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Underground > Laboratory >

Magician’s lottery list accurate

20:38 / 15.10.01

Okay, this is for everybody but all the Randi people should also check it out for kicks and stuff.

http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=116404

quote:THE American illusionist David Copperfield said yesterday he has been bombarded by requests for tips on the winning numbers in Germany’s national lottery on Saturday night - numbers he said he predicted seven months ago.

Copperfield wrote down his forecast on 17 February for the multi-million mark lottery drawing due on 13 October. The prediction was sealed by a notary and locked in a box that was kept under round-the-clock surveillance.

An hour after the winning numbers were drawn, the box was opened on a live television broadcast and the numbers matched the winning draw: 2, 9, 10, 15, 25, 38 and 4.

"It wasn’t a trick," Copperfield told Bild am Sonntag newspaper after the performance on the popular Wanna Bet? show on ZDF television. "It was more an experiment and mental exercise. We only use about 10 per cent of our brain capacity."

Copperfield said he is not tempted to play the lottery himself because he would not be able to "see" the numbers. "I used to try it out by giving friends the numbers, but then it would never work," he said. "If the numbers aren’t kept secret, it doesn’t work."

Copperfield said hundreds of people had written him since February begging him for tips on what numbers to pick. "Hundreds of emails, so many letters and requests from people in despair. "

Our Lady of The Two Towers

10:10 / 17.10.01

Fine and dandy except that 'we only use 10% of our brain capacity' has been rubbished hasn't it? If we really only used 10% of our brain capacity we'd only be able to roll around in the dirt or play guitar in Cast.

02:27 / 23.10.01

Look, it looks the way Copperfield wants it to look. It's pathetic that he has sunk to John Edward's level, but, nevertheless, we have three alternatives as to what really happened:

1. David Copperfield has psychic powers that violate every law we know of, including Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity;

2. David Copperfield rigged the lottery;

3. David Copperfield performed a magic trick.

Our evidence? David Copperfield produced numbers from an envelope that matched the numbers already selected by the lottery. No one saw them before then. We have only his word, and the word of those around him during the process, that the envelope was not tampered with, and that no other means of performing this feat was possible in their estimation.

In other words, this is not evidence for psychic powers, just like DC making the Statue of Liberty vanish is not evidence for atomic transferrence or molecular lucidation.

Clavis

06:31 / 23.10.01

*nod* Now I know why Penn & Teller insist on referring to Copperfield as "Rat-Bastard".

08:03 / 23.10.01

I think the key line here is :

"If the numbers aren’t kept secret, it doesn’t work."

So, taking DC at his word and assuming he has some supernatural power, it must rank as one of the most pointless powers of all time: the ability to predict, but to do nothing with the information gleaned.

With the ability to bend spoons coming a close second, I fear.

DBC

14:33 / 23.10.01

Uh.. how do psychic powers "violate every law we know of, including Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity?

And...

quote:Our evidence? David Copperfield produced numbers from an envelope that matched the numbers already selected by the lottery. No one saw them before then. We have only his word, and the word of those around him during the process, that the envelope was not tampered with, and that no other means of performing this feat was possible in their estimation.

Did you actually read the article? The numbers were sealed in an envelop that was put into a safe which was under constant surveillance by video cameras. Then the envelope was opened on live television. You can't say that we're taking Copperfield at his word.

And...

quote:So, taking DC at his word and assuming he has some supernatural power, it must rank as one of the most pointless powers of all time: the ability to predict, but to do nothing with the information gleaned.

He said that it doesn't work if he gives the numbers to somebody else before the drawing. He never said that it doesn't work if those numbers are on a lottery ticket. Heh heh heh.

16:58 / 23.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Lionheart:
Did you actually read the article? The numbers were sealed in an envelop that was put into a safe which was under constant surveillance by video cameras. Then the envelope was opened on live television. You can't say that we're taking Copperfield at his word.
David Copperfield was also sealed in an envelope that was put into a safe under constant surveillance by video cameras when he was locked in a building that was being demolished. I still think it's more likely that he performed a great illusion and/or daring escape trick than he teleported.

18:40 / 23.10.01

Wow. I am going to send David Copperfield all my money and worship him as my god. Maybe he will share the secrets of his awesome psychic powers with me, or give me a winning ticket.

Oh, by the way, here’s a better way to demonstrate the power Copperfield claims to possess: make a ASCII file with the winning number in it (as unambiguous text, “five eighteen eight twenty-one nineteen” for example), encrypt the file with a 32-bit code and mail it all over the world. Then release the key to the file when the lottery is done. Hard to cheat that scheme, and hard to dispute the result.

19:44 / 23.10.01

Look, what's it matter? If he really did pick the winning numbers then, well he's a freaking illusionist. He wasn't born with any psychic powers or whatever. Hell if he can do it so can we.

Speaking of the lotto, how many people here play it? What always bugs me about it is how do people pick the numbers? Most of us around here use either the Quickpick (computer generated random series of numbers) or use some sort of preset number string (for example your birthday + your favorite number, etc.) But how do other people pick their numbers? I don't care if they are the winning numbers or not. It just always bugged me. Just like the following situation which has occured to me quite a few times:

You're about to walk into another room. There are two doors (a door on the left and a door on the right) leading into it. Both are open. Both doors are the same distance from you. It doesn't matter which door you decide to go through since they are both exactly the same and are at the same distance from you. My dilemma has always been which door to go through. I used to (and I'm being serious here), in one occassion, stand in front of two doors for over 40 seconds trying to decide which way to go. What I want to know is how other people decide? Why do they pick one door over another if the two doors are exactly the same?

12:59 / 27.10.01

...the right one of course...well actually probably since I "favor" that side so chances are it'll show up more often for me. This kind of stuff puzzles the hell out of me too.

Funny enough...I tend not to play the lotto since proceeds go to older americans

(at least here, it does) but when I do I seem to do better than most. Also won about 1/3 of the drawings I've ever entered...not saying that they were ever very lucrative.

My one friend is the same way with scratch-offs...tends to win more than what he spends on a regular basis...knowing that of course this shouldn't happen if the game is supposed to generate money instead of giving it away...

A

00:36 / 29.10.01

So, the envelope was opened on live TV. But DC is an ILLUSIONIST. He could have pulled a live buffalo out of the envelope and it would have been convincing. I don't think it would have been too difficult for him to have faked pulling numbers out of an envelope. (or, if he didn't actually pull them out himself, i'd be willing to wager it was another illusionist who did).

If he REALLY has supernatural powers, then my response would be the same as it is to all those people working on psychic hotlines and suchlike- "Why aren't you using your powers to fight evil?". Everyone knows that's what super powers are for.

01:49 / 29.10.01

but can it be done twice? Reproduceability is the only way to be sure.

19:47 / 29.10.01

Reproduceability?!?!?!

Where does sex fit into all this!!!!

Mordant Carnival

19:58 / 29.10.01

Sex fits in everywhere, I find. Exept a small shower with a big bloke.

And unless David "Camera tricks? What camera tricks? No, I really did palm that jumbo jet, honest!" is prepared to duplicate the feat above under controlled and reproducible contitions, he can take his lotto numbers and insert them into the orifice of his choice.

20:42 / 29.10.01

quote:Originally posted by Mordant Carnival:
And unless David ...is prepared to duplicate the feat above under controlled and reproducible contitions, he can take his lotto numbers and insert them into the orifice of his choice.

I choose . . . YOUR orifice, little Mr. Mordant!

I call this trick . . . the Chinese Rings!

The Return Of Rothkoid

20:53 / 29.10.01

The trick of David's I'd like to see done in front of me is how he manages to get his fucking hair to stay up like that, even in the face of a Force-9 gale windmachine's output.

Now that is magic.

Mordant Carnival

23:10 / 29.10.01

quote:Originally posted by David Copperfield:
I choose . . . YOUR orifice, little Mr. Mordant!
I call this trick . . . the Chinese Rings!

Fuck! Okay, that's me convinced. I was a Ms Mordant before. And remember, folks... no camera tricks were involved.

18:02 / 05.11.01

The 10% of our brain thing is half-true. We only use around 10% and the rest are used for autonomic functions (unconscious mind). So I, that being the conscious entity called Enamon, only use 10% of my brain. The rest is used by my unconscious mind who is called sub-Enamon.

18:05 / 05.11.01

Of course I could be wrong.

18:40 / 05.11.01

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html

quote:In other words, the statement, "We use only 10% of our brains" is false; it's a myth. We use all of our brain.

Where Did the 10% Myth Begin?
The 10% statement may have been started with a misquote of Albert Einstein or the misinterpretation of the work of Pierre Flourens in the 1800s. It may have been William James who wrote in 1908: "We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources" (from The Energies of Men, p. 12). Perhaps it was the work of Karl Lashley in the 1920's and 1930's that started it. Lashley removed large areas of the cerebral cortex in rats and found that these animals could still relearn specific tasks. We now know that destruction of even small areas of the human brain can have devastating effects on behavior. That is one reason why neurosurgeons must carefully map the brain before removing brain tissue during operations for epilepsy or brain tumors: they want to make sure that essential areas of the brain are not damaged.