The idea is that if you think about something, then it is more likely to happen because of some magical and mysterious “emergent” feedback loopiness and complex chaotic dynamics and other buzzwords.
This idea has some merit (e.g. if your thoughts motivate you to take effective actions). I don’t deny the power of ideas. Ideas can move mountains. Still, I’ve come across many people who overstate and misapply the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was discussing existential risks with someone, and they confidently said, “The solution to existential risks is not to think about existential risks because thinking about them will make them more likely to happen.” This is the equivalent of saying, “Don’t take any precautions ever because by doing so, you make the bad thing more likely to happen.”
I don’t want to do without the concept. I agree that it is abused, but I would simply contest whether those cases are actually self-fulfilling. So maybe what I would point to, as the bad concept, would be the idea that most beliefs are self-fulfilling. However, in my experience, this is not common enough that I would label it “common sense”. Although it certainly seems to be something like a human mental predisposition (perhaps due to confirmation bias, or perhaps due to a confusion of cause and effect, since by design, most beliefs are true).
You’re right. As romeostevensit pointed out, “commonsense ideas rarely include information about the domain of applicability.” My issue with self-fulfilling prophecy is that it gets misapplied, but I don’t think it is an irretrievably bad idea.
This insightful verse from the Tao Te Ching is an exemplary application of the self-fulfilling prophecy:
If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The idea is that if you think about something, then it is more likely to happen because of some magical and mysterious “emergent” feedback loopiness and complex chaotic dynamics and other buzzwords.
This idea has some merit (e.g. if your thoughts motivate you to take effective actions). I don’t deny the power of ideas. Ideas can move mountains. Still, I’ve come across many people who overstate and misapply the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I was discussing existential risks with someone, and they confidently said, “The solution to existential risks is not to think about existential risks because thinking about them will make them more likely to happen.” This is the equivalent of saying, “Don’t take any precautions ever because by doing so, you make the bad thing more likely to happen.”
I don’t want to do without the concept. I agree that it is abused, but I would simply contest whether those cases are actually self-fulfilling. So maybe what I would point to, as the bad concept, would be the idea that most beliefs are self-fulfilling. However, in my experience, this is not common enough that I would label it “common sense”. Although it certainly seems to be something like a human mental predisposition (perhaps due to confirmation bias, or perhaps due to a confusion of cause and effect, since by design, most beliefs are true).
You’re right. As romeostevensit pointed out, “commonsense ideas rarely include information about the domain of applicability.” My issue with self-fulfilling prophecy is that it gets misapplied, but I don’t think it is an irretrievably bad idea.
This insightful verse from the Tao Te Ching is an exemplary application of the self-fulfilling prophecy:
It explicitly states a feedback loop.
You can add it to Self Fulfilling/Refuting Prophecies as an example