On Wed, 21 Sep 2016 23:10:27 -0000 xorcist@sigaint.org wrote:
However the idea that a professional seller of jewelry is going to make a big sale like that, without even COUNTING the bills because he had been chatted up with some nonsense about the subway system is...not plausible.
It's all about misdirection, and subtle cues.
Yes, but there isn't anything extraordinary about it. He's simply trying to distract his target. There isn't any profound scientific principle or insight behind that. Or, the insight may be that you better double check facts and evidence. That would be a useful teaching, but not a sound case against rationalism.
I haven't seen Derren's explanation of this particular example, but from what I know of the subject, here is my take:
The chat about the subway is misdirection. ...etc It's conceivable he stages some things, too. Like any magician.
In that same video he fails to scam a guy who sells hotdogs - as a matter of fact the hotdog guy is rather pissed off. But then he sucessfuly steals $4500 from a jewelry store? Not believable at all, not even as staged entertainment.
I do think that Darren is socially engineering people. The people who watch their videos, IF they think are real...
But if you believe a talented magician never manages to fool people successfully, you're naive. Yes, they'll stage stuff too, but that is hardly the point.
The point is that you are advancing an anti rationalistic view of human nature, and apparently presenting as evidence stuff that...isn't convincing.
The skills of illusion, and "mentalism" are quite real.. and if you watch more of his stuff, especially the longer videos or full episodes where he breaks down the hows and whys of it working, perhaps you'll be less likely to say its fake. It's easy to dismiss a magic trick as "camera edits" when you just have a 3 minute video. It's a bit harder when the magician explains the whole thing to you.
Magic tricks don't have much to do with this. Magic tricks rely on exploiting shortcomings of perception, "the hand is quicker than the eye", that sort of thing. But indeed nobody believes that those magic tricks are 'real' magic. If anything they prove that people are rational and know that magicians can't make rabbits dissapear - they know it's 'illusion'. If on the other hand Derren is 'staging' the jewelry store video, that means he and the guy at the shop are playing a part and the video isn't even 'illusion', it's outright fake.
In the videos I linked to, he uses a lot of body language mirroring. Whatever movements the subject makes, he mirrors with his own body language. Then, when he feels like he has the person, he'll move away as a test and do other movements to see if they have begun mirroring him, in return.
Then he handed them the water bottle, while asking for something in return. They continue to mirror, they have received, so they'll give. This is doubly effective, since there is a subconscious desire for reciprocity.
OK, so maybe handing the bottle of water makes it more likely that they other guy would hand something in return. A neat trick, which might work. Sometimes. Still, this is no sound philosophical principle.
And then yes, they realize it. Their rational mind kicks back in, and they'll realize it. But the fact that the rational mind can be so easily subverted, should give one pause.
So he failed 50 times and then tricked one guy for 10 seconds. Is that evidence against rationalism?
He uses a lot of techniques, but "neuro-linguistic programming" (NLP) is the bread-and-butter.
I have some familiarity with the techniques.. book learning, basically. I've never employed them, at least not consciously, but I can say that I see a lot of this stuff in advertisements and politicians speeches.
Seems to me there is something to it,
As in you can trick some people under some special circumstances for a short period? Yes. But I don't think there are wider implications.
whether Derren is 100% above board, or not.