We move now from the chaos of your subatomic parts to the impact of probability on your everyday life. French physicist Olivier Costa de Beauregard
wrote, “It must be in the nature of probability to serve as the operational link between objective and subjective, between matter and psychism.”32 The question of why the physical universe expresses itself probabilistically is a deeper one than most. Developing a coherent answer to it qualifies you to found your own religion—and you will recall that I promised not to sell you a worldview.
However, in between metaphoric bong rips, it is my suspicion that the universe’s inherent optionality allows it to experience itself in the most effective way.
“Divided for the chance of union,” and all that.
Perhaps the main reason why Western magic handles probability so poorly is that most of its constituent parts predate probability, sometimes by millennia.
Given that the Greeks gave us so much mathematics and geometry, it is surprising they did not develop a theory of probability. A possible explanation as to why is twofold: their philosophical over-
reliance on absolute truth proven via logic and axioms, as well as a more general sense that the future unfolded according to the will of the gods. Thus, to use mathematician Leonard Mlodinow’s example, if an astragalus toss meant that a particular Greek boy would have to marry the stocky, plain Spartan girl he would not view the toss as lucky or unlucky but as the will of the gods.33 (Today’s more sophisticated magicians split the difference and see the will of the gods expressed probabilistically. Spousal selection techniques have also improved, albeit only marginally.)
We have thus inherited spiritual systems that fail to accurately measure risk or probability because they rely on spiritual beings as explanations rather than actors. That accounts for maybe a large minority of our complete mispricing of risk and reward. The majority of it appears to be a wholescale adoption of the
“special snowflake” myth from the monoculture. This notion that you are in some sense entitled to a destiny or that you automatically “deserve” to have your dreams fulfilled is not well-supported in magic or Paganism’s classical texts. We have diluted what is probably our most powerful asset, magical thinking, by confusing it with the advertising slogans you heard during the television programmes of your childhood. Nowhere is it written that you are guaranteed miracles on demand.
When it comes to selecting or determining preferred outcomes, there are two essential concepts that are frequently confused: possibilities and probabilities. It is possible that a billionaire with a heart of gold will leap from his limousine, dart through five lanes of traffic and propose marriage to you on your walk to work. But how probable is it? Failure to distinguish between these concepts is at the root of why the lottery may be legitimately called a tax on poor people.
It is almost instinctive to believe the most desirable possibility is also the most probable. The starlet-to-be who gets off the bus in Hollywood cannot but help believe that international fame is mere weeks away. But has she mispriced the risk in her preferred outcome? There is quite a string of low-probability events that need to happen in precisely the right order or overlap to deposit her on the red carpet out the front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre. We will return to how a magician may best take advantage of this mathematic truth, but for now pay attention. The probability that two events will both occur can never be greater than the probability that each event will occur individually.
This is one of the three laws of probability and whilst it sounds counterintuitive, the math is really quite simple. Say you are trying to calculate how many respondents to a survey happen to be fathers. Your equation would look like this, with P as probability:
P(both male and parent) =
P(male) + P(parent) – P(either male or parent)
You see how if you do not subtract the “either” component then you are double-counting the respondents who fall into both categories. Mathematically this means the probability that our budding starlet is both a famous actress and lives in Los Angeles is less likely than either one occurring individually. How she achieves both outcomes in her life is best served by an awareness of this probabilistic reality. Secure, stable, low-cost housing in LA: one event. Secure career optionality in terms of salary, flexibility, and growth potential: a second event. Enchant continuously for an expanded network of theatrical and production people in a social capacity, at the very least. Then start thinking
about auditions. Getting off the bus with a “make me famous” good luck charm tucked into her pocket is not the recommended approach.
Very much related to this challenge is what Nassim Taleb calls “the teleological fallacy.”34 This is the dangerous illusion that you know exactly where you are going, and that you knew exactly where you were going in the past, and that others have similarly succeeded in the past by knowing where they are going. Across the magical world the teleological fallacy persists under the guise of one’s “True Will.” Apparently it is the magician’s main challenge to merely find what his or her True Will or destiny or whatever happens to be.
The associated error in the teleological fallacy is the mistaken beliefs that others know what they want, where they are going, or—worst of all—what it is they will want tomorrow. Talking destiny or fatalistic outcomes with magicians is the very definition of the blind leading the blind. (But knowing this in advance makes going to parties thrown by occultists really quite fun.)
Hopefully by now you will have perceived that a more effective map is emerging, one that relies on an understanding of the probability of individual events versus their combinations and the inhibiting belief that you know, right from the outset, where you are going and how to get there. Moving in smaller, less defined steps offers you something that carries a tremendous amount of in- built mathematical energy: optionality. An option is not whether you choose the cake or the ice cream. Viewed from the perspective of pure theory, optionality allows you to benefit from the positive side of any uncertain situation without exposing you to any damage from the negative outcome of the same uncertainty.
The key benefit of wealth people always cite is that it confers freedom, when what they probably mean from a more precise perspective is optionality. A failure to understand this notion can lead to an over-accumulation of mortgage debt that traps you in unsatisfying employment to service an oversized debt burden in a part of the world you do not wish to live because you believed—
thanks to the teleological fallacy—that’s how one builds wealth … which confers freedom. However, you have ended up with the complete opposite. Any stored optionality has been systematically destroyed.