Very anecdotal, but I find it interesting that all cases resulted in a conviction. I'd wager that a drinking jury tends to exhibit a reduced amount of empathy, resulting in more guilty convictions than you'd otherwise find.
A judge/jury should never involve empathy for the victim, imo. Empathy for the victim should be baked into sentencing guidelines. Though I guess you could say the same about the perp.
Eh... don't practice any empathy. Practice rationality and common sense.
Because people often think that acting rationally and empathetically are two distinct actions, and that's not the case.
For example, someone gets caught with some crumbs of weed. You could make the empathetic argument for fining that person rather than jail time because, "They're not hurting anyone. It's just a little weed.", so on and so forth. Or you could make the logical/rational argument that the punishment and what stems from it (housing a person in jail, the economic aspects of ruining this person's life for what really is a victimless crime) does not fit the crime.
I don't particularly agree with him, but Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom wrote a book called Against Empathy [1].
I think his definition of empathy is narrower than what many people think of when they think of empathy, so in some ways his argument struck me as a battle against a straw man. But TBH I haven't read the whole book (just coverage of it, and some of his related work).
That pushes the burden of having empathy for anyone onto the legislature writing the laws. And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.
As I personally believe that a legislature is a juicy target for sociopaths seeking power and impunity, and therefore likely to demonstrate less empathy than the general population, I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.
Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.
Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.
>That pushes the burden of having empathy for anyone onto the legislature writing the laws. And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.
The legislature is supposed to be burdened with this. Empathy for the people living with us is the reason why we all left the wild and came together in the first place.
> Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.
I think I disagree. Once we've come to the facts of the case, with the proper (empathetic) laws, it just becomes a matter of execution (no pun intended).
>Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.
Don't think what you're saying is falling on deaf ears. I definitely get it. I'm a black man in the US. I know what strict mandatory minimums and culturally deaf laws do to people. However, I think that if we fix the laws, the rest shakes out.
I hope you understand that's what I meant. We're not just running around as individuals, we formed groups and society because of empathy. Neanderthals weren't loners.
> And they decide for all cases, independent of potentially mitigating factors.
That's why most laws have a wide band of potential punishments.
> I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.
It's typically a single person -- the judge -- who will select the punishment from the band of permissible punishments. So now we're taking a theoretical group decision made across a wide swath of society, and laying it down on a single person... This is already done to a large extent, except that the judge has minimum and maximum punishments to work between.
> Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit...
This has huge implications on rule-of-law. I'll just link to another thread where I argued against a very similar viewpoint:
> There's a myriad of reasons why this is a bad thing for society. For example, white supremacy groups not being arrested or charged with crimes because all the cops and DAs and judges are also white supremacists. If it's truly within their world-view that a lynching is not wrong, then according to your theory it's their responsibility to not arrest or charge for it. This viewpoint is directly opposed to the rule of law.
(I removed the first sentence from my quote, since I was properly corrected on it down-thread.)
I totally agree here. The whole point of having a jury picked from society is to ensure that the justice process passed some kind of "rrasonable person"test. American legislators and prosecutors are resembling cold blooded sociopaths each passing decade passing laws that destroy families and lives and stealing money from ordinary citizens (civil forfeiture). In such scenario I think Jury's role is very important.
Given that USA jails a hell lot of people (per capita) compared to any developed nation and large number of them are about drug offenses or victimless crimes I would rather have a linient jurors than harsh ones.
Or, rather, that a conviction is much more likely to go to appeal than an acquittal, and "the jurors were drunk" is the sort of thing the defence might reach for when they can't identity a miscarriage of justice in the trial itself.
I think it's because not guilty verdicts cannot be appealed by the prosecution due to double jeopardy. So there would be no examples of cases of a drunk/under the influence jury that resulted in not guilty verdicts being appealed for juror misconduct.
I find it interesting that all cases resulted in a conviction.
I wonder whether that might be related to the fact that all of these are cases that went to appeal.
I'd assume that convictions were more often appealed than findings of innocence, but I have absolutely nothing more than blind faith to assume that, so corrections most welcome.
It seems like many substance alter empathy towards others. I remember that acetaminophen was found to reduce empathy. What other common substance would affect the jury that we don't know of yet?
After 14 weeks? I'd side on which ever side was going to prevail with my vote. I think I'd just want it to be over and get back to repairing the damage to my life that 14 weeks on a jury inflicted.
While I can understand your sentiment, but that is a really horrible use of one of your most powerful rights as a citizen. It may not change the course of history, but it certainly can change the course of another human being's life.
Given that you can understand how being stuck on a jury for weeks would be an unpleasant experience, it's somewhat incredible to me that you'd be willing to vote to put someone somewhere much worse than a jury for a much longer period of time regardless of whether you thought they were guilty just so you could get out of there faster.
I think the reality of criminal court cases is that in the vast majority of cases the defendant is clearly and unambiguously guilty. Most criminals aren't smart and aren't covering their tracks. Thanks god the legal system doesn't need to rely on some really smart Lieutenant Columbo to figure out who's done it. Of course there are some more difficult cases but if you pick 10 randomly, you are unlikely to find one. I suspect most juries mostly deliberate about the degree of implications, mitigating circumstances and the severity of the sentencing.
"concluded there was a real danger that what occurred during this misguided ouija session may have influenced some jurors."
I get the feel a whole article could be done on "Regina v. Young (Court of Appeal of England and Wales, 1994)". I somehow think the drinking was just the beginning of a series of problems.
I wonder if the same applies to sleep deprivation. Some people don't really do well at the hours required of jury service, one wonders if they are making an important decision with the right level of mental capacity in that case.
Arguably deliberating while being drink deprived could result in hasty judgement. Stress, like sleep deprivation, is bound to affect your decision making abilities. Everything in moderation, of course.
Arguably, he could be drink deprived. An alcoholic, forbidden from drinking while on a jury, would be under a lot of physical stress if we assume he or she is capable of abstaining for the duration of a trial.
It seems like a sensible line would be, not being under the influence while in court. Additionally not being hungover in court. If you are drinking or hungover you are unable to properly focus on your tasks as a juror.
Additionally limiting discussions of the case with other jurors while drinking seems like a good idea. The Ouija board seems highly inappropriate, since I believe jurors are instructed to not use outside research or experiences in rendering a verdict.
Outside of that these are adults, and the should not lose all agency because they've been picked to serve on a jury.
Potentially, or if someone is visibly unable to perform their duties as a juror the judge would stop proceedings, investigate the issue with the juror and then take whatever action they find appropriate.
There is a part of the jury selection process where you are asked if there is any reason you think you cannot serve, and you're welcome to speak freely. Of course, it's up to the judge (and to a certain degree, the lawyers) as to whether you'll be released from service.
I was up for jury duty recently, and one of the potential jury members flat out said that she couldn't be unbiased in the trial, since she'd been assaulted by a black man not too long before, and the defendant in the case was black as well. The judge released her back to the jury pool.
I would assume that stating that you have PTSD (and having documentation to that effect) and explaining how it would prevent you from being able to serve would be a pretty good reason to not serve. (No idea about claiming alcoholism, and I'd wager that most people wouldn't want to announce to fifty people that they have a drinking problem.)
>But culturally we don't moralize about the former.
That's starting to change. My country has nearly eliminated drink-driving, so driving while tired has become the big target. Medicine is starting to take the issue of sleep deprivation amongst practitioners seriously, with a lot of very frank discussions about the impacts of shift work and on-call rotas.
It's really interesting to see which attributes we consider to be a failing. Being drunk is considered much worse than being tired even at a similar level of effect.
The one that I really love is how being unintelligent is often considered to be a failing, but only to a point. When someone does something stupid and there's a bad consequence, it's often met with "that's what they deserve, what an idiot!" But there's a sharp cutoff (officially at an IQ of 69 or below) where it ceases to be a moral failing and becomes a handicap worthy of sympathy.
Super insightful comment. We have an imperfect system, but what I think is good about it is that jurors are evaluated on their capacity to fairly and impartially decide a case. It sidesteps the need to base the qualification on metrics like IQ, or level of intoxication, etc, and places it in the hands of the lawyers and judges. Imperfect, and there are ways that lawyers exploit it, but IMHO it's ultimately more fair.
> The Ouija board seems highly inappropriate, since I believe jurors are instructed to not use outside research
Outside research? Do you genuinely believe they consulted the the spirit world?
At most this this would surface their collective belief in the guilt of the accused. An unconventional means to arrive at a consensus, but no more outside research than each of them writing a verdict on a piece of paper.
It's probably easier to make the "outside research" argument to the kind of person who would consult an Ouija board than it is to convince them Ouija boards are bunk.
The validity of the research method should not be taken into account. It doesn't matter if I ask my uncle Bob about the scientific details or if I go read some peer reviewed published paper. I'm not allowed to gain knowledge.
That being said, I still find it absurd that independent research from valid sources isn't allowed.
> That being said, I still find it absurd that independent research from valid sources isn't allowed.
It's not allowed, among many reasons, because validity is a disputable fact, and outside research by jurors prevents the party that would be adversely affected by taking the source as valid from contesting the validity of the source in open court, defeating the entire purpose of having a public trial, a reviewable trial record, the right to counsel, and, well, the whole of legal process.
If the court provided a meaningful alternative I might accept this argument, but given some of the poor track records of expert witnesses, and given that people will bring in their own personal knowledge regardless of what is said. This is especially true since contesting validity of a source costs money and people don't have infinite money in court.
The only conclusion is that the current legal system is so broken that the only reasonable judgment is not guilty.
1. Divination is real, and they are consulting whatever they called. Could be the victim. Could be someone/something else. Could be a deity. Long and short, unless you're practiced in this realm, you can't know. And there's no empirical proof.
2. It's a link to their subconscious. Nothing mysterious. But it's a way they can interrogate their own ideas about a situation without personally owning said ideas. Think of this akin to a couch and therapist.
3. Someone is playing with them and controlling a weak-willed person. In other words, they're choosing what's being divined in order to exert influence over someone else. This is not only a bad situation, it's likely illegal.
The tough part, is when divination is integral to someones' religion. What's to say that your reading verses with a bible is any less than me relying on the tarot? If you're allowed your religious expression, why not I? And speaking of such, isn't it common still to "swear to tell the truth, the only truth, so help you god"? My first question to that is, "Which God?"
1 would appear protected, 2 isn't, and 3 looks illegal. Hard call.
> unless you're practiced in this realm, you can't know.
I disagree, because...
> there's no empirical proof.
We have been trying very hard for centuries to contact any kind of afterlife, spirits or gods, and failed. Even if we cannot perfectly rule it out in principal we can rule out anything we have conceived and tested thus far.
That and Ouija boards are made by Parker Bros [1]. Unless you believe that a group of people with a reliable channel to the afterlife chose to keep making Scrabble and Monopoly games with their super powers, then we really should just discount it as an obvious money grab, because it is.
> We have been trying very hard for centuries to contact any kind of afterlife, spirits or gods, and failed.
I'd suppose you haven't tried spending time with people who do practice and do this, do you?
> Even if we cannot perfectly rule it out in principal we can rule out anything we have conceived and tested thus far.
Simply put, you can't. "Absence of proof" does not equal "proof of absence".
> That and Ouija boards are made by Parker Bros [1]. Unless you believe that a group of people with a reliable channel to the afterlife chose to keep making Scrabble and Monopoly games with their super powers, then we really should just discount it as an obvious money grab, because it is.
Not at all. The Ouigi boards are just a tool. There's usually nothing in them that would be manifest to a specific entity or emotion. Not even that, but they are made by machine, so there would be very likely no emotion in contact with them.
Since you seem unlearned in this area, divination can use any sort of tools. Tarot, pendulum, sand, tea, coffee grounds, bones, compass (luao-pen), ruler, entrails, fire, water.. Any of these can be learned and used. Or some are versed in doing divination using no instruments at all - although even in the occult and esoteric areas, this is considered very difficult.
And then it comes full circle with religion. These are religious practices. If you're thinking of Miss Cleo, you're further from the truth. Those are advertisement services ; whereas what I talk of are honestly held beliefs. And when understood from the occult mindset, do give valid answers.
It's one area where I work in regularly, is divination. Sometimes, it doesn't work. In that case, I say as such. Usually, it does.
I should probably have said something about Confirmation Bias which I suspect is what is at work here. Note that you say the times it doesn't work, you dismiss as being due to circumstances beyond control; when it does seem to work, due to random chance, you seize on that as proof, confirming that there is a hidden occult mechanism at work. Even a really low success rate -- maybe only 5-10% of your guesses are correct -- is still enough to generate the illusion, particularly if you are able to dismiss the failures as unimportant, so the successes stick out more.
> I should probably have said something about Confirmation Bias which I suspect is what is at work here.
Indeed. I know well about the confirmation bias. I've considered it early on as a likely candidate. I've ruled it out by too many extremely improbable events, many which include other people unawares about anything that I do.
(In 'unrelated' computer science, do you consider a zero knowledge proof to be 0% likely even after 100 iterations? How many iterations would you need as proof?)
> Note that you say the times it doesn't work, you dismiss as being due to circumstances beyond control; when it does seem to work, due to random chance, you seize on that as proof, confirming that there is a hidden occult mechanism at work.
You misunderstand. I do not classify them as failures, because they are not. I can tell when a divination won't work. Call it a little message in the back of my mind. Something. Doesn't happen often.
> Even a really low success rate -- maybe only 5-10% of your guesses are correct -- is still enough to generate the illusion, particularly if you are able to dismiss the failures as unimportant, so the successes stick out more.
Id say much higher than that. But you've already dismissed this as some self-inflicted mental health issue. If you've read any of my meager posting history, you'd know that I'm trying to blend both this mysticism and science, and bring it so all may use and benefit.
> I know well about the confirmation bias. I've considered it early on as a likely candidate. I've ruled it out by too many extremely improbable events, many which include other people unawares about anything that I do.
Document you processes and methods and let others duplicate them. If you have a process that works it could change the world.
Until you have something I can duplicate I will disregard it with active hostile because this kind of mental has killed too many.
Oh, I find your comments interesting and well thought out, just wrong... But I do think you deserve better than just my glib throwaway dismissal, so I added the follow up comment to explain more/better.
Honestly held beliefs can be wrong. In this case divination of the sorts you have described fly in the face of empirical testing. Please stop presuming my level of knowledge, I am fairly certain I have more than none in this regard and would not have commented otherwise.
> Usually, it does.
Then publish a paper and pick up your Nobel prize. Or start a business and guarantee results. Or do one of a million other things people do with technologies that work do and go be successful.
Except you can't because the ranks of fortune tellers, prophets, mystics and yogis is filled with charlatans. Some honest but wrong and some liars deceiving, but it doesn't matter both are wrong or their practices would have spread as far as success took other ideas like modern agriculture, engineering or math.
You simply cannot get knowledge without working for it. These "revealed" sources don't stand up to experimentation because they are quite literally made up, and experimentation is how we work for it.
I can't reply you in the original thread in which you mentioned chaos magic, "Practical Magic in a Suffolk Village". So I'm doing it here.
Thank you SO MUCH for this. I don't know how on earth I didn't know about Chaos Magic yet, but you finally made that link.
I've been using this "octarina" handle for some months in a very special (and chemical) process of self (re)discovery, related specifically to Terry Pratchett's book which I bought in a supermarket in my pre teen years and I've always loved (I've used "twoflower" in the past too).
And then Chaos Magic comes to me, and suddenly I'm browsing Liber Kaos online and buying it (after Liber Null & Psychonaut).
It seems magic always fascinated and moved me, but just now my conscious self (historically skeptical and materialistic) is admitting it and hearing everyone else that is talking (and acting) here inside of me.
Ouija boards can affect outcome, for example one person can influence what others will see and if they believe it suddenly that person's opinion will matter much more than it should.
Instead of having a pointless arguments whether Ouija board can talk to dead people (see other comments), much easier is to assume it does and apply existing rules to rule it out.
I think there is no doubt that it can affect outcome.
> The Ouija board seems highly inappropriate, since I believe jurors are instructed to not use outside research
Outside research? Do you genuinely believe they consulted the spirit world?
At most this this would surface their collective belief in the guilt of the accused. An unconventional means to arrive at a consensus, but no more outside research than each of them writing a verdict on a piece of paper.
A Ouija board wouldn't constitute outside research, but if they believed in it then it would mean they thought they were conducting outside research, which they were not supposed to do. How do you handle that?
If I consulted what I believed to be a reputable website for information, not being aware that it contained nothing but plausible but randomly generated information, I think I would still be considered to be conducting outside research. I'd imagine that intent here matters.
Intent definitely matters, but I think there has to be the possibility of achieving your goal too. For example, if I cast a spell that's said to make your heart explode, I won't get done for attempted murder even though my intent was to kill you.
Suppose one juror in particular was influencing the Ouija board, and the rest actually believed they were communicating with the supernatural. That one juror now has an outsized impact on the trial, which is a problem.
Juries are one of those things you can write a good book about or have one of those tearful movies where the normal folk come through to make justice prevail in face of an evil prosecutor and police.
But the reality isn't that rosy. The sample size is far too small, and worst of all, juries amplify biases in the system. It's like inverting a matrix, great for a math proof but you never do that in practice.
She just straight rammed into the cyclist from behind. No braking, didn't even stop. But a jury of very likely overwhelmingly drivers have no problem to acquit when there is even the slightest hint of "hey, this could be something that might happen to me!".
Let's not forget that, many historical (political, war,...) moments in mankind, were heavily influenced by alcohol, or other influencing attributes.
I just want to say that it's more part of life then one assumes.
If someone is on Prozac (hey is that okay then?) or someone has a hangover? Or someone who hasn't slept much? Or someone who is on a fast?
There is no normality. The norms of society is the goal, or the barometer, but basically we're all just trying to get by.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 202 ms ] threadThe justice system is quite sensitive to things like this, and frankly I'm surprised that jurors are ever allowed to drink.
[1]: http://www.economist.com/node/18557594
Eh... don't practice any empathy. Practice rationality and common sense.
Seriously? At the very least I hope you're only narrowly applying this to the jury system, but even then...
And yes, this applies solely to the situation I gave.
What is the depth that makes it sound good?
For example, someone gets caught with some crumbs of weed. You could make the empathetic argument for fining that person rather than jail time because, "They're not hurting anyone. It's just a little weed.", so on and so forth. Or you could make the logical/rational argument that the punishment and what stems from it (housing a person in jail, the economic aspects of ruining this person's life for what really is a victimless crime) does not fit the crime.
Mundane corollary: "You can make a case for anything."
I think his definition of empathy is narrower than what many people think of when they think of empathy, so in some ways his argument struck me as a battle against a straw man. But TBH I haven't read the whole book (just coverage of it, and some of his related work).
There's a counterpoint here [2].
1: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/paul-bloom-makes-a-weir...
2: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/good-thinking/201310/wh...
As I personally believe that a legislature is a juicy target for sociopaths seeking power and impunity, and therefore likely to demonstrate less empathy than the general population, I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.
Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.
Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.
The legislature is supposed to be burdened with this. Empathy for the people living with us is the reason why we all left the wild and came together in the first place.
> Practice rationality in determining the facts of the case. Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit, and in the sentencing for the convicted.
I think I disagree. Once we've come to the facts of the case, with the proper (empathetic) laws, it just becomes a matter of execution (no pun intended).
>Cold rationality is how Jean Valjean gets 20 years in the galleys for stealing bread.
Don't think what you're saying is falling on deaf ears. I definitely get it. I'm a black man in the US. I know what strict mandatory minimums and culturally deaf laws do to people. However, I think that if we fix the laws, the rest shakes out.
[1] http://www.evoanth.net/2012/04/26/caring-neanderthals/
That's why most laws have a wide band of potential punishments.
> I'd rather leave the cold rationality for writing the laws, and the empathy for interpreting them in a just manner.
It's typically a single person -- the judge -- who will select the punishment from the band of permissible punishments. So now we're taking a theoretical group decision made across a wide swath of society, and laying it down on a single person... This is already done to a large extent, except that the judge has minimum and maximum punishments to work between.
> Practice empathy in deciding whether to convict or acquit...
This has huge implications on rule-of-law. I'll just link to another thread where I argued against a very similar viewpoint:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11503910#11504703
> There's a myriad of reasons why this is a bad thing for society. For example, white supremacy groups not being arrested or charged with crimes because all the cops and DAs and judges are also white supremacists. If it's truly within their world-view that a lynching is not wrong, then according to your theory it's their responsibility to not arrest or charge for it. This viewpoint is directly opposed to the rule of law.
(I removed the first sentence from my quote, since I was properly corrected on it down-thread.)
Given that USA jails a hell lot of people (per capita) compared to any developed nation and large number of them are about drug offenses or victimless crimes I would rather have a linient jurors than harsh ones.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread"
I'd assume that convictions were more often appealed than findings of innocence, but I have absolutely nothing more than blind faith to assume that, so corrections most welcome.
I get the feel a whole article could be done on "Regina v. Young (Court of Appeal of England and Wales, 1994)". I somehow think the drinking was just the beginning of a series of problems.
I'm eagerly awaiting the horror movie version.
Additionally limiting discussions of the case with other jurors while drinking seems like a good idea. The Ouija board seems highly inappropriate, since I believe jurors are instructed to not use outside research or experiences in rendering a verdict.
Outside of that these are adults, and the should not lose all agency because they've been picked to serve on a jury.
I think they're also supposed to be paying attention to the proceedings.
Being on a substance isn't in and of itself a good marker of whether someone is capable of holding their position.
Arguably lack of sleep might be as bad or worse as being drunk. But culturally we don't moralize about the former.
Addiction is a really psychological issue though.
I was up for jury duty recently, and one of the potential jury members flat out said that she couldn't be unbiased in the trial, since she'd been assaulted by a black man not too long before, and the defendant in the case was black as well. The judge released her back to the jury pool.
I would assume that stating that you have PTSD (and having documentation to that effect) and explaining how it would prevent you from being able to serve would be a pretty good reason to not serve. (No idea about claiming alcoholism, and I'd wager that most people wouldn't want to announce to fifty people that they have a drinking problem.)
That's starting to change. My country has nearly eliminated drink-driving, so driving while tired has become the big target. Medicine is starting to take the issue of sleep deprivation amongst practitioners seriously, with a lot of very frank discussions about the impacts of shift work and on-call rotas.
The one that I really love is how being unintelligent is often considered to be a failing, but only to a point. When someone does something stupid and there's a bad consequence, it's often met with "that's what they deserve, what an idiot!" But there's a sharp cutoff (officially at an IQ of 69 or below) where it ceases to be a moral failing and becomes a handicap worthy of sympathy.
Outside research? Do you genuinely believe they consulted the the spirit world?
At most this this would surface their collective belief in the guilt of the accused. An unconventional means to arrive at a consensus, but no more outside research than each of them writing a verdict on a piece of paper.
That being said, I still find it absurd that independent research from valid sources isn't allowed.
It's not allowed, among many reasons, because validity is a disputable fact, and outside research by jurors prevents the party that would be adversely affected by taking the source as valid from contesting the validity of the source in open court, defeating the entire purpose of having a public trial, a reviewable trial record, the right to counsel, and, well, the whole of legal process.
The only conclusion is that the current legal system is so broken that the only reasonable judgment is not guilty.
1. Divination is real, and they are consulting whatever they called. Could be the victim. Could be someone/something else. Could be a deity. Long and short, unless you're practiced in this realm, you can't know. And there's no empirical proof.
2. It's a link to their subconscious. Nothing mysterious. But it's a way they can interrogate their own ideas about a situation without personally owning said ideas. Think of this akin to a couch and therapist.
3. Someone is playing with them and controlling a weak-willed person. In other words, they're choosing what's being divined in order to exert influence over someone else. This is not only a bad situation, it's likely illegal.
The tough part, is when divination is integral to someones' religion. What's to say that your reading verses with a bible is any less than me relying on the tarot? If you're allowed your religious expression, why not I? And speaking of such, isn't it common still to "swear to tell the truth, the only truth, so help you god"? My first question to that is, "Which God?"
1 would appear protected, 2 isn't, and 3 looks illegal. Hard call.
I disagree, because...
> there's no empirical proof.
We have been trying very hard for centuries to contact any kind of afterlife, spirits or gods, and failed. Even if we cannot perfectly rule it out in principal we can rule out anything we have conceived and tested thus far.
That and Ouija boards are made by Parker Bros [1]. Unless you believe that a group of people with a reliable channel to the afterlife chose to keep making Scrabble and Monopoly games with their super powers, then we really should just discount it as an obvious money grab, because it is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Parker_Brothers_games
I'd suppose you haven't tried spending time with people who do practice and do this, do you?
> Even if we cannot perfectly rule it out in principal we can rule out anything we have conceived and tested thus far.
Simply put, you can't. "Absence of proof" does not equal "proof of absence".
> That and Ouija boards are made by Parker Bros [1]. Unless you believe that a group of people with a reliable channel to the afterlife chose to keep making Scrabble and Monopoly games with their super powers, then we really should just discount it as an obvious money grab, because it is.
Not at all. The Ouigi boards are just a tool. There's usually nothing in them that would be manifest to a specific entity or emotion. Not even that, but they are made by machine, so there would be very likely no emotion in contact with them.
Since you seem unlearned in this area, divination can use any sort of tools. Tarot, pendulum, sand, tea, coffee grounds, bones, compass (luao-pen), ruler, entrails, fire, water.. Any of these can be learned and used. Or some are versed in doing divination using no instruments at all - although even in the occult and esoteric areas, this is considered very difficult.
And then it comes full circle with religion. These are religious practices. If you're thinking of Miss Cleo, you're further from the truth. Those are advertisement services ; whereas what I talk of are honestly held beliefs. And when understood from the occult mindset, do give valid answers.
It's one area where I work in regularly, is divination. Sometimes, it doesn't work. In that case, I say as such. Usually, it does.
No, honestly, it doesn't.
Indeed. I know well about the confirmation bias. I've considered it early on as a likely candidate. I've ruled it out by too many extremely improbable events, many which include other people unawares about anything that I do.
(In 'unrelated' computer science, do you consider a zero knowledge proof to be 0% likely even after 100 iterations? How many iterations would you need as proof?)
> Note that you say the times it doesn't work, you dismiss as being due to circumstances beyond control; when it does seem to work, due to random chance, you seize on that as proof, confirming that there is a hidden occult mechanism at work.
You misunderstand. I do not classify them as failures, because they are not. I can tell when a divination won't work. Call it a little message in the back of my mind. Something. Doesn't happen often.
> Even a really low success rate -- maybe only 5-10% of your guesses are correct -- is still enough to generate the illusion, particularly if you are able to dismiss the failures as unimportant, so the successes stick out more.
Id say much higher than that. But you've already dismissed this as some self-inflicted mental health issue. If you've read any of my meager posting history, you'd know that I'm trying to blend both this mysticism and science, and bring it so all may use and benefit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_...
Document you processes and methods and let others duplicate them. If you have a process that works it could change the world.
Until you have something I can duplicate I will disregard it with active hostile because this kind of mental has killed too many.
Honestly held beliefs can be wrong. In this case divination of the sorts you have described fly in the face of empirical testing. Please stop presuming my level of knowledge, I am fairly certain I have more than none in this regard and would not have commented otherwise.
> Usually, it does.
Then publish a paper and pick up your Nobel prize. Or start a business and guarantee results. Or do one of a million other things people do with technologies that work do and go be successful.
Except you can't because the ranks of fortune tellers, prophets, mystics and yogis is filled with charlatans. Some honest but wrong and some liars deceiving, but it doesn't matter both are wrong or their practices would have spread as far as success took other ideas like modern agriculture, engineering or math.
You simply cannot get knowledge without working for it. These "revealed" sources don't stand up to experimentation because they are quite literally made up, and experimentation is how we work for it.
I can't reply you in the original thread in which you mentioned chaos magic, "Practical Magic in a Suffolk Village". So I'm doing it here.
Thank you SO MUCH for this. I don't know how on earth I didn't know about Chaos Magic yet, but you finally made that link.
I've been using this "octarina" handle for some months in a very special (and chemical) process of self (re)discovery, related specifically to Terry Pratchett's book which I bought in a supermarket in my pre teen years and I've always loved (I've used "twoflower" in the past too).
And then Chaos Magic comes to me, and suddenly I'm browsing Liber Kaos online and buying it (after Liber Null & Psychonaut).
It seems magic always fascinated and moved me, but just now my conscious self (historically skeptical and materialistic) is admitting it and hearing everyone else that is talking (and acting) here inside of me.
IO CHAOS
Instead of having a pointless arguments whether Ouija board can talk to dead people (see other comments), much easier is to assume it does and apply existing rules to rule it out.
I think there is no doubt that it can affect outcome.
Outside research? Do you genuinely believe they consulted the spirit world?
At most this this would surface their collective belief in the guilt of the accused. An unconventional means to arrive at a consensus, but no more outside research than each of them writing a verdict on a piece of paper.
But the reality isn't that rosy. The sample size is far too small, and worst of all, juries amplify biases in the system. It's like inverting a matrix, great for a math proof but you never do that in practice.
Just take this writeup on a case in Britain:
http://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/duncandollimore/mason-verdict
She just straight rammed into the cyclist from behind. No braking, didn't even stop. But a jury of very likely overwhelmingly drivers have no problem to acquit when there is even the slightest hint of "hey, this could be something that might happen to me!".
I just want to say that it's more part of life then one assumes. If someone is on Prozac (hey is that okay then?) or someone has a hangover? Or someone who hasn't slept much? Or someone who is on a fast?
There is no normality. The norms of society is the goal, or the barometer, but basically we're all just trying to get by.
"Summary: This case may well be the benchmark for jury bacchanalia."
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