0628: "Psychic"

[Kaijyuu]

I remember watching some TV show where a magician shared all his secrets. He had a couple number games he played on people, one of which was the one in the comic.

According to him, the most common number was 36, and he was right a little over a third of the time (which is really good odds considering).

[Faranya]

I remember watching some TV show where a magician shared all his secrets. He had a couple number games he played on people, one of which was the one in the comic.

According to him, the most common number was 36, and he was right a little over a third of the time (which is really good odds considering).

Or so he told you.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

I do this with darts and pool. I walk up to the pool table/ dart board, take a single shot, and then walk away. Every so often, the ladies find themselves wetter than a moose in a pie eating contest, and it's all thanks to my apparent skill at whichever activity I'm currently describing.

[Eternal Density]

Spoiler:

"There are no Grey Elephants in Denmark"

I got a yellow echidna in Denmark.

Being psychic is largely advanced pattern recognition. When your pattern recognition abilities significantly surpass that of others, congratulations, you're psychic. You won't be able to explain why you know certain things in advance, but you will know. It's no different than knowing that a red light turns green eventually instead of purple.

I quite commonly get an unexplained feeling that something is likely going to happen, and it's often right. Pattern recognition seems like a decent explanation for it

@The Mighty Thesaurus:
A moose in a pie eating contest? Wha????

[frog42]

I quite commonly get an unexplained feeling that something is likely going to happen, and it's often right. Pattern recognition seems like a decent explanation for it

Exactly. But to me, there's no way to draw a line between pattern recognition and psychic premonition.

[Monika]

I quite commonly get an unexplained feeling that something is likely going to happen, and it's often right. Pattern recognition seems like a decent explanation for it

There is an even simpler explanation: biased memory.
You think someone might ring the bell real soon and shortly after it happens -> You think: "Oh wow!" This will stick out, you will remember that.
You think someone might ring the bell, but nothing happens. -> A few minutes later you will have forgotten that you thought this. You just go on with whatever you were doing.
You don't think about someone ringing the bell or not, someone rings the bell. -> Nothing to remember there, eh? Or did you ever remember: "Oh wow, that one time I was totally not thinking someone might ring the bell, and then the postman came!"
You do not think about someone ringing the bell and nobody does. -> Also nothing to remember.

[Faranya]

I quite commonly get an unexplained feeling that something is likely going to happen, and it's often right. Pattern recognition seems like a decent explanation for it

I suppose...but if that is true I have unconsciously mapped out the pattern for reruns of the Simpsons appearing on television.

At least once a week I will arbitrarily think of a specific episode and will see that it was one later that same day (and no, they don't advertise specific Simpsons reruns)

[mmmcannibalism]

I tried this once and guessed 43...it worked lol.

[Felstaff]

Everyone knows that 7 is the most random number in the world. Followed closely by 3. So either 37 or 73 should be the exact number they are thinking of. There's a fifty-fifty chance of it working; and only a 10% chance of that.

[frog42]

I've convinced the kids at my school I'm psychic by walking out of the room while they (and their native Japanese teacher) choose a number from 1 through 4 that I've written on the board. They can choose whatever they want because the teacher lets me know the number by how she's standing.

At the end of class today, a kid dragged his short friend up to me and said "How tall is he?" It's a Japanese middle school, so I say "One hundred........ forty........ two". I really don't know centimeters that well, but apparently I was dead on. Blew their minds.

[Fat Tony]

I do this quite often as a card trick. I perform these elaborate bogus maneuvers before I just throw the cards around the table and grab one completely randomly. It works once every 52 times (it really is quite impressive when it does, though; it worked the first time I tried it and my friend was amazed) =D

[Eternal Density]

The number of times I've correctly guessed which track my CD player will randomly pick on a CD is a bit scary. I don't know how it happens. Maybe my subconscious is in tune with the pseudorandom number generator.

[Monika]

Or maybe it's still just your biased memory

[moimoimoi]

A similar trick can be used with gullible investors. I don't remember what it's called, but it goes like this.
Gather a large group of investors together for some stock tips. Tell half of them that XYZ is going up, and tell the other half that XYZ is going down. Tell half of the winners that ABC is going up, and tell the rest it is going down. Gather the small group of your latest winners and tell them about stock DEF. Now you have many pissed off investors, but a few die-hard fans. Let your fans in on your hottest tip yet, for a fee: stock GHI is going up.

[frog42]

A similar trick can be used with gullible investors. I don't remember what it's called, but it goes like this.
Gather a large group of investors together for some stock tips. Tell half of them that XYZ is going up, and tell the other half that XYZ is going down. Tell half of the winners that ABC is going up, and tell the rest it is going down. Gather the small group of your latest winners and tell them about stock DEF. Now you have many pissed off investors, but a few die-hard fans. Let your fans in on your hottest tip yet, for a fee: stock GHI is going up.

Also works at the track. Say you have an inside line on a horse. Do this for every horse in a race to a bunch of people. Say you've got an inside line on one more horse and would be willing to share if they'd buy you a $20 ticket in addition to their own. Use a different horse for each of your new fan club. Enjoy the race.

[Sp3ctre18]

Spoiler:

"There are no Grey Elephants in Denmark"

I got a red Salmon in Estonia.



I think you all realized where I failed there....

[MarioY]

It shouldn't be 1% it should be 0.01% because there is a 1:100 chance of that person picking a number and a 1:100 chance of you picking that same number so instead of 1/100 it should be 1/100 X 1/100 because you are working out the chances of two events.

[Lewton]

It shouldn't be 1% it should be 0.01% because there is a 1:100 chance of that person picking a number and a 1:100 chance of you picking that same number so instead of 1/100 it should be 1/100 X 1/100 because you are working out the chances of two events.

You signed up. Just to bump this (moderately) old thread, and you didn't even bother to read any of it?

Your (false) observation has been posted several times in this thread.
And an explanation on why you're wrong have been posted even more times

[Tyr_oathkeeper]

Try this one (works about 40-50% of the time). Say it out loud to friends. No idea if it will work in text form.

Think of a random two digit number... so, anything between 10 and 99.
Now, that's a lot of numbers, so let's narrow it down a little...
Make both digits odd. So like, 1, 3, 5 etc...
And because double digits are silly, make them both different.

So you've got a number now? Two digits, both odd, both different?

Spoiler:

37

I was thinking of 73.
You can usually pull it of even if the digits are in the wrong order. Just blame it on interference or something.

[Peristarkawan]

I remember an anecdote about a university class in which students tried to simulate a random series of coin flips, while a computer program used basic data compression techniques to try to predict their next keystroke. No matter what the students tried, or how much they practiced, in the long run the computer could always predict well over 50% of the "random" keystrokes of any student--with one exception. There was one student who appeared to be generating truly random data. How? He said he was just using his free will.

Or possibly he was just reciting the binary representation of pi, represented as heads and tails instead of 1s and 0s. I imagine that would be sufficiently random that a simple compression algorithm would be unable to keep up with it.

[Sprocket]

There is only one major hole in the theory of the comic, and it is something you guys missed entirely. I mean, you guys were not even remotely close...
If the person has seen Brothers Bloom, this trick will not work at all (read: this is straight out of the movie, only with numbers rather than cards.)

Skippy was doing this trick for like 6 months after he saw the movie. Sigh.

[BlazeOrangeDeer]

The binary digits of pi are pretty cool, the first few look sort of pattern-ish and make a cool rhythm when you play it as notes
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000110000100011010001100010011

[Mavrisa]

http://www.arandomnumber.com/
I'd really like to see the results of this...

[Shift]

Wouldn't it be a smaller probability? Because the chance of you choosing the same number as them is 1/100 from you times 1/100 for them, so the actual chance of you both choosing the same number would be somewhere around .01%.

[phlip]

Wouldn't it be a smaller probability? Because the chance of you choosing the same number as them is 1/100 from you times 1/100 for them, so the actual chance of you both choosing the same number would be somewhere around .01%.

That would make the chance of both you and the other person picking, say, 43, as 0.01% (assuming both people choose uniformly randomly). But the chance of you both picking 37 is also 0.01%. And the chance of you both picking 94 is also 0.01%. Add up all the possibilities, and you get that the chance of you picking the same number, regardless of what that number is, is 1%.

Alternatively: say they pick their number first. Any number they pick is OK, it's still possible for you to guess it. So there's a 100% chance they'll pick an acceptable number. And now you pick second, and regardless of what they chose there's a 1% chance of you matching it... in all cases, you have a 1% chance of picking an acceptable number. So the final chance is 100% * 1% = 1%.

[Nichlemn]

Why settle for one guess? You should be able to turn some of the "misses" into pseudo-"hits". For instance, if you get no response after you say "37", without missing a beat you should add another step, for instance: "Add one to each of the digits". Keep adding steps until you get it right or she gets tired of it.

Or alternatively, if you get close, that alone might be good enough ("Gee Willikers, you guessed 37, it was 36!"), but otherwise you'll probably see a (subtle) reaction of some kind. If you do, try adding or subtracting one from the number, or maybe switching the digits.

[MrRubix]

I just tried this on my girlfriend over GChat:

Me: Hey
GF: hey
what's up
Me: just curious
think of a random number from 1-100
GF: ok
Me: got it?
GF: ya
Me: is it 37?
GF: yes
haha
wtf
Me: trololololo
GF: I don't understand
how did you know?
haha