Summer is to be experienced in the country side and not in the city, so I am spending much of the summer at home in Dalarna where I grew up. To be more exact in the rural area of Svärdsjö.
Although I have planned to spend a lot of my time reading, thinking, and writing there is another reason it sounds like I am in a bee hive. It is not my busy brain buzzing with ideas, there seems to be a bee colony in our ventilation system. All the vents indoor are now shut but I can still hear them.
Completely unrelated I got an interesting phone call yesterday. I have heard about it happening, that people will think that what you do as a mentalist is real. And although some things can be real it is usually not the things that people think are real and certainly not as much as they think that is real.
Yesterday I got my first phone call from a person that thought that what I did was real and wanted to hire me to perform psychic surgery. Psychic surgery in all its forms is a swindle that targets people clutching for straws when modern medicine can't promise a cure. It can look a bit different since there are several distinct forms of psychic surgery. The form I perform as a demonstration of how real it can look is when the “doctor” puts his (or her) hands inside the patient victim and extract bloody pieces of something organic.
It does not work but it can be instructional for people to see how real it can look so that they don't think that people that grab at this last straw are idiots. Apparently I do it so well that I could have got a job performing it for real.
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
To become an expert
This Wednesday I happened to pass by a room where a lecture was held. I will not divulge who was talking to whom. Partly because I want to protect the innocent and partly because I don't know. What I did notice was that the woman giving the lecture just had one slide. At least all the times I was looking there was the same slide projected. Instead she used the white board to write some things and draw some curves.
What was important enough to be projected on the screen all the time was her name and that she had a diploma from some place and was certified by someone.
Perhaps I am beginning to be cynical but for me “certified” more and more mean “had-someone-print-a-page-whit-my-name-on-it”. Becoming an expert seems to be easy today, either just say that you are or pay someone else to say it for you.
I certainly don't know that the person I saw was a fake expert, I just get suspicious with people that point to their credentials in that way. A real expert should be able to show that they know their topic by talking about the topic.
What was important enough to be projected on the screen all the time was her name and that she had a diploma from some place and was certified by someone.
Perhaps I am beginning to be cynical but for me “certified” more and more mean “had-someone-print-a-page-whit-my-name-on-it”. Becoming an expert seems to be easy today, either just say that you are or pay someone else to say it for you.
I certainly don't know that the person I saw was a fake expert, I just get suspicious with people that point to their credentials in that way. A real expert should be able to show that they know their topic by talking about the topic.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
How the ancients slept
No, this is not a blog post about H. P. Lovecraft or his work. It is about how people used to sleep, a story I picked up from the BBC. It is a story that showed me how much I take for granted certain things, like our way of sleeping.
Historian Roger Ekirch from Virginia Tech has shown with sources as far back as Homer that people used to sleep in two periods each night, with a period of activity or contemplation in between. Many sources refer to this as the first and second sleep, and it appear to have been perfectly ordinary to people before the enlightenment.
In a way it makes sense, at a time when artificial light was expensive you went to bed at dusk slept for a while, got up to do some chores, talk to your family, or pray in the middle of the night, after a while you went back to sleep and slept until morning.
There is also empirical research regarding sleeping patterns that cooperate that this divided sleep is natural to people. There are experiments that have been performed by Thomas Wehr and also anthropological studies of populations living without artificial light. It is also stated that this way of sleeping can be found in other mammals.
The artificial light we now take for granted has a rather short history, Paris became the first city with street lights in 1667. (I wonder if that might have anything to do with Paris being know as La Ville-Lumière) It became easier and easier for people to occupy themselves after dusk and the industrial revolution made sure that even sleeping had to be done efficiently without brakes.
This research give ample fodder for speculation. Are people who experiences problems sleeping just trying to sleep the way nature intended for them? Some people have been reported to sleep only a few hours each night, usually you here this about very productive people, might they have slept at other times in addition to their reported nightly sleep? And how screwed up is my sleep pattern if this is the way we are supposed to sleep?
For people who wants to learn more there is a book by Ekirch: At Day's Close: Night in Times Past I am considering getting it, but I already have a few books.
Other sources are:
THOMAS A. WEHR In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic, Journal of Sleep Research, 1992 (1) 103-107
Roger A. Ekirch Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles, American Historical Review, CV, no.2 (April 2001), 343-387
Historian Roger Ekirch from Virginia Tech has shown with sources as far back as Homer that people used to sleep in two periods each night, with a period of activity or contemplation in between. Many sources refer to this as the first and second sleep, and it appear to have been perfectly ordinary to people before the enlightenment.
In a way it makes sense, at a time when artificial light was expensive you went to bed at dusk slept for a while, got up to do some chores, talk to your family, or pray in the middle of the night, after a while you went back to sleep and slept until morning.
There is also empirical research regarding sleeping patterns that cooperate that this divided sleep is natural to people. There are experiments that have been performed by Thomas Wehr and also anthropological studies of populations living without artificial light. It is also stated that this way of sleeping can be found in other mammals.
The artificial light we now take for granted has a rather short history, Paris became the first city with street lights in 1667. (I wonder if that might have anything to do with Paris being know as La Ville-Lumière) It became easier and easier for people to occupy themselves after dusk and the industrial revolution made sure that even sleeping had to be done efficiently without brakes.
This research give ample fodder for speculation. Are people who experiences problems sleeping just trying to sleep the way nature intended for them? Some people have been reported to sleep only a few hours each night, usually you here this about very productive people, might they have slept at other times in addition to their reported nightly sleep? And how screwed up is my sleep pattern if this is the way we are supposed to sleep?
For people who wants to learn more there is a book by Ekirch: At Day's Close: Night in Times Past I am considering getting it, but I already have a few books.
Other sources are:
THOMAS A. WEHR In short photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic, Journal of Sleep Research, 1992 (1) 103-107
Roger A. Ekirch Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British Isles, American Historical Review, CV, no.2 (April 2001), 343-387
Friday, 24 February 2012
2 + 2 does not equal 3
The human mind is not as rational as we tend to assume from the inside of our own mind. I stumbled across this fascinating example of flawed thinking the other day. Or perhaps it is more fair to label this as a case of flawed estimation than flawed thinking.
A lot of people are concerned with their weight but resent research find that the people most concerned are less skilled at estimating the calorie content of dishes under certain conditions. The different conditions where an unhealthy dish by itself or together with healthy food.
Simple logic would suggest that more food implies more calories but those who estimated the number of calories in the meal rated the options with additional healthy food to have less calories than the unhealthy part of the meal by itself.
More about this research can be read in this paper:
A. Chernev / Journal of Consumer Psychology 21 (2011) 178–183
The people involved in the test where divided into groups and shown different meals and asked to estimate the number of calories. Some rated themselves to be very concerned with their weight and others less concerned. Averaged over the different dishes and groups the people not concerned with their weight estimated the number of calories for the unhealthy dish to be 684 and 658 with the added healthy food item, that is a difference of -26. But the people concerned about their weight estimated the unhealthy option at 711 and the healthy one (more food) at 615, that is a difference of -96.
Even if this research concerns peoples estimation of caloric content of food I would not be surprised if it can be transferred to other areas. How we think should not vary that much with what we are trying to estimate. The explanation that has been put forward for why people make these mistakes is that when you divide something, in this case food, in categorise of good and bad your ability to estimate the combination of them is hampered by to what degree you tend to divide things into good and bad. Many diets are of the kind that they divide foods into categories of good and bad.
It has previously been assumed that concerned people and thus motivated, are less likely to make mistakes. This research has shown that the weight concerned make larger mistakes in estimating caloric content and that is very interesting.
A lot of people are concerned with their weight but resent research find that the people most concerned are less skilled at estimating the calorie content of dishes under certain conditions. The different conditions where an unhealthy dish by itself or together with healthy food.
Simple logic would suggest that more food implies more calories but those who estimated the number of calories in the meal rated the options with additional healthy food to have less calories than the unhealthy part of the meal by itself.
More about this research can be read in this paper:
A. Chernev / Journal of Consumer Psychology 21 (2011) 178–183
The people involved in the test where divided into groups and shown different meals and asked to estimate the number of calories. Some rated themselves to be very concerned with their weight and others less concerned. Averaged over the different dishes and groups the people not concerned with their weight estimated the number of calories for the unhealthy dish to be 684 and 658 with the added healthy food item, that is a difference of -26. But the people concerned about their weight estimated the unhealthy option at 711 and the healthy one (more food) at 615, that is a difference of -96.
Even if this research concerns peoples estimation of caloric content of food I would not be surprised if it can be transferred to other areas. How we think should not vary that much with what we are trying to estimate. The explanation that has been put forward for why people make these mistakes is that when you divide something, in this case food, in categorise of good and bad your ability to estimate the combination of them is hampered by to what degree you tend to divide things into good and bad. Many diets are of the kind that they divide foods into categories of good and bad.
It has previously been assumed that concerned people and thus motivated, are less likely to make mistakes. This research has shown that the weight concerned make larger mistakes in estimating caloric content and that is very interesting.
Friday, 27 January 2012
The Ghost in the Hotel
Last Wednesday I almost heard a real ghost story. It was at a dinner at Lingon, one of the nicer restaurants in Uppsala, that the conversation turned to hotel stories.
One in our company started to tell us a story of how he woke up in his hotel room in Gothenburg by someone inserting a key in the door and opening it. He was surprisingly not so alarmed that he became clear awake but was still drowsy as he heard the woman enter his room. He could hear that it was a woman by the distinct sound of high healed shoes.
The woman entered the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.
Still not completely awake he started to consider his options, scream? Call the reception and complain that some strange woman forced herself into his room? Or maybe just wait and see and hope that the problem would literally go away?
The room was still dark, he heard the bathroom door open and the woman walk toward the desk in the room. For some reason he remembered that there was a yellow pencil on the desk. At this point having things gone too far he turned on the light and the woman by the desk disappeared.
Now this would have been the end of a conventional ghost story, or perhaps he would have found out in the morning that a young woman been murdered in that hotel x years ago. That would have worked for both a literary story or a personal story told at dinner at a nice restaurant.
But this is one of the stories that didn't become a ghost story. It turned out that the walls in the hotel were so thin that he had just heard the guest in the next room.
One in our company started to tell us a story of how he woke up in his hotel room in Gothenburg by someone inserting a key in the door and opening it. He was surprisingly not so alarmed that he became clear awake but was still drowsy as he heard the woman enter his room. He could hear that it was a woman by the distinct sound of high healed shoes.
The woman entered the bathroom, closed the door and locked it.
Still not completely awake he started to consider his options, scream? Call the reception and complain that some strange woman forced herself into his room? Or maybe just wait and see and hope that the problem would literally go away?
The room was still dark, he heard the bathroom door open and the woman walk toward the desk in the room. For some reason he remembered that there was a yellow pencil on the desk. At this point having things gone too far he turned on the light and the woman by the desk disappeared.
Now this would have been the end of a conventional ghost story, or perhaps he would have found out in the morning that a young woman been murdered in that hotel x years ago. That would have worked for both a literary story or a personal story told at dinner at a nice restaurant.
But this is one of the stories that didn't become a ghost story. It turned out that the walls in the hotel were so thin that he had just heard the guest in the next room.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Perspective and Objectivity
Now this may not shock that many people, but I have no reason to try to shock people, I like philosophy and especially the philosophy of science. This blog entry is about a question I was made aware of yesterday during a brake in a seminar on rhetoric.
In science the ideal is to be objective. It is true that scientists are human and not always live up to the ideal, but the goal of being objective in the search for knowledge remains.
Yesterday I was surprised over an idea expressed by a fellow attendee at the seminar. She considered it to be unnecessary to try to be objective. We were now not discussing science but the softer topics like philosophy, history, rhetoric, and all the rest. But I was surprised that anyone could hold the view that it is not the ideal to be objective.
The motivation was that several perspectives are better, and that a real scholar should let different voices emerge from the material he/she studies. Of course this is true, a multitude of perspectives is an advantage. As often is the case I could not at the moment find a response; I have now.
Objectivity is not a perspective. To be objective, or rather to try to be objective, is about trying to the out most not to add or take away anything, not to let value judgements guide the interpretation, and allowing even the most terrible text the benefit of a doubt that there might be something in it. This is something that the good scholar need to do for all chosen perspectives, we do not have access to the “real” world. We are always watching it through some theory, or as others call it perspective. But each perspective deserves to be handled with care, and that implies objectivity.
It is not all right for a conservative to screw up a Marxist perspective on the “Arab spring” just because the conservative doesn't like communism. If you choose to adopt a Marxist perspective you can't let your personal feelings about that perspective make you deviate from what that perspective might tell you. This is of course also true for someone who loves Marx and might deviate in the other direction.
Finally, the reason why it is better to use several perspectives instead of just one, is because we hope to get closer to an objective understanding of what we study. Since all perspectives are limited and the choice of perspective might be subjective (even if it isn't a conscious subjective choice) to use several perspectives will be an advantage.
In conclusion to be objective is not a perspective.
In science the ideal is to be objective. It is true that scientists are human and not always live up to the ideal, but the goal of being objective in the search for knowledge remains.
Yesterday I was surprised over an idea expressed by a fellow attendee at the seminar. She considered it to be unnecessary to try to be objective. We were now not discussing science but the softer topics like philosophy, history, rhetoric, and all the rest. But I was surprised that anyone could hold the view that it is not the ideal to be objective.
The motivation was that several perspectives are better, and that a real scholar should let different voices emerge from the material he/she studies. Of course this is true, a multitude of perspectives is an advantage. As often is the case I could not at the moment find a response; I have now.
Objectivity is not a perspective. To be objective, or rather to try to be objective, is about trying to the out most not to add or take away anything, not to let value judgements guide the interpretation, and allowing even the most terrible text the benefit of a doubt that there might be something in it. This is something that the good scholar need to do for all chosen perspectives, we do not have access to the “real” world. We are always watching it through some theory, or as others call it perspective. But each perspective deserves to be handled with care, and that implies objectivity.
It is not all right for a conservative to screw up a Marxist perspective on the “Arab spring” just because the conservative doesn't like communism. If you choose to adopt a Marxist perspective you can't let your personal feelings about that perspective make you deviate from what that perspective might tell you. This is of course also true for someone who loves Marx and might deviate in the other direction.
Finally, the reason why it is better to use several perspectives instead of just one, is because we hope to get closer to an objective understanding of what we study. Since all perspectives are limited and the choice of perspective might be subjective (even if it isn't a conscious subjective choice) to use several perspectives will be an advantage.
In conclusion to be objective is not a perspective.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Annual scepticism
There are a few things that happens every year even in the world of scepticism. I will continue my series of highlights in the past and present year with something that did happen last year, one thing that has already happened this year, and something that will happen this year.
I have already mentioned the great success we (the Swedish sceptics) had with what we did at Almedalen last year but the thing I want to mention now is the biggest sceptical conference in the world The Amazing Meeting (TAM). I have been to a few TAMs and last year I got to go once more and I had a great time. For the interested reader I can recommend the soon to be published article I wrote for the Swedish sceptics publication Folkvett. I will update the blog with a link when the article is available online.
What has happened this year is that the Swedish sceptics has announced who won the two awards “årets folkbildare” och “årets förvillare”. Fortunately the news have actually been reported quite a lot in the media. I guess that the reason is that more and more people have heard of the organisation and heard about the awards. Though people tend to have heard about the “negative” award, the deluder of the year, much more than the “positive” award.
This year the positive award went to the children science show “Hjärnkontoret”. This is a very popular show that has been running for 16 years. Unfortunately only a few of the news media mentions this. Not surprisingly one is SVT, the Swedish state television that makes Hjärnkontoret. But also DN mention the winner of the positive award.
Of course even for DN the big news is who got appointed deluder of the year. This year it was the environmental board in Orsa and Mora municipality that got the award because they wanted to force telecommunication companies to change their antennas to remove all electro-magnetic radiation that allegedly caused great problems for one individual in that municipality. If the companies had been forced to follow the environmental board's decision half the area of the municipality would have no cellphone coverage or television.
The problem is that no one has been able to show adverse effects for the type of radiation that the antennas transmit. The reasoning the board relied on was shaky and included google as a source.
In SvD there is a short opinion piece where the chairman of the Swedish sceptics explain why the award was given to the environmental board.
One of the two big tabloids in Sweden also writes about the award (the negative one) and in their interview with the environmental board they uncover that they apparently still haven't understood that they have no scientific or rational standing in their argumentation.
Also the local radio for Orsa and Mora municipality have a short segment on the issue.
If one wants to learn more about how tax money are wasted on unproven and quite likely unnecessary removal of electro-magnetic fields Mats Reimer writes about it in his blog.
The announcements from the Swedish sceptics can be read on the Internet: årets folkbildare, årets förvillare.
Finally something to look forward to this year. Besides all the fun activities that will be arranged in Sweden like reccemottagningen, kulturnatten, and bokmässan there is the world sceptic conference in Berlin. As of yet I have no plans to go there but I really would like to.
I have already mentioned the great success we (the Swedish sceptics) had with what we did at Almedalen last year but the thing I want to mention now is the biggest sceptical conference in the world The Amazing Meeting (TAM). I have been to a few TAMs and last year I got to go once more and I had a great time. For the interested reader I can recommend the soon to be published article I wrote for the Swedish sceptics publication Folkvett. I will update the blog with a link when the article is available online.
What has happened this year is that the Swedish sceptics has announced who won the two awards “årets folkbildare” och “årets förvillare”. Fortunately the news have actually been reported quite a lot in the media. I guess that the reason is that more and more people have heard of the organisation and heard about the awards. Though people tend to have heard about the “negative” award, the deluder of the year, much more than the “positive” award.
This year the positive award went to the children science show “Hjärnkontoret”. This is a very popular show that has been running for 16 years. Unfortunately only a few of the news media mentions this. Not surprisingly one is SVT, the Swedish state television that makes Hjärnkontoret. But also DN mention the winner of the positive award.
Of course even for DN the big news is who got appointed deluder of the year. This year it was the environmental board in Orsa and Mora municipality that got the award because they wanted to force telecommunication companies to change their antennas to remove all electro-magnetic radiation that allegedly caused great problems for one individual in that municipality. If the companies had been forced to follow the environmental board's decision half the area of the municipality would have no cellphone coverage or television.
The problem is that no one has been able to show adverse effects for the type of radiation that the antennas transmit. The reasoning the board relied on was shaky and included google as a source.
In SvD there is a short opinion piece where the chairman of the Swedish sceptics explain why the award was given to the environmental board.
One of the two big tabloids in Sweden also writes about the award (the negative one) and in their interview with the environmental board they uncover that they apparently still haven't understood that they have no scientific or rational standing in their argumentation.
Also the local radio for Orsa and Mora municipality have a short segment on the issue.
If one wants to learn more about how tax money are wasted on unproven and quite likely unnecessary removal of electro-magnetic fields Mats Reimer writes about it in his blog.
The announcements from the Swedish sceptics can be read on the Internet: årets folkbildare, årets förvillare.
Finally something to look forward to this year. Besides all the fun activities that will be arranged in Sweden like reccemottagningen, kulturnatten, and bokmässan there is the world sceptic conference in Berlin. As of yet I have no plans to go there but I really would like to.
Monday, 2 January 2012
First post this year
As promised here are some more highlights of last year and what to look forward to during this year 2012.
This time I like to focus on magic and mentalism. By far the most important thing regarding my magic and mentalism the previous year was my appearance in Fenomen, the Swedish version of Uri Geller's fairly successful tv-show concept. It is a show partly focused on finding the new Uri Geller but here in Sweden the focus was much more on the entertainment aspect.
Even though the show happened in 2011 it began even earlier, in 2010 with a phone call regarding mentalism. The first phone call was a bit cryptic since that is the nature of things in the television business when nothing is yet decided nor official. It was Helen Kraver that called me and indeed discovered me. since not that many had heard of me before. She later worked with the props for the show and is most recently known for her work with “Allt för Sverige”.
After the show there were some interviews and try-outs. The final try-out was at Magic Bar and I think that one went quite well, indeed so well that I ended up among the ten mentalists in the show.
Unfortunately I was the first one to leave the show. And although I would of course have preferred to be there longer I was not that disappointed. I had a great time and got to meet some very nice, funny and interesting people. I got my first experience of doing live television and that was an interesting experience. I also got to meet my old friend Ian Rowland who helped out as a consultant for the show.
I think that my stile of mentalism not really suited the demographic of the show but that is not an excuse since I should of course have changed my way of presenting my material. But I am glad to say that following the discussions about the show in different internet forums I didn't find any correct explanation of what I did.
I could make a long list of all the wonderful people that I got to meet but I will not do that because it would make boring reading. Instead I will address a question that I sometimes get. Some people wonder what a sceptic like me did on a show together with Uri Geller as if it would be immoral. But I think that it was far better that there were some sceptics there than Geller without any sceptics what so ever. Also my friend Banachek have worked on the US version of the show and no one can accuse him of not being sceptical enough.
Concerning things to look forward toward there is FISM 2012. That is in short the Olympics of magic and this year it will be in Blackpool UK. I have not bought a ticket yet since it unfortunately coincide with TAM in Las Vegas and I still consider my options. Although I do love to go to TAM I think that this year it will be Blackpool before Las Vegas (anyone that has been to both can question that decision but remember that is not the places that attract me).
I end with a few clips from my Fenomen performances.
This time I like to focus on magic and mentalism. By far the most important thing regarding my magic and mentalism the previous year was my appearance in Fenomen, the Swedish version of Uri Geller's fairly successful tv-show concept. It is a show partly focused on finding the new Uri Geller but here in Sweden the focus was much more on the entertainment aspect.
Even though the show happened in 2011 it began even earlier, in 2010 with a phone call regarding mentalism. The first phone call was a bit cryptic since that is the nature of things in the television business when nothing is yet decided nor official. It was Helen Kraver that called me and indeed discovered me. since not that many had heard of me before. She later worked with the props for the show and is most recently known for her work with “Allt för Sverige”.
After the show there were some interviews and try-outs. The final try-out was at Magic Bar and I think that one went quite well, indeed so well that I ended up among the ten mentalists in the show.
Unfortunately I was the first one to leave the show. And although I would of course have preferred to be there longer I was not that disappointed. I had a great time and got to meet some very nice, funny and interesting people. I got my first experience of doing live television and that was an interesting experience. I also got to meet my old friend Ian Rowland who helped out as a consultant for the show.
I think that my stile of mentalism not really suited the demographic of the show but that is not an excuse since I should of course have changed my way of presenting my material. But I am glad to say that following the discussions about the show in different internet forums I didn't find any correct explanation of what I did.
I could make a long list of all the wonderful people that I got to meet but I will not do that because it would make boring reading. Instead I will address a question that I sometimes get. Some people wonder what a sceptic like me did on a show together with Uri Geller as if it would be immoral. But I think that it was far better that there were some sceptics there than Geller without any sceptics what so ever. Also my friend Banachek have worked on the US version of the show and no one can accuse him of not being sceptical enough.
Concerning things to look forward toward there is FISM 2012. That is in short the Olympics of magic and this year it will be in Blackpool UK. I have not bought a ticket yet since it unfortunately coincide with TAM in Las Vegas and I still consider my options. Although I do love to go to TAM I think that this year it will be Blackpool before Las Vegas (anyone that has been to both can question that decision but remember that is not the places that attract me).
I end with a few clips from my Fenomen performances.
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