Higher than "chance"

[Moose]

Ian, if one was to draw each of 52 cards from a standard deck, the odds of drawing that specific sequence is 52! and is about one in 8x10^67 possibilities. For non-math people, that's an eight followed by sixty-seven zeros.

Those are pretty long odds, right? Yet you drew that card sequence.

[jk]On the very first try, no less.[/jk]

Does this mean you've defeated chance? No, it just means you're capable of drawing a sequence of 52 cards.

Likewise, most lottery prizes are won each week by one or more people. Are they bending chance? Individually, yes. As a population, no. Not at all.

Another similar example. Suppose you have fifty-two people in a room, and you hand each of them a card in a standard deck. You then ask if anybody has the three of clubs. Someone does. Is this paranormal? Nope. While that person had 1 in 52 odds of drawing the three of clubs, the population as a whole had 52 in 52 odds of somebody drawing the three of clubs.

If we take it at face value, Suezoled experienced an interesting event, but without repetition, it is entirely indistinguishable from a chance event.

This is why good science doesn't rely on a single trial, or a single experiment, or even a single experimentor.

 

[Beth]

I submit the possibility that this didn't happen after all.

{Only the possibility, mind you.}

Magicians frequently present effects as if the spectator is the one who caused/performed them, acting bewildering while in reality being the one who (mundanely) engineered the whole thing.

This would be a very simple trick to do on an adult or an eleven year old.

I could teach my own eleven year old how to get his thirteen year old brother to "predict" card colors so that he was mostly or totally accurate.

I think you're right. When I was around 4 or 5, an older cousin of mine had me convinced he could always tell exactly what card I had drawn from a deck he had fanned out in his hand. I was amazed! I would slowly draw the card and keep it from his view. He would tell me "five of hearts" or whatever it was.

It was years later (when I was older) that I realized he had fanned the cards out facing him. He could easily see what card I had drawn. I was just too young to figure it out then.

Beth

 

[drkitten]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Higher than "chance"

Ian could you please inform us all what odds are the 'cut off point' for chance?

Let's be reasonable here for a moment. There are approximately 6 billion people in the world. If every person in the world tried this trick once a day for ten years, that would be about

2,000,000,000,000

trials to achieve odds of

281,474,976,710,656:1

I consider the total number of trials to be an overestimate, btw.

Based on this, I think it's fair to conclude that the event as described is extremely unlikely to have happened based purely on chance. In this extremely limited regard, Ian is possibly correct.

I also think that there are several other possibilities to consider. One is that Pixy did the calculations wrong (sorry, Pixy, but I have to conver all the bases, don't I?). Another is that Suezoled is misremembering (ditto), or that someone else was involved and somehow cheating.

All rejecting chance tells us is that there are other possibilities to consider, not that we have proof of the paranormal.

 

[CurtC]

I was about to post the same thing as Garrette. We have four possibilities, as far as I can see:

1. Suezoled is psychic.
2. Suezoled just got really really lucky that one time.
3. Trish played a trick on Suezoled.
4. Suezoled misremembered the event, or is lying.

Given the staggering odds of this feat, I believe that the "lucky" scenario is the least likely of the four. Even less than #1. Number 4, misremembering (I'm not accusing her of lying) is way more believable, and #3, a simple trick, tops that.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

I go with the trick. It is a classic, after all.

 

[Bronze Dog]

I was about to post the same thing as Garrette. We have four possibilities, as far as I can see:

1. Suezoled is psychic.
2. Suezoled just got really really lucky that one time.
3. Trish played a trick on Suezoled.
4. Suezoled misremembered the event, or is lying.

Given the staggering odds of this feat, I believe that the "lucky" scenario is the least likely of the four. Even less than #1. Number 4, misremembering (I'm not accusing her of lying) is way more believable, and #3, a simple trick, tops that.

Sounds like a reasonable breakdown of the possibilities to me.

 

[Ashles]

Well there was an example in the Guinness Book of Records in which four people were playing bridge and were each dealt an entire suit.

Surely the odds against that are even higher?

BTW are we sure about this 281,474,976,710,656: 1 figure?

How are you calculating that Pixy?

I start with 1/2 .. and then I get a bit confused. Surely it would be 26/51 for the other colour next or 25/51 for the same colour next...

How would we work this out?

Even if the figure were accurate extremely unlikely events happen all the time - we just notice them when they have what we perceive to be a pattern.

 

[Azrael 5]

Which ever way you look at it,its Out of This World

 

[SpaceFluffer]

Whoah...I was eating curry when I read that. Consider me a believer.

(And I said 'curry', not 'Curry' )

 

[CurtC]

Well there was an example in the Guinness Book of Records in which four people were playing bridge and were each dealt an entire suit.

I calculate the probability of that to happen to be about 1.3 x 10^30, which is way higher.

BTW are we sure about this 281,474,976,710,656: 1 figure?

I get the same one - it's the probability of a 50-50 occurence happening 48 times in a row, 2^48. To be pedantic, it probability is 1/281,474,976,710,656; the odds are 281,474,976,710,655:1. Either is likely close enough for our purposes here.

 

[Suezoled]

I was about to post the same thing as Garrette. We have four possibilities, as far as I can see:

1. Suezoled is psychic.
2. Suezoled just got really really lucky that one time.
3. Trish played a trick on Suezoled.
4. Suezoled misremembered the event, or is lying.

Given the staggering odds of this feat, I believe that the "lucky" scenario is the least likely of the four. Even less than #1. Number 4, misremembering (I'm not accusing her of lying) is way more believable, and #3, a simple trick, tops that.

5.) Suezoled was playing a trick on Trish.

 

[Garrette]

Originally posted by Suezoled:

5.) Suezoled was playing a trick on Trish.

Hmmm.....

But that would mean that the second variation of #4 was correct, too....

Oh, Suez.... How could ye?

 

[Suezoled]

Hmmm.....

But that would mean that the second variation of #4 was correct, too....

Oh, Suez.... How could ye?

Not at all.

Just adding to the breakdown of possibilities.
After all, you want to consider all the possible aspects, right?

 

[Garrette]

Originally posted by Suezoled:

After all, you want to consider all the possible aspects, right?

Not when it destroys cherished beliefs.

[Cue Monkees]Now I'm a Believer, yeah, yeah, yeah...[/Cue Monkees]

 

[Azrael 5]

Whoah...I was eating curry when I read that. Consider me a believer.

(And I said 'curry', not 'Curry' )

Lol.The magic in jokes keep on coming!

 

[Soapy Sam]

Suez- This wouldn't be "The AMAZING Trish " would it?

I think the trick is being played by your memory.
Your mind is going.
I warned you about that stupid job.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Higher than "chance"

Ian could you please inform us all what odds are the 'cut off point' for chance?

There isn't a cut off point. It's just the case that some things are so incredibly unlikely that in practical terms it ain't going to happen.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Here we can see the futility of Impossible Ian's position. He belligerently declares Suzoled's anecdote to be evidence, in fact proof, of the paranormal.

Hang on a sec. I don't know whether it actually happened as she described. Indeed I suspect it didn't, although I might very well be wrong.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hang on, the odds against the sperm and eggs of Ian's parents and all his forbearers eggs and sperms combining in the way they have are way way way higher than one in 281,474,976,710,656.

Therefore this must not have happened.

Or we need to think what it is that constitutes the self. I agree it is far to unlikely to have actually occurred, therefore I am not simply the product of a sperm and an egg.

But I've already argued about this in another thread about a year ago, and no-one could understand my argument.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Well there was an example in the Guinness Book of Records in which four people were playing bridge and were each dealt an entire suit.

Then the cards weren't shuffled properly. It ain't gonna happen by pure chance.