The “Law” of Attraction (Not)

Cosmic Connie alerted me to a blog posting by Joe Vitale, apparently one of the stars of “The Secret”. Joe asks rhetorically, “Is Attraction a Law?”, and answers in the affirmative using this example, comparing the Law of Attraction to gravity:

The people who say attraction is not a law cite examples such as, "I know gravity works. When I drop a book off a skyscraper, it will hit the ground. That's proof of the law of gravity."

Agreed.

They then go on to say, "When I try to attract something, sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't. So it isn't a law."

Not agreed.

Here's why.

Saying you tried to attract something and failed is like saying you tried to drop a book from a skyscraper to hit a particular spot and you missed. Because you missed the spot, you say gravity doesn't exist.

Oh boy. Not agreed Joe – not even close. Your argument is a false analogy. Newton’s Laws of Gravitation do not say that when you drop something (like a book, for example), it will land on a particular spot. What the Universal Law of Gravitation actually says is:

Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

This force of gravitational attraction between the two bodies acts along the line joining their centres. This force is hence mutual.

And there are precise specific mathematical formulae that describe these relationships, for example:

Consider two bodies of masses m 1 & m 2 with their centers separated by r. let F be the force of gravitational attraction between two bodies. According to newton's law of gravitation,

[snip]

F = G Mm/R²

These formulae (and others I have omitted), describe gravitation, and they always work every time – that’s why they are Laws. As I wrote before, if you replicate Newton’s experiments, you will find that gravity accelerates objects at exactly the rate predicted by the Law. The so-called “Law of Attraction” simply does not work like this. Actually, it doesn’t work at all – simply wishing for something will not make it appear, and pretending that it does and that this is a Law like gravity, is naive childish gibberish.

Comments

[Rev. Richard]

You're obviously quite well-read, perhaps well-studied. And I know the proper spelling of Ganndy. That was a typo.

Anyway, your last first: you may be misunderstanding "self-centered" and seeing it as selfish. And why is it right to help people? Who says? Is not choosing the so-called right also self-serving? And why would anyone want to make the world a better place? If you really wanted to make the world a better place, rid it of 90% of the human population, destroy all motorized vehicles, end organized religion, eliminated heads of state, etc. Not your idea of a better world? You're probably not alone, but there are many who see the human as the true world disease. We scream about healing the sick while condemning overpopulation; we want to save the planet from the greenhouse effect but we don't want to do away with the tecnhologies that create it; we want to spread so-called democracy around the world, but we squash governments that don't see eye to eye with our view of it. And on it goes.

So, a better place? Yeah, right. Only one way: inner. Only one place: inner. Only one result: ??????

So what if the Buddha or the Christ didn't exist. They have affected more millions than countable. More that can be said for me and thee, eh??

In the meantime, you and I live in different worlds (there are more than 6.7 billion worlds here, you know) and whether or not I know as much about String Theory as you becomes moot when we consider that, after being on this planet for as long as I have, something has worked right for me. The entire universe had to unfold exactly as it did from the first atom to me in order for me to be existing in this place and at this time. Predestination or accident makes no difference. I am here and it is now; the rest is up for grabs.

You attracted me to you, you know.

[Tom Foss]

Anyway, your last first: you may be misunderstanding "self-centered" and seeing it as selfish.

They would seem to be synonyms.

And why is it right to help people? Who says? Is not choosing the so-called right also self-serving?

I'm not going to step into moral relativism with this. For the big things, society determines morality. Murder, lying, and to a lesser degree, stealing, are all "wrong" because they undermine the social fabric. If everyone murdered/lied, people could not live together, because you could not trust your neighbor not to kill you, and you could not communicate effectively with those around you. Similarly, helping others is right because it promotes social cohesion, builds trust, and strengthens society.

And why would anyone want to make the world a better place? If you really wanted to make the world a better place, rid it of 90% of the human population, destroy all motorized vehicles, end organized religion, eliminated heads of state, etc. Not your idea of a better world?

Indeed, it might be a better world. But the ends don't justify the means, and so making a better world must be constrained by the basic realities of the world as it is.

So, a better place? Yeah, right. Only one way: inner. Only one place: inner. Only one result: ??????

And as you retreat into fantasy, the outside world only gets worse. If everyone lives only for themselves and exists only in their own personal fantasies, then the world only gets worse. Part of the problem with the world is a failure to recognize humankind and the larger group of all living things as a community. What you're suggesting as a solution or alternative to the self-centeredness, ignorance, and speciesist tendencies which have caused so much of this damage, is a retreat further into the self and further into ignorance of the global community/ies.

So what if the Buddha or the Christ didn't exist. They have affected more millions than countable. More that can be said for me and thee, eh??

Maybe, but if they didn't exist, they'd have a hard time choosing a self-centered path of changing the mind and heart.

In the meantime, you and I live in different worlds (there are more than 6.7 billion worlds here, you know)

Really? Because I only count one. Well, depending on what you mean by "world." And I'm assuming you don't mean "generic planet." All 6.7 billion of those worlds occupy the same physical space, are subject to the same universal laws, and are threatened by the same global problems. Every person has their own experience of the world, but they still have to live in the world of our collective experiences, no matter how far they retreat into their delusions.

whether or not I know as much about String Theory as you becomes moot when we consider that, after being on this planet for as long as I have, something has worked right for me. The entire universe had to unfold exactly as it did from the first atom to me in order for me to be existing in this place and at this time. Predestination or accident makes no difference. I am here and it is now; the rest is up for grabs.

I'm really not sure about what you're getting at here. The fact is, whether or not something has worked for you, doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on whether or not it is real.

You attracted me to you, you know.

I'm flattered, but I'm already taken.

[Akusai]

The entire universe had to unfold exactly as it did from the first atom to me in order for me to be existing in this place and at this time.

This reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin asserts that, because he exists, and all of history and creation must have happened exactly the way they did in order for him to exist, that he was the apogee of creation, the final end to all the struggle, and the purpose for which the entire universe existed.

When a fictional six-year-old says it and his tiger then subtly and sarcastically undermines the claim, it is funny. When a real person says it, it's...Well, it's still funny, but in an entirely different way.

[mon]

i love the law of attraction!and what ever you believe, you believe.

[Rev. Richard]

You have actually made all my points for me. Of course doing away with 90% of humanity is not the Solution.

So, what is? One of you mentioned Calvin and Hobbes. It reminds me of one John Calvin (Jean Cauvin) of Predestination fame. He was able to convince a great many Christians of his day that God had foreordained everything, including souls to heaven and hell. And, interestingly enough, a great many New Testament verses support him. No one ever refuted him entirely, including Jacobus Arminius, the best known of his detractors, who claimed that a loving God could never foreordain people to hell, in spite of the fact that more verses supported Calvin's view.

My comment about all happening in order that I may be here was more tongue in cheek that anything else. It's simple cause and effect. If the effect exists, the cause occurred, all the way back to the beginning. It is only predestined after the fact. It all happens by chance first. But chance is an if-y word, don't you think? Even the Big Bang is presumed to have happened by chance. Something out of nothing, and all that. Proveable? Not yet. Assumable? Sure, why not??

Again, you may think you are experiencing the Objective World. But your experience is but one of the 6.7 billion objective experiences happening at any given moment. None is exactly like the other.

And all those wonderful, immutable laws like gravity and thermodynamics serve those 6.7 billion different views. Without those laws, no one could experience what they experience. The laws serve us as much as we serve them.

And having a different perspective on reality is what makes life worth living. Enjoy!

[Tom Foss]

Even the Big Bang is presumed to have happened by chance. Something out of nothing, and all that. Proveable? Not yet. Assumable? Sure, why not??

The Big Bang says nothing about "something out of nothing." It is not "assumed." It says nothing about what "caused" it, or what came "before," because once you talk about the very first moments of the universe, time stops having meaning. What the Big Bang theory says is that, based on the observed motion of the various galaxies and stars, and based on the background radiation of the universe, space appears to have expanded. We extrapolate that expansion back to a point where all the matter and space and energy that currently forms our universe was compressed into a singularity, with infinite density and no passage of time. Of course, we can only extrapolate things back to a few nanoseconds after the actual "bang," because the model can only asymptotically approach the singularity.

Again, you may think you are experiencing the Objective World. But your experience is but one of the 6.7 billion objective experiences happening at any given moment. None is exactly like the other.

No, they aren't exactly the same. But there are major commonalities between them, because all 6.7 billion of those interpretive worlds occupy the same physical, objective space. You're equating interpretation with reality, but you're ignoring the actual reality on which the interpretations are built.

And all those wonderful, immutable laws like gravity and thermodynamics serve those 6.7 billion different views. Without those laws, no one could experience what they experience. The laws serve us as much as we serve them.

What? People experience those laws. All people do. Which is part of why we can conclude that there is a common, shared universe which we all experience!

I think the rest of this goes back to the Douglas Adams "puddle" quotation. Yes, without these laws, we couldn't experience the universe. It doesn't therefore follow that the laws were made for us any more than it follows that a pothole is made in a particular shape specifically for the puddle which fills it.

[Tom Foss]

I missed this last part:

And having a different perspective on reality is what makes life worth living. Enjoy!

Yes, a different, subjective, personal perspective, on a singular, objective, common reality.

[Skeptico]

There are now three posts on The Secret and The Law of Attraction, making it hard IMO to follow the discussion. To simplify things I’m closing this post to new comments. If you want to comment on The Secret or the LOA please do so on my original The Secret post, where comments are still open. Thanks.