Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants

Ricky Jay remains one of the greatest card men. He also turns up as an actor in all sorts of interesting places, from Deadwood, to Dylan's promo for Love and Theft.

I loved him when I saw him on chat shows, at the peak of card throwing, and all that. Hilarious and wild and witty.

Thanks to Internet, I can now watch a serious of mind-bending routines that I never had the privilege to see before. If you think card tricks are boring - check this guy out!

Ricky Jay on Wikipedia
Secrets of the Magus - interview

Card Control

Watermelon - Cards as Weapons


Cups and Balls - a complete routine of all variations


Arsenio tv appearance
3 Card Trick etc


Cowboys - and gambling

Bottom dealing - card mechanic tricks revealed (or at least, displayed!


Astounding Card Trick

4 queens 3 ways

RJ Finds a card

Over and Out

I have looked at some of Ben Mack's projects, even though I have nothing to sell.  He seems to have used, or dabbled in, a lot of the tools I have used.  However, I have never turned around million dollar advertising campaigns.  I barely make a living, but then again, you could say the same of Buddhist monks ("what! just one bedroll, a razor, a book and a begging bowl - what a loser mentality!")  Or British diffidence.

I joined assorted mailing lists of his, followed him into a coupla websites, etc.

The whole crossover between magic and magick remains interesting, and I have received newsletters from Jeff McBride's school for some time - so it did amuse me when the two suddenly came together.  Not that I can get to the "ESP boot camp" but you can get a glimpse of student reaction in this blog (for instance)

For more on Jeff McBride, Eugene Berger, etc check out The Secret Art Journal among the links down the right hand side...Or for their store, look at Your Magic

How do they DO that?

...or WHY do they do that?

When I was a kid I got into magic because of the cross-indexing of optical illusions, paradoxes, psychology, hypnotism, magnets, gizmos, ingenuity, mnemonics, numbers, symbols, etc.
The thing of puzzling, amusing or amazing people came later.

I never really developed a ‘magician’ persona, although I went through phases of doing tricks for people, and when I became a comedy juggler I used my magical knowledge to add supplementary surprises to my street act. But I never had to decide whether to be ‘natural’ or ‘supernatural’ – to act like a bank manager with his hobby in a bar (so many magicians seemed like that back in the 50s) or completely nutty like Ali Bongo – who dressed and acted like a cartoon character. Then there was the genius of incompetence – Tommy Cooper – but the act depended on your having seen too many bad magicians, really.

Now we have laid-back stoned enigmas like David Blaine, Las Vegas glam like David Copperfield and Siegfried and Roy, sub-punk rockers like Criss Angel the MindFreak, and elegant mindfuckers like Derren Brown (quintessentially British, and my favourite of that bunch – for asserting scepticism, while demonstrating wild talents). From the USA only Penn and Teller continue to entertain AND demystify at the same time, like him.

Although this remains a cultural stereotype, many Americans do seem to take themselves seriously – and if you combine that with lowered ability for critical analysis you end up with celebrity worship, extreme gullibility and hysteria. Just watch how the crowds respond (even if they are a claque or entourage of stooges) to Criss Angel walking on water…or floating in the air…if you want to see how easily you could become a fundamentalist healer, psychic superstar, etc. Having said that, I feel sure that if I flicked through channels to the lowbrow tv stations I could see much the same style of presentation.

So anyway. Having looked at some of Criss Angel’s stuff, I came across Trickbusters and they made me laugh. They are not magicians exposing tricks – just sceptics thinking things through. Now among magicians giving secrets away is the first ‘sin’. Most magicians dislike expose’s like The Masked Magician – but really those shows only give away lame old tricks that you could find in a book in your library. And anyway they make the mistake of thinking the method is the secret.

Usually, the ‘method’ seems too simple. Many audiences (if told how they got fooled) end up feeling stupid or insulted (only occasionally do they feel impressed by the ingenuity and hard work).

So people who can’t figure things out for themselves probably don’t like smart-ass people who tell them how dumb they are. Or, like my sister, don’t want to know, as they enjoy the illusion better.

So watch a bit of Criss Angel hysteria on YouTube, then give TrickBusters a shot – even if they have lower production values.

And if you haven’t figured out how some of those bigger stunts get done, and DO want to know, then the Internet offers lots of channels of research for the ingenious. For instance, the Copperfield estate has pulled all the Trickbuster’s analysis of the flying illusion (using copyright vid) – as it is (quite rightly) Intellectual Property. I don’t deny that, and still want artists and designers to get properly rewarded. Still, the internet ‘library in the sky’ change everything. The designer of the flying illusion took out a patent (against Copperfield’s wishes) so you can find all the working details online. You have to remember that Special Effects started in theatre (Peter Pan flew when I was a child in live theatre) so there is little new about all this. Magicians back in Houdini’s days used to spy on each other, poach mechanics, get very paranoid about who got backstage, etc.

With film and television we have become more aware that we can witness the apparently impossible, so the ‘live studio audience’ or the passers-by, have become important. It doesn’t mean that tv magicians don’t lie to you!

Sometimes it is just a subtlety that impresses me as a researcher. Theatrical flying usually only involved one or two cables, and even if you could see them you ‘suspended you disbelief’ for the plot (Peter Pan wasn’t a magic show, but a play). The real sneaky difference with Copperfield simply lies in using a cobweb of thin wires – to give the same strength and security without a thick cable to disguise (by lighting or airbrushing out, etc). That gossamer thin support network leaves me gasping at human ingenuity, and I can return to watch the flying illusion to watch how beautifully Copperfield sells it as a dream of flying.

Bear in mind, for all the disputes and discussions, the artistry involved remains the key, and the engineering merely a ‘means-to-an-end’ – although to my mechanic friends the machine might seem more interesting that the ‘poof with the Las Vegas smile’ who just has to act clever…

This comes from the professional's point-of-view - Zigmont Backstage

Basically speaking magic is at four levels. The first might be called a trickster, that all he does, a trick. I fooled you he might say. Your uncle at a backyard barbecue doing a card trick.

Then there is a conjurer, a conjurer not only fools people, he fools them completely. He creates a perfect mystery. A conjurer adds no poetry no sense of wonder. He may buy magic at the local magic shop.

The next level, a magician of the first order, he adds poetry to the mystery. He works with ordinary looking objects. His effects are very beautiful in style. He knows the reason why each effect he has produced has been successful.

The final category is of a very high calibre magician. He deceives in an entertaining way. Amazes through his personality, showmanship and technique. That's when the handling of the illusions produce a thrill of genuine surprise in all who behold it. He never wastes a single movement on stage.

A master magician is he who can produce original effects and understand how to present them in an original and convincing manner. His mastery was due to an innate sense of the principles that he studied. He has made the difficult moves look easy, then the easy became beautiful and the beautiful looks like real magic.

Backstage Boys

Zigmont design and produce illusions, SFX, corporate events, etc. They offer this list of books for anyone who seriously wants to study illusion work.

Jim Steinmeyer designs theatrical illusions, writes great books (both technical and popularist) and has a fascinating website. You can find most of these addresses in my permanent links on the right.

John Gaughan designed the flying rig, remains enigmatic and reclusive - his patent can be found at the US Patent listings - Patent # 5,354,238

I'll leave you to trawl through YouTube. It contains some truly dire homemade magical videos, but also some real treasures. I don't mind kids in their bedroom sharing fumbling videos of their card magic practice - but if you really want to learn stuff, turn to the professionals, and lay out a bit of cash.

My find of the night, however? Video of Lennart Green. Amazing and hilarious! (possibly the greatest card mechanic in the world).

Dealing cards into a laser beam where they disappear. (!)

Nine minutes on Spanish television

Here's 3 minutes without interpreter!

The Great FLYdini

I have a real soft spot for Johnny Carson - I like most people with a magical background (I love the episode of him embarrassing Uri Geller, for instance, by introducing real controls of the props...)

And Steve Martin, back in the days, was truly hilarious - here he is (drawing on his own magical background) as the Great Flydini - it had me on the floor the first time I saw this...

An intriguing event

Sunshine just sent me a link to this fascinating event.

http://medialab-prado.es/

Dates: October 10 through 24, 2008
Application deadline: August 31, 2008

Anyone into magic and technology might wanna give it a visit. I won't be getting to Peru (!) but I love these kind of links.

Introduction

This new edition of Interactivos? is inspired by the strategies of magic and illusion, in order to harness some of the old and new technological resources to collectively build software pieces and interactive installations which can propose a rethinking of the usual scenario in magic tricks, marked by a very clear separation between the wizard and the spectators.
Magic and illusion have always gone hand in hand with technology; from mechanical illusions, optical and mirror tricks, through the incorporation of electricity and the filmed image, to digital technology: augmented reality, reactive objects, reality hacking and immersive spaces.
This open call follows the one celebrated with the same title in Madrid in 2007 and suggests to broaden the topic Magic and Technology through the exploration of the meanings of the magic concept within the local context of Peru.
Through a programme of reflection, research and production, Interactivos?'08 ' Magic and Technology's goals are:
· To propose magic and illusion as an approach for experiments on perception and attention, behaviour and social relationships.
· To propose a critical viewpoint on the seduction of technology and its application on the spectacle as a tool of persuasion and control.
Teachers summoned for the management of the workshop are acknowledged experts in the fields of the developing, application and spreading of open software and open hardware in creative processes and have also a long experience in the educational field and in the management of workshops.

Hip-ocrisy

What fun to see the Brits introduce a law that insists that 'psychics, mediums and clairvoyants, etc' have to add disclaimers to their publicity, to say that what they do is 'entertainment and not scientifically proven', and exempting the churches.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7351199.stm

Ancient discussions with very smart people

When the Maybe Logic Academy opened I suddenly found people who either thought like me, or at least thought about the same sort of things, and were willing to listen to me rant...

Those original forums disappeared into the void (MLA is currently in its 4.0 incarnation) and I certainly want to rescue some of my own words from those days (rather than think it all through again) but some of it might not make sense without the other people's contributions. I'll try to get their permission, but will take it on trust for now (easy enough to remove them, as what I am about to post is more or less a monologue or soliloquy). some of the formatting may have changed, a bit...

Probably Random

Author Message: bogusmagus Newbie
Joined: Jul 23, 2004
Posts: 474
Location: Splott, Caerdydd, Wales, UK
Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 11:47 am
Post subject: Probably Random

We were talking numbers in the chatroom - and about coincidences, and what makes them synchronicities. Though I have had my numerological phases, I lean this way:

Randomness is quite a counter-intuitive concept. If you try to write a random sequence of numbers you may find your own preferences emerging. Even if you manage to avoid 'favourite' numbers you will probably avoid sequences like 777777 or 123456 because they don't 'look random' - whereas a truly random sequence (if there is such a thing) must contain those as well, otherwise there is a pattern of NEVER doing that, (i.e. if you got 123 it would be worth betting the next number will NOT be a 4.)

Quote:
Here's Paul Watzlawick, from How Real is Real (Confusion, Disinformation, Communication)

All right, we say, but real random series must exist, and what we mean by 'real' is that such series are free of any internal order...there is now general agreement among most mathematicians that such a series does not and cannot exist. The essence of randomness, writes G.Spencer Brown in his beautiful little book Probability and Scientific Inference:

has been taken to be absence of pattern. But what has not hitherto been faced is that the absence of one pattern logically demands the presence of another. It is a mathematical contradiction to say that a series has no pattern; the most we can say is that it has no pattern that anyone is likely to look for. The concept of randomness bears meaning only in relation to the observer; if two observers habitually look for different kinds of pattern they are bound to disagree upon the series which they call random.

Improbable things must happen if the sequence is 'truly' random. It may feel strange to be the croupier when the roulette comes up Red 12 times in a row (and both the punters and the casino are going to want an investigation!) but it does happen, has happened, must happen without any trickery or imperfect tools. It may also feel strange to be one of a group of four people who fairly shuffle a pack, cut it, and then deal out four hands each containing a full suit (Hearts, Clubs, Spades, Diamonds). Pretty freaky.

If I was one of the four the others would say "It's one of your conjuring tricks"; if it was a high stakes game, knives might be drawn; if you are into drugs you'd all be going "weeeeird!" and I guess if you are into the occult you think "it's a message". Well, it could be a trick, a con, or a message, but it doesn't have to be. Occam's razor and all that. So when does it become really significant? When you had just been talking about such things? When it's the second time this week?

Wildly improbable things must happen. If you don't win the lottery you think ruefully "Well, I guess it was a 14 million to one shot" and tear up the ticket. But someone won this and every week…and they beat those odds.

The history of gambling is not just full of attempts to avoid conscious cheating (which has to skilfully simulate randomness to evade detection, while bending the odds). More importantly, the casino operator has to get as close as possible to randomness (an unpredictable next throw, roll or deal).

A simple example can be found in dice. A die (singular) has to be perfectly cubic, with no bias. If you paint the numbers on, then the six dot side will be slightly heavier, and the number one will tend (over a long series of throws) to end up at the top. (Numbers on opposite surfaces always add up to seven, by the way). If you drill out the numbers, the 6-side will be lighter than the 1-side and 6 will tend to end up at the top. So, look at a Vegas dice - it is drilled out, and then the paint they put in makes up the weight of the missing plastic. I am not kidding.

Quote:
Randomness is unbeatable.

Synchronicity was a new word invented to describe things that did not (appear to) have causal connections. Acausal Orderedness. Synchronicity has as its essential feature 'meaningfulness'. Causality and synchronicity can be understood as opposed but complementary methods of viewing life and events.

Quote:
Serendipity favours the prepared mind.

BogusMagus sig: "Counterpoints of anthropologists in less specialized cultures include shamans, tricksters, clowns and kind-fools. These figures, like professional anthropologists, doubt the absoluteness of their own culture."



ZenPunkist Newbie
Joined: Aug 31, 2004
Posts: 166
Location: Blackhole, CA
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:33 pm

I get bothered by that - discovering the depth of the program that operates my being. Can I really do anything randomly that wasn't programmed on a level I'm unaware of?
I guess that's why the whole order/disorder absurdity thing works - how do you know you weren't ordered to commit a certain act of disorder to maintain a larger order . . . disturbing. I guess the opposite could be just as true though . . . comforting. Aaah


bogusmagus
Post subject: sorry 'bout writing/ranting at length...

...just in passing, though, having started on coincidence/synchronicity - cards and dice were invented as unpredictable randomizing devices - so we can have fun betting on outcomes, testing our ability to estimate probabilities - or 'the odds'. We insist that they must be accurate reproducers of 'the random' otherwise it is called cheating (making it unfairly predictable for sombunall participants).

We describe unusual patterns or outcomes as 'runs of luck' of different kinds. Although we don't actually allow cheating, we do allow 'will-power' and 'wishing-very-hard' magic and 'praying' to influence the outcome. If you can do telekinesis or have a god that really can interfere then, to me, you are cheating and spoiling the game.

I find it interesting that the very same randomizers (cards, dice, tossed coins) whose sequences most of us accept really don't have any 'significance', or predictable quality, are also used for divination, and 'meaningful' use. If we accept that there is nothing more than probability going on, then we know the events and sequences can only be something for us to project onto.

Synchronicity appears to be attributing meaning to stuff that merely occurs at random - whatever that means. Or we use it to describe projections matching up with reality (the self-fulfilling prophecy, at times?)

I like a random universe, with fluctuating and emergent patterns (some of them make me laugh out loud, others make me curse my 'fate', when I am feeling superstitious) - and I don't seem to need any outside influences - no gods, no magical powers, no special privilege - to explain what happens. Good Luck and Bad Luck balance out in the end. And if they don't I look for the human element - the trickster, hustler, charlatan, cheat or con.

ZenPunkist
Post subject: Synchronicity!!

We're so in similar trips right now!!

I was just at a party last night telling someone that the only thing I believe in is uncertainty, & I still have a few doubts about that. They were arguing that they depend on certainty since they're into studying money trends - and we were able to agree that one could guess at the probability of occurrences but still never attain certainty as long as entropy continues to exist. It was great . . . I wrote down the RAW website & a few books on a dollar bill for him to read into (tying in both our interests . . . I might as well be a freak'n politician).

And then - you talk about the trickster figure - and I've been writing so much on that . . . I think tricksters breed shamans (by encouraging free individual thought rather than reliance on truth or "THE WORD" to come from a credible figure), shamans then breed followers (they try to show others the truth instead of encouraging them to think for themselves), then the shamans & followers together breed more tricksters - who try to correct the 'following' defect that occurs in humanity - only to create more shamans. But I guess it takes all kinds to keep the game interesting (just like dice & cards, right?).

So many a days/nights, I eat some shrooms, walk into town by myself, & engage random people in little trips that disturb their certainty & become entropy within the human form - a trickster - It's amazing how offset people become just at the idea that a random stranger would approach them. Screw them!! I figure, you can't get offended when the Giant Russian Tortoises start humping, moaning, & thudding in front of your kid at the zoo . . . cause . . . you're at the zoo to see nature & that's what nature does. And the whole universe is a zoo - so screw all who are so uppety that they get offended by nature!!

Great talking with you! I'm glad probability brought our streams of conscious together. . . . though I'd never place a bet on where they'd go from here!

Vampigato

say zen, how do u start those mind blowing (i assume they appear mind blowing to ur "victims") conversations of yours?? i'd like to try it some time, but since i've been much of an introvert all my life and more recently i no longer care much for the usage of words, i have no god damned idea what to say...


bogusmagus
Post subject: I love this stuff

Hi ZP
it sounds like a great pass-time! I speak as someone who wanted to carry on with my crazy shit and still be acceptable enough not to get locked up, back in the mind-blown days of the 60s and early 70s.

I turned into a street performer, back when that was not a profession - it meant I could go out dressed colourfully, and then act 'crazy' and get paid for it (hopefully). It kept me going for years, without having to get a 9-5 job - I got enough work as a (socially acceptable) Court Jester, and Fool, and Clown - I even got paid to run workshops - it was great!

That was when I started looking up Trickster (possibly my favourite 'god' or archetype).

fuzzbuddy

Here's the kinda thing you could do Vampigato.
BATMAN: Go up to a total stranger in the street and say "Hello, I'm Batman". When they look totally bewildered and outwitted, pretend you've got it wrong, I meant to say "Hello, you're a FAT MAN!!!". Then laugh at them and run away. I've tried this one several times, and sometimes I take along a little cassette recorder so that I and the rest of the Silly Billies can have a good chortle when we get back to the pad afterwards.
(quoted from Rick in the Young Ones book: Bachelor boys)
of course this might seem a bit mean, but I'm sure you could come up with a variation. all part of OM you see.
Be interested to hear what kinda things you chat about ZP. BM you sly devil you, carrying on with crazy shit in a disguise that people find acceptable for you to be crazy in...I like your style.


pentaphobe

Joined: Jul 30, 2004
Posts: 65
Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:56 pm
Post subject:

hey! sorry to jump back to the top post (after so much other interesting stuff has passed), but bogusmagus' post inspired me to add two pennies...

bogusmagus: you've hit on one of my favorite preaching topics, and an ongoing pseudo-philosophy thingy that I've had for years...

Though I've spent so long preaching it in popular terms that I fear I may not have much to add - so a few random points off the cuff (forgive redudancy, I'm quoting myself):
randomness is just a pattern you don't understand [yet] - or - randomness is the presence of more information than you can decode.

these two (obvious) statements were drawn about a decade ago when I was sitting, stoned, staring at a broken television - I was in the dog-ends of a long obsession with pi and cryptography and was looking for patterns everywhere (and mildly obsessed with the gnosis caused by "information overload"). ("white noise" is the most common example of a "random" signal - and when explaining white noise to the uninitiated, most people seem to turn to detuned television sets, or detuned radios for an example.) anyway - sitting there I came to the (again, obvious) conclusion that there wasn't a random thing to be seen on that screen - instead it was a combination of a few clipped channels, solar flares, nearby cars, radios, etc.. all bundled together in a fairly narrow representation (black and white dots) that rendered it very difficult to comprehend.

okay - to the point(s) (if any):

information theory also refers to randomness (noise) as a sum of large amounts of information [in a narrow band]. this was interesting in the sense that the popular opinion (or common meme) on noise was an absence of information rather than a surplus.

cryptographers are also quite wise to the whole "random" thing, and refer to most things as pseudorandom. (to the best of my knowledge, the only thing they consider "truly random", or at least "random enough" is the decay of radioactive materials.

as far as I know - the standard definition of a "good" [pseudo]random sequence is a flat distribution. to put it another way, a sequence is considered "strong" if each possible value occurs an equal number of times to all of the other possible values.

The issue here (just to overexplain) is touched on by bogusmagus in his reference to asymmetrical probabilities in dice rolls - over a short enough sample period, ANY sequence can seem random and amusingly enough, over a short enough period, ANY sequence can seem ordered.

ie. (bad example)if I were to write the sequence: 6,5,? then you'd "know" it wasn't random.
if I wrote: 6,5,8,4,? - then you might end up scratching your head.

but if I were to write: 0,7,2,6,4,5,6,4,8,3,10,2,? then (again) you'd start to get the picture.
(and if I expanded the bandwidth and wrote:
0___2___4___6___8___10 __7___6___5___4___3____2
then you'd probably either slap your forehead, or wonder why I'm flogging this horse, and what it ever did to me)

likewise - if I roll a die 10 times, I might be able to find a basic pattern (which will no doubt be disproved within the following rolls) if I roll a die 100 times and write down how many occurances there are of each face, the distribution will be pretty even, and I [probably] won't find a pattern that matches. (it seems random) but if I roll the die 1,000,000,000 times, I might start to see a lean towards lower numbers (numbers that are opposite a face with a high number)

as bogusmagus mentioned, a TRUE random sequence should also include sequences like "77777" or "123456". And the mathematicians say that a true random sequence is evenly distributed.....

problem is: if you take a sample of a TRUE random sequence, there is a likelihood that your sample will not be evenly distributed, implying that the sequence doesn't fit "randomness". but keep going (let's be scientists, kids!) - extend that sample to get a little more detail. at this point, the distribution may increase or decrease at any given point... hmmm ...but keep going....

ad infinitum.

basically - it's not so much that "randomness is impossible" - but rather that "randomness can never be proven, nor disproven." (scientists love to hate that, et Vicky Verka)

.... hmm.. I could launch into a whole lot more in connection with this - but instead I will allow myself the realisation that jamesons and attempting to communicate left-brain concepts is just not working for me right now

please disregard all non-sequiters

bogusmagus
Post subject: Random Jottings

That's the stuff, Pentaphobe. Brilliant, thank-you. That's the big puzzle to me. I collected definitions of random and pattern - chaos and complexity - probable and improbable - and brooded about open and closed systems for years.

If I could get it (anticipate random sequences) I could break the bank at the casino. If I could simulate randomness I could cheat at gambling and still get away with it (it's only the really improbable that is going to draw attention - all you need is a slight edge - it's all that the casinos and banks and insurance companies run on, after all, they don't have to cheat - although Las Vegas adding the double zero to French Roulette just seemed greedy to me).

Here are some of my 'random jottings' from back in the days when I was reading Prigogene - and before we had quite reached chaos and complexity theories, and fractals, and emergent order and all that...

Quote:
A sequence of events is said to be random if there is no way of predicting the next event of a given kind from the event or events that have preceded and if the system obeys the regularities of probability. Note that the events which we say are random are always members of some limited set. The fall of an honest coin is said to be random. At each throw the probability of the next fall being heads or tails remains unchanged. But the randomness is within the limited set. It is heads or tails; no alternatives are to be considered.

Quote:
Probability theory says nothing about individual events.

Quote:
Chance is essentially unpredictable because singular.

Quote:
We cannot act without being part of a distribution. Probability distributions do not affect individual events. Individual events establish the distribution. Individual chaos implies collective determinism.

Quote:
Random events are bound to even out in the end. If they don't, they aren't random.

Quote:
The most probable outcome is the most disordered (the outcome with the most ways of manifesting) - 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (tendency to entropy) leads to absolute disorder and ignorance.

most probable most stable least ordered

There is a range of disorder that not only allows, but actually encourages formation of local order. In complex, far from equilibrium states, improbable fluctuations occur.
I used to love this stuff when I was stoned...it's DNA's Improbability Drive...

Quote:
Thus, according to the theory of chance implied in the idea of dissipative structures, when fluctuations force an existing system into a far-from-equilibrium condition and threaten its structure, it approachs a critical moment or bifurcation point. At this point, according to the authors, it is inherently impossible to determine in advance the next state of the system. Chance nudges what remains of the system down a new path of development. and once the path is chosen (from among many) determinism takes over again until the next bifurcation point is reached. Here, in short, we see chance and necessity not as irreconcilable opposites, but each playing its role as a partner in destiny. If Prigogene and Stengers are right and chance plays its part at or near the point of bifurcation, after which deterministic processes take over again until the next bifurcation, are they not embedding chance, itself, within a deterministic framework? By assigning a particular role to chance, don't they de-chance it?


PRIGOGINE: Yes. That would be true. But, of course, we can never determine when the next bifurcation will arise.

ZenPunkist

Post subject: Holey Ship (of state)!

That's some seriously mind-blowing stuff right there! You all are amazing!
Unity, Randomness, trickster, random acts of chaos . . . here it goes:
In one pocket, put a set of dice - in the other pocket, put a numbered list of conversation topics (you could maybe borrow from this forum). Roll the dice & pick a topic that matches the # you roll before approaching the unsuspecting.

Find a group of 3 people (my experiences find the best reception from groups of 3). Ask them if they're enjoying conversing privately as a group, or if they might welcome the intrusion of a stranger. If they blow you off, throw the dice at them & run (just kidding). I usually explain that I think that as technology advances, human beings interact less & less (except for the internet - but there people usually only talk with others who share their same interests - so small scope nonetheless) - thus become more dependent on the media to tell them what the people around them are like. The media is faulty and subjective, so we become more & more out of touch with our own species unless we interact as such.

That's my opener . . . it usually makes people less defensive & more responsive to me. It's amazing how hard it is to get people over the general sense that everyone who approaches them is trying to get something out of them. That must come from depending on the media to depict society as it is.

bogusmagus
Post subject: You're probably going to love this, then...

I heard that Brian Eno had a set of cards that he got made up to help him when he was creatively stuck (working on music with Bowie, like "Low" etc) - and they were called (as a set) Oblique Strategies.

I originally got a pseudo-random set (for free!) from the web,and kept them on my desk top.

Then I got a download of all the words, and made a paper set (to which I could add my own, of course).

Finally I treated myself to a beautiful pack of cards that I got from Rough Trade.

I can't recommend them highly enough, so I won't.

fuzzbuddy

Those cards sound interesting, I just looked at the website. Yesterday I kept noticing the number 8 in a lot of places. Not sure how I got tuned into 8-ness or even why, so I wouldn't say it's synchronicity, but I wouldn't necessarily think of it as random either. I know a guy who plays "psychic craps" at casinos. I've seen him with a few £grand in under an hour before and when he was helping me learn (I didn't really understand the rules fully, which i think wrecked my concentration a bit) I threw hard 6 and then he said can you do that again and so I did. He likes to finda table where time is acting "oddly" and if someone is having a long turn without realising that "he shouldn't be" according to negative thoughts etc. he helps the peolpe around him keep him in that zone..

pentaphobe
Post subject:
This just popped up "randomly" - says more in a sentence than all of my above waffling

Quote:
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.

(no source)



RAW
Joined: Jul 24, 2004
Posts: 102
Location: Republic of California
Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 9:10 pm
Post subject:

I suspect that randomness exists only in the holistic system [observer/observed]
and not in the observed alone.

Like predictibility, or information/



Acrillic
Joined: Jul 23, 2004
Posts: 49
Location: on the road
Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:56 pm

I find Rupert Sheldrake's experiments and descriptions very helpful in getting a handle on the tricky concept's of predictability, randomness, precognition etc. Bogus and Pentaphobe, you have an amazing ability to translate into words the mind-bending concepts. Noyse thread.

Quote:Experiments on Telephone Telepathy by Rupert Sheldrake

INTRODUCTION


Many people have found that they think about someone they haven't thought of for a while, and then that person calls. Also, many people say that sometimes when the telephone starts ringing they sometimes know who is calling them, even when they had no reason to expect this person to call.

Skeptics usually dismiss these experiences by suggesting that they are a matter of chance coincidence, combined with selective memory: people only remember the times they were right and forget when they were wrong. But skeptics have no data to back up these suggestions. Surprisingly, there as been almost no research on this subject, so the question is entirely open. --

Bogus Magus:

Well, I can't speak for Pentaphobe but my own interest dates right back to childhood, when my hobby was conjuring. If you spend your childhood shuffling cards and trying to make them do improbable things then you need to know what appears improbable to people, and what could just be 'luck'.

Given that 'suckers' all play some kind of card game, most people think they know roughly how likely certain outcomes are. Gamblers are notoriously unreliable about odds - except for the sober professional gambler, who plays as shrewdly as 'the bank' or 'casino' or 'insurance company', all of whom make their profits on small but regular margins, which are predictable (unless someone cheats).

Sucker: Is this a game of chance?

W.C.Fields: Not the way I play it, no...

It seems weird that people could shuffle and deal a deck of cards and end up with a full suit each. The odds of that particular sequence resulting from a shuffle are represented by the number 52x51x50x49x48 etc. It's a huge impressive number. As it happens, of course, these are the same odds against ANY particular sequence of cards. Every time you shuffle cards you end up with one of these combinations. So wildly improbable is not impossible, in fact, one of these sequences is CERTAIN.

For me to think an event appeared weird the cards might have to be dealt out and not just distribute themselves to four individuals but arrive in sequence AH 2H 3H 4H 5H, etc. But that would still be superstitious behaviour on my part - that would still be one of the possible outcomes that happen every time you play.

Indeed I think the fascination of gambling for humans has always been to watch the random dance, the apparently regular as well as the seemingly unusual (freak) event. As all outcomes are equally likely the surprise can only come from sequences that look like patterns to us.

If I can reproduce one of those weirder outcomes it looks like 'magic', just because it is improbable (not impossible) - for the audience it is fun to 'be there' to witness such an unusual event.

When unusual patterns emerge from the random the casino will investigate the possibility of cheating, of course, or may wish to cheat themselves to stop randomness giving away all their money!

We are talking big numbers here:

Quote:
If you are dealt 13 cards, your chances of getting the following hands are:

13 spades (in any order): 1 in 635,013,559,600
13 cards in the same suit (in any order): 1 in 158,753,389,900
13 spades in the CORRECT order (i.e. Ace,2,3,....queen,king): 1 in 3,954,242,643,910,000,000,000
If you have four players receiving 13 cards each, these are the chances involved:

All four players getting one complete suit each: 1 in 2,235,197,406,900,000,000,000,000,000
All four players getting all 13 cards of their favourite suit in the correct order :
1 in 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Still nowhere near a Googol ( a 1 with 100 zeros after it).

And of course, none of this eliminates the possibility of the intervention of the gods, or the effect of seriously willing the cards to come out in your favour (although one assumes that opposing player's wishes might cancel each other out!) It is certainly an opportunity for fate to interfere in your life and change everything at the turn of a card.

Personally, I would recommend asking for a new deck, shuffling them, and getting someone else to cut, before playing for money.

Still, Hilda Golding says it happened to her and her friends

pentaphobe

I think Terry Pratchett put it well:

"But it's a million in one chance!"
"yes, but Million in one chances happen nine times out of ten."



(paraphrasing)

bogusmagus
Post subject: yup

He's so fecking succinct...
_________________
"Counterpoints of anthropologists in less specialized cultures include shamans, tricksters, clowns and kind-fools. These figures, like professional anthropologists, doubt the absoluteness of their own culture."




And some of these obsessions, and practice runs at explaining things, ended up in a piece I wrote for the Maybe Quarterly #5 - "I wouldn't Want To Play Cards With Him" and also possibly in these pieces (well, I called it an obsession!) Always Assuming Deception Detection The Mind Playing Tricks on Itself and probably quite a lot of my other stuff!