4 ms·

The mundane explanations doesn't answer anything. It's just pure speculation. They didn't eben talk to the guy who had the most frequent wins. Why wouldn't psy

The mundane explanations doesn't answer anything. It's just pure speculation. They didn't eben talk to the guy who had the most frequent wins. Why wouldn't psychics get caught?

pg_bot 9y ago
...because psychics don't exist
- hnzix 9y ago
  I knew you were going to say that.
WalterBright 9y ago
Psychics explanations don't explain anything.
danso 9y ago
What is the burden of evidence you have for the mundane explanations? That is, what would they have to show to you for you to believe them beyond a reasonable doubt? Technically, every possible criminal act conceivable in our known universe could be blamed on an invisible, time-traveling Hitler.
csydas 9y ago
Well, let's assume for a second that psychics exist and know that they are psychic. The second assumption is kind of important as if they just act on impulse without knowing they're psychic we can't really differentiate that from all the other chance winnings on a hunch. For the Powerball, two ways to play: pick your own numbers or randomly generate them. Would a winning psychic choose one over the other more often? An ability to sense and know the future means they would have to either know the winning numbers and pick them, know the machine that produces the numbers (but not necessarily the numbers themselves), or somehow manipulate chance or psychics so that the lottery machine produces the psychic's number during the draw. Psychic is kind of loosely defined right now by your question so for convenience let's rule out the last one since that's more telekinetic/magic than psychic. With these conditions, we should see some pattern from the winner: they would either always pick their own and get the winning numbers or they would always happen to go to the right machine at the right time. Both should show pretty consistent behavior on the part of a psychic, as we can see that the bar for big winnings is pretty low ($600) and multiple statistically improbable winnings would likely be investigated. (per the atriclr, only 10 states do not investigate frequent winners). So to summarize so far: Frequent winners very likely investigated unless they are in the 10 states Psychic will likely pick their own numbers Psychic will go to a specific machine and have erratic pattern of purchase If psychic are playing the lottery, my assumptions lead me to think that it makes no sense to frequently win, instead banking on a single explainable big win. This of course would be only if the psychic did not want to be found out as a psychic, which for the purpose of the lottery I think would be a valid want as I believe that there are rules about additional knowledge, etc meant to catch people defrauding the lottery. Future-visions would most definitely qualify, so probably would require that the psychic forfeit their winnings. The mundane explanations do explain a lot, both from the investigations and admissions from the frequent winners. To me anyways, the psychics, if they exist, would more likely be the one time big winners, not the frequent ones.
- projectant 9y ago
  Good points, but continuing with the thought experiment, I think you fail to consider what might be a reality for your psychics. What if the psychics don't have perfect information, nor perfect control, but have, perhaps varying on the psychic in question, some amount of power that lets them see or control future numbers with some amount of probability, but not certainty? In that case, they might win more often, but not every time. Given that so many things in nature follow a power curve or a bell curve, I think your presumed psychic abilities, we can assume, follow the same curves, and if most of your psychics then have "some ability" to predict these numbers, but not a certainty, then I think they are more likely to be frequent smaller winners. For example, if you have an ability that let's you see a 4/8 of the future numbers, with 33% certainty, then one time out of three, you will win 4/8 of the numbers, and sometimes more than 4/8 if you're lucky. TL;DR -- your presumed psychic abilities probably exist on a spectrum ( bell / power curve ) and likely most of your psychics do not have "perfect" future information. PS - I have a feeling that psychics would prefer to play the stock market, than lottery. I just sense their expected payoff is higher in that case, probably because there are a lot more factors that affect a stock price, so even partial information across a lot of these seems to provide a better advantage, than partial information on 1 single list of numbers.
  - csydas 9y ago
    That's fair. I certainly did forget to include the assumption that they would have perfect clarity into their foresight. I still think you'd see a pretty clear pattern emerge from winners however, at least should the individual grasp the impact of their ability, even if the picture is incomplete. I also agree stocks or sports betting would be a better choice as partial information seems more valuable in those cases. But I still feel confident you'd see the same general truths from psychics with partial clarity; still picking numbers and never using random and still an erratic purchase pattern as they chase locations and time. I think the former would likely show more purchases with the same constant numbers from the futuresight and then a spread of other numbers; such behavior may stand out even more as there would be a history of them always getting a small subset right and guessing the rest.
brownbat 9y ago
> Why wouldn't psychics get caught? Psychic powers would impede apprehension by authorities. See The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick. And you'd get some weird paradoxes too, or weird implications for information theory anyway. See also Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
carlisle_ 9y ago
Ever hear of Occam's Razor? We have two broad options, a small set of people who are psychic, have kept it secret for the entire history of humanity, and use it to win the lottery but in almost no other context that we know of or have recognized. The other option is that these frequent winners are surrogates for others who can or would not hand in their lottery ticket on their own. What follows the razor?
- hnzix 9y ago
  Occam's Razor doesn't make the simplest explanation automatically correct. Occam's Razor means you test the simplest hypothesis first. While I doubt it's psychics, if I were to assert that as fact I'd have to disprove that hypothesis.

The mundane explanations doesn't answer anything. It's just pure speculation. They didn't eben talk to the guy who had the most frequent wins. Why wouldn't psychics get caught?

pg_bot 9y ago

...because psychics don't exist

hnzix 9y ago
I knew you were going to say that.

WalterBright 9y ago

Psychics explanations don't explain anything.

danso 9y ago

What is the burden of evidence you have for the mundane explanations? That is, what would they have to show to you for you to believe them beyond a reasonable doubt? Technically, every possible criminal act conceivable in our known universe could be blamed on an invisible, time-traveling Hitler.

csydas 9y ago

Well, let's assume for a second that psychics exist and know that they are psychic. The second assumption is kind of important as if they just act on impulse without knowing they're psychic we can't really differentiate that from all the other chance winnings on a hunch. For the Powerball, two ways to play: pick your own numbers or randomly generate them. Would a winning psychic choose one over the other more often? An ability to sense and know the future means they would have to either know the winning numbers and pick them, know the machine that produces the numbers (but not necessarily the numbers themselves), or somehow manipulate chance or psychics so that the lottery machine produces the psychic's number during the draw. Psychic is kind of loosely defined right now by your question so for convenience let's rule out the last one since that's more telekinetic/magic than psychic. With these conditions, we should see some pattern from the winner: they would either always pick their own and get the winning numbers or they would always happen to go to the right machine at the right time. Both should show pretty consistent behavior on the part of a psychic, as we can see that the bar for big winnings is pretty low ($600) and multiple statistically improbable winnings would likely be investigated. (per the atriclr, only 10 states do not investigate frequent winners). So to summarize so far: Frequent winners very likely investigated unless they are in the 10 states Psychic will likely pick their own numbers Psychic will go to a specific machine and have erratic pattern of purchase If psychic are playing the lottery, my assumptions lead me to think that it makes no sense to frequently win, instead banking on a single explainable big win. This of course would be only if the psychic did not want to be found out as a psychic, which for the purpose of the lottery I think would be a valid want as I believe that there are rules about additional knowledge, etc meant to catch people defrauding the lottery. Future-visions would most definitely qualify, so probably would require that the psychic forfeit their winnings. The mundane explanations do explain a lot, both from the investigations and admissions from the frequent winners. To me anyways, the psychics, if they exist, would more likely be the one time big winners, not the frequent ones.

projectant 9y ago
Good points, but continuing with the thought experiment, I think you fail to consider what might be a reality for your psychics. What if the psychics don't have perfect information, nor perfect control, but have, perhaps varying on the psychic in question, some amount of power that lets them see or control future numbers with some amount of probability, but not certainty? In that case, they might win more often, but not every time. Given that so many things in nature follow a power curve or a bell curve, I think your presumed psychic abilities, we can assume, follow the same curves, and if most of your psychics then have "some ability" to predict these numbers, but not a certainty, then I think they are more likely to be frequent smaller winners. For example, if you have an ability that let's you see a 4/8 of the future numbers, with 33% certainty, then one time out of three, you will win 4/8 of the numbers, and sometimes more than 4/8 if you're lucky. TL;DR -- your presumed psychic abilities probably exist on a spectrum ( bell / power curve ) and likely most of your psychics do not have "perfect" future information. PS - I have a feeling that psychics would prefer to play the stock market, than lottery. I just sense their expected payoff is higher in that case, probably because there are a lot more factors that affect a stock price, so even partial information across a lot of these seems to provide a better advantage, than partial information on 1 single list of numbers.
- csydas 9y ago
  That's fair. I certainly did forget to include the assumption that they would have perfect clarity into their foresight. I still think you'd see a pretty clear pattern emerge from winners however, at least should the individual grasp the impact of their ability, even if the picture is incomplete. I also agree stocks or sports betting would be a better choice as partial information seems more valuable in those cases. But I still feel confident you'd see the same general truths from psychics with partial clarity; still picking numbers and never using random and still an erratic purchase pattern as they chase locations and time. I think the former would likely show more purchases with the same constant numbers from the futuresight and then a spread of other numbers; such behavior may stand out even more as there would be a history of them always getting a small subset right and guessing the rest.

brownbat 9y ago

> Why wouldn't psychics get caught? Psychic powers would impede apprehension by authorities. See The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick. And you'd get some weird paradoxes too, or weird implications for information theory anyway. See also Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

carlisle_ 9y ago

Ever hear of Occam's Razor? We have two broad options, a small set of people who are psychic, have kept it secret for the entire history of humanity, and use it to win the lottery but in almost no other context that we know of or have recognized. The other option is that these frequent winners are surrogates for others who can or would not hand in their lottery ticket on their own. What follows the razor?

hnzix 9y ago
Occam's Razor doesn't make the simplest explanation automatically correct. Occam's Razor means you test the simplest hypothesis first. While I doubt it's psychics, if I were to assert that as fact I'd have to disprove that hypothesis.