Rational Irrationality

On a recent trip to Austin TX. I visited Natural Treasures, a store that specializes in stones, crystals and various “New Age” accoutrements.  They often have different alternative practitioners doing sessions in the store. On this day there was a gentlemen, Kramer Wetzel, doing Astrological readings and on a whim I decided to give it a try.

Now, I generally look at the world through what I consider a very rational, almost scientific, lens, I try to understand why and how things work.  There is no way my rational mind can wrap itself around the proposition that the position of the planets and stars, cross referenced with the time and date of your birth, can tell you anything about your past, your future or your current circumstance, it’s just irrational.  That being said, I received a very accurate reading. I detected no “cold reading” technic or any other misdirection or tricks.

This got me thinking, when you think about it; we seem to live in an irrational universe. The fact that some sub-atomic particles can simultaneously exist and not exist, or have no location or mass until someone decides to measure it seems pretty crazy and irrational to me but it has been tested again and again and proven to be so.

When we wake up every morning in a universe where rational logic says we should be able to walk through walls because they (and us) are 99.999999999999******% empty space, is it that much of an intellectual stretch to say that “something” ties us to the stars, or the tarot cards, or the tea leaves, whatever. I suspect that what we now consider irrational is no such thing. We have only existed as a species for an incredibly short period of time. By universal standard we only figured out fire a tiny fraction of a second ago, maybe what seems irrational now is just stuff we haven’t figured out yet.

I never want to just believe something offhand, so I always refer back to Arthur C Clarke’s 3 laws, especially law number 3.

1.When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2.The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3.Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Wes Graham C.C.Ht.