One paranormal/psychic experience I know of

[ChristineR]

I doubt if this women is a conscious fraud, and I doubt that she did any sort of statistical analysis on "Alice" vs. "Mary." It's more likely she just got a "feeling" for Alice, and it happened that there was a dramatic and meaningful Alice in this lady's life. Roughly a 50/50 chance, so no magic there.

However, as we have no actual record of what was said to this woman by the dying mother, or even what was said to her by the various other parties, there is a very high likelyhood that someone mentioned Alice to her and she was just parroting. The original post is a bit ambiguous, but if we assume it was truly an off the cuff guess, it's still easily attributable to plain luck.

 

[sophia8]

And was the name really Alice? Did she spell it out, or did it just sound like Alice? Did she specify that this "Alice" or "Alliss" or "Allyss" was female? Did she specify that it was a forename or a surname? Did she even specify that "Alice" (or whatever) was human?
I know I sound picky - but there are too many variables here.

 

[Beth]

I doubt if this women is a conscious fraud, and I doubt that she did any sort of statistical analysis on "Alice" vs. "Mary." It's more likely she just got a "feeling" for Alice, and it happened that there was a dramatic and meaningful Alice in this lady's life. Roughly a 50/50 chance, so no magic there.

How do you get a 50/50 chance out of that? I put the probability through random chance much lower.

However, as we have no actual record of what was said to this woman by the dying mother, or even what was said to her by the various other parties, there is a very high likelyhood that someone mentioned Alice to her and she was just parroting. The original post is a bit ambiguous, but if we assume it was truly an off the cuff guess, it's still easily attributable to plain luck.

If both ladies lived in the same relatively small town for many years, it's quite possible she had knowledge of the friendship even if no family member had mentioned it. I suspect much of what is termed psychic is a sort of unconscious memory plus intuition. They aren't faking, becuase they don't have a conscious recollection of such facts. But it's not random chance either.

 

[CurtC]

I don't doubt that your in-law is well-meaning or that this story is true as told, but it's just not very strong evidence for psychic powers. In order to believe they exist, I'd need something extraordinary. This story could have been that she already knew of the friend Alice, or that she said other names and that's the one you remember, or that it was simply a pure coincidence. But coincidences happen all the time, even to us skeptics.

It's still an interesting story, and I think stories like this are even more interesting in how they so clearly demonstrate how our brains look for patterns. It's just that it's not at all strong evidence for psychic powers.

 

[ChristineR]

How do you get a 50/50 chance out of that? I put the probability through random chance much lower.

It's a very rough estimate--an order of magnitude guess, no better than that. Alice was a reasonably common name. So it's safe to assume that the mother would have known at least a few people named Alice. In fact, we know of two people she knew named Alice, and there surely were more, presumably less important.

So of that group of Alices, we find one moderately important and one very important. That's where I get the order of magnitude guess. There is roughly a 50/50 chance that one of our Alices will be moderately or very important to the mother.

Try an experiment: pick a reasonably common name at random, and think about all the people you have known with that name. Then pick the one person most important to you, and THEN imagine how'd you feel if you were lying on your deathbed and a psychic gave you a message from him/her. Pretty heavy stuff.

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

How do you get a 50/50 chance out of that? I put the probability through random chance much lower.

You don't think there is a good chance that any given older person would have known someone named Alice during their life? I would go so far as to wager that the statement by the psychic would have also worked with Bob, John, James, Mary, Mark, Ben, Susan, and dozens of other names.

I did a very unscientific test. I just asked a few coworkers if they know anyone named Alice, not counting the two Alice's we have working here. So far 4 out of 4 know one.

LLH

 

[ChristineR]

You don't think there is a good chance that any given older person would have known someone named Alice during their life? I would go so far as to wager that the statement by the psychic would have also worked with Bob, John, James, Mary, Mark, Ben, Susan, and dozens of other names.

I did a very unscientific test. I just asked a few coworkers if they know anyone named Alice, not counting the two Alice's we have working here. So far 4 out of 4 know one.

LLH

I would assume that almost every older person would have known someone named Alice. The guess is that there is a 50/50 chance that one of the Alice's would be important enough to make it plausible that Alice would want to send your coworker a message from beyond.

 

[Bob Klase]

And why do you suppose the psychic selected the 51st most popular name, rather than the most popular name?

Aside from the fact that the "psychic" could have had information from non-psychic sources, some people might start to wonder if every reading given by this psychic started out by naming Carol (or whatever name was first). One the other hand, many people wouldn't wonder.

 

[Tricky]

I would assume that almost every older person would have known someone named Alice.

Yes. And all the young girls love her.

 

[Rodney]

You don't think there is a good chance that any given older person would have known someone named Alice during their life? I would go so far as to wager that the statement by the psychic would have also worked with Bob, John, James, Mary, Mark, Ben, Susan, and dozens of other names.

I did a very unscientific test. I just asked a few coworkers if they know anyone named Alice, not counting the two Alice's we have working here. So far 4 out of 4 know one.

LLH

I can't think of even a casual acquaintance, living or dead, named Alice. Regarding your other names, I know at least one of each, including some who have died, but I can't imagine any of them waiting for me when I died. For example, if a psychic told me that "Mark" would be waiting for me, I would say to her: "You mean the guy that still owes me money? I guess he must have finally decided to settle up."

 

[ChristineR]

I can't think of even a casual acquaintance, living or dead, named Alice. Regarding your other names, I know at least one of each, including some who have died, but I can't imagine any of them waiting for me when I died. For example, if a psychic told me that "Mark" would be waiting for me, I would say to her: "You mean the guy that still owes me money? I guess he must have finally decided to settle up."

Wild guess here: you're less than 70 years old.

 

[Glite]

perhaps the OP is a troll, and is lying.
or her brother lied.

sorry, but thats always a possibility in a forum.

 

[Glite]

Oh, and welcome to the forums.

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

perhaps the OP is a troll, and is lying.
or her brother lied.

sorry, but thats always a possibility in a forum.

Well I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find out that the story was not 100 percent accurate (but not necessarily a lie). These stories, for that matter most stories, tend to get more and more "interesting" after being told a few times.

LLH

 

[Rodney]

Wild guess here: you're less than 70 years old.

No, I'm 138 . . . But seriously, there are very few first names -- one in particular -- that a psychic could throw out and impress me at all. For example, my father's name was John, but if a psychic were to tell me that "John will be waiting for you" that wouldn't impress me. Now, if she said: "Your father John" I would have to wonder, but I would still be suspicious that she had obtained this information from a family member. But, if she said the one name that would be most relevant and that she wouldn't have likely been able to obtain from a family member, I would be very impressed.

 

[Beth]

It's a very rough estimate--an order of magnitude guess, no better than that. Alice was a reasonably common name. So it's safe to assume that the mother would have known at least a few people named Alice. In fact, we know of two people she knew named Alice, and there surely were more, presumably less important.

So of that group of Alices, we find one moderately important and one very important. That's where I get the order of magnitude guess. There is roughly a 50/50 chance that one of our Alices will be moderately or very important to the mother.

Not a good way to assess the probability. You're computing a conditional probability that isn't really appropriate to the situation. Your conditioning your probability on a fact (the mother knew two Alices and one was important to her) that was unknown to the psychic.

However, it's a minor quibble and conditional probabilities are tricky to get right. There are other explanations possible. I just don't think 'lucky guess' or coincidence is a particularly high probability and I hate to rely on the 'it's just a coincidence' explanation when the probability of such a coincidence is actually rather low.

 

[Steven Howard]

However, it's a minor quibble and conditional probabilities are tricky to get right. There are other explanations possible. I just don't think 'lucky guess' or coincidence is a particularly high probability and I hate to rely on the 'it's just a coincidence' explanation when the probability of such a coincidence is actually rather low.

I think you're falling into the cold-reading trap of trying to estimate the probability of a match after the fact. (Not that I necessarily think this was a case of cold reading.) You're thinking "What are the odds that the psychic could just randomly guess the name of her childhood friend?" But that's not really what happened.

Had Alice been the dying woman's favorite aunt, or her pet rabbit for that matter, people would be saying "What are the odds that the psychic could just randomly guess the name of her pet rabbit/favorite aunt/whatever?"

The question we should be asking is, "What are the odds that this woman, at some point during her long life, had a significant relationship with someone named Alice?"

You're also probably underestimating the number of "significant coincidences" that happen every day.

 

[Glite]

the other thing about this story is that the OP, as i read it, was not there for the reading. so, the "Psychic" could have guessed many names and her brother picked out the first one that made a "hit" in his memory. then with a little creativity settled on the childhood friend.

 

[Beth]

I think you're falling into the cold-reading trap of trying to estimate the probability of a match after the fact. (Not that I necessarily think this was a case of cold reading.) You're thinking "What are the odds that the psychic could just randomly guess the name of her childhood friend?" But that's not really what happened.

Had Alice been the dying woman's favorite aunt, or her pet rabbit for that matter, people would be saying "What are the odds that the psychic could just randomly guess the name of her pet rabbit/favorite aunt/whatever?"

The question we should be asking is, "What are the odds that this woman, at some point during her long life, had a significant relationship with someone named Alice?"

You're also probably underestimating the number of "significant coincidences" that happen every day.

Um, not exactly. Christine was estimating the probability as 50/50 based on the fact that the psychic guessed the name 'Alice' and one of the two Alice's known to the mother was a very significant person to the mother. That's an incorrect application of conditional probability.

You're right about the assessing the odds of the psychic randomly guessing the name of her best friend would be the wrong probability as well but that wasn't what I was comtemplating. The probability of interest is that of the psychic correctly guessed at random the name of someone close to the woman who had predeceased her. That probably would be considerably lower than 50/50, but also significantly higher than the probability of guessing the 'best friends' name specifically. Had she given the name of any person close to the woman who had predeceased her it would have scored as a hit. My point is that getting such a name correct by random chance alone is quite low.

Without assuming actual psychic knowledge, it's more reasonable to suppose some unrecognized earthly knowledge. Perhaps from years ago that the psychic wasn't consciously aware of? If the psychic was living in the same town when Alice was alive, she might well have been dimly aware that the two women were close friends and known of her death.

At any rate, as I said, it's a minor quibble.

 

[Glite]

again, the possibility gets higher of a "hit" when the "psychic" gives more than one name. and in this case we have no way of knowing if that happened, and its quite possible it did. also, the prior knowledge argument is also valid.
this was a way of making the mother feel better about her condition, it worked, but i would imagine that having her children with her was much more comfort than some woo woo information from some delusional woman. (no matter how nice she seems to be)