor or coincidence? I could go into much more detail concerning the theoretical nature of a personified Universe and the complexity of its operations of conducting and managing schedules to accommodate the requests of people, however, I will withdraw any further inquiries here.
Followers of The Secret would likely dismiss this claim, because they would state that these things don't just come right away and that it would be facetious to believe so. Okay. What factors determine when the Universe decides to align things to 'happen' for you? What are the personal characteristics and mechinism(s) of the Universe by which it makes these decisions? Does the Universe decide whether to act now or later based on the results of entering your request into the massive database of events for the Universe to see if it can still accommodate your request along with the requests of others potentially at the same time? Help me understand how one can know that the Universe did it and that it wasn't due to some other factor or coincidence? I could go into much more detail concerning the theoretical nature of a personified Universe and the complexity of its operations of conducting and managing schedules to accommodate the requests of people, however, I will withdraw any further inquiries here.
Confusion in general
I think in general it can be easy to confuse the two: correlation and causality. We can see something happen and may automatically think it was due to something we had been thinking, asking, and/or believing to happen. Depending on the circumstances, that may or may not be true. One example from the video, as seen in Part 3 of this series in the 2nd embedded video, was of a man that thought and wished for his parking spot and there just so happened to be that prime open parking spot everyday for him.
If I think positively about a job interview and I practice before hand, then I will have a better chance of nailing the interview and thus a better chance for receiving an offer. The actions are a result of the thoughts and can help aid in confidence and delivery. This would be the initial agreement I would have with the concept. But 'The Secret' takes it further to say that the Universe is actually responding and aligning things so that you will receive what you want; as if the Universe exists and serves as a genie bound to our thoughts and desires to make us happy (refer to the picture at the top as seen in The Secret). Our thoughts, via the law of attraction, will attract things we want, because of the Universe's response.
Please leave comments and feedback!
* This could be said to be true for many religious beliefs and thoughts people have, as well as many non-religious thoughts and decisions that people make each day.
Please see my related posts detailing my thoughts after watching 'The Secret' video:
Thoughts on 'The Secret' - Part 2: Things I agree with...
Thoughts on 'The Secret' - Part 3: Things I disagree with...
Posts
2 comments:
Have you ever noticed that every time a "miracle" happens, the person who experiences it always tells their story as, for example, "I knew that someday I would be able to walk again. The doctors kept telling me that it wasn't medically possible for me to be able to recover. But everyday I took it a step at a time until I could finally walk." or even success stories from people who are famous now, "Everybody told me that I would never make it, but that didn't matter to me. I had it in my mind the whole time that I was going to make it."
Have you ever heard a miracle or success story of somebody saying, "Wow, I never saw this coming. I never once thought that this could happen. I kept telling myself that it wouldn't, but hey, I guess I just got lucky."
You have to look at what has happened in the past to see how things will happen in the future. Every success story that I have heard has ALWAYS been somebody positively thinking about what they wanted.
Is this just coincidence or causality? Or is this part of something bigger that most people just don't understand? When XM radio stations emit a certain frequency, people have the potential to hear it all around the world. If you produce a certain frequency, you can break glass. Every thought that we have in our brain emits a certain frequency. Every feeling emits a certain frequency. How could your thoughts not be connected with something greater?
What is this something greater?
I think this is where different opinions always clash. Because at this stage, it is all about faith. Faith, faith, faith. Believing in something that you don't know for sure is true.
Telling someone that their faith is not right is like telling someone that their favorite color is wrong. You can try to convince them why your color is best, but in the end, they will decide with what they believe in their innermost core.
That my friends, is where we find faith.
Hello Anonymous! Again, very valid points.
To be completely honest with you, most of the "miracle" stories I hear more closely resemble (but not exactly) the 2nd scenario you describe, in that they don't expect it, but they usually don't attribute the healing to luck! ;)
On the flip side, you do hear celebrities telling stories of how everyone around them was skeptical and never thought they'd make it, but they did in spite of that. Good for them! I really do mean that, but for as many celebrity success stories I hear, I hear several more failure stories. One in particular I can think of, a man has been trying to make it in the music industry for most of his adult life. (He's in his 40's now I believe.) He has believed and fought for it as much as he could, and now, he and his wife are living in a trailer, with 4 kids and barely enough money to buy groceries (True story). Now, I'm not saying that living in a trailer is bad, but I am saying that even extreme, persistent belief, even when followed by action, is not always enough to make things happen.
As far as your comments about faith, in your definition I would only change one word. "Believing in something that you don't know for sure is true." I would re-word it to: "Believing in something that you can't prove for sure to be true." Okay, so it's two words, but you get the point! Faith does not equate blind belief. There is a degree of blind belief in that by definition, faith is something that cannot be proved objectively, but that does not mean that no evidence can be accounted for.
I would say that yes, you can have faith in something wrong. It happens quite frequently actually. This is because there is such a thing as absolute truth. There are things that are absolutely true universally, and other things that are absolutely false - for everybody. I know it sounds harsh, I don't claim to know/have all truth, I'm sure I have some things wrong, but I know where to find truth, and that is God.
I know I kinda went on a tangent here, and I hope that my comment did not come off as an attack. I assure you it was not meant to be! I hope this is portrayed as a respectful discussion in which we happen to disagree!
Post a Comment