Hakiri

Last Wednesday (09/09/2009) Derren Brown predicted, or at least he made us to believe that he did, five numbers from the lottery draw aired on BBC. For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, here is a video footage from the show.

How did he do it? I was eager to find out but since he promised to reveal the secret the following Friday, I retained myself from making any guesses until I see the show on TV first. His explanation is out now and as I thought things do not add up as nicely as I would like.

So here is what I think is possible and what is not. Let’s lay out some facts:

1. You cannot predict a relatively random sequence of numbers – unless it is not random at all. Any claims and proof that the lottery is predictable will make the draw automatically invalid. Not random means that it is fixed. It also means that it is unfair.
2. The lottery draw is NOT invalid – and therefore it wasn’t predicted as he tried to made us to believe. Derren did get an approval from Camelot to do the show and they were completely aware of what he was up to. Camelot knew that the draw cannot be invalidated because Derren did not and could not get the winning numbers, which leads us to the obvious conclusion that it is only an illusion.
3. Even if the lottery can be predicted due to being not random, it is very unlikely that Derren has access to resources that can give him the ability to predict the numbers. Think about all technical aspects required to perform a one time guess of something that is the end result of many system properties and variables which are influenced by all kinds of internal and external processes.

The most likely explanation of the trick is usually the most obvious one. The most obvious explanation is that this is a live video montage. Why? Well, why didn’t he do the draw live on stage but inside a studio? The reason for this is because he cannot guess the winning numbers. Only a studio with fixed lighting and scene will let him to create the illusion.

Another peculiar thing about this act is that he essentially gives deliberate hints on exactly how everything works in reality. At the beginning of the show where the trick was explained, he starts by presenting to the audience 3 possible options he could have employed in order to pull off this trick. Here they are:

1. Fake a ticket
2. Genuinely guess the winning numbers
3. Fix the machine

The funny thing is how he disregards the first and most obvious solution by suggesting that it is too obvious and uninteresting and therefore it should be ignored. He quickly moves on on the second possible solution. Now this is basically 99% of the entire show. It is extremely convoluted and full of pseudoscience of all sorts. The last possible solution is of course not possible at all since this will undoubtedly land him in jail, nevertheless he spends a couple of minutes on it at the end of the show to force us to thinker between options 2 and 3 and completely ignore option 1. He is a mentalist after all.

Derren Brown is a magician at the end of the day. The power is not in the trick but in the magician being able to produce an image of something magical happening.

One of my favorite blogs had a good post today and I decided to share it with you. Have a look at 37singals’ post titled Giving the trick away gave nothing away, because you still couldn’t grasp it.

The main argument is that giving away the recipe of how you do something shouldn’t be considered as a disadvantage or some kind of threat to your expertise. The recipe is one part of the story. What is needed also is the skill, the performance and to fully understand the particular problem you are solving. This is not something that you can cultivate right away by just reading a blog post or a paper. This is something that builds up with the years,… or simply put, the more often you do something the better you become at it. Sometimes, courses and training help a lot.

Part of what we do at Hakiri and the other sister organizations (GNUCITIZEN and SpinHunters) is to give our experience away for free. We love doing it and we get rewarded in different ways. These rewards are often not related to money at all. There are other currencies in this world that are much more valuable nowadays. We realize, and that is through experience, that the more we share the more rewards we receive and almost nothing is taken away from us.

So there you have it… yet another recipe to keep an eye on but don’t just sit on the idea… practice it.