h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Della,

I would fully expect that you would believe in those things. Although the 'aliens' is perhaps a surprise. By 'Life Force' I meant the belief that living things somehow contain something that is not present in non-living things. An actual something - not just an emergent property of a complex structure.

GTB,

There is no such thing as the Law of Averages. I realise that, for example, with a fair coin a high number of tosses tends towards an equal number of heads and tails but the Law of Averages implies some kind of driving influence for this rather than just statistical effects. If I've tossed a coin a thousand times and have 600 heads and 400 tails the chances of a tail on the next throw is still just 1/2 but the Law of Averages suggests the chances of a tail should be higher in order to fill the statistical deficit.

It looks like there was something in the list for everyone.

F

The 'Law of Averages' is also known as the 'Gambler's Fallacy'.

And (just checking I've got this right) the fallacy is that the numbers of heads and tails will only match exactly when you have tossed the coin an infinite number of times. Any less than this , and the 'Law of Averages' cannot be relied upon.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

and stems from a basic misunderstanding of probability theory, I think.

I'm off to read some of the backlog now, so I might have something more useful to say in a bit.

I wasn't sure what you meant by the Law of Averages.

The rest. No.

Noggin

Okay this listy thing:

Fairies
- yup

Father Christmas
- nope

Angels
- yup

Magic
- if I didn't believe in magic, I wouldn't be much of a witch would I?

Extra Sensory Perception
- fairly closely linked to magic, this one. Yes.

Psychokinesis
- I don't see any reason *not* to believe in it. I tend to assume it is possible, but I'm not convinced anybody can actually do it at the moment.

Visiting Aliens
- this is also possible, but I'm not sure it's happening.

'Faith' Healing
- yup

Reflexology
- do you need to believe in this one?

Crystal Healing
- I'd class this as a form of magic

Ghosts
- yup

Life After Death
- 'existence after death' would be more accurate I think

Homeopathy
- keeps my hayfever under control. I wasn't aware belief was necessary

Law of Averages
- see above; a logical fallacy

Life Energy
- As in Chi, or some kind of life force that imbues living things? Yes to both anyway, they're probably the same thing.

Lucky Charms
- another branch of magic

Palmistry
- undecided. I suspect when it works it's a cover for someone doing something else.

Astrology
- not what you see in the papers; that's cack.

The 'Force'
- what's that then, eh?

Seances
- people have them - do they work? Sometimes I think they do, yes, but I wouldn't want to place bets on what you're actually communicating with. Potentially dangerous.

Feng Shui
- not sure you need to believe in that one either

Reincarnation
- see 'life after death' - reincarnation is a definite possibility, but I'm uncertain how much it happens

Reiki
- seems to work

Phrenology
- that's the thing with feeling people's skulls, right? Like palmistry, I'd suspect it's got a lot more to do with it than that when it's working - reading people's Chi instead, perhaps, possibly without even being aware of it.


If this makes me come over as a superstitious, gullible freak then, well, I guess that's what I am. But I'll argue with you about it. Since I'm a and I do use magic (and it does work), I automatically accept at least the possibility of many other things, which could simply be seen as other forms of magic. They come in a gift box you see.

Pattern-chaser,

I got the dvd this morning so I am watching it now (with Spanish subtitles). Bit slow moving. And not very clearly explained so unless you happen to already know the story I don't think it would make much sense. Which made me wonder what someone who has never heard of Christ might make of this film. Also, Satan is not explained at all. Just this bald weird-looking androgeneous creature that keeps showing up here and there, tossing out the occasional snake. Again, if you didn't already know the story, I don't think you'd be able to make a lot of sense of the film. So far (about half an hour into it) not too much blood and gore.

Anyhow, just taking a break to make some

az

I ssuspect a lot hinges on how define magic, MaW. Psychosomatic diseases, the placebo effect (and "faith" healing as a variety of) are all real enough (would homeopathy control your hay fever if you didn't believe it? maybe, maybe not). The subtlety of the interaction between mind and body is still not well understood, but like the life force whatever it is I'll bet it doesn't flout the laws of physics (and by *my* definition wouldn't count as magic.)

Noggin

MaW,

"If this makes me come over as a superstitious, gullible freak then, well, I guess that's what I am. But I'll argue with you about it."

Oh, I'm not arguing.

The Force: you've never seen Star Wars then?
George Lucas' religion apparently has thousands of followers.

Homeopathy: a lot of people seem to think this is real. If it works for you, fine, I wouldn't want to cause you any problems with your hayfever this summer. As a witch though, I would have thought you would have used one of the natural antihistamines.

F

Yes, I've seen Star Wars, but I wasn't assuming that you meant exactly the Force from the films. That's a fictional construct, although if one looked at it the right way, one might find similarities between it and magic.

The main reason I use homeopathic hayfever tablets is force of habit; I've been taking them for about five years, and I don't see any reason to change what works. That was before I became a witch, so I wasn't quite so concerned then. I'd also had various bad conventional antihistamines which made me feel worse than the hayfever did, so I was shying away from the whole antihistamine concept.

Hi az,

There can't be too many people who don't know the story. A bit like 'Titanic'; we all knew the ship sank at the end. (Sorry if that's spoiled it for someone.) On the other hand if the film is, as you say 'not very clearly explained' that (perhaps cleverly) leaves loads of room for personal interpretation. That way it doesn't appear to move too far from everyone's own knowledge of the story and avoids the inevitable comparisons with 'The Book'.

Can I have maple syrup on my please? It's sticky but I love it.

F

Piriton works for me. Or that Rhinocort aqua stuff that looks identical to mucous. Or staying indoors all day huddled over a hot keyboard.

It's not so much what you believe, but how well you adjust your beliefs in light of evidence.

Piriton is absolute murder for me - I can barely do anything at all under its effects. Reading is hard enough, actually working or going anywhere by foot or cycle or car is right out of the question. So I avoid that one.

"It's not so much what you believe, but how well you adjust your beliefs in light of evidence."

Now that one, I like.

The thing about homeopathy is that it has never been shown to work in a double-blind clinical trial. It only seems to work if you know you are taking it. At least this was true when I was studying neuroscince at uni, and I don't recall hearing or reading anything about it having been proved since.

That doesn't really surprise me very much, somehow.

Last year I was thinking of trying something different, largely because my hayfever's been getting worse, and so the homeopathic stuff wasn't controlling it as well as it used to. Maybe I shall.

Yes, and of course you can't use anything as cold and scientfic as double blind RCTs to assess something as nice wholistic and fluffy as homopathy.

That said as far as I and many other medicky types are concerned if there's evidence it works then it's a conventional medicine not an alturnative one.

Western medicine admits that it's wrong all the time, - yes indivdual doctors can be arogant and upset when they are proved wrong - but medical establishments do change their minds. Especially now evidence based medicine is such a big thing.

Have you read Farlanders excellent article on homeopathy in the EG?

A954740

Pattern-chaser,

In a word: over-hyped.

Tedious re-telling of the Passion. After all the hysterical publicity about the VIOLENCE I found it no worse than, say, Braveheart. Though the flogging scene ends up, as mentioned in several reviews, coming across as homo-erotic sadistic porn. As for it being anti-semitic, I didn't think the Jews were portrayed as being any worse than the Romans.

I found it just didn't hold my interest. And - bl**dy downloads! - the last few minutes were cut off, so I don't know if after he walks out of the cave he floats up to heaven or not. So, sorry, pretty boring review. But it was a pretty boring film.

az

ps
definitely NOT for kids, though.

az

Sounds about right to me. I don't think I shall be watching it.