Octo-Oracle
Paul Makes His Choice
Now we can add a mollusk to the list of aspiring psychic-super stars! And if the fantasy hungry media is to be believed, Paul the Octopus has put in a most impresseive career. He’s now eight for eight and finished The World Cup with a perfect record! He can now join a long line of esteemed animal oracles that have pre-dated him such as Clever Hans, Munito the celebrated dog, Toby “The Sapient Pig” (who could “Discover a Person’s Thoughts”) and a rich history of curious animals who made themselves and their owners rich and famous. Witness a timid sea creature predict Germany’s World Cup fortunes! Looking over Paul’s stats, he’s done a whole lot better than Sylvia Browne and not nearly as slimy.
As a performimg mentalist – something’s fishy here. I’m skeptical.
There’s an old tradition among pro mentalists (and pro psychics) called the “Too Perfect” theory. It goes something like this: some “effects” by being too perfect become imperfect, while other effects become perfect by being imperfect. That’s why a good mentalist is not always dead-on correct every time with every name, number or picture he “sees,” even though he could be because what he is usually doing is an illusion with an often carefully planned outcome.
The same holds more or less true for psychics. If you saw a psychic that told you everything about your life without error or fishing, your first repsonse would likely be amazement. But after that momentary glow faded away you might indeed suspect that what you had experienced was a some kind of trick. How else could he or she do that? Some experiences are just too unreal to be real. The average person seeks a pattern or an answer within their realm to grasp. That’s human nature. Without a clue there’s either the outside possiblity, depending on education and social bearings, that the psychic is real or the obvious rational answer that it was a trick or a complicated prank. Now, if the psychic gets close or is off by a number or a letter – well then, that only adds to the mystery. Not only do people tend to make obsure connections for a variety of psychological reasons, but they also tend to believe a psychic who makes a mistake once in awhile. Such blunders are often mistaken for a more human compassionate characteristic that can even further endear the symapthetic emotions of the truth seeker.Watch the incredibly funny video you will find if you go to Youtube and enter “John Edward Parody. It happens all the time. If everything was perfect, logic says to most logical people: it would have to be a trick. That’s my first thought on Paul the Octopus. But remember, I’m a skeptic. In our dumbed down society, logical thinking has been for the most part thrown out the window. This is especially true for sports fans, gamblers and other people who carry on crazy superstitions such as lucky socks or wearing lucky underwear to insure a winning game. Whoever thought out this con (if it is one) was tracking a trend in sports and society that is pure gold. And let’s not forget: All this extrapolation doesn’t necessarily mean what they are saying about Paul couldn’t be true.
Jim and Me Rehearsing: 1986
Believe me when I say I truly love the tradition of animal psychics and “educated animals” far more than any other so-called paranormal phenomena. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I originally hooked up with skeptic groups back in the arly 70’s. Back then when I was working as an animal “actor” trainer, I spent several months training my own “Sheena the Psychic Rat” who learned to stand up on her hind legs and identify a spectator’s playing card after sniffing through a long line of shuffled and ribbon spread cards. And she never missed. Not even once. Sheena did 21 shows a week too. I really do love all that stuff! I mean, if you can work out a routine or an act that makes the animal look like tha star, the warm fuzziness of it all is practically irresistable to an audience. When I later got my act together with “Jim Emperor of All Dogs,” and did a dog levitation,I had audiences eating out of my hand.
TAM9?
Whether the explanation has to do with the colors of the individual flags, Pauls’ sense of smell or whatever the gaff, the important thing is that Paul is now an established psychic phenomena in the minds of millions of people. This is the world we live in. We are surrounded by seemingly in-explicable phantasms – and we love it. So far no one has been killed or injured because of Paul’s predictions if under closer examination they really were predictions. We may never know. I don’t think most of us really care to know. Or do we?
Clever Hans and His Mentor
Do we really want to know how an octopus managed to hold the world at bay in one of his tentacles for weeks of wild speculation and tabloid sensationalism? Do we want to know how Paul did it or what clever method a knowledgeable trainer might have used? Are we ready to hang up all our childish dreams of magical creatures and sell one more Barnum down the river?
Until someone steps up and spoils the marvelous illusion that has governments fighting over Paul’s true lineage, (Mollusk Birthers no less) PETA all pissed off and the Oberhausen Aquarium (where Paul is now officially retired) providing 24 hour security for him, I for one will just sit back and enjoy the circus.
One Day's Psychic is Tomorrow's Calamari
See my other blogs on “Psychic Animals” and “Psychic Pets” archived here.
If only I held such powers!
No! I am not Cthulhu, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant mollusk, a hammed up clam,
To advance progress, eat a mussel or two,
Evince a wince, no doubt, or play the fool,
Existential, unessential, easy to confuse,
Full of pretense, a silly catawampous;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –
But always your savant Octopus.
That’s nothing. There’s an Antarctic krill whose movements correctly predicted the result of every single match played in the 2010 World Cup. Nonetheless, I will be retiring it so it can spend more time feeding on phytoplankton.
one thing for sure….. Dogs are smarter than people. Think about it….we feed, house, and provide health care for free……and have you ever seen a dog pick up its owner’s poop?
One thing that’s always been on my mind about that. If you were an alien observing life on earth, and you saw a four legged thing take a dump, and then saw a two legged thing pick it up. Who would you think was in charge?
I would probably assume that the two legged thing had a very peculiar means of producing the (clearly wanted) goods it picked up.
Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. There is a woman who, every time she has played in my BIL’s office football pool, wins. With little knowledge of football stats, she picks teams based on which mascot she likes better.
Perhaps it’s negative priming. Once power is attributed to the octopus, the teams pay closer attention to it’s predictions. Inevitably, the predicted losers play worse because their confidence has been shaken on a subconscious level.
No, The Netherlands lost because they played Karate, not football (or soccer).
I personally think it was the clever Hans effect. The games predicted by Paul all followed the bookies predictions. Germany was even favourite over Argentina according to the bookies here, especially after Germany’s great win over England. What would’ve been more surprising is if Paul had predicted more games correctly, including the rather surprising ones (according to the bookies), such as Netherlands-Brasil, Uruguay-Ghana, etc.
This is why I don’t have cable.
I’d be interested in how it was done if indeed there was some sort of training involved.
Besides, we all know how Sylvia Browne did it. Montell would do the talking whilst they put peanut butter on Browne’s teeth to make her lips move and give the impression she was speaking.
There’s little doubt that a human pulled the strings, but if those predictions were legit, then somebody made good predictions, like Germany’s loss to Serbia.
would anybody even have noticed some cephalopod’s predictions if these hadn’t turned out to be more or less true (aside from shady reasons how “paul” did it)?
what if they had made all animals (in this zoo) eat their lunch from containers with flags on it and filmed it, surprise, mentalist ant #352362365 totally anticipated like everything, what were the odds? [sarcasm]
yeah. right.
Bloody hell people, the Octopus had a 50-50 shot each time- he got 1 wrong he got 15 right, so? Any person who actually picked the results with that level of accuracy would not be a psychic! As pointed out, people win footy tipping comps all the time and know nothing about football. I said to my wife before Italy played New Zealand- I bet NZ score (or at least have the first shot on goal) because Italy won’t take them seriously, I should have put money on that! But I am not psychic (I know because the fortune teller told me). I think you are reading to much into this, the Octopus got lucky (fluke, chance etc not 4 leaf clover type). Remember each time was a 50-50 bet, so each time was a 50% chance of getting it right- where is the mystery? I also would be surprised if any one truly belives the Octopus is psychic, most people beleivers and non that I know essentially beleive it is pure chance, why should we as skeptics put anything other than that idea into anybodies head?
You make a slight, self-correcting error: the chance is not necessarily 50/50. It would be 50/50 if both options would be equal in chance. However, since the outcome is decided by more than just a flip of the coin but by the capabilities of the teams (although the further you get in the world cup, the more balanced the teams are, the more is up for random chance). This is a compounding factor. So if you would be flipping a coin to determine the winner, you have a 50/50 chance of each side turning up and thus winning. However, the teams you allocate to each side of the coin have a different chance of winning. If my knowledge of probability calculations is not mistaken, then this does balance out to 50/50 over multiple coin tosses. However, this is assuming that Paul makes an uninformed decision, which I’m not buying. In fact, I believe that his caretaker makes an informed decision and that the smart octopus picks up on some cues (intended or unintended).
I hear there’s a sea urchin that’s predicted every major calamity since the creation of the world by some sky fairy 6000 years ago. How old is this octopus meant to be? One story I saw about this octopus did claim that it made occasional mistakes. At least the octopus doesn’t claim to resolve murder cases.
What Mark Edward seems to be missing is “WTF, why did the human trainer thought Germany would loose to Serbia?”
Occkam’s Razor tells me it’s simple coincidence instead of an elaborate scam. Out of the thousands of psychics out there, be them primates or not, it would be a surprise if some of them didn’t get all games right just by chance.
I don’t think it’s simple coincidence that Paul, who lives in Germany, predicted that Germany would win every match in Euro 2008, and five out of seven matches in the World Cup. The only deviations were the two correct predictions of Germany’s losses to Serbia and Spain.
Speaking of “extraordinary” animals, I prefer Maru the Cat’s “magic show”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtDjM6QqULU ;-)
Now, I know octopuses (or should that be octopi?) aren’t psychic, but you have to admit, with a probability of 2^7 (if my math is right), the odds on that are 1 in 128.
Not statistically significant, but newsworthy. Apparently he also did the 2008 European Championships and got a more probable 4 out of 6 correct. Which presumably wasn’t newsworthy.
The plural is octopuses, and in Euro 2008, Paul picked Germany all six times.
I believe you are both wrong. Octopus is a Latin derivative of a Greek word, so the standard Latin plural of octopi would be wrong. Correct Latin would be octopodes. Then again, these days we also say museums (should be musea) and aquariums (should be aquaria), so distorting and simplifying perfectly acceptable words seems to be common place.
I’m gave the plural in English, not Greek, and any English dictionary would agree.
Well, if you want to borrow words from a foreign language and then turn these words into ghastly abominations, be my guest, especially if you’re American since they tend to do this all the time (thru? seriously?). I’ll stick to the Latin.
Imagine if a mere 1M people flipped coins to determine the outcome. We would expect many of them to correctly “predict” the outcomes of *all* the German matches – just as we can confidently predict that at least one person will win the Lotto in most weeks. So even if the claims of the octopus’ hit rate were correct (which I doubt) that is no indication that the octopus is psychic.
> the odds on that are 1 in 128.
Which means that if there were only 128 “psychics” in the world, each guessing randomly, then one of them would guess correctly and people would oooh and aaah at his/her/its acumen. Not really remarkable at all.
When can discuss about Paul every day dusk till dawn but… He was right every time. How about you?
Actually, Paul picked 8 World Cup matches correctly, for odds of 255 to 1 (which is quite statistically significant). Luck and a scam are not the only two possibilities also, as something about the shape of the flags could have affected his picks. There’s a long Wikipedia article about all this!
I for one welcome our psychic Cephalopod overlords….
If you can’t beat ‘em
If not for Serbia and Spain, Paul the psychic octopus would’ve been Paul the German-flag-picking octopus.
Is there any evidence that Paul picked Serbia prior to the match?
There’s a naivety afoot in this torrid depiction of psychism. Must we be beguiled by the somewhat franticly assembled image of a psychic, whether octopus or human, having immediate access to all events, as if they were actually there with microscope, stopwatch and ruler? Is that how they go about their psychic business?
The writers appeal to “pure chance” as a true cause for psychic success, wouldn’t be challenged by a psychic. “Pure chance” or synchronicity, is the psychic’s “causal” agent. A psychic, as well as any decent materialist, wouldn’t claim that material laws are being broken, or over-ridden in psychic displays. There are plenty of real-time examples of synchronicity or “pure chance” in evidence. For example, the non-material causal association between mind and brain.
Having seen a few of these “predictions” he just went for the nearest each time.
See more predictions, like Argentina vs. Germany
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwu1s5u3fIA
I highly doubt anyone is taking this potentially scrumptious grilled calamari basket seriously. Those that do tend to buy into all manner of snake oil and new age bile. If this animal were indeed psychic you’d need to establish an argument of how it manages to comprehend what football actually is. It’s all good fun. That’s about as serious as it should ever get.
Athletes can be quite superstitious. Imagine if Paul’s prediction of Germany’s loss to Spain undermined the German team’s morale and bolstered the Spanish team’s morale.
Tell me about it. When I used to fight in the ring we had a guy who wouldn’t change the underwear he trained in for the months leading up to his fight. Then he’d only change them after the fight for good luck. He lost virtually all his fights but I guess he didn’t die so…eh…who knows.
I also had a woman who was determined to bless my hand wraps for good luck with some photocopied scribble and was ushered away by a trainer with the parting words “yeah, there’s something you should know about Jose…”
On a low note, there’s another octopus muscling in on Paul’s action.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/psychic-octopus-picks-julia-gillard-as-australian-federal-election-winner/story-fn3dxity-1225893809176
Personally I’d rather vote for the octopus but I assume this is going to open the floodgate for further psychic invertibrates. Wait….another Sylvia Browne joke. A spineless psychic. Haw! Hawww! Love it.
A small request. If you ever run out of material, would you please consider more stories about Jim, the magician’s assistant. He sounds like 18 kinds of awesome.
“Looking over Paul’s stats, he’s done a whole lot better than Sylvia Browne and not nearly as slimy.”
well, that WOULD be a classic, but i don’t believe *paul* is actually slimy.
(at least not when alive and in his natural habitat.)
i’d like to recomend the southpark episode “The Biggest Douche in the Universe” :)