What is fortune telling

The most obvious problem is that different fortune-telling methods discredit each other and themselves by giving inconsistent and contradictory predictions. Not only do answers vary between methods, but they even vary between consultations of the same signs.

Two tarot card or tea leaf readings minutes apart with the same person asking the exact same question about the future should come up with the same answer, but they don't. Let's say, for example, that someone wants to know if they will move to Paris in the next 10 years, or whether the current president will be re-elected next term.

If any of these fortune-telling methods worked, they should all give the same answer; it shouldn't matter whether you ask a psychic, read tarot cards, or sprinkle a handful of flower petals on the ground and look for guidance. The answers should all be the same, since either you will or will not move to Paris, and the president either will or will not be re-elected. This is the same reason that a person can consult 10 different psychics and get 10 different answers about the future.

If these fortune-telling methods are so fallible and fickle, why use them at all? It also raises another question: If any of the methods really worked, why would there be so many? Why not stick with a proven, reliable method instead of devising literally hundreds of other fortune-telling tools?

If reading tea leaves was scientifically proven to be a more accurate way to predict the future than, say, gazing at crystals or consulting the tarot, then people would naturally use the method that works. Instead, all fortune-telling methods are equally valid or invalid because they are all based on the same faulty premise, that reading meaning into random phenomena predicts destiny.

Even many books devoted to fortune-telling admit that the techniques are unreliable; a "Note to the Reader" prefacing "The Complete Book of Fortune" reads, "When seeking to know your Fortune by any method of divination, the results obtained must be regarded as an indication of what may happen, and must not be accepted as conclusive evidence of what will happen. Many people who believe in fortune-telling don't realize that if they are right, they have answered one of the fundamental questions in philosophy, that of free will vs.

Most people would prefer to believe that they control their own actions and make their own decisions in life; but anyone's ability to know the future proves them wrong.

Definition of fortune-teller. Synonyms for fortune-teller Synonyms augur , diviner , forecaster , foreseer , foreteller , futurist , prognosticator , prophesier , prophet , seer , soothsayer , visionary Visit the Thesaurus for More. First Known Use of fortune-teller , in the meaning defined above. Learn More About fortune-teller. Share fortune-teller Post the Definition of fortune-teller to Facebook Share the Definition of fortune-teller on Twitter. Time Traveler for fortune-teller The first known use of fortune-teller was in See more words from the same year.

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