Derren Brown's cold reading
Cold reading : Confirmation bias : Selective validation
It seems that quite a few people find the following argument logically invalid (i.e. they refuse that statement 3 follows from statements 1 & 2), because they do not distinguish their beliefs regarding true-false values of statements from their logical validity within a context.
* If it rains I will get wet.
* If I have my umbrella I won't get wet.
-> Therefore, if I have my umbrella it won't rain.
1 comment:
i saw a 3 hour show by Derren Brown on tv in january (aired in India). At the end of the show, he gave a huge sunday London Times newspaper to a member of the audience and asked her to pick out one word from the paper. He then revealed the word she picked, the page it was on, and the paragraph it belonged to, to a shocked audience.
He proceeded to tell how he systematically led the audience's minds during the 3 hour show to pick no word other than that particular word on that particular page in that particular newspaper. There was no way anyone watching the show could have picked any other word, though they thought they picked the word on their own free will. Quite amazing!
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