Try this ESP Experiment

As a high end programmer - it took me less than 45 seconds to figure it out.
;)

As far as how much this type of trick is used just think advertising! For
example:

Bank Accounts:
20 yrs ago: Were free, all savings had interest and some checking had
interest, you were not charged to cash a check drawn on the bank
Now: Have hidden charges, you pay to cash a check if you are not a member,
some banks charge you to use a human teller, very few checking accounts have
interest and most savings accounts are penalized if you do more than 2
withdrawals each month.
ADVERTISING TODAY: Listen to the Washington Mutual ads (www.wamu.com).
They make it sound like free checking is something new and they make it
sound like the bank is there for you...

Cars:
20 yrs ago: a 280Z was about $4,000,
Now: the equivalent car is close to $30,000
Ads: This beer can on wheels is what you need (though we'll never tell you
it'll break down every 250 miles and you stand to get killed if you hit a
cat doing 30mph)

And you hit politicians on the nose! And people wonder why people like us
are so interested in colonizing elsewhere!

_____

g>
Keith Barrows
The Terran Institute - http://www.terraninstitute.com

Terran Institute Forums - http://www.terraninstitute.info

Terran Institute Web Logs - http://weblogs.terraninstitute.com

Space Web Log - http://weblogs.terraninstitute.com/keith.barrows/
Personal Web Log - http://weblogs.sol3.net/keith.barrows/
ASP.NET MVP - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
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Dev Advice - http://devadvice.com/

From: Justin [mailto:cybersattva@...]
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 7:47 AM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] Try this ESP Experiment

SPOILER--don't read until you have played with TangoMan's puzzle

SPOILER SPACE

Darren, good catch! I fell for it too, until I pressed my browser's back
button and looked carefully at all 6 of the original cards. What I find
interesting is that I never would have figured it out if I hadn't been able
to "go back in time" and study the original presentation. How often do
people (salespeople and politicians spring to mind) use tricks like this
against us in everyday life, I wonder?
What could we do to protect ourselves, besides develop photographic memories
(and if there's a line somewhere for photographic memories, let me know, I
want in!)?

--Justin

From: Darren Brown
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 18:03:32 +1000
Subject: RE: [spacesettlers] Try this ESP Experiment
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com

Tango,

Very good, in fact excellent but not really what it seems. Like most
people, I found this to be doing a very good job of "READING MY MIND"
for about 5 mins but then I did the science thing and tested it, with
nothing more than a good look and a bit of thinking it soon became obvious
what was happening.

The answer below, if you want to work it out yourself don't go down and
read it;

The answer,

What he is doing is very simple, the trap is one that many fall into,
people who are certain of what is going to happen or have a large
investment in an outcome. In a way it is the same kind of problem we have
with people only thinking that a planet is the place to build a colony. He
is giving us exactly what we are expecting, first he TELLS us what is going
to happen and then he gives us what looks like what we are expecting. He
shows us 6 cards and asks us to pick one and then he shows us 5 cards and
tells us that the one we picked is not there. Most people will not be able
to remember what 6 cards they are shown and if you look you will find that
none of the first 6 are shown in the second lot of 5.
He gives us 6 picture cards and then 5 different picture cards and tells
us that the card we picked from the first 6 is not in the second 5. This is
true but you then draw the wrong conclusion because he has told you what to
expect and so you trick yourself into agreeing with him, a good magic
trick.

Very Good.

Darren Brown

From: victoriatangoman [mailto:tango_dancer@...]
Sent: Friday, 6 August 2004 4:33 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Try this ESP Experiment

Ha ha. Let's see how long it takes for some of you programming whiz's to
figure out how the prediction rate is so high. LOL.

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/esp.html

TangoMan

s/S=:HM/A!28215/rand7656758>

_____

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