Pound Pup Legacy

I wouldn't want to equate superstition to science, faith and trust, though there is a common theme to all four, each with their own qualities. Key, as I see it, is giving us a means to deal with our fears and uncertainties.

Superstitions usually don't have a real cause and effect logic to them and though there are common patterns in various cultures, they differ from place to place. In the far east for example the number four is considered bad luck, to the extent that some buildings skip the fourth floor, going straight to number five. The same pattern can be found in Western countries, but then with the number thirteen. Astrology as I see it falls very much in this category. The movements of the celestial bodies don't have a clear causal relation to the (mis)fortune of us mortals. At the same time they have a predictable future, which we as humans don't have. That dychotomy probably attracts many to see their future written in the stars.

Science, though very much based upon cause and effect thinking, can be seen as another means to deal with our fears and uncertainties. By means of science we can try to make a prediction of some aspects of the future, that way helping us get rid of some of our worries (generating other worries in the mean time, because of increased knowledge btw). A neat thing about science is that it doesn't claim any truths, as opposed to superstitions. Superstitions tell us that a black cat will bring bad luck, where science says smoking cigarettes may cause cancer. The scientific method is geared toward disproving theories, within a setup that encourages the generation of new theories. As such all theories are tentative and expected to disproved by some future experiment, leading to new thinking that will lead to theories that will encompass the newly found experimental results.

Faith, as I see it is a more general belief things will work out, even when the future is very uncertain. I guess we need faith not to get sick with worries. Even though faith has no rational ground it does work. Pessimists and depressives are usually better at predicting the outcome of an event than the general public. Most people have an overly optimistic bias by nature, making depressives in fact more reasonable than non-depressives. Still depressives and otherwise more pessimistically inclined people will more usually fail reaching their goals due to the effect of self-fulfilling prophecy. Optimists will keep trying to achieve their goals against all odds, where pessimists will give up facing the odds. Within the group of optimists some will achieve their goals despite the odds, while among the pessimists no-one will achieve any goal for giving up.

Trust, I see as the most general of all means to achieve some peace of mind facing an uncertain future. More so than all the others it includes our relations to other people, though is not exclusive social in nature. We trust the toilet to flush when we pull the cord or push the button as well as trust our neighbour not to forget looking after our dog when going away for the weekend. Unlike supersticions and faith and much more in line with science, trust is often based on cause and effect. When our neighbour doesn't look after the dog when asked to, we usually won't ask him a second time.