Astrology
After the news that renowned clairvoyant Mystic Meg has recently passed into the next realm, we decided to focus our energy on all things astrological. Zodiacs, tarot cards and horoscopes can seem irrational, but is believing in astrology bad for you or can it shed light on the human condition?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss astrology. Have beliefs in astrology declined in recent years or have we simply filled this void with other things? We unpack the decline of organised religion in the Western world, the relationship between narcissism and astrology, the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale and discuss how spirituality manifests itself in contemporary society. Finally, we analyse each other’s horoscopes.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
- Mystic Meg: Astrologer dies aged 80
- British public reveal their beliefs in new survey
- Are we becoming more narcissistic?
- Science says religion is good for your health
For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this episode of the podcast, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing Mystic Meg.
Speaker B:Nick, go for it. Margaret Ann Lake. Sounds an unremarkable person, go on. Best known by her stage name, Mystic Meg, has unfortunately passed into the next realm. But she was very well known, I think, her household name, and she was an astrologer. She wrote columns in The Sun and I remember her from News of the World, but would also crop up on TV. And she famously, of course, hosted Mystic Meg's Wheel of Destiny for Sun Bingo. And National Lottery. And of course, I think she hit the big time with National Lottery, where she would make predictions, which came unerringly true. I can foresee that someone will become a millionaire and their name will begin with A or S or T or M. Anyway, it occurred to me that when I was younger, there seemed to be a lot more of this astrology about. I know people used to talk about their star signs and actually, you know, people would go, what star sign are you? And I'm not saying, you know, there wasn't a huge amount of taking it seriously, but it was talked about more. It was more of a thing. It was more of a thing. Now, is that true? Is what we want to ask first. If it's true that astrology has declined, is that because there's generally less belief in sort of paranormal stuff or has people simply moved on to other stuff? But also, I guess, more widely, where's the harm in it? Like, is believing in astrology bad for you or not? And that's it really. I think that's, you know, in honour of the great Mystic Meg, who I like to think is probably in our presence now.
Speaker A:I can feel some. Yeah. I struggle with astrology, actually, because there's a part of me that's still quite, you know, likes it and wants to believe in it. It's because you're a Pisces. Yeah, that's what it is. What are you, actually? Well, you can tell I'm just such an Aries. I'm an Aries too.
Speaker B:Are you? Makes sense. You're very Aries. That's why we're always arguing with each other.
Speaker A:That's it. But no, that's what it is that I do like about it. I'm a little bit too attached to it. I will cover that when we come on to some of the personality disorders associated with astrology.
Speaker C:Peter. Yeah, so I did a bit of looking at the numbers around followers of organised religion. Lots of literature seems to think there is definitely a big decline. So there's definitely secularisation going on in Western Europe. So people are believing in less organised stuff.
Speaker B:Now, Peter's obviously, he's just jumped straight from belief in the paranormal to organised religion. I think we need to point out that this is a controversial move.
Speaker C:Yes, it's controversial, but I put them in the same category as it is belief in stuff that you have no evidence for, right? It's belief in, it's non-rationalism, really. It's belief in stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah. Although, I mean, Chesterton, I think it was Chesterton famously said, when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything.
Speaker C:Well, this is it. So I was, where I went. Is there some sort of like fundamental belief capacity that must be filled in the human animal, right? The answer is yes. Spiritual void. Yeah. So if you stop believing in God or in astrology, would you then have to fill it with something else to believe?
Speaker A:No, no. It's not that you have to fill it, but that if you don't, there'll be an element of you that will be forever unhappy.
Speaker C:That's what, yeah. So you have, in order to maintain, you have to fill it, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you have to sort of, so there's like a sort of, you'd have a belief gap that needed to be filled. Yeah. And I think that, I think that is true. So I, whereas there's less astrology around, there's more people finding meaning in their lives through other things to fill that belief gap with. Finding, sort of looking for, you know, value in, looking for meaning in their lives in through other things. And I think that explains the rise of things like veganism and, you know, what's the word for being an eco person? We know what you mean. Environmentalism. Environmentalism, yeah. Bloody hippies or something. No, no, but also other things like the sort of rise of the celebrity and that kind of thing. Putting a lot of things into this spiritual void. We've ditched astrology. We've ditched Christianity in this country and we've filled it with TikTok and eating vegan.
Speaker B:I feel like Peter has, as usual, what he's done is he's driven a motorbike straight through all the walls and arrived at a destination. I feel like I need to go back and slightly sort of tidy up a bit. I think there is a difference between following Kim Kardashian on TikTok, I'm not very familiar with this, and believing in dowsing.
Speaker A:Let's steer away from the kind of, yeah, let's stick more in belief.
Speaker B: a fair bit by about half from: Speaker A:Well, look, we can have at this in at least two different ways, maybe more. We can talk about, you know, the decline or not of belief in astrology, right? We can do that and examine why that might be the case. I've got a couple of suggestions. Well, we can do that. We can talk about, hey, belief in X versus belief in Y, you know, belief in one weird thing versus belief in another weird thing. We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. Which way do you want to go?
Speaker B:I've got a few more bits of data, which I suppose it might make more sense to present up front. On astrology or? Astrology, but also a few other aspects of like the connection between belief in the supernatural and outcomes. Okay. And then I think we can use that perhaps to ask about what this spiritual void is that you guys keep talking about. I'm not sure about the spiritual void. Peter keeps filling his with Kim Kardashian. And I don't know why he's doing that. But we'll we'll check that in a sec.
Speaker C:Well, I mean, I don't think everyone's void is necessarily the same. I think.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think the void thing is less interesting. But anyway, let's keep going.
Speaker B:So I found a study which looked at belief in astrology and what it was correlated with. Yeah. And it lo and behold, it's significant, statistically significantly correlated with narcissism. That's the biggest predictor of belief in astrology. Right, right. Makes sense. Because it's putting you in some sense in the center of the universe. Now, I think that's very different from the message of e.g. Christianity, which is sort of almost the opposite. It's like saying, you know, you're not special. In fact, you know.
Speaker A:I think they're both rooted in ego, let's say. But anyway, keep going.
Speaker B:There might be a driver there, but it feels to me like it's sort of actually not talking about none of you are important.
Speaker C:I think it's pretty. I say it's pretty identical to Christianity because you like you're special. Well, there's no special, but it says that this this all this all powerful creator that can do anything, cares about you.
Speaker B: xplain why. But apparently in: Speaker A:What were the years?
Speaker B: Between: Speaker A:Are we coming back to the goat sheep thing? No, I just got a cool name.
Speaker B:Well, you just dropped it. Well, it's basically a set of questions that ask that ask you questions about that, that ask you different things about your beliefs in the supernatural. It's just a consistent way of measuring it over time. And I'm saying there's no trend. There's no evidence of a trend. What's it got to do with sheep and goats? The idea is that sheep kind of will follow things. Sheep will just go along with goats.
Speaker C:It's not by Professor Sheep, it's by Professor Goats.
Speaker B:Yeah, goats are independent and think for themselves. I wish we had that Jordan chap here who could tell us more about this. Anyway, religion is correlated positively with longevity, with coping skills, quality of life. It's correlated with lower levels of anxiety and depression and suicide. The more religious you are, the more your well-being, the higher your well-being, according to a study in the US which looked at how religious, how sort of very religious stroke, moderately religious stroke, non-religious. And in every category, the very religious were happier. However, right?
Speaker C:Well, I have to say that, otherwise God will be angry.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's maybe. But there's also religiosity correlates negatively with country's income, correlates, not saying anything about causation here. And then to confuse matters further, intelligence correlates negatively with belief in anything supernatural, including sort of mainstream religious claims. And then they and the hypotheses there are that intelligent people are less likely to conform to things and more likely to question beliefs. They're more likely to form beliefs analytically rather than intuitively, and that they may have less need for religion. Now, we'll again, void. We'll get back to that. But it's also the case that intelligence correlates positively with outcomes like in life outcomes in general. There's a whole bunch of things that I've put down there. But so relevant. Yeah. So but the point is, I mean, it's interesting that intelligence correlates negatively with religion. Religion correlates positively with well-being and happiness, but less. But it correlates negatively with material outcomes. So maybe they're onto something, these religious people, like basically, actually, you should be happy and stop running after money. Stop pursuing material wealth. Yeah, yeah. And maybe if you believed in an afterlife, you wouldn't be as bothered by material wealth anyway.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So it's possible that there is a coherent picture to be painted in all that.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, absolutely there is. All this adds up nicely, you know. So it does go back to that thing that we were talking about, this what's it gap, right? Yes. But so let's talk about the gap. Yeah, the spirituality gap, right? Yeah. Which is the...
Speaker B:You say that you've got one.
Speaker A:How big is it? No, no. What does it feel like? No, it's part of this. This is the human condition we're talking about, right? And it's this there. I mean, I don't think it's particularly controversial or original to say, you know, we all have a need. We have evolved. It's advantageous to believe in something. This is tied in with imagination. No, it isn't. Yes, it is. How is it advantageous to believe in things that are false? You just stated it, that you're happier, right? If I think... Wait, let me finish, Nick. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick. If I think I can pray and a lion will disappear, I'm more likely to get eaten than if I have to build a stick. Nick, you've already answered this with your own data that you've just given us.
Speaker C:You're talking about individual evolution there. You could have group and...
Speaker A:You're a data guy. Finish your thought. You're a data guy, is that right? Well, yeah, I like to think so. Okay, well, you've just given us some great data just there, which is that people who it's correlated, not cause necessarily, but it's correlated belief in, let's say God for a moment, is correlated with happiness. You said that.
Speaker B:All you've jumped to is it gives you an evolutionary advantage. Okay, but no, first of all, we can establish it as...
Speaker A:Let's establish it as, if we can, let's assume it as a fact, right? Because you've given that with your data, right? So then if you look to, well, why is that the case, right? And so what I would argue is that from an evolutionary point of view, it's not so much about, hey, belief in something that doesn't exist is advantageous. It's more that an imagination and be able to imagine concepts is beyond what sort of quite pedestrian around us is beneficial. Okay, so for example, you could say for cohesion within a tribe, for example. So if you can all believe in the same God that does stuff or the same thing, then that's beneficial, right? And I just don't think that's particularly controversial. I don't think that's particularly... But you haven't proved it's beneficial. Why is that beneficial? Because, no, so I have. So for example, if within your tribe, if you can act cohesively together and believe in this thing together, then you are more likely to pass, your genes are more likely to be passed on.
Speaker B:And also your cousin and your cousin's cousin within the tribe... ...believing something untrue. No, but it requires imagination.
Speaker A:And that's only one example before we even talk about...
Speaker C:It's very contentious. No, I just don't think it is, Nick. The advantage in it might be that it gives you useful heuristics about the world.
Speaker B:But why not all unite around, you know, painting your cave green or, you know, weaving a certain kind of cloth? Why unite around believing a bunch of things? That's what doesn't make sense. But also... Or even just playing the same sport.
Speaker C:Well, a mechanism that might be the case is that it facilitates a kind of coordination and governance structure that is advantageous over having not that, having a more anarchic structure where if your religious beliefs reinforce the power structures, then you're more stable and able to dominate other adjacent groups.
Speaker B:Well, yeah, but I don't think...
Speaker C:We're straying away in here.
Speaker B:Power structures were a big, are a big thing in hunter-gatherer societies. They're a thing, they're a thing in, you know, once you get sort of farming and cities and civilizations. But I wonder if that's connected, because that's where you get organized religion. No, but we're straying, we're straying. Why do you think we're straying?
Speaker C:We're talking about the origin of... No. So in hunter-gatherer societies, you did have, you had tribes of hundreds and bigger tribes of tribes of sort of thousands living together, and there would be a chief, right? So if you're the chief and the chief's family with some magical properties, that makes you less likely to challenge them, you're more stable. Oh, like the royal family. Like the royal family, you're more likely to prosper over a more chaotic, anarchic adjacent group.
Speaker A:But also, no, listen, we're straying, but we're also getting...
Speaker C:That's a pure speculation, but that's the mechanism I see. Well, okay.
Speaker A:Listen, we're going off course. Fraser, which course do you believe we should be on? No, listen, but we're going off course, but it's partly because you're just being unnecessarily belligerent. Right. And just wanting to disagree. You want me to just conform? No, I want you to argue with a view to trying to get somewhere rather than just disagreeing. So for example, yes, I mean, so lions probably don't believe in supernatural beings, right? Probably. We don't know for sure, but they probably don't. But also lions don't know how to paint, okay? And I think it's the same thing, which is we're talking about imagination, because as far as we probably know, humans are the only beings that have...
Speaker B:You're just going into the realm of totality. Okay, right. What do you mean by imagination? Let's say that it's the ability to conceive of hypotheses.
Speaker A:So for example, the reason the crops failed this year is not because it didn't rain, or it is because it didn't rain, but it's because we didn't satisfy the gods of rain. That's why. That kind of thing. So that imagination.
Speaker B:I don't think... Yeah, the ability to formulate hypotheses, I think is what you're getting at. And I think it's suitably construed. It seems plausible to me that a lion might have hypotheses, but they would be things like, you know, there might be a sheep over there or something like that, and able to act on that.
Speaker A:But there is a difference somewhere, isn't there, don't you think? Between a lion going, hey, maybe we should work together, and there might be a sheep around there, between a bunch of humans also hunting sheep, whatever, and saying, but fortunately, we've managed to placate the gods of this valley. And so therefore, that's going to help us.
Speaker B:It feels like it's using up effort that would otherwise could be spent productively.
Speaker A:And so therefore, the benefit, the evolutionary benefit is, I think, in this case, probably working together.
Speaker B:It's very hand wavy. There are loads of ways you can work together that are productive and enhance your chances of actual real life success.
Speaker A:Hold on, I'm getting lost here, right? Because we're getting stuck on this a bit. And I think you're being unnecessarily...
Speaker B:Your mechanism doesn't make sense. That's all I'm saying. Like your proposed mechanism for why there is a need to believe... So do you think there's no such thing as a psychological need to believe in humans? It puzzles me, because I've never perceived such a thing. I've never perceived such a need personally. I don't. However, I accept the universality of religious beliefs and supernatural beliefs suggests that something is making people converge on that belief. And it appears to have a positive effect on their well-being. However, your subjective well-being isn't, and I think we've discussed this, that correlated with your material success. Right. So if anything, it's the other way around. It ought to be the case that, well, the successful tribes are the ones who are more likely to have children and stuff, right? Those are the ones... It's about metrics as well. If we've got a tribe who thinks, oh, things are going badly, let's just sit about and pray a bit harder. And another tribe who goes, things are going badly, let's go and find a new valley with some new crops and we'll ravage some other villages and stuff. They're much more likely to succeed. That's what I'm saying is that I don't really get it. I don't get this argument of, oh, there's an evolutionary advantage to believing. I suspect what we're looking for is a mechanism whereby this is a bug and not a feature, right? I think this is probably some belief formation system that we've evolved to have that may even work in an ancestral environment, but has, you know, gone wrong in the modern environment. Just like we haven't evolved to be obese. We've evolved to want to eat stuff. And that has this bug that in an abundant environment, you eat too much. What I'm saying is that this might be something to do with the modern environment where...
Speaker C:So in an ancestral range, we become obese with our hypotheses.
Speaker A:Could be, yeah, something like that. It depends on what the outcome should be and what you want the outcome to be and what's optimal. So, for example, if it's optimal that less of your kids die in childbirth and your womenfolk as well, then that should be what makes you happy, right? And that sort of... So... Well, no, see, the thing is... That might be... That might contradict...
Speaker B:We haven't evolved to be happy. We've evolved to seek happiness. But if being happy was an advantage, we would just have evolved to be sitting there consuming our own dopamine the whole time, right? We have evolved almost not to be happy. We've evolved to be a bit less happy than we think we could be so that we end up pursuing things that we think will make us happy and we're wrong. But that's what I'm saying. I'm saying it's a puzzle. You're saying it's really obvious. And I'm saying it's not actually. It's the opposite. I think it's puzzling why people have evolved to believe in the supernatural.
Speaker C:I'm exhausted and lost. I don't find it particularly puzzling. I think it's the... There's an advantage in being able to formulate hypotheses about the world, right? And you can... And the hypotheses and the sort of explanations that you'll generate will never be perfect. It will be some sort of model of the world. So because the limitations in your computer and your sensory... Limitations in the information you have. So I think if it is... To me, there's not puzzling that we find these mechanisms that can get... That come up with weird or with non-rational heuristics about the models for how the world works.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, it's a scientific claim that there is a kind of supernatural agency affecting things. And I can sort of imagine how you would say, actually, that's the best explanation for what's going on. Like, you know, we had a party last week and we all got drunk and I killed Ugg. And now there's been non-stop drought ever since. You know, maybe that's true. Maybe there's agency there. And you can imagine, as humans, we've evolved to actually pay particular attention to agency. Because it's really important to know if something was done by a human. If something was done intentionally by a human, then that represents a very different type of threat than if it was just an accident or something. So you can imagine. But why are you waving your arm around?
Speaker A:Because we need to move on. We need to wrap this up. So look, before we do, I feel really unsatisfied. It's because you haven't got enough astrology in your life. That's what it is. Yeah. Because you're an Aries. Yeah, it's yeah. And that's why I want to get on to it. But before we do, but just to say, we talked about this before in sort of Designing Humans, how you could be an amorphous sort of blob, but sort of quite happy living blissfully. And yet somehow it's still not good for you. Right. We're still saying it's the same thing. And it depends. What do you want? Right. And that's what that's what you guys talk about all the time. What's the aim? Anyway, anyway. And I don't think we nearly scratched the surface.
Speaker B:No, we didn't. I didn't. OK, so I've got I've got a suggestion for how we can wrap it up. Go on. I'm going to read star signs. Right. I'm going to read your horoscopes. Yeah, go for it. We're not allowed to guess who's who. And because you and I are both Aries, I can only do you two. Right. So it's going to have to be between you.
Speaker A:Is this a horoscope for today?
Speaker B:Peter, what star sign are you? How would I know? Oh, what's your what's your birthday? November. But right. So you're actually a Scorpio. OK, right. Read them all. OK, so I will randomly choose one or the other. First one is coming up now. A high ambition day with high stakes. But you're more than ready to deal with it as power planets cut out hesitation. You stay calm anywhere, anytime. Your passionate self is on show. So don't hold back from grand love gestures. Single. A casual chat about a history date can lead to a date. All right. That's one of them. And the other one is coming up right now and goes like this. Keep schedules open ended because great opportunities can come out of the blue and you need to be ready from love intros to creative contacts. Key names that can reshape your future start or end with a longest lasting family stalemates can end as Pluto pushes to swap patience for pride. Got it? Yeah. Which of those is you, Fraser? And which one is Peter?
Speaker A:Well, I mean, clearly the first one is all Aries. That's what it is. That's right. Aries.
Speaker B:And what's your feeling?
Speaker C:Well, aren't Scorpios supposed to be passionate and exciting? So, yeah, the first one as well. You're both going for the first one.
Speaker B:I'm afraid only Peter is correct. No! So in that scientific study, you've got a 50% chance.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what I was banking on, the 50% chance. Yeah, yeah. So there we are. All right. Well, on that bombshell, let's stop there, OK? Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.
