Two Types of Superstition

An interesting word in the English language is the word "superstition." Nowadays the word is used mainly as a term of abuse by those who do not want you to believe in something that is outside of well-understood physical reality, particularly things that humans have long believed in. But it is interesting to look at the varying definitions of the word "superstition." Such a look may suggest that the term "superstition" is applicable to quite a few things that are not commonly called superstitions. 

Below are some definitions of the word "superstition":

• "A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation" or " an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition"  (Merriam Webster dictionary).
• "A belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like" or "irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, especially in connection with religion" or "any blindly accepted belief or notion" (Dictionary.com).
• "A belief or way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck : a belief that certain events or things will bring good or bad luck" (Brittanica.com).
• "Belief that is not based on human reason or scientific knowledge, but is connected with old ideas about magic, etc." (Cambridge Dictionary).
• "An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome" or "A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance" (The Free Dictionary)

Using such definitions as a starting point, I can help clarify the notion of superstition by distinguishing between two types of superstition: what I will call intent-presuming superstition and chance-presuming  superstition. Not all superstition is either type, but these two types of superstition make up a large fraction of superstition. 

I can describe intent-presuming superstition as an illogical belief that something was caused by intention (volition, or the will of some agent), when the thing was most likely the result of mere chance. I can give some examples of volitional superstition. 

• A person walks out of his house and sees that it is sunny. He says, "Thank you God, for making it sunny today."
• A person enters a train car, and sees an empty seat. He says, "Thank you, Jesus, for arranging for me to have a spare seat where I can sit."
• In the spring a person taking a one-hour walk in the park sees a small white butterfly. She says, "This must be a sign from my late mother."

In each of these cases, a person has attributed to intention or a will something that is more reasonably attributed to mere chance. Given the physical arrangement of clouds on our planet (with about 40% of the Earth's surface being covered by cloud masses that move around), there is roughly a 50% chance of any day being sunny by chance. So it makes no sense to think that some particular sunny day came as the result of an act of God. Similarly, given that most train cars do have an empty seat, it makes no sense to think that an empty seat in a train car was the result of a special blessing from some supernatural power. And given that small white butterflies are quite common in parks during the spring, it makes little sense to think that so common a sight was a sign from the deceased.  All of these cases seem to be an example of superstitious thinking. 

There is another very different type of superstition that is rather the opposite of intent-presuming superstition as I defined it above. I can call this type of superstition "chance-presuming superstition." 

When chance-presuming superstition occurs, someone unreasonably believes something was the result of mainly chance, when it is more reasonable to suspect that the thing was the result of will, design or intention. Below are some examples of chance-presuming superstition:

• A person seeing a log cabin in the woods says "An interesting coincidence, that the falling trees randomly formed into the shape of a house."
• A person sees a message spelled out in rocks and seashells on the beach and says, "It's remarkable that pure chance caused rocks and seashells to form a readable message."
• A person sees a house's long entrance walkway lined with identically-sized rocks on both the left and right side, and says, "An interesting coincidence, that all these identically-sized rocks have randomly rolled to only the left and right sides of the walkway."
• After seeing on the beach a very impressive sand castle like the one below, a person says, "An interesting coincidence, how the mere chance action of the wind and the waves have accidentally created a structure looking so much like  a castle."

All of these statements involve superstition. Involving faulty ideas of chance and causation not based on reason, the statements meet some of the characteristics of superstition mentioned in the definitions above.  The type of superstition involved in the statements above is chance-presuming superstition, which is illogically attributing to chance something that is not reasonably attributed to chance. 

It would seem that many of those who fancy themselves as opponents of superstition are guilty themselves of believing in superstitions: chance-presuming superstitions. Specifically:

• Many of those who claim to be opponents of superstition believe in abiogenesis, the idea that life can originate from a chance combination of chemicals. Given the enormous organization and functional complexity of even the simplest one-celled things, which require a very special organization of millions of atoms, believing in abiogenesis would seem to be a chance-presuming superstition. When we analyze the minimal requirements of even the simplest self-reproducing thing, we find a degree of organization and suitable arrangement of parts very many times more impressive than we see in the sand castle above. 
• Many of those who claim to be opponents of superstition believe in the doctrine of the accidental origin of protein molecules. Given that protein molecules consist of thousands of very well-arranged atoms, atoms that have to be arranged just right for the protein molecule to be functional, it would seem to be illogical to attribute the origin of any new protein molecule to chance or an accident.  The improbability is not lessened if you consider a protein molecule as being an arrangement of amino acids.  There are 20 different amino acids used by living things, and the average protein molecule has about 470 amino acids arranged in just the right way to produce some biological function.  The chance of getting a functional protein molecule from a chance arrangement of amino acids is very roughly about the same as the chance of getting a useful, functional paragraph from monkeys randomly typing on a keyboard. 
• Many of those who claim to be opponents of superstition believe in the accidental origin of our universe, despite all of its fine-tuned physical constants which against all odds allow organisms such as ourselves to exist and long-lived stars such as the sun to exist. When you bring to their attention the microscopic probability that a random accidental universe would have the laws, fundamental constants and conditions necessary for living creatures, such individuals may claim that there is some infinity or near infinity of other universes, and that we should therefore expect our universe to be habitable. Such desperation obviously hints very strongly at some dysfunctional causal reasoning going on, if only because you do not increase the likelihood of any habitable universe being habitable by imagining some vast collection of other universes. 

It would seem, therefore, that those regarding themselves as superstition opponents are very often themselves guilty of believing in very big superstitions, superstitions of the chance-presuming type.  There's an additional reason for categorizing the two beliefs above as superstitious: the fact that such beliefs seem to arise largely from fear, and "fear" is a word that appears in two of the definitions of superstition I cited above. Why do some believe there occurred some chance arrangement of atoms in the early Earth (yielding life), an arrangement so improbable that we would never expect it to occur by chance anywhere in the galaxy? Largely, we may surmise, because they fear attributing the origin of life to some mysterious agency they do not wish to believe in. Why do some believe that there occurred countless chance arrangements of amino acids resulting (against all odds) in countless types of functional protein molecules, in events as improbable as random pebbles and shells at the beach forming accidentally into long functional paragraphs?  Largely, we may surmise, because they fear attributing the origin of protein molecules to some mysterious agency they do not wish to believe in.

There is a word we can use to describe the fear that seems to be involved in such chance-presuming superstitions. We can call such fear teleophobia. "Teleo" is a prefix meaning "end, goal, purpose." "Phobia" is a suffix meaning "fear." Those who are afraid of discovering evidence of purpose when it exists in nature may be described as being teleophobic people or teleophobes. I can imagine many reasons that a person might be teleophobic. A person may want to position himself as a kind of ace of explanation, who can explain the basics of how reality works, rather than admitting that reality is driven by some unfathomable agency far beyond his power to understand. A person of bad character may prefer to believe that he will never have to suffer consequences for his bad actions, and may fear the existence of any divine power that might imply that he might one day have to suffer sorrow or possible punishment for his bad actions. Another reason for teleophobia is that a person may prefer to believe that certain thinkers or certain belief systems have got things totally wrong. The person may be afraid of the idea of purpose in nature, on the grounds that this might force him to start thinking that belief traditions that he has totally rejected may have some large element of truth in them. 

What happens so often is that a simple-thinking person may mentally put all of the ideas he believes in into a kind of "good box" --a category in his mind of "smart ideas" -- and he may put all of the ideas he disbelieves into a kind of "bad box" -- a category in his mind of "stupid ideas." But let's suppose one of the main ideas in this "bad box" turns out to be true. That is a result that the simple-thinking person finds profoundly troubling, a result that he may fear very much. Such a result might force the person to reassess assumptions that he very much does not want to reassess. The person may end up twisting himself into knots, believing in multiple forms of nonsense, all for the sake of avoiding some conclusion he fears -- that some belief that he has concluded is one of the main things in the "bad box" should really be put in the "good box." As part of such a process, teleophobia may arise and stubbornly persist. Twisting himself into the most ridiculous knots, the telephobe may mentally conjure up an entire multiverse (some vast infinity or near-infinity of random universes), all so that he can avoid believing in what he greatly fears: that one of the items he has placed in his "bad box" of stupid ideas (a belief that the universe is purposeful) actually belongs in the "good box" (the category of smart, justified  ideas).  

We may compare the teleophobe to some inventor named Rowan who very much regards himself as a self-sufficient person, but who every week receives a check of more than $1000 check from his father. Let's suppose this man Rowan very much hates to believe that he ever gets so generous a gift from the father he dislikes, largely because it would upset his cherished theory that he is an independently successful inventor who has no reliance on his father. So the man resorts to a theory of chance. Rowan concludes that the weekly check is not really from his father,  but is merely an accidental check sent by a computer that malfunctioned (possibly because it was struck by a cosmic ray burst).  He concludes that when the computer malfunction occurred his address was randomly and accidentally generated, all because of a fantastically improbable coincidence, rather like someone emptying a box of Alpha Bits (or scrabble letters) on the ground, and all of the letters accidentally forming into a grammatical well-spelled paragraph. 

Now let us suppose that this happened week after week, with such an envelope arriving each week in each of twenty consecutive years, each time with a check of more than $1000. Suppose this man Rowan each week says to himself after opening the check envelope, "Oh, another check supposedly from my lousy father -- it must be merely another accidental computer error, probably caused by another cosmic ray burst."  What would be going on here is a chance-presuming superstition, an illogical presumption that something looking very much like an act of will was caused by chance. Rowan's ideas about what caused him to get such gifts would involve ideas of miracles of chance that are not as implausible as believing in the accidental origin of many thousands of types of novel protein molecules, which would be even more improbable. 

When there is illogical belief about causation often associated with fear, that is superstition, which may exist as either intent-presuming superstition (illogically attributing to will or volition something more logically attributed to chance) or as chance-presuming superstition (illogically attributing to chance something more logically attributed to will or volition).  It would seem that some of the biggest believers in superstition (superstition of the chance-presuming type) are those who fancy themselves as opponents of superstition. The Rowans of academia should analyze their own teleophobia.