A Higher Probability

[themyst]

Two weeks ago my friend (ex almost-girlfriend) asked me to visit with her and some friends. Now about 3 months ago she started re-seeing her ex-boyfriend from over three years ago. I immediately guessed that she was going to announce her engagement to this guy even though they have technically been seeing each other for only three months.

I get to the party and during the fun and drinks she announces that yes, she and boyfriend are now engaged.

So am I psychic or just know my friends really well. I don’t care.

My question, and it is just an enquiry, how would one go about setting up some sort of test to examine the possibility of a higher probability factor to my guesses about my friends?

 

[joller]

Probab ly not the correct forum for that sort of discussion - this one is for challenges only.

It's a difficult question, with your friends. You know them well, so you any tests you'll do won't be properly double blind.
If you want to establish if you're psychic or not, than I'm afraid the tests would have to exclude your friends.
But you said 'you don't care' - so i'm not really sure what the point is.

the possibility of a higher probability factor to my guesses about my friends?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. And you said you don't care anyway.

 

[themyst]

As an atheist, I have great skeptic belief in the possibility of psychics but on a worryingly large amount I have guessed right about things in the future, an example is the above.

I once tried to make an effort to make guesses about the future and to see if they came true and as was expected, most did not.

But again I look to the above episode, and to others in the past and the thing is, sometimes I make a guess and it is correct. Now on most occasions I can easily reason out why I made a correct guess, for example I knew my friend and her feelings to her then ex.

Now having done a random bunch of guesses and mapped the results I know that the odds are very, very low of any of the guesses being correct, …. but sometimes they are.

I was wondering, if such a challenge for the $1m came about, what would be a 'probability factor' of correct guesses before one should even consider putting together a formal application to the challenge.

I chose this board to post this thread because I have seen far too many people wanting to apply for the challenge with only one or two correct guesses, I was interesting in coming up with some sort of baseline of correct guesses.

Of course whatever baseline we think is appropriate has no real meaning in real life as it is a mutually agreed upon value that would count in the challenge and even if we think 10 guesses is the minimum, the final value for a challenge agreed upon could be two.

Basically put, I was thinking the following day after the incident above, how would I go about putting such an incident forward as an application for the $1m. I could not come up with a single reasonable test and gave up. But the idea still nagged at me and in the end I thought, why not ask the guys here, see what they say.

 

[Ririon]

Knowing your friends and making educated guesses about their future is not a paranormal ability. I would say that qualifies for the "$1 million intuition/social intelligence challenge" and not the "$1 million paranormal challenge". As far as I know, only one of those challenges exist, but you can still make some money or other benefits from an ability to predict what other people will do.

 

[themyst]

As far as I know, only one of those challenges exist

and that would be the "$1 million intuition/social intelligence challenge" ?

Most people I know would consider this ability psychic even if I tell then that there is not such ability. Amazing that most people will believe that you have magical abilities even if you, yourself deny them.

My question still remains, how often would one have to be able to 'guess' these things before the probability factor goes beyond chance and how would one actually test for this?

 

[themyst]

Amazing that most people will believe that you have magical abilities even if you, yourself deny them.

This reminds me of a friend who was determined that David Copperfield was using Satanic Magic for his illusions, even though I could explain how they were done and David always claimed them to be illusions anyway

 

[Ririon]

...

My question still remains, how often would one have to be able to 'guess' these things before the probability factor goes beyond chance and how would one actually test for this?

7.

It is impossible to make a waterproof protocol for predicting the future decisions of your close friends and relatives. It is very easy to cheat. If you have a suggestion as to how you could avoid the possibility of cheating, you still have the problem of assigning probability figures to these kinds of events.

 

[themyst]

7.

It is impossible to make a waterproof protocol for predicting the future decisions of your close friends and relatives. It is very easy to cheat. If you have a suggestion as to how you could avoid the possibility of cheating, you still have the problem of assigning probability figures to these kinds of events.

That was my own thought but I was wondering what others thought.

 

[LunarMoon]

If you really want to test whether you're psychic or not, I suggest that you take a Rhine ESP test involving Zenar cards, though I'm very skeptical that what you described is an actual psychic phenomenon. It seems more likely, as suggested before, that you have a very good ability to understand people and thus were able to predict her actions. However, if you were able to pin point the exact day, hour, or situation in which the engagement took place, you may have something worthy of investigation.

 

[Starthinker]

Perhaps because you are close to them you are better at picking up non-verbal clues and other cues.

I have on five occasions told women they were pregnant when I felt that they were, and it turned out I was right. Only once in six times was I wrong. One didn't believe me until a week later when she took a home test. All the others already knew and always say something along the line of "how on earth did you know that? I've only told my husband" or something similar except one woman who I never said anything to, I just kept it to myself and it turned out I was right. I'm not sure how I know but I'm of the opinion that because I have a large nose I'm picking up some sort of pheromone or perhaps picking up on some other cue. Really, I can just feel when a woman is pregnant, I can't put my finger on it. I don't, in any way, believe I am psychic or that something supernatural is going on, there is a rational explanation, I just haven't found it yet. Again, I think either there is some cue I am picking up rather than luck as it's sort of a feeling I get around pregnant women rather than just randomly walking up to women and predicting they are pregnant with the hopes that I'm right.

I've also a reputation now of predicting the sex of the baby but truth be told I'm guessing or cheating and my predictions are right only slighter higher than 50/50, it's just no one remembers the "misses" just like in cold readings. I am aware of this, but that doesn't stop me from secretly liking it just a little when a pregnant woman asks me what I think she is having.


It just occured to me while writing this, even though I'm not psychic or claim to have any paranormal powers nor even believe in any of it, and have even hoaxed some things, would this be a claim that I could submit an application for?

 

[Amapola]

Themyst: read this post, Meg's post. I think you might recognize some of the same "ability" in Meg as you yourself have!

It sounds like you are very clever at reading non-verbal clues. This is a wonderful thing but it does not = psychic.

 

[scotth]

Starthinker, I have found that I have much the same skill. I have correctly identified women as pregnant even before they themselves knew or suspected.

I know how I do it. I am a boob man. While the changes in breast shape and size become much more obvious later in the pregnancy, subtle changes must happen in the first couple of weeks.

It has happened several times that I have seen a girl that I know and thought that there is something different about her. Hmmmm, what is it? Clothes? Hair? Oh, its her boobs that are a tiny bit different. Ah, she must be pregnant. And so far, it has always been so.

Conversely, I have been confided to that a girl thought she might be pregnant. I looked at her and said that I didn't think she was. I then explained why I thought it. She wasn't very re-assured. None the less, I was correct again.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but it take some amazing coincidences. I'm sticking with my current explanation until faced with evidence that I am mistaken.

 

[Starthinker]

Starthinker, I have found that I have much the same skill. I have correctly identified women as pregnant even before they themselves knew or suspected.

I know how I do it. I am a boob man. While the changes in breast shape and size become much more obvious later in the pregnancy, subtle changes must happen in the first couple of weeks.

It has happened several times that I have seen a girl that I know and thought that there is something different about her. Hmmmm, what is it? Clothes? Hair? Oh, its her boobs that are a tiny bit different. Ah, she must be pregnant. And so far, it has always been so.

Conversely, I have been confided to that a girl thought she might be pregnant. I looked at her and said that I didn't think she was. I then explained why I thought it. She wasn't very re-assured. None the less, I was correct again.

Maybe I've just been lucky, but it take some amazing coincidences. I'm sticking with my current explanation until faced with evidence that I am mistaken.

Hmmm, I've always been a vagina man but those are usually covered. I think your explanation makes more sense than pheromones, especially if I'm not conscious of looking at the boobs.

 

[themyst]

I can go with the idea that we pick up on the hidden signals, maybe my friends voice changed a bit or whatever.

So the skeptics says that women's boobs are a vital link in understanding humanity. The believers (woo woo faction) go for 'magical' powers.

And this brings me to a slightly different thought, there should be a simple test that one could devise that could very easily show that it is the 'body's signals' that we pick up on.

I would have gone with the ..... "look at Meg, she can do the same thing. Look at me I can do the same thing. We are not psychic'. But this idea does not really work. Randi tries it often by showing us that he gets the same results as the psychic and it is only an illusion but the 'believes' still go on believing.

I posted here hoping to find a test but we end up with what we all already know, you can't disprove an impossibility.


I suppose the only way to end this thread, is to close it off is with a recipe. Thanks for the help.


Old Fashioned Soetkoekies (sweet cakes)

Ingredients

960g flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp bicarb
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp cinammon
400g sugar
230g butter / margerine
2 eggs
200ml sweet white wine

Methodology

preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius
sift together the flour, salt, bicarb, cloves and cinnamon.
add the sugar.
grate the butter and use the tips of your fingers to mix it into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
in a seperate bowl mix together the eggs and wine.
add gradually to the flour mixture until a smooth dough is formed, kneading thoroughly.
leave for an hour to stand.
cut into quarters and roll out a quarter.
cut the shapes and place on a floured baking tray.
repeat with the remainder of the dough.
bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
allow to cool.
sprinkle with icing sugar.
serve.