A number of years ago, I invited a friend over to my place to watch The Secret with me. Neither of us knew much about the film, only that it came recommended to us by a number of friends who share our interest in philosophy, science, religion and self-improvement.
The central claim of the film, largely influenced by Wallace Wattles’ 1910 book The Science of Getting Rich, is that there exists a universal law of nature called “the law of attraction” (or “LOA” for short). According to this law, you can attract anything into your life you want using just your thoughts.
Moreover, LOA is said to be a completely universal law: it works everytime, in any place, and with every person; there are no limitations to what you can attract.
Indeed, a pantheon of people explain how you can use LOA to attract money, relationships, and even happiness itself, into your life.
Sound too good to be true? Wait! We’re assured that it’s based in science, and hence must be true no matter how strange it might seem.
Unfortunately, many of the “scientific” claims the film makes seem questionable. For example:
1. “Now if you don’t understand [LOA], it doesn’t mean you should reject it. You don’t understand electricity probably… no one even knows what electricity is.” And here I thought physicists understood a great deal about electricity.
2. Our physiology creates disease to give us feedback, to let us know we have an imbalanced perspective, and we're not loving and we're not grateful." Those ungrateful cancer patients! (credit here to Michael Shermer)
3. “It’s been proven scientifically that a positive thought is a hundred times more powerful than a negative thought” Um, no.
4. “Every thought has a frequency.... If you are thinking that thought over and over again you are emitting that frequency." Well, the brain does emit electrical activity, but the resulting magnetic fields are extremely tiny and do not extend very far.
Now, science has shown that positive thoughts can be a factor in shaping what happens (as in the “placebo effect”). However, there’s a giant leap from that to the conclusion that your thoughts are the only factor in determining what happens to you.
Just consider the tortured Jews in Nazi concentration camps, the enslaved African-Americans and the victims of 9/11. If LOA were true, then these people all had it coming; they simply failed to control their thoughts.
Defenders of LOA may well bite the bullet on this one. Indeed, those of my friends who’ve defended The Secret often speak of it in terms of a revelation: once you open your eyes to its truth, everything confirms it, and every objection can be explained away.
At first glance, it might seem that it’s precisely this feature – that everyting confirms it, and nothing could disconfirm it – which disqualifies it from being science. After all, isn’t the very point of science to make predictions which could turn out to be false?
This is too quick. Even textbook cases of theories from the history of science often fail to be “falsifiable” in this sense.
Take, for example, Newton’s three laws of motion and the law of gravitation. One might think that this bit of theory makes all sorts of empirical predictions (e.g. if an apple dropped from a tree directly above Newton’s head, it would fall on his head), which could confirm or disconfirm it.
But this picture is too simple. If the apple didn’t fall as predicted, one could easily “save” the theory by positing other forces that overcame the force of gravity. It is only in conjunction with other assumptions (e.g. that for certain systems the effects of forces other than gravity are negligible) that we get falsifiable empirical predictions.
Similarly, if LOA seems to fail in certain cases, its defenders could (and do) make additional assumptions (e.g. that there’s an unspecified time delay, or that people aren’t doing it correctly) to explain away all these apparent failures.
But it’s precisely here that The Secret parts ways with science. When, for example, the orbit of Uranus was observed to diverge from the predictions of Newton’s theory, astronomers did not simply explain it away. Rather, this observation lead to a detailed research program and a new set of puzzles to solve: old observations were re-examined, new measurements were made, various theorical adjustments were considered, and so on. In the end, the sources of difficultly with the Newtonian paradigm proved too great, and it gave way to Einstein’s theory.
The situation with LOA is quite different. The assumptions deployed to save this theory help sustain a general worldview, or “ethos,” and a set of “craft rules.” But no research puzzles have emerged. In this respect, The Secret is more akin to astrology or ancient Greek mythology.
No doubt, some proponents will continue to insist on the science label (especially if it increases sales copy conversion!), and to make claims of scientific objectivity without the sweat of honest toil. But that’s at best a verbal victory, and at worst a deceptive marketing scheme.
I think it's more productive to look at the Law of Attraction as a psychological, rather than external, phenopmenon. It's well known that mental states can affect perception, sometimes dramatically. It seems entirely plausible that there's a self-reinforcing psychological state -- you might even think of it as a hypnotic state -- in which what you "determined" to "attract" seems to be attained because you perceive ways of getting it. That' along with irregular reinforcement, might be very convincing.
ReplyDeleteI also wince when I hear the pseudo-scientific babble in "The Secret" and "What the Bleep do We Know?" It unfortunate that a bunch of people with a somewhat limited understanding of science are trying to use what little they know to "explain" the law of attraction to others who are equally ignorant.
ReplyDeleteThere's all too often the desire to explain something that operates at one level of reality - the spiritual or psychological level - in terms of another level - the physical level. When I say "I'm feeling sad" that something happening at a psychological level. This is an abstract interpretation of chemical and electrical process taking place in the physical level of reality.
My experience of the Law of Attraction is that it works. Why that is - whether by adjusting my blinders or by actually influencing the outcome of events beyond my direct control - remains a mystery.
I sincerely doubt that the Law of Attraction is the "observer" problem of Quantum Mechanics at work. Many fans of the Quantum Mechanics explanation of the LoA also believe in the many-universes theory - which means that in most universes you failed to attract what you were trying to attract! It's a bit silly.
Still, don't let the immature nature of the people promoting the Law of Attraction distract you from a set of techniques and practices that can improve the level of success in your life.
The real "secret" with the secret is doing PROJECT MANAGEMENT - set up your goal and put in a very good plan to achieve it. Just wishing something will come true is like believing in Santa.
ReplyDeleteIt's late, but I want to think about this a bit more. The following is my thinking out loud.
ReplyDeleteThis law does not seem to be a "law" at all—it is more of a guideline.
I'm going to say that the law of attraction works just as the notion of "God's strength" does: if you think you will gain it, your demeanor does more work than anything else. A melancholy disposition does not earn a pay-raise, the mate of your dreams, a harmony with your surroundings.
Your boss can read failure on you (even if you cannot), that pretty lady at the bar can see boring blokes from a mile off, and the rest of the world turns out to be what you think it is. I don't know how many people I know construct ridiculous theories about the world, rally evidence from their failed attempts, and describe their failures as a implicit feature about the world at large. For instance: women only like nice guys, men are dogs, the human society is brutish and hostile by nature, and the world is fundamentally "strife"—all of these should be recognizable enough.
I'm of the mind that the distinction between ideas and their referent is a false one: absolute reference makes little sense, and complete disconnect is a dreaded solipsism. The separation between the world of things and the world of my ideas is not so clear, and where I draw the line makes all the difference. What sort of difference? If hold it as a fundamental value that I can attract things by thinking them, I will rally evidence for such a claim.
The collection of evidence, in this case, is making things happen in such a way that it looks like "they just happened." Motivation is the very point of the LoA. To be overwhelmed by doubt is tantamount to failure, and the belief that one can effect the world with their mind can set the mind at ease. Less anxiety means less apprehension; less apprehension means more uninhibited actions; more uninhibited actions mean more new opportunities.
The "law of attraction," then, looks to be an epistemological trick and nearly impossible to disprove unless you never bought it in the first place. Unfortunately, buying into it is the only way it'll work.
I'm not commenting on the piece, just correcting an error. The divergence of Uranus from it's predicted path lead to the discovery of the planet Neptune, which with the addition of Neptune Uranus matched Newtonian predictions. It was the precession of Mercury that didn't match Newtonian predictions that was used as an example by Relativity working.
ReplyDeleteSome helpful comments by all. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: I only say that the Uranus observation lead to a reasearch program, and that the Newtonian paradigm was eventually replaced, which is consistent with everything you (correctly) note.
Well, when I watched the movie some time ago, I wasn't left with the impression that it is being promoted as science, instead, for me it was just another way to say: Believe in yourself, because if you do, you can achieve anything. This is, as Seneca the Younger said: "psychological, rather than external, phenopmenon". Well, here, may be, comes the question how much the psychological can influence physical reality. I believe it can to an extend I'm not sure about, not because it's nice to think that if you visualise something it will become part of your reality, but because I see science developing and making new finds "every day" and that points to the fact that not everything is discovered yet (no need to give the old example with the medieval science and today's, right?). So, do I believe in LOA - yes, it works for me, do I think it is science - no, but does it have to be?
ReplyDelete