sunday life: in which I meet James Randi (magician, awesome guy, skeptic)
This week I’m awesomely skeptical
I don’t know if you’ve ever had an ontological debate about what gives a squirrel’s life meaning with an 82-year-old skeptic… who also happens to be one of the world’s most famous magicians and escapologists, who broke Houdini’s record for remaining sealed in a metal coffin under water for 104 minutes, and who toured with Alice Cooper in the ‘70s performing the “guillotine routine” on stage?
It’s pretty fun.
I met Canadian James Randi, known in his magician days as The Amazing Randi, on Friday while he was here attending the Australian Skeptics’ annual Amazing Meeting (that’s seriously the name). In a moment of the kind of synchronicity that skeptics frown upon, it was the day after celebrity psychic John Edwards, a target of skeptical thinkers, spoke in the same room. Amazing!
The whole experience was rendered more surreal by the fact Randi looks like he’s stepped from warlock central casting – stooped and coming up to my ribcage he sports a long white beard, wireframe spectacles and a comically cocked eyebrow. And is delightfully enthusiastic.
James Randi and me
Randi is regarded as a founder of the formalised skeptics movement and has spent the past two decades debunking paranormal and supernatural claims (he goes after celebrity spoon-bender Uri Gellar like a kid with a plait to pull). Why? He tells me it upsets him deeply to see people fooled and ripped off by quacks. He says he doesn’t disprove: “You can’t prove a negative”. Instead he “explains” and gives answers. Using tricks he demonstrates how psychics pick the name of your cat and how faith healers work their “miracles”.
He got me. During our chat Randi had me pick a word from a book I chose randomly from a bookstall. He then guessed the word (spelling it out upside down for extra paranormal-ish effect). I was stumped as to how he did it. If you’ve ever had an ontological debate with an 82-year-old skeptic/magician, you’d know this delighted him no end, though he wouldn’t tell me how he did it. “Is it not possible you’re actually psychic, but you’re tricking me by saying it’s mere sleight of hand?” I ask. No, he says. Any mentalist would be able to identify the trick he’d just used.
But eventually we dig down into spirituality and the meaning of life. I mean, when you’re debating with someone who doesn’t believe in unprovables like God and universal consciousness (although some argue this has been proven to exist), it kinda begs: why and how are we here? Can our existence be explained? We’re programmed to exist, he says. “A squirrel is designed to collect nuts and grows fur.” But why? To survive and evolve, he says. Which I found to be a very circular argument. And not very satisfying. We circle some more, then Randi says, “There doesn’t have to be a reason or an answer for everything.” I agree, I agree!
I share with Randi I think it’s part of the richness of the human experience to believe things – the existence of souls, energetic connections – that can’t be explained. Since I was a kid I’ve gleaned great joy from contemplating possibilities, and the idea of “life” beyond the confines of the rational needs of the human brain. I’ve been deeply satisfied just knowing or experiencing something without understanding cerebrally why.
It’s called awe and it lends my life richness.
It feels to me too ego-centred to maintain existence can only be that which we perceive with our limited means. Further, a growing number of academic studies show that believing in something bigger than us, in an unexplainable knowing, is a prime cause of happiness and longevity.
I ask Randi what his most memorable moment in life has been. He answers without hesitating. When he was 11 his uncle took him to an observatory in Ontario and he saw Saturn through a telescope. The astronomer told him it was Saturn, but 30 minutes ago, because that’s how long it took the image to reach earth. Randi’s quite emotional as he tells me about the impact such a learning had on him. Would he call it awe? Yes. It spurred him on to investigate life…and shonky charlatans.
Which got me thinking. In the final count, perhaps all of us are simply following our awe. Skeptics don’t profess to have all the answers. Believers aren’t all shonks. And there isn’t always a reason. Amazing!
What makes you stop in awe? Which side of the fence to you land on? Skeptic? Happily mystic? Or having fun exploring both?
Amazing article, Sarah. Reality is amazing, awesome, beautiful, meaningful and fun, as is the very human James Randi.
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I tend to subscribe to the Buddhist definition of skepticism, which is more about seeking knowledge and asking questions for yourself than actually having all the answers. I think the important part is asking questions, anyone who says (in these mortal, carbon-based organic bodies) that they have a full understanding of God consciousness and the meaning for existence is probably pretty arrogant.
“Avoid people who say they know the answer. Seek the company of those who are trying to understand ther question.” – Billy Connolly (although he may have plagiorised!)
When we spend too much of life trying to understand why, and breaking existence into its component parts, we miss things. Rainbows and sunsets and storms and lightning are all beautiful, but fleeting. Soak it up and enjoy it! The journey is the fun part, not the destination.
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“It feels to me too ego-centred to maintain existence can only be that which we perceive with our limited means.”
YES. This is exactly how I feel! I’ve taken the “belief,” if you can call it that, that anything, really is possible. Sometimes I think it’s something we figure out in an afterlife, or on our deathbeds, sometimes I don’t think we figure it out at all. But why do we need to know? I think maybe it’s more fun to speculate
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Sarah, you interviewed James -the amazing- Randi! No, really…. that is amazing. JR has been exposing fraud and bunk since before I was born; he’s a tireless campaigner for science and reason. Did he show you how to bend a spoon by the way? He can do that trick so well it will make your eyes water.
Congratulations, I’m amazed.
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I adore James Randi. Thank you Sarah!
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I really want to be more “happily mystic”, some things in life are better when you just embrace them rather than question them. But, for better or worse, I have a deeply rooted skeptic in my soul.
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Wonderful post Sarah. I especially find comfort in knowing “there doesn’t have to be a reason or answer for everything”.
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As a pretty hardline skeptic, I was thrilled to see this post. Thanks for coming at it with a refreshingly open mind.
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Sarah, I think you’re right that awe is key, but not always in the way people think. The sense of awe is something we humans get great joy from. It’s interesting to think about what awe is though. In a way, it’s something which arises from our own recognition that something is beyond our comprehension. That something is too complex for us to fully fathom. Or possibly just something new that we haven’t learnt about yet.
A child may be excited on his/her first train trip. They may stand in awe at the window watching things go past. As an adult travelling this way every day, we lose that sense of awe. Similarly, a student may experience awe when they first learn an amazing piece of science, while a teacher, or experienced scientist, may see the same thing as quite rudimentary or obvious.
So as wonderful as that sense of awe is, it is more a measure of our own limitations than a measure of the greatness of the thing being observed. People read far too much into their own sense of awe. “Mystics” may have such a sense of awe looking at a crystal that they feel sure it must possess special powers, and thus we come up with all sorts of wacky beliefs about crystals, numerology, “sacred” geometry, etc. People take their own sense of awe as evidence for something, when in fact it is a measure of their own limited understanding.
Can’t we enjoy our sense of awe, revel in our own limitations in the face of a grand universe, without interpreting this sense of wonder as meaning we have some sort of supernatural insight into the workings of the world? It really implies the exact opposite. It’s a measure of what we don’t know.
So we should enjoy our sense of awe, but recognise it for what it is. Unfortunately it is also a weakness, when not understood, and is easily used against us by scammers.
“Why are we here?” is one of those awe-inspired questions. We all stand in awe at the complexity of life, at the alignment of events that make us possible. But the question is loaded. It presumes there is a reason we’re here, a purpose. A safer question is “How are we here?”, and to this science has done astoundingly well at approaching the answer, with just a few things remaining unknown. This is one of the most amazing accomplishments of our species!
You asked Randi “Is it not possible you’re actually psychic”. There’s a principle in science that the simplest answer is probably the best answer. But as humans we’re not always good at judging which answer is simplest. Here for example, I imagine that Randi being psychic would seem like the simplest answer to you. I mean hey, it’s just a couple of words!
But it’s not really the simplest answer because it’s not really an answer at all. It immediately leads to far more complex questions about how this psychic power could possibly work. The simplest answer, which may not seem as simple, and may not seem as interesting, is that it was a trick. Randi is a magician after all, and as amazing as Randi is, he’d be far more amazing if he were truly psychic!
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December 20th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Oh, one further thing regarding awe and our tendency to read too much into it, I think this is a good example from Sarah’s article:
“I’ve been deeply satisfied just knowing or experiencing something without understanding cerebrally why.”
If you don’t know why something is true, how do you know it’s true? How is “just knowing” possible? Our brains are not filled with all the answers, just waiting to be unlocked. I think what you refer to is the FEELING of just knowing. There are plenty of people for example, who “just know” that their particular god exists, although the things they “just know” contradict the beliefs of others who “just know” what they believe equally strongly. It should be clear to anyone that they can’t both be right, and thus “just knowing” is not a reliable means of insight. But the feeling is so strong at a personal level. It’s similar to that feeling of awe, and religion is certainly fuelled largely by feeling of awe, which as I said above is more a measure of our own limitation than a measure of the grandness of the thing being observed.
By all means seek out experiences which are deeply satisfying, but be careful not to presume that because it feels good that it represents some sort of objective reality.
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“It feels to me too ego-centred to maintain existence can only be that which we perceive with our limited means.”
On the contrary, I think it ego-centred to believe that we are so important that there has to be a reason for being, or that there must be something “beyond this existence”. Thank God for sceptics!
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December 20th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Just to take a slightly different skeptical view, there are certainly things beyond our perception which are true, but by that very definition they are beyond our perception, so it’s not that they don’t exist, but that we can’t know what they are. Spiritualists often make the strange mistake of thinking that if science doesn’t have an answer to something that they are free to insert their own answer. Now THAT’S egocentric. Science does not have the ego to claim to know anything beyond that which it CAN know. It is not egocentrically saying that things beyond our perception don’t exist, it is humbly acknowledging that we as humans are currently unable to say what is beyond that veil.
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December 21st, 2010 at 9:47 am
You have an inspiring knowledge and way with words Robert. I enjoyed reading your comments to the extent that I came across the site The Young Australian Skeptics yesterday and had a good read.
I do find though that ‘ego’ is given a bad wrap sometimes. We all have it and we’d all be pretty boring and possibly predictable without it. For me it’s understanding when ego is making itself present and watching it with curiosity. Ego for me is more about awareness than something that needs to be eliminited…..not that that is being suggested. Just something to mull over as ‘ego’ has been mentioned on numerous occassion in the article and comments.
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December 22nd, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Thanks James (not James Randi I presume?!). One doesn’t often get any positive feedback for posting comments like this, so your words are much appreciated. Most of my skeptical output lately has been in replies to posts on the AVN website (an anti-vaccination group), and I wrote an article about some of the graphs they use here: http://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/analysis-of-anti-vax-graphs/
Regarding ego, I agree. You don’t want an ego so strong that it closes you off to external input, but you also don’t want so little ego that you are crippled by self-doubt. Awareness is key, and the ability to work against the ego you’re stuck with when necessary. The danger is when people trust their instincts too far without external verification.
“I’ve been deeply satisfied just knowing or experiencing something without understanding cerebrally why.
It’s called awe and it lends my life richness.”
I completely agree with you. We don’t need to know everything.
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December 24th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Yes, but why would you openly choose not to know something when the information is so easily available? Staying stuck in awe potentially leaves you ignorant. Learning is awesome, too.
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January 18th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Well said, Terry.
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Sarah, I attended TAM Australia too and had a wonderful time. You’re very lucky to have had the opportunity to chat with Randi.
Regarding your attitude to awe, I think most skeptics share your feelings, and in many cases are driven to explore the world around them using the scientific toolkit to broaden their sense of awe at the wonders of the universe. Learning about the formation of our solar system, the life-cycle of stars, the sheer immensity of space, the enormity of super-massive black holes – these things become more awe-inspiring once you learn what drives them.
Looking upon nature and all its mystery inspires me, but learning how it all works humbles me and fills me with wonder.
Thank you for another reminder of TAM, which was such a wonderful event. I blogged about all three days at my site http://blog.codenix.org should anybody wish to learn more about it.
Lucas.
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