| There's some good discussion of this in the base note under the
"Tarot" topic, but it deserves to be in a note of its own. In
3.0 Steve identifies 3 possible mechanisms to explain apparent
prediction.
1) Ambiguity.
2) Luck/coincidence.
3) Some trend-spotting mechanism.
I can testify to the the workings of third type. When I was in
high school I used to amuse and annoy my friends by making
predictions that came true. I never claimed to be, nor believed
myself to be psychic. Rather I just used what I've heard called
"plot logic". "Plot logic" is what allows you to predict what
will happen next in a TV show or a novel. I just applied the
same type of thinking to the lives of the people I knew. I then
predicted in moderate detail what would be appropriate to their
"life's story", and waited for it to happen.
I told my college friends about this and they didn't believe me
so we did an experiment where in late October where I wrote down
the predictions (to keep them from acting them out) about what
would happen to 3 or 4 of them over Christmas break, then had
them mark the papers and taped them to the ceiling of my dorm
room. The tape was also marked. Come January, I had between an
80% and 90% hit rate on fairly explicit predictions. I couldn't
get the names of people I didn't know right by plot logic, but I
could do pretty well on the relationships that they held to my
friends and the interrelationships.
All of this is related, I think, to the positive thinking topic.
People's lives make sense in part because of the expectations
that they have for them. I stopped all of this in college and
didn't let myself get talked into do it again 10 years ago
because I noticed a certain tragic vein in a couple of my
friends lives.
JimB.
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