yogiman
This is no valid refutation, as you yourself don't use tarot for questions about the future. Divining about circumstances has no predictive concern.
The Million Dollar Challenge
This is no valid refutation, as you yourself don't use tarot for questions about the future. Divining about circumstances has no predictive concern.
trzes
Of course the whole issue is not about whether a single tarot prediction turns out to be right or wrong but rather if the method of applying tarot divination gives a better than random chance to come out right or wrong in the end. In the meantime any single predicted situation may well be in both states at the same time, just like Schrödinger's cat. If that's really the case mainly depends on your actual interpretation of quantum physics.
ravenest
And how do we calculate that 'better than random chance?
Isn't it by collating all the 'single tarot prediction (and seeing if they) turn out to be right or wrong'.
Agreed ... and also of one's interpretation of what tarot is doing . But all this is removed from what the sceptics require as proof including ones that score through moving goal posts.
trzes
Sure. So what is your problem? Quantum indefiniteness? That's what the world is like: There are entangled states in physics that are amibiguous. When you observe such a state either the wavefunction collapses into a defined state or you as the observer enter the entangled state (depending on your actual interpretation of quantum physics). After you have observed Schrödinger's cat it's always either dead or alive, well defined and unambigious. That's always the case, no matter what you observe or why. And therefore it doesn't proof any method of empirical research wrong or anything. It simply doesn't matter.
ravenest
I don't have a problem with 'Quantum indefiniteness' , I agree with your above post 
Especially this bit; " When you observe such a state either the wavefunction collapses into a defined state or you as the observer enter the entangled state ."
Which IMO is a great description (although in other terms) of certain dynamics I have been posting in various places about interactions, observations and involvement between the 'material', 'spiritual' and 'daimonic' 'worlds'. [ quick ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Harpur ]
The 'problem' I have is that some sceptics seem to require a ' scientific proof ' of tarot that isn't 'feasible' BECAUSE of this dynamic in the world of tarot (and Quantum physics ... and 'Life' ) ... and they move the goal posts .
A fav. proof required of sceptics is to ask the same question numerous times and expect the same cards to turn up ... IMO this is like me asking to open the cat box at various times and show the same result ... the cat is always alive ... to prove the quantum theory.
IMO certain types of scientific proof required by sceptics (same results from same experiment) don't apply to tarot or ( quantum theory or) many of life's situations.
I would love to talk more on this level with you but yet again the fascination of mine with other people’s ideas (presented in a small meta-post fashion) will draw me into a larger meta-post and the moderators keep requesting me to control that . I don’t know if this would fit into chat, spirituality or what ?
Especially this bit; " When you observe such a state either the wavefunction collapses into a defined state or you as the observer enter the entangled state ."
Which IMO is a great description (although in other terms) of certain dynamics I have been posting in various places about interactions, observations and involvement between the 'material', 'spiritual' and 'daimonic' 'worlds'. [ quick ref : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Harpur ]
The 'problem' I have is that some sceptics seem to require a ' scientific proof ' of tarot that isn't 'feasible' BECAUSE of this dynamic in the world of tarot (and Quantum physics ... and 'Life' ) ... and they move the goal posts .
A fav. proof required of sceptics is to ask the same question numerous times and expect the same cards to turn up ... IMO this is like me asking to open the cat box at various times and show the same result ... the cat is always alive ... to prove the quantum theory.
IMO certain types of scientific proof required by sceptics (same results from same experiment) don't apply to tarot or ( quantum theory or) many of life's situations.
I would love to talk more on this level with you but yet again the fascination of mine with other people’s ideas (presented in a small meta-post fashion) will draw me into a larger meta-post and the moderators keep requesting me to control that . I don’t know if this would fit into chat, spirituality or what ?
trzes
I see your point. A requirement like the one you describe would be too narrow indeed. The whole world can change in an instant of course and what is true now isn't necessarily true in a minute's time.
So the crucial question is (and one that stays on topic of the thread): Is it possible to perform a an empirical experiment about tarot divination that is fair in both directions, for the skeptics and for the divine? And if so, how does it look like?
My major claim is that it is possible indeed to perform such a test. And I do have a proposal for a testing procedure. It is a proof of concept for testing one specific aspect of divination, namely the hypothesis that something divine makes the drawing of tarot cards non-random and by doing so produces information that makes a tarot reading more accurate than with randomly drawn cards.
The procedure is a bit lengthy:
1. Many random numbers are collected. Either by using data that are based on physical processes like radioactive decay and that have been produced a long time before anybody started thinking about the experiment being conducted. Or by using a pseudo random number generator on a computer that uses the number 42 as a seed. Both methods make sure that all the random numbers that will be used during the experiment are determined before the experiment even starts. This avoids the possibility that the random number generating process is a device of divination itself. If tarot cards can be influenced by the divine then a set of dice or a computer could be influenced as well.
2. Many new tarot decks are provided that the people who will read tarot during the experiment have never seen before. They can ask for their favorite type of deck in advance though. This avoids unconscious cheating by readers who unconsciously know little scratches and wears on the backs of their own frequently used deck.
3. In each step of the experiment the tarot cards are ordered randomly according to the pre-collected random numbers. This is to avoid effects of a previously existing order of the cards.
4. Then the reader shuffles the cards and lays a spread with card backs up. The supervisor of the experiment has to make sure that the reader doesn’t see the fronts of the cards. This is to avoid the chance of cheating.
5. Next reader and querent leave the room and the supervisor does one of two things each with equal chances according to some pre-selected random numbers. The supervisor either picks up all the cards from the spread and puts them back in the same way as before. Or the supervisor picks up the cards of the spread and lays a different spread instead that is determined by more random numbers. This makes sure that the reader will have no chance to know if the actual reading will be done with the original spread or with a random one.
6. Reader and querent return to the room. The reader turns the front sides up and reads the cards.
7. The querent judges the accuracy of the reading by writing down a score like a number between 0 and 10. Why the querent finds a reading accurate, what criteria the querent has, whether the querent suffers from self-deception or not, all this doesn’t matter.
8. If the average score of tarot readings done with original spreads is significantly higher than the average score of tarot readings done with random spreads, then we may consider divination to be at work.
ravenest
Imo I disagree due to the nature of the evaluation of point 7 SINCE I think a Tarot sceptic would not accept that.
However an open minded sceptic (if you can find one) might agree.
For me the materialist world , nor the spiritual world cannot be satisfied with explanations of Tarot from those worlds. IMO it is an intersection of worlds; in that strange realm that I ( and Harpur ) term the Daimonic world. (For the one that prefers religion over philosophy they might need to change the term to 'miraculous world'.)
Personally I feel one is pushing a heavy, sloppy and smelly load uphill to try to convince the overly materialist or religious of Tarot's benefit ( and one would probably end up not smelling too good oneself
).trzes
If you talk to scientists who deal with empirical surveys professionally then they will indeed accept that step I suppose. Remember, the question is not about whether tarot is a useful tool in general terms but only if a certain kind of divination adds to it. IMO it is almost impossible to measure the accuracy of a tarot reading directly (see my post #29 in this thread for some of the issues). But you can measure the personal judgement of accuracy. This sort of indirect measure is common every day practice in empirical research.
If a skeptic on the other hand only wants to dis tarot as “meh, it’s bollocks anyway” then this test doesn’t provide any useful argument of course.
I probably haven't quite got what you are on about here. It sounds like the general argument that science cannot look behind the veil of the occult for principal reasons. This mindset is stated more bluntly in some earlier posts in the thread:
The last statement of SunChariot is a religious one in essence: In order to see the truth you have to believe it in the first place.
Well, people may believe what they want, and if people don’t want to question something, they don’t have to. That’s fine. But scientists are the sort of people who DO want to know how thinks work, and if things really are what they look like. They don’t choose a belief in something particular in the first place, but the belief in certain methods how to gain knowledge. Then they observe and conclude what follows about certain things like divination. I don’t claim that every scientist obeys this approach faithfully of course. Prejudice is a disease like flu, everybody gets it from time to time. But in principle this approach is widely accepted. And it is much less closed-minded than a pre-selected belief in my book.
The methods how to gain knowledge can be discussed of course (feel free to criticize my divination test proposal). But why would the “spiritual” require different methods? The claim about divination is that some information is transferred from somewhere outside to the tarot cards or maybe the mind of the reader. Quite like radio waves for example. But unlike radio waves this divinational information appears to be completely invisible, except when reaching the cards or the reader’s mind. Fancy that: Something (supernatural or not) carries information but has been invisible for just everybody who observed nature during the last 400 years. Only my grubby RWS cards can read this information. The theory of radio waves would have been dead long since under these circumstances. And I don't see anything that justifies to treat divinational information transfer differently than radio wave information transfer, except in order to make it immune against critique.
Someone please tell me any better reason for such a distinction here.
