Cold Reading Demos at TAM2

[Clancie]

Posted by michaellee

JE is looking for ONE Connection. However, the statement of "A J connection, like John or Joe" allows for THREE possible, independent confirmations. To confirm the statement, the sitter can confirm either:
1. His name was John.
2. His name was Joe.
3. His name began with the letter "J" but was neither John nor Joe.

So, michaellee, if he says, "a J name like Joe or John" and I say, "No, not a 'J' name"...how can "Joe or John" ever be right? (i.e. they are not three independent confirmations)

 

[michaellee]

Originally posted by Clancie

One difference is that you know there are spades in your deck. JE doesn’t know the man has a deceased father/father figure in his "deck".

JE can be right on “J” but has no guarantee that he can –ever- get the correct “J” name, no matter how much he guesses

Are you stating that John Edward DOESN'T know if the sitter has a deceased father or mother or whatever? Then just whom is he communicating to? This is a straight admission that JE is simply guessing, is it not?

So, michaellee, if he says, "a J name like Joe or John" and I say, "No, not a 'J' name"...how can "Joe or John" ever be right? (i.e. they are not three independent confirmations)

If JE goes fishing for big hits-and misses, tough luck for him. If he says "J" name, waits and gets confirmation, that was 1 guess and 1 hit, right? Then if he guesses "JOHN", waits and gets confirmation, that was guess number 2 and hit number 2, right? 2 guesses, 1 small hit and 1 medium hit. Similarly, if he guesses "J" name, waits and gets confirmation, thats 1 guess and 1 hit. If he then guesses "JACKIE" and it is not confirmed, thats 2 guesses total with 1 hit. If he then guesses "JOHN" and gets confirmation, thats 3 guesses and 2 hits. You can't tell me that each of these three scenarios should be tallied as 1 guess and 1 hit!

The bottom line is that if JE throws out the "J name, JOHN, and JACK at the same time, or if he throws them out one at a time, the end result must be the same. It must be viewed from the maximum potential number of independent results he can achieve. In the "J Name, JACK and JOHN" guess scenario, there is the possibility for 3 independent results. You can't claim 3 guesses and 3 hits one time if he is right when throwing out guesses, and then when he is wrong claim it only counts as 1 guess and 1 miss.

 

[CFLarsen]

You can't tell me that each of these three scenarios should be tallied as 1 guess and 1 hit!

Only if JE said "J, John, Jackie" and then the sitter would give feedback. As we know, this is not how it goes: While JE is saying "J, John, Jackie", the sitter gives feedback by either nodding, saying "yes", or do nothing at all, in which case JE is wrong. The feedback does not come at the end, it comes during his guesses.

3 guesses, not 1.

 

[Ed]

Originally posted by Clancie Are you stating that John Edward DOESN'T know if the sitter has a deceased father or mother or whatever? Then just whom is he communicating to? This is a straight admission that JE is simply guessing, is it not?

Never dismiss the rules of the paranormal.

You see, JE is "communicating" with a spirit but spirits are confused so JE really does not know who is dupe, er, target. That is why he throws stuff out and says "Is this for you", in other words, "I've given a few guesses right off the bat, now who fits these guesses best?" So he gets some number of gaurenteed hits right off. He also has some poor bastard firlmy hooked. And do not dismiss the idea that said poor bastard now is thinking "stardom" and knows that he will look as good as JE looks. Tears help. Wouldn't want to end up on the cutting room floor now, would we?

 

[Clancie]

Posted by michaellee

Are you stating that John Edward DOESN'T know if the sitter has a deceased father or mother or whatever? Then just whom is he communicating to? This is a straight admission that JE is simply guessing, is it not?

michaellee, ed...

In the immortal words of BillHoyt (or was it TLN? ), please stay focused. The word "guess" is an accepted convention of this thread. In this thread, we are all accepting the phrase "guess" as a given and...are arguing the "J" count issue, regardless.

I don't feel you've answered my questions, or responded to the reasons why your card trick is so different, in terms of the math and reasoning, from mediumship process we're scoring (i.e. in terms of whether it's consistent with the null hypothesis or not)

Posted by Clancie

So, michaellee, if he says, "a J name like Joe or John" and I say, "No, not a 'J' name"...how can "Joe or John" ever be right? (i.e. they are not three independent confirmations)

In your example, "spades" can be wrong and will have no affect at all on whether "4 or 5" are wrong. That's what independent guesses look like. In our JE example, Joe or John are wrong if "J" is wrong. They are not independent.

If JE goes fishing for big hits-and misses, tough luck for him.

Irrelevant to the point. We're not looking at hits and misses. We're looking at how often he guesses that someone has a name that starts with 'J'.

Posted by michaellee

In the "J Name, JACK and JOHN" guess scenario, there is the possibility for 3 independent results. You can't claim 3 guesses and 3 hits one time if he is right when throwing out guesses, and then when he is wrong claim it only counts as 1 guess and 1 miss.

michaellee, The question was only whether JE's use of 'J' guesses rejects the null hypothesis (that his use of 'J' guesses is indistinguishable from what you'd expect from population names) or not.

So the question is....Does he guess that this particular person (the father) has a name that starts with 'J' or not? The answer doesn't matter to this count. We have simply added "one guess" to the total number of times JE guessed that someone had a "J" name in this reading.

Whether JE goes on to list a dozen possible 'J' names that the dad could have ("Your father's name starts with 'J'... like Jimmy, Joey, Johnny, Jerry, Jed"...and whether these guesses are right or wrong...doesn't change the fact that he guessed the letter 'j' for this person's particular name. Its still "one 'J' guess" and still for just this one person. Not 6 different "J" guesses. Just a guess for one person with one name (that either starts with "J" or not).

 

[CFLarsen]

Whether JE goes on to list a dozen possible 'J' names that the dad could have ("Your father's name starts with 'J'... like Jimmy, Joey, Johnny, Jerry, Jed"...and whether these guesses are right or wrong...doesn't change the fact that he guessed the letter 'j' for this person's particular name. Its still "one 'J' guess" and still for just this one person.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. JE does not guess "'J'... like Jimmy, Joey, Johnny, Jerry, Jed" and wait for the answer. He guesses "J" and waits for the answer. Then, "Jimmy", and waits for the answer. Then, "Joey", and waits for the answer. And so on.

For each name, a new guess. For each name, a whole new line of possibilities opens up. "Jerry" can also be "Terry" - JE also gets the info clairaudiently, right?

For each name, a new guess. For each name, a new line of possibilities. Read Ian Rowland's book, Clancie.

 

[Interesting Ian]

michaellee
Are you stating that John Edward DOESN'T know if the sitter has a deceased father or mother or whatever? Then just whom is he communicating to? This is a straight admission that JE is simply guessing, is it not?

Clancie
michaellee, ed...

In the immortal words of BillHoyt (or was it TLN? ), please stay focused. The word "guess" is an accepted convention of this thread. In this thread, we are all accepting the phrase "guess" as a given and...are arguing the "J" count issue, regardless.

You should feel pleased Clancie. I've noticed that people always pull this type of stunt with me (ie engage in petty irrelevancies) when they've lost the argument

 

[Clancie]

Posted by Interesting Ian

You should feel pleased Clancie. I've noticed that people always pull this type of stunt with me (ie engage in petty irrelevancies) when they've lost the argument

Lol, Ian. If you're right, I guess that's as close as I'll ever get to being in "the 'in' crowd" around here! lol.

 

[michaellee]

Originally posted by Clancie

Irrelevant to the point. We're not looking at hits and misses. We're looking at how often he guesses that someone has a name that starts with 'J'.

Clancie, please count the number of guesses taken by the medium in this example:

"I'm connecting strongly with a male 'J'.......yes definitely a strong 'J' sound connection...(no confirmation yet)......Jeremy perhaps...(no confirmation yet)....Jarold...(no confirmation yet)..Jermaine......(the sitter then blares out "Geronimo?". "My great, great grandfather was named Geronimo!"). Confirmation and JE acknowledges that is the name he is communicating with.

How many guesses?

 

[Garrette]

Originally posted by Clancie:

JE doesn’t know the man has a deceased father/father figure in his "deck" or not. (Maybe he could make it fit, but that's not the point here).

I've only been able to skim the responses, so sorry if this has been addressed already, but this is an unfair criticism.

JE knows there is someone in the deck. He's not guessing dead father. In fact, he's not necessarily guessing dead at all. He's only guessing a connection.

michaellee's points about single confirmation address the balance of this issue.

Originally posted by CFLarsen:

Shouldn't at least T'ai Chi know better? I can understand why Thanz and Clancie would be wrong, since they have very little statistical knowledge (not that this prevents them from throwing statistical terms around), but T'ai Chi?

It's not the first time serious doubt about T'ai Chi's statstical credentials has been raised. This only strengthens it.

Perhaps he should, given his stated credentials. I could, I suppose, rank order those on this board regarding my perception of there statistical reliability (poorly said, but you know what I mean).

That list, though, is meaningless without a simultaneous list of those whom I believe are also skilled at explaining it to the uneducated like me.

Compiling both lists, I'd put Paul C. Anag. at the top.

 

[CFLarsen]

Compiling both lists, I'd put Paul C. Anag. at the top.

Yup. Paulie the Greek (I have given up trying to spell his last name too) writes very clearly.

 

[T'ai Chi]

T'ai Chi,

The name is Claus. And even though I haven't a got college degree (I was captured by the Evil World of Computers instead), I can still spot a fake.

I have no doubts you do each morning.

Still not going to comments on the statistics you criticize others on? I didn't think so...

 

[T'ai Chi]

Statistical independence exists in the THREE possible confirmations, each of which correlates to ONE of the THREE guesses, so each guess remains independent, and must be counted as such.

How can any J-names following 'A J-name' be independent of 'A J-name'? The following J-names will all start with the letter J. The types of following Letter-names are 100% dependent on the Letter.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Read Ian Rowland's book, Clancie.

Could you please summarize it for us in excrutiating detail, Claus?

 

[CFLarsen]

Could you please summarize it for us in excrutiating detail, Claus?

Have I asked you to summarize your own handful of references in "excrutiating detail"? No, I merely asked you to tell us what they contained.

You were unable to. Completely. Utterly.

But we can discuss Rowland's book, you and I. Would you like to?

 

[T'ai Chi]

Again, Claus, Bill, anyone; please show why the letter/name counts are independent. ie. show that:

P(first name is a J-name)*P(second name is a J-name) =
P(first name is a J-name AND second name is a J-name).

(where P(blah) means the 'probability of event blah')

Or, equivalently show:

P(second name is a J-name|first name is a J-name) = P(second name is a J-name)

(where P(A|B) is read as 'the probability of event A given that event B has occured')

That's all those who claim the letter/name counts to be independent have to show. I'll wait...



But see, I'm thinking that:

P(second name is a J-name|first name is a J-name) = 100%.

which does not equal P(second name is a J-name), because this event occurs only when the event 'first name is a J-name' occurs, and that event does not occur 100% of the time because there are names guessed that start with other letters. For P(second name is a J-name) to equal 100%, JE or a medium would have to always guess J-names, which clearly isn't reality.

Therefore the events are dependent, and we cannot take any analysis that treats them independent seriously.

However, Thanz counts are different, because he (my take on it, please correct if I am wrong) considers the letter/name counts to be independent BETWEEN readings reading for individuals, not within readings for individuals, whereby 'individuals' I mean the subjects in things like 'I see a grandpa', 'I am sensing a male figure', 'I am seeing a old female'; the individuals are the grandpa, the male figure, and the old female. That is, Thanz's probabilities are:

P(first name in second reading is a J-name|first name in first reading is a J-name) = P(first name in second reading is a J-name), an equality which is more likely to be satisfied and thus have the letter/name counts be independent.

 

[T'ai Chi]

You were unable to. Completely. Utterly.

You were unwilling to understand why you reading references is more important than me summarzing them for you.

But we can discuss Rowland's book, you and I. Would you like to?

Anything to avoid addressing the independence/dependence issue I guess.

What about Rowland's book would you like to discuss?

 

[CFLarsen]

You were unwilling to understand why you reading references is more important than me summarzing them for you.

Oh, no. I read the book, remember? I find it very interesting that you keep pointing to those references, but are completely unable to tell us what they contain.

Anything to avoid addressing the independence/dependence issue I guess.

Huh?? You don't think that a very good book about how cold reading works is relevant to a discussion about cold reading?

What about Rowland's book would you like to discuss?

Whatever you want. You pick. Any chapter, any issue.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Whatever you want. You pick. Any chapter, any issue.

You brought this diversion up, YOU pick what you want to talk about.

You should know how to play your own game by now, but I constantly have to remind you...

 

[CFLarsen]

You brought this diversion up, YOU pick what you want to talk about.

You should know how to play your own game by now, but I constantly have to remind you...

You got the book?

I mean, really, in your hands? Not somewhere else, or at the library or bookstore.