JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
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both the scientist 's and the magician 's view of the world is its power to predict
and , under suitably arranged conditions , to control. Hence , according to
Bergler, the compulsive gambler sees himself as " not the victim , but the
executive arm of unpredictable chance . "
What an outsider regards as the gambler's superstitions are in fact
manifestations of the gambier's hypothetical reconstruction of the world Fate
has , bit by bit, revealed to him. Experience has taught him , say, that in order
to
win he must touch a hunchback on the day of play, carry a rabbit 's foot in
his left pocket , not sit at the gaming table with his legs crossed , and so on . This
sort of knowledge is to him what, say, the knowledge of the mathematics of
airflow over wings may be to an aircraft designer.
Because the gambler's superstitions are effectively irrelevant to the
motions of dice and the orderings of cards , and so on, his hypotheses are very
often empirically falsified . Each falsifying experience , however , contains
certain elements that can be integrated with the main lines of his hypothetical
framework and so save its overall structure. Losing , therefore, doesn ' t mean
that carrying a rabbit 's foot , for example , is wrong or irrelevant but only that
some crucial ingredient for success has so far been overlooked. Perhaps the last
time the gambler did win , a blond young lady stood behind his chair. Ah! So
that 's it: Touch a hunchback , carry a rabbit's foot , don ' t cross legs , and have
a blond young lady stand behind the chair. When that doesn ' t work , he
calculates that that particular combination works only on Thursdays , and so
on and on and on . Bits and pieces of explanation are added on, some are
removed , and the entire structure becomes more and more complicated.
Eventually, the gambler really does command a conceptual framework that
rivals a body of scientific knowledge , at least in its complexity and intricacy .
He is an expert in a richly complicated world open only to the relatively small
group of initiates who have, through their own hard work and risk taking,
learned its mysterious lore and language.
The magical world inhabited by the compulsive gambler is no different
in principle than that in which others, equally driven by grandiose fantasies ,
attempt
to
realize their dreams of power. Astrology, for example , has con–
structed an enormously complex conceptual framework , a system of theories
and hypotheses which allegedly permit the cognizant to control events. To
know , for example , that the conjunction of certain stars on a particular date
bodes ill for a particular venture , but that some other conjunction on some
other date bodes well for it , and then to undertake that venture on the favored
date , that is to attempt
to
control events.
But the hypotheses of astrology , too , are routinely falsified by events.
How then does astrology , and how do other such magical systems , remain at
all a force in the minds of men? Exactly as do the hypotheses of the compul-
