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> He wasn't claiming to have psychic powers. He's not? > I perfected another where I asked a person to think of a loved one, and then I guessed their loved on
by TulliusCicero 5y ago
> He wasn't claiming to have psychic powers.
He's not?
> I perfected another where I asked a person to think of a loved one, and then I guessed their loved one’s name
I don't see how you do this one sans psychic powers unless you're at least somewhat familiar with the person and their loved ones. Guessing common names would work every once in a while, but nowhere close to the majority of the time.
Now perhaps if you research the person ahead of time, maybe frame your question in a way that they're more likely to think of a particular type of person (e.g. mention age or old times so that they're more likely to think of grandparents as opposed to younger relatives), I could see that working, but that's not what he said. "Hey stranger, think of a loved one" -> "I know their name" is impossible without telepathy.
Similarly:
> Having someone merely think of a drawing, then taking a pad and duplicating their vision perfectly?
No, you can't do this without psychic powers unless you're adding a lot more context around the type of drawing before they do it. "Hey stranger, do a drawing of something, anything" isn't gonna work. Even if you assume there's a handful of common objects that people are likely to draw -- a house, a car, a dog, a flower -- you're still gonna be wrong more often than right.
- ineptech 5y ago> ..is impossible without telepathy. It's supposed to look like it can't be done without telepathy - that's the whole point of the trick! And yet, it is done, successfully, on stages large and small, by people who are definitely not telepaths.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoI'd be willing to change my mind if a person was able to demonstrate this ability while just walking around a randomly chosen part of a big city, going up to strangers and just straightaway asking them to think of a loved one's name, with the recording stuff and people-choosing being done by a known skeptic. Having it done in a stage environment controlled by the performer in question obviously offers the ability to do research on audience members beforehand, or even have plants in the audience.
- ineptech 5y agoChange your mind about what? The performers aren't trying to convince you they have psychic powers, they're trying to convince you to buy a ticket to their show. Anyway, think this through. Derren Brown claims not to use stooges, and has been doing tricks like these on stage (per his wiki page) for 19 tours each averaging 50-100 nights. If he's using stooges, he's going through an awful lot of them, isn't he? Including his TV work, there must be thousands of people in the UK that could go on TV and blow the lid on the whole thing. I ask you, which is the more impressive feat of mentalism: keeping all of those people quiet, or guessing that an audience member drew a picture of a cat?
- TulliusCicero 5y agoAbout whether they can do this: > I perfected another where I asked a person to think of a loved one, and then I guessed their loved one’s name
- ineptech 5y agoThat's pretty much the opening of every medium's act, right? Have you ever seen one? It would save a lot of explanation, and I'm sure you'd see through it pretty easily.