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closeA Brain-Transmission Experiment from 25 Years Ago...
Posted by ballenoz on 08 Sep 2014 at 01:46 GMT
As part of research for a book I was writing 25 years ago [ Brain Transmissions -- An Alternative to Reincarnation ], I needed to find a mechanism for communicating directly between brains. The science-of-the-day had nothing to offer as way to explain what appeared to be occasional reports from unverifiable sources. Yes, this comment falls in that unverifiable category, but I pass it on as absolute truth for the reader to do with it what they will.
In near darkness, in a beach-side unit listening to waves gently reach shore [ read, as peaceful as it gets ], I sat with a mate and a pack of playing cards. We were to read the mind of the other, looking to 'see' the card held but hidden from view. Broke the choices into three parts -- colour, suit and number. I started in trying to read Michael's mind, first the colour. The requirement was to reply "red" or "black". However, I chose to be more specific and answered "Grey". That was accepted as a valid answer, and we moved to the suit. Again, with more information than necessary, I replied, "An UPSIDE-DOWN Spade". This answer would have made no sense to anyone except the person opposite holding the Ace-of-Spades. It appeared Grey because it was patterned as aces tend to be sometimes. And I call it upside-down, because I see pointy-end up as the natural orientation for a spade. Yes, Michael was holding a card displaying an upside-down spade.
Anyone like to call the odds of that being a random lucky guess? Methinks there is a lot more to discover in this arena once prejudice and fear of the unknown is overcome.
BA -- B.Sc, B.E. ( Melbourne University )
RE: A Brain-Transmission Experiment from 25 Years Ago...
factorial replied to ballenoz on 26 Sep 2014 at 00:22 GMT
The odds of your first choice were 1 in 2, 50%. Let's interpret your choice of "grey" as a choice of "black" for now.
The odds of choosing the correct suit after having your "grey" answer verified were once again 1 in 2, 50%. Either spade or club.
You never chose the face value of the card. Instead you abandoned the experiment after inserting new criteria and stating that it was "upside-down." Unfortunately, all odd-valued cards have an "upside-down" version: ace, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Your odds of correctly choosing an upside-down card were 5 in 13, 38.5%.
So the odds are 50% * 50% * 38.5% = 9.6%. In other words you had an almost 10% chance of making a guess that would have come to this conclusion no matter what card your partner was holding.
The other option for your answer of "grey" is to agree with you that only black aces are neither red nor black. In this case, your guess of "grey" can be interpreted as a guess of "black ace." Your friend verified that he was holding a black ace by validating the answer. You had a 2 in 52 chance of choosing a black ace, 3.8%.
At this point you chose the orientation of the ace, another 1 in 2 chance. Therefore the odds that you would choose as you did, completely outside the original parameters of your experiment, were 1.9%.
Problems with this experiment are:
1. The ace of spades is probably the most famous card in a deck of cards. Thus you likely had a higher probability of choosing this card.
2. The ace of spades also leads me to doubt the card was chosen at random. If your partner purposely chose the card that is the most popular card in a deck of cards, you had considerably higher likelihood of choosing it.
3. Your experiment's parameters were to choose color, then suit, then value. You chose an invalid color. You then had this invalid answer verified before moving on to the next choice, giving you a great deal of feedback that informed your next decision. You then chose suit and orientation.
By breaking your own rules from the outset, choosing a non-random card at the outset, having your invalid answer verified as containing correct data, and guessing the most likely card to be chosen non-randomly, you simply played a game designed to make you think you had made a remarkable prediction.