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| THE KAIST TIMES http://kaisttimes.com | |||||||
It is not an exaggeration to say that fortune-telling is as old as human history. It has been used as a tool predicting a nation's ups and downs since the beginning, and decides serious matters even in today's high-tech era. Indeed, it has become more popular with the rise of high-technology such as the internet, TV and other mass media. So let's check out what fortune-telling is and what is its scientific basis.
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| The twelve signs of the Zodiac, central to the Western fortune-telling method of astrology, correspond to stellar constellations overhead at each of twelve months of the Roman calendar. |
Fortune-telling is the art of predicting human fortune and misfortune in the future. Curiosity about what will happen in the future is eternally interesting to people, as they go through an uncertain life. Prophesying a future might even be one of the oldest businesses in human history. Written records of prophecy go back to at least 4000 B.C.
The situation about fortune-telling varies by era, society, nation and individual.
In Christian societies, fortune-telling, astrology or any other prediction related to destiny is regarded as unbiblical and forbidden by God as idolatry.
Confucius, on the other hand, who was very attracted to reasonable ideas, acknowledged the credibility of fortune-telling. According to the Silk Book (one of Confucius's writings), one of his pupils, Ja-gong asked, "Sir, do you believe fortune-telling." Confucius replied, "Yes, I do. Fortune-telling is right 70 times out of 100." Actually, how far can we trust fortune-telling?
Nostradamus is probably the most famous prophet in history. He is especially in the news lately because his famous July 1999 eschatology. However, because his work also made prophesies beyond 1999, many people say that the importance of his predicting "A great king of terror" is exaggerated. Nostradamus was infatuated with astrology since childhood, and wrote a book In this book, he transcended space-time and accurately predicted an unbelievably large number of things, including the discovery of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, the death of Henry II, the appearance of Napoleon and Hitler, and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
It is also interesting that many world-famous astronomers, scientists, and writers cared about fortune-telling. Examples include Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Goethe and Einstein.
Even today, many politicians, artists, businessmen and scholars use fortune-telling as a guideline for self-completion or a basis for important decisions. It is well-known, for example, that Former Korean President Jung-hee Park consulted with monk Sang Wall about sending Korean troops to the Vietnam War.
One of the controversies about fortune-telling is over whether it is scientific or non-scientific. The principle of motive-response in Fungshwei is often compared to chaos theory and correspondence principle in modern physics. Correspondence principle is the idea that, as everything is connected with very tiny strings, like a web, if we sway one side, the other side is also swayed.
Fortune-tellers explain that the Four Pillars, the most ancient of all Asian fortune-telling methods, is based on the concept of natural circulation. For example, assuming that it is September now, we can predict that winter will come in 2 or 3 months because of seasonal circulation. Ying-Yang and the Five Elements also come from the regular cycle of nature. This way of thinking was theorized to predict the future.
The French National Science Laboratory (C.N.R.S: Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique) has tried to confirm the validity of fortune-telling statistically. After examining several hundred thousand cases, they concluded that it is indeed scientific. However, even though fortune-telling may have a scientific basis, the majority opinion is still that astrology is difficult to regard as science.
Also, even though even some parts of fortune-telling may have a scientific basis, it doesn't mean that all of fortune-telling is based on science. In other words, it is difficult to tell whether fortune-telling is right or not because it is not total nonsense.
Chang-bum Park, KIAS (Korea Institute for Advanced Science) physics professor, also said that it is partly true that the link between origins and humanity, the influence of the stars on human nature, are exaggerated. What matters more than whether fortune-telling is scientific or not is whether we can prevent its perversion by understanding its appropriate social purpose.
Won-gyu Lee, KamShin theology professor, talked about the perversion problem. Fortune-telling doesn't instruct you how to live right, but merely how to live well. It therefore doesn't contribute to individual and social morality at all. In fact, it could be used as a method to cover up immorality or help it persist.
The trend of modern science is not determinism but indeterminism. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that, "Everything in the world looks coincidental by any current observation method, since any law or principle is expressed only probabilistically. No one can say whether a thing has absolute inevitability."
In this sense, a more appropriate idea is that fortune-telling shows one of many possibilities rather than absolute one. We human beings respect our experiences. But experience is not important by itself, but rather as the guideline for the future gained through past failure, setbacks and misunderstandings. Science or not, fortune-telling can have a real use when it alerts us to impending misfortune and changes it to good fortunate.
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