A photo from New Orleans.
If I were a real psychic, I wouldn't pay for "24 hr. surveillance", as the sign at the left indicates. Instead, I'd just send security guards around at the time I knew people were about to break in.
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13 comments:
Jeffrey: just because a person is a psychic does not mean that he or she can foretell the happening of every future event, or that he or she can foretell the happening of any particular event with arbitrary precision. There simply is nothing contained within the concept of 'psychic' that demands these outrageous assumptions be satisfied. Therefore, your critique is meaningless. I expect more rigor from a scientist, quite frankly.
Is there any evidence that psychics can really foretell any future events better than the rest of us?
By the way, it was intended to be a bit of lighthearted fun. Sorry if that was not apparent to you.
A demand for scientific rigor from a defender of psychics. Does it get any better than that?
Ha....yawn...ha. Clearly you have nothing better to do on Easter weekend. With your dull-witted and clearly misinformed sense of humor it comes as no suprise that you probably have no friends or family to spend the weekend with. And nobody needs to be psychic to know that. Just get a life. And go pick on someone or something who poses a real threat to society. How about the idiots who bullied you in school. Go feed some hungry street children or volunteer to clean up the mess in Japan. Do something useful with your time.
Good stuff, anonymous! Your troll impersonation is quite good, but you forgot to randomly capitalize some words. Keep working on it!
And, of course, Anonymous has momentarily suspended his voluntary clean up duties in Japan to come to the defense of the poor pyschic.
It occurs to me (taking this far more seriously than it's intended) that even if (1) the alleged psychic were really psychic and (2) this meant having the ability to foretell the future with near-perfect accuracy, it might still be worth advertising that they have 24-hour surveillance. Because it's better not to have anyone even try to break in than to deal with it when it happens, and would-be burglars and vandals might not be deterred by a sign saying "I'm a psychic and will send the guards shortly before you try to break in".
(With sufficiently detailed predictive powers, even better approaches might be possible. But then, with sufficiently detailed predictive powers one could do all sorts of things vastly more worth while than running a seedy little psychic-readings-for-sale joint.)
I'll grant the lighthearted intent, though it's kind of an old joke.
But the first thing that comes to my mind is that even if someone had reliable psychic powers, and even if these included the ability to predict the future (as opposed to, say, reading minds or seeing hidden objects), you still can't assume that it's worth the effort to apply them in every conceivable instance.
Suspending disbelief for a minute, it might just be more cost-effective to hire a security guard to handle the routine surveillance and keep your powers fresh for your clients. There's no inherent contradiction. Maybe being a psychic is a lot of work, and about the last things psychics want to do in their free time is predict things.
A lot of jokes along these lines seem to assume that once something is magical, the whole cost/benefit analysis becomes irrelevant.
One that has stuck in my mind was told by Irish comedian Dave Allen (on Dave Allen at Large, broadcast in the US on public TV years ago) about a guy who is granted three wishes by a genie and uses the first on a pint of Guinness that turns out to replenish itself. This impresses him so much that he wishes for two more.
Granted, there are probably better uses of wishes, but it's not really true as the joke suggests, that the other wishes are superfluous. The combined output of three magic pints going at full blast would still be less than that of a small, non-magical brewery. E.g., what is the refill rate? Do they have to be empty by a human or can it be done mechanically? Even under ideal circumstances, the flow rate is constrained, so no matter what, he has increased a finite production rate by factor of three.
I'm not really sure where I am going with this. The idea of magic at a cost is dealt with reasonably well in some fantasy writing and role-playing games. Maybe it is a sign of being a total geek to think it through to this level.
You wanted some proof. This is just one of several studies that have been done since the 70's. Dr. Bem, a social psychologist at Cornell University, conducted a series of studies that will be published in one of the most prestigious psychology journals (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).
http://www.psychologytoday.com/em/48990
Quoting the author: "So although humans perceive time as linear, it doesn't necessarily mean it is so. And as good scientists, we shouldn't let out preconceived beliefs and biases influence what we study, even if these preconceived beliefs reflect our basic assumptions about how time and space work."
Do read the WHOLE article, like an intelligent, educated and responsible 'scientist' would do, before you make all kinds of narrow-minded judgments or cynical comments.
By the way true skeptics are open-minded and enjoy exploring alternative theories. The true skeptic accepts and honors the fact that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain. True skepticism is about suspended judgment, or systematic doubt, or objective criticism. It is certainly not about making clumsy jokes or mocking the belief systems of others based on popular stereotypes.
Bem's work has already been debunked:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future
Thank you for enlightening us on what a True Skeptic(TM)is, Anonymous.
Annonymous, at some point you will have to realize that their are no psychics. If you step back and really look at it if there ever was one he/she would known worldwide and be of tremendous use to mankind. This would be a tremendous power. What we have are people who give general statements about the future that leave a wide range of possibilities so that what is predicted can be attatched to it. This is different than someone giving pinpoint accurate moment by moment detail to future events which has never happened. Just something to think about.
I am not going to comment to if this person is psychic or not but from I understand you are indicating that this person is not psychic because they have a security camera outside their store. Well let me debunk your claim. It is very clear you do not live in New Orleans. the sign says Rue Royal on it which means this psychic is located in the French Quarter and at night time all kinds of drunk tourists will walk right up to your front door step and take a piss or vomit or even brake your window just for drunken shits and giggles many residents and shop owners put security cameras outside to deter this kind of stuff from happening. I don't think you would like it if you had to hose off vomit and piss from your front door every morning now would you?
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