The PJ Råsmark blog

The Ghost in the Hotel

2012-01-27T19:10:00.000+01:00

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.

Perspective and Objectivity

2012-01-26T02:49:00.000+01:00

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.

Annual scepticism

2012-01-03T05:30:00.000+01:00

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.

First post this year

2012-01-02T20:48:00.000+01:00

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.

Noteworthy events 2011

2011-12-31T09:28:00.000+01:00

It is that time of year when people tend to think about what they have done and what they are going to do. I will take it in small steps. My plan is to give some past highlights of 2011 and some probable highlights of 2012, one of each, for a few blog entries.

Among my accomplishments of 2011 is to get to second place when it comes to the most read opinion pieces in SvD (a major Swedish newspaper). To be honest I had not much to do with its writing or the fact that it became very popular but I still list it as one noteworthy thing I did during 2011. It is not every day you can assist an astronaut to take an overdose of sleeping pills.
To see the list of the most popular opinion pieces follow this link.
To read the original piece (in Swedish) follow this link.

Among plans for 2012 I am enlisting to take courses that will hopefully give me a master degree in rhetoric.

Happy New Year!

An obituary of sort

2011-12-17T04:45:00.000+01:00

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

I am writing this for two sad reasons, the first one is that Christopher Hitchens is dead, the second one is the sad state of the Swedish obituaries.
Maybe he wasn't that big in Sweden, definitely not as big as he was in the US or the UK. We are talking about a man so influential that the New York Times stopped the presses to get his obituary in the paper. I doubt that any Swedish paper stopped their presses. And it is sad that the media in Sweden never understood his greatness; not that he was always right, but he would always argue his point and ask uncomfortable questions and not seldom deliver uncomfortable facts.
But I can understand that he wasn't popular in Sweden since he was a fierce debater in that intellectual stile which appear to be shun by the Swedish media. It would not do to show that intelligence and facts could be used in a debate instead of conviction and opinions. Not that Christopher Hitchens didn't have opinions but he, as far as I can tell, never argued that his convictions in themselves were enough of an argument.
So what about the man himself?
I often didn't agree with him, I have met him, not only heard him speak but actually been at the same party and exchanged a few words with him. I was not starstruck by him although his eloquence is admirable. But I can understand those who idolised him because he was a very unique man, he smoked, and he clearly drank, and he wrote and spoke all with the same uncompromising zeal.
I valued his critique of religion, because as a Christian and secularist, I believe that all religions should be criticized and even ridiculed. A crazy thing as a religious belief deserve ridicule and only people who can stand their believes being ridiculed should be allowed to be religious. I much rather live in an world there people like Hitchens or even people much, much less well spoken than him, can insult religion as much as they want, than in a world there people are under pressure not to offend. It is sometimes argued that the freedom of speech has become a “religion” in the west and that it is necessary to understand that it must be placed on the same level as other religions and learn to “play nice”. That is pure humbug, and I think Hitchens would agree with me on that. (Though since he is dead we will never know.) To listen to people you don't agree with will make your thoughts evolve and if freedom of speech is restricted, humanity will suffer.
That is why I am sad, because a great combatant in the struggle for humanity has passed away. I know that he didn't believe, but I hope he was wrong and although I don't agree with drinking I hope he has found his place at the big bar in heaven.

Lecture

2011-12-07T19:05:00.001+01:00

For anyone who is interested and somewhere around Stockholm on the 7th of Mars 2012 I will give a semi-public lecture. It is a part of a lecture series with the title ”Vetenskap och ovetenskap” (Science and non-science) arranged by Björn Fjæstad for Senioruniversitetet i Stockholm (Stockholm Senior University) together with Folkuniversitetet (The Peoples University).

Beside me a number of very talented and interesting people will be speaking. Anna Bäsén will be talking about alternative medicine (that is treatments that has either not been proven to work, or proven not to work) the week after me. After her Martin Rundkvist will be talking about pseudo archaeology. Martin has been speaking at the lecture series that I arrange for my church in Uppsala and the speaker that follow Martin will as well have been here. CJ Åkerberg will talk about conspiration theories in Uppsala the 12th of January and in Stockholm the 28th of Mars. Everyone mentioned above I know, some more than others. Than there are two more talks one about parapsychology and the other one about the radiation from mobile phones and the so called electro-sensitivity that some people suffer from; the suffering is real although the cause of it is disputed.

If I was older I would make sure to attend this lecture series myself. To attend you have to sign up for the lecture series and pay the fee of 500 crowns.

Stuid and funny people

2011-12-01T22:52:00.001+01:00

People who do stupid things are not always funny, and to be funny sometimes require a lot of intelligence. It is not very polite to point out that there really are stupid people not only people that do stupid things.
I must confess that pure stupidity in people I meet, and not just being uneducated, is something I rather not suffer. That is why this web page is something I am at the same time amused by as it makes me fear the future of the human race.

To interpret literature II

2011-11-27T15:11:00.000+01:00

We were talking about René Girard's triangle, not a proper geometric triangle but a way to view relationships in a text, invented in 1965. Originally it was to show how two individuals in their relationship to the same object, idea, or position also have a relationship between each other. It was later developed to include the type of triangles that people are most prone to think about in a book or a film, the love triangle. But the triangle is much more fundamental than that.
In my own thoughts I began to imagine what interesting forms of topology you would get if you tried to identify all the possible triangles in a text. I started to get an image of many interconnected triangles to describe all the different possible relations. For more complicated stories it would of course not be possible to confine the triangles to just two dimensions, or even three. It is apparent that I am heavily influenced by my background in science.
Our teacher was talking about the triangle and invented an example with a man, a woman and the Bible. She explained how the man's understanding and relationship to the woman was influenced by a book that divide women in two groups Madonna or whore. And the book tell the man that the Madonna is good and desirable while the whore is bad and contemptible.
Now it wasn't the time to get into a long discussion outside the topic, but in my mind I did object to her example. I was surprised that someone that studies literature would use that kind of wording. If she had said “the church” instead of “the Bible” I would have understood it better. Because it is possible to find times and places where the church has indeed interpreted the Bible in this way. It is not even difficult to find these times and places. I would have thought that someone who studies literature would know the difference between what the Bible says and how people interpret the Bible.
There are those that would say that the message in the Bible is rather the opposite. You could read the message in Bible to be that there are no grounds to divide people into groups and assign them different value.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 3:28

To interpret literature I

2011-11-26T13:30:00.000+01:00

Since I live in a university city I try to take a few courses now and then. Of course it helps that taking courses at a Swedish university is free. Now I am taking a course in literature with some connection to rhetoric, which is my main topic at the moment. Although I have a background in science I find it rewarding to learn what people do in other areas of academia. It is not always easy to understand what people are talking about before you actually dive into a subject.
When I was studying philosophy I got a very good advice from a teacher. “Just because you don't understand what someone is saying doesn't mean that they are stupid and what they say is nonsense. “ One very important point that he didn't mention is of course that to not understand someone does not exclude the possibility that they are stupid and talk nothing but nonsense. What is important is to give people the benefit of a doubt. In debates you often see how people interpret their opposition's opinion as negative as possible. But this is not the ideal in academia, here you should always extend the best possible interpretation to the text you study.
It is probably even more important for sceptics than for many others to not assume the worst reading of a text. Some sceptics appear to think that just because a text uses terms that they are unfamiliar with, a convoluted form of reasoning, or concern a topic that they consider unscientific the text must be without merit. Since sceptics often encounter texts that have all the above characteristics and that really are nonsense we may to some degree be excused, but non the less it is better to always begin with the assumption that it is your own fault if you don't understand how brilliant a text is.
Now this tirade about strange complicated texts that still may have some kind of understandable message and even value, is not a critique of the course I am taking. Although some theories in the study of literature strike me to be more opinion than tools to reach understanding. This is just the background to my simple observation during our most recent class in the course.

Flattering surprise

2011-11-24T23:21:00.001+01:00

I did not expect this but I found out this morning via a friend on facebook that I have a fan-club there. It is not a big fan club but non the less 82 people have decided to click “like'” so far. Since I have no idea who has made the page I guess that it is my unofficial fan-club.
To me fan-clubs are something that happen to other people but I can't help to be a little flattered although I guess the people who have joined are not too serious.

Opinions and knowledge

2011-11-16T15:52:00.000+01:00

This is a reflection concerning a course I am taking at the moment between me and a fellow student and another friend. Sorry those of you that don't read Swedish, but I think you are better of not knowing the state of Swedish academia.

Jag: Du har rätt det var kursen jag tänkte på även om jag försöker låta bli. :)

Vän 1: Ledsen att jag påminde dig Per Johan Råsmark ;)

Vän 2: Vad läser ni för kurs?

Vän 1: Genusperspektiv vid textanalys

Jag: Det är inte en otrevlig kurs men det är väldigt mycket tyckande och väldigt lite vetande.

Vän 1: Det kan vara väldigt snurrigt också. Ibland vet man inte om de själva vet vad de försöker säga - och ibland förstår inte ens lärarna det heller (har läst lite i ämnet tidigare).

Vän 2: Låter kreativt, lite på lösan sand så där... ;)

An unexpected phone call

2011-11-15T13:55:00.000+01:00

For some time now I have been one of the contributors to a sceptical column in the local newspaper Uppsala Nya Tidning. Yesterday I got a call from one of the readers who just read what I had written about dowsing. He said that he appreciated what I had written and it is of course nice to have people telling you that they like what you do. But it was unexpected to get a phone call.
We had an interesting conversation about his experiences living next door to a man who worked as a dowser for about 60 years and had a very different technique. Instead of using a rod or a pendulum this man used only his arms and sometimes he could feel the “force” or at least something, so strongly that it could knock him over.
It would have been interesting to learn more about this dowser and what he did but unfortunately he was already dead (The worked as a dowser for 60 years should have been a clue.) Apart from the unorthodox method the dowser appeared to behave as many other in the business. He didn't charge for his services but gladly accepted what people gave him. It also seemed as he was specialised on finding water.

Chines whispers

2011-11-14T11:30:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine is in China at the moment and after my travels in that country I have an opinion about what to see and what to do. An opinion that of course is not based on a scientifically sufficient material just on my own experiences.
Putting together a few ideas in a mail to my friend I found the web page of one of the best guest houses for backpackers that I have ever been to. Not just one of the best in China but one of the best I been to anywhere. After I found the web page I also found on the page some interesting pictures (3) in the guest house's album. It is nice to see that one makes an impression. I mostly did card magic at that time and not that much mind reading. In addition it was easier to communicate using the cards than the tricks of the mentalist.
If you ever find yourself in Chengdu you should stay at Mix's guest house. Mix is absolutely one of the nicest people I have ever met and his friendliness has become the foundation of his guest house. This is not a Chinese whisper but first hand information about my opinion.

Museidagen 2011 (Museum day 2011)

2011-11-13T20:41:00.001+01:00

One aspect of public performances is that you find yourself in the situation that people have come to see you perform. This is actually different from what most magicians and mentalists are used to these days. If you are the entertainment for a private party or the dinner talker at a cooperate event people have not come to see you, they came for some other reason.
I am pleased to say that a number of families apparently came to medicinhistoriska museet to see me today. (For more information of the show see previous blog post.) It was a very mixed audience with regard to age and education and that made it difficult to find a good level. But my first priority was the children and I was told that I found a very good balance in my presentation.
As is often the case in a city the size of Uppsala I ran into some people I know, and also one person that knew me. He came up to me after the performance to talk and apparently we had taken the same course in “vågrörelse lära” (wave theory). But this was a very long time ago, some time in the late 90's. I must say that I am surprised that he remembered me. I must have made quite an impression even at that time.
To be fair it is quite fun to perform for a mixed audience of children and adults. Though I confess that some of the adults probably know how one or two of the effects for the children are done, and maybe some of the children know how some of the effects for the grown ups are done.

Back to work

2011-11-12T18:21:00.001+01:00

This will not be much mentalism since the audience is supposed to be mostly children. Though I hope that they will not be too young given that the show is in a museum. But I have a little bit of everything to have something for everyone.

11-11-11

2011-11-11T23:59:00.000+01:00

Well I guess I had to write something about this day. Although it is not in anyway different from any other day in the history of the universe. This is a day that will have numerologist selling more books and I am sure my old acquaintance Uri Geller have said a few things about today's date. He says that he sees the number 11 so often that it must have some kind of importance.
To realise that for the universe this is not a special time there are many things to consider. I will only point out three:
1 It is not 11-11-11 everywhere on Earth at the same time.
2 If we had a different base for our number system it would just be as any other day
3 The date is supposed to be based on the year Jesus was born, but no one knows for sure what year he was born, it is 0 +/- 7 years (or something like that).

But this doesn't imply that there is not some special meaning with 11-11-11. There is obviously a special meaning with today's date. Several people have decided to get married today, some even hope to give birth at this date (which with a caesarian is not impossible to plan). Meaning is something we humans ascribe to things and thus a random patch of space-time can be given all kinds of mystical meaning.
This is published in the last minutes of 11-11-11 CET (since I wanted to make sure that nothing special happened) making this the first day I publish two blog post on the same day so I guess 11-11-11 is special.
My point is that it is fine to believe that 11-11-11 is special because the belief that it is special will make it so. But this should of course be done with moderation since it is from the universe's perspective just another rotation of the Earth around its axis. But it has the good thing with it that the Swedish and Anglo-Saxon standard for writing dates for once coincide.

The Bystander effect

2011-11-11T21:48:00.001+01:00

In psychology there is phenomenon called the Bystander effect and it concerns the likelihood for people to act in a situation or remain a bystander. (It is called the Bystander Effect because that is unfortunately what usually happens according to the science.)
Psychologist began interesting themselves for the phenomenon after a brutal murder in New York that nobody seemed to want to prevent or get involved with, the story was somewhat exaggerated in its narration but that is a completely different thing. The details of the murder and what the Bystander effect is can be found on Wikipedia.

The reason I bring this up is that today I didn't see the Bystander effect in action. Just entering one of the shopping malls here in Uppsala (more like a Czech pasáž than an American mall) I saw a woman lying on the floor and three people kneeling beside her. Actually as I came in the three people got to the woman so I guess she must have fainted just prior to me entering the mall. Just after I noticed the situation I took out my phone but noticed that a girl coming from the other direction also had her out and was apparently dialling 112. We made eye contact and communicated that she was calling for an ambulance so I put my phone away. The people kneeling by the woman checked her breathing and pulse and laid her on her side. A person passing by stopped and asked if we had everything under control, and if we knew the woman. The passer by turned out to be a doctor and not the useless type that this city is full of. A moment later an other woman stopped by and she was a nurse. A shop assistant from a nearby shop came out with a phone to call 112.

It could not have taken more than a minute, a minute and a half, from the woman fainted for all of this to happen. It was not much like the Bystander effect, rather I got the impression that it was a well oiled machinery. The people closest to the one in need stepped in and did what they could do, not passing her by or waiting for someone else to do something. People around assessed the situation to see if they could be of any assistance. The doctor and the nurse of course doing more since they had the training. If anything like that ever happens to me I hope that I can get help just as quickly.

I left after the nurse had arrived. Since everything seemed to be under control there was no reason for me to stay there.

Is it all a scam?

2011-11-09T20:08:00.000+01:00

Leaving my local supermarket today I met two gentleman with shoulder bags and clipboards, one of them started to talk to me and since I passed him by (or the other man) a couple of weeks ago I felt I could at least stop and listen to what he had to say.
The mission was to collect money and the cause was democracy and human rights in Iran. A fair and noble goal for any organisation. The two men looked like they could be from Iran though looks can be deceiving so it is hard to say. They were against capital punishment and I was quickly shown pictures of executions. They were also for an Iranian Christian pastor that was threaten with death if he didn't convert to Islam, and they had a picture of him as well.
After this I was shown some official looking pieces of paper that I was told was some kind of permit from the police in Stockholm and one paper from the police in Uppsala. Exactly what the papers were saying I don't know because I was told to write my name, phone number and address on a list and tick a box for if I wanted to give 300, 500, 800, or 1000 Swedish crowns. The reason for wanting my signature he said was that they were a “90-konto” organisation.

For people that are not familiar with a “90-konto” it is a bank account that begin with the number 90. They are only used by organisations that can prove that the money they collect really goes to what they claim. The rules are quite strict and not every organisation is allowed a 90-konto. The idea is that the giver can be sure that they are not being scammed when they put money into an account of this type.

Now I don't know if political organisations that work for democracy in Iran are allowed a 90-konto, but I do know that usually the reason an organisation has 90-konto is because they want people to use that account not to use as a form of persuasion when they collect money in the streets. I also never heard of other organisations that need your signature when they do collect money in the streets. Even worse than that, I have never heard of an organisation that need a permit from the police to walk around and try to collect money.

Being a sceptic and having all these questions I started to ask a few other questions to try to figure out what it was about. The behaviour of the man was not one that inspired me to trust him. It was apparent that he was more concerned with getting me to sign the list and give him money than to talk to me. At least that was the impression I got, and when I wanted to put a few crowns in his collection box (one that he did show me on several occasions but didn't act like he wanted me to put anything in) he quickly terminated our conversation and didn't even let me put all the coins I had into the box.

The behaviour was suspicious but I did a search for approved organisations that do have a 90-konto and I did find the organisation that he claimed to represent:
http://www.iran-demokrati.se/
So at least that part was not a scam.

We are memories

2011-10-01T13:26:00.000+02:00

I just yesterday bought and read ”Moonwalking with Einstein – the art and science of remembering everything” by Joshua Foer, or to be honest it took me until 3 am. today to finish reading it.

The book takes a look at the subculture of people competing in memory in the US and worldwide. It is not a detailed book about how memory systems work or about what happens in the brain. It is in some ways a typical road-trip story where the author goes on an adventure. In this case he manages to win the US championships after practising for a year.

I liked the book but I also have many friends interested in memory work and can have a use of it myself sometimes. Only a week a go I met Mattias Ribbing who is out with a new book about memory systems where he (according to himself) tries to make them practical and not focused on competition.

The book talks about the science behind memory and also the history and how remembering texts changed from Homer's works that was retold in an oral tradition before they were written down, to today when some believe that wikiepedia makes it unnecessary to remember anything. It is an easy and in my opinion well written book that introduces the reader not only to the memory athletes subculture and to a part of mentalism (memory work) but also to the idea of how important memory was and still is. Because who would we be without our memories?

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in philosophy of mind, psychology, rhetoric and mentalism, beside of course people that just want to know more about our memory and what it can be trained to do. The reason that it is interesting from a rhetorical point of view is that many of these memory systems were used by the ancients and described by Marcus Fabius Quintilianus and Marcus Tullius Cicero as tools for the orator.

Though not everyone agrees that it is a good book as this review from the Guardian shows, although I think it is somewhat telling that all the comments on the page defend the book.

Bok och bibliotek – Sweden's biggest book fair

2011-09-29T11:33:00.000+02:00

As a part of my involvement in Vetenskap och folkbildning (the Swedish sceptics) I recently visited the biggest book fair in Sweden. The book fair took place between the 22nd and 25th this month and is a great place to meet some interesting people.

The first person that I ran into was Mattias Ribbing who I met earlier at a lecture he did for the Swedish Magic Circle about how to improve your memory. And the last I ran into was the expert on rhetoric Elaine Eksvärd, who I last met at the political week at Almedalen but then her name was Bergqvist (congratulations delivered).
In between these two I talked to people like Jonas Hallberg, Martin Lind, Bo Berggren, and Ulf Danielsson who all came by our booth. But I also met a lot of less famous people including a number of old classmates from my studies in physical-chemistry, psychology, rhetoric, and philosophy, don't ask me what they were all doing there. And I also met a few fans from my television appearances earlier this year.

Part of my work in the booth consisted in attracting visitors, or perhaps more aptly put luring people in once they had shown an initial interest. This is what the author Peter Olausson has to say about my contribution

Notera att publiken här varken är besökare eller utställare utan Svenska Mässans byggpojkar. När man har sitt jobb på mässan, alla dagar, så kan man tänka sig att det ska något särskilt till för att de ska stanna vid en monter och låta sig underhållas.

Translation:
Note that the audience is neither visitors nor exhibitioners but the Swedish fairs construction workers. When you work at the fair, all days, you could think that something extraordinary is required in order for them to stop by a booth and be entertained.

As an additional comment I can say that they came back with some friends the next day.

In all it was a very pleasant experience to be back in Gothenburg and at the book fair. I enjoyed meeting the people that came to the boot and who worked at the boot. I also really enjoyed meeting my brothers who live in the city and other friends who reside there. I hope I will have the opportunity to go there next year as well (the fair) or perhaps sooner (the city).

The hard life of a competing mentalist

2011-09-06T10:04:00.000+02:00

It is now Tuesday and I have finally the strength to write about my experiences on the cruise arranged by Magiska Bröderna (a fraternity for magicians) in honour of their 70 year anniversary.
The cruise was on Birka Paradise a smaller cruise ship, between Saturday and Sunday and took about 22 hours. During the cruise we magicians had seminars to attend, shows to watch (the shows were also open to the public), and there was also a competition.

I am quite hesitant when it comes to competing in magic since I think it is difficult to compete in art in general but I made an exception this time since I thought it could be fun and the concept was a bit different. The competition was divided in two parts. First every magician/mentalist walked around the boat and performed for the passengers. The passengers voted for the different artist and the four best got to meet in a final judged by magicians

I really liked to do the strolling mentalism part since I got to meet different people and I had the feeling that the crowed slightly changed over time. Since I performed from around eight in the evening till four in the morning, with just a few brakes to eat and attend the shows and lectures, I got to see all the different passengers, from the families with small children to the younger crowed. I also got up quite early to meet people for breakfast at about seven and get some more votes before the end of the competition.
Any one who wants to know more about the cruise and knows Swedish can read about it at Christer Nilssons blog magi-arkivet.

A few interesting and out of the ordinary things happened during my time with the passengers. A number of people actually recognised me from my television appearance in Fenomen and that was a glad surprise. I also had one person who insisted on trying to wrestle me to the ground whenever he was fooled by an effect, he continued to try that until security turned up and hoovered around. I guess one could describe it as my first experience of having to need security to protect me from my fans. But to be honest the guy did it in a very playful way and had no intention of hurting me.

The same playfulness was absent from the guy who threatened me early in the morning, exactly what he was threatening me with is hard to say since he only said that I would be sorry if I didn't stop talking to this one girl. Even if it was his girlfriend I would not have yielded for such behaviour since I was only doing my “job” but she didn't even know him. The girl herself was not making it easy for me since she didn't know Swedish or English and we had to resort to French as our lingua franca.

There was also another girl in a white mask who had a very confrontational attitude and wanted to control the workings of the effect, handle the cards herself and all of those things that ordinary magicians hate. Unfortunately her friends dragged her away before I had a chance to finish what I was doing.

I know that about four hundred of the 1200 passengers voted for a magician but I have no idea who managed to get the most votes but I know that I got to the final with three other performers. Unfortunately it didn't go so well in the final, maybe because I only did two effects and one of the effects had unbeknownst to me been performed in the dealer show a few hours earlier although with a different method.

This is what my place looks like... You should see it when it's not in order.

2011-08-26T16:44:00.002+02:00

It might be hard to imagine that this is the home of such a highly organized individual as me. But there is a story behind this total chaos. The story itself is a bit chaotic but in the middle of the picture, somewhat to the right side, it is possible to see some flat brown boxes from IKEA. They are only a part of the boxes I brought home to replace the furniture that used to contain most of the stuff in the picture.
The entire operation of replacing the furniture was improvised in its execution although I had planned to do it for quite some time. It was also done with a time limit, something I cannot recommend.

Rain, the autumn is here

2011-08-10T17:28:00.004+02:00

I returned to Uppsala after having been back home in Dalarna for a few weeks. Travelling by train in this country seems nowadays to imply a late arrival at your destination, but I was pleased that I was no more than seven minutes late when I got of the train. Soon this satisfaction dissipated as the minutes proved to be of greater importance than I had anticipated. In fact it dissipated in water in a weather that can be described as heavy showers mixed with very heavy showers.

The weather in Uppsala

As I progressively made my way back home from cover to cover despite having an umbrella I gave some thought to my resent travels. There might be some comments on my adventures posted here soon including suicide attempts in Visby, late night activities in Las Vegas, and sightseeing in New York.

It is not a real castle, it is not the Statue of Liberty, it is not the Eiffel tower, it can only be Las Vegas.

A visit to Houdini's tomb

A new book, a new friend

2011-07-13T19:21:00.002+02:00

I know some people consider books to be their friends but this is not about that. I promised to give a review of Elaine Bergqvists book ”Snacka snyggt” and here it is. In case someone wants prof that I actually met her just look at the photo below.
I read Elaine's book on the way over to the US and in my opinion it is very much what it claims to be, a book about modern rhetoric and aimed at people that want good advice fast. Now Elaine is very charming and I suppose that is why I remembered her from the time we first met, God knows why she remembered me. What makes her charming is probably her energy and openness and it shows in the book. Any one who reads “Snacka snyggt” will feel that they have met Elaine on a personal level, not just because she is the model for the illustrations in the book. This is of course very smart since she is selling her services as a consultant besides writing books. In a way the book is a marketing tool, and more so than for most authors.
What the reader takes away from the book depend of course on their situation but it is all good advice my only complaint is that there is no apparent order in how things are presented in the book. The order in which different aspects are discussed appear almost random and although a lot of the advice pertain to several rhetorical situations in many cases she jumps between talking about what to do if meeting some one person to person, having a conversation or a presentation for a small group or talking to a larger group of people.
The book is full of exempla, that is examples of what she is talking about, or one might prefer to call it anecdotes about what Elaine or someone she knows did in certain situations. It is a part of the presentation of the author and it is as all sceptics should know, not really evidence that the rhetorical advice is good. But this book is not an academic work, there are no footnotes and my guess is that it is not aimed at an audience that is concerned with that. Elaine uses a number of secondary sources and as already said there are no footnotes for the concerned reader. One of her sources is Henrik Féxeus who is a liar and a cheat as all mentalist, but I was pleased that she also used “Skeptiker skolan” by my friends Andreas Anundi and C.J. Åkerberg as a source and recommended it. As can be seen in the photo Elaine likes scepticism and no one need to be overly sceptical to the advice in her book, it is just not an academic work.

It is on the other hand a book that takes up aspects of rhetoric that is hard to find in many other books. There is a big chapter on colours, and there is discussions about music and how it can be used in a presentation. There are some good advice about how to use power point something that older books in rhetoric may not have.
I think it is a good book for anyone who just wants some help with their presentation of them selves and what they have to say but who do not have the time to become an expert. It does require a lot of hard work and perhaps some talent, to become a good talker that can catch peoples attention and form their world view. Because that is what a good presenter does, he or she, gives the audience a perspective of the world that makes the proposition that the presenter gives seem logical and correct.
One thing I had hoped Elaine had done more with is the myth about body language, she does point out a few things to prevent people to over interpret body language. But as is shown from an anecdote told by Derren Brown body language does not always work as people believe it does. Derren once asked an audience how he had been able to tell when a spectator was lying and when the spectator was telling the truth. People in the audience was sure that the spectator had looked away when she was lying although the opposite was true. Sometimes a person who lies is very careful to look you in the eyes because they believe that someone who lies would not do that.
The main myth about body language is that it makes up a certain percentage of our communication. That is absurd in many ways. Body language is important when it comes to how people perceive us. If you tell people that you are really sad but you look happy an audience will believe your body language more than your words, and this is probably where the myth comes from. But if you tell people that the speed that an object falls with is independent of the weight of the object if air resistance can be excluded there is no way that your body language does most of the communication. It would have been nice if someone made a distinction between information content and the rhetorical task of getting people to like you so that they will accept what you say.

To summarise, buy Elaine's book if you want some good advice that can help you be a better speaker and is not that much concerned with theoretical issues, and buy the book if you are already an accomplished speaker because you will find new ideas and perspectives in this book.

If this review appear to be a bit short please remember that I am in Las Vegas, there are other things to do here.

What I did on Gotland besides what I was there for...

2011-07-13T19:08:00.002+02:00

A serious blogger updates their blog at least three times a day, that is one of the things that I have learned from my trip to Gotland. I will write about the important thing I did on Gotland but another thing I learned as a result of my trip to Sweden's largest island was that people that read a blog want to get to know the person behind the blog.
So I can tell you that right now I am in a hotel room in Las Vegas, very far from Gotland, I am here for The Amazing Meeting 9 and I will soon have to write a lot more about this convention. I just ran into Banachek, a great mentalist and one reason I became an honest liar. But enough about now, let us look into the past.
After performing at Strings 2011 at Uppsala Castle, I packed my stuff and left for Gotland 1 July. The reason I went to Gotland and Almedals veckan was to do some volunteer work for the Swedish sceptics, Vetenskap och folkbildning (VoF). It was my first visit to Gotland and I did not know what to expect, I sure did not expect to run into so many people I knew on the ferry, but it is logical that you will run into people you know there. I first met some old colleagues from the department och Physical Chemistry and then some even older friends from back home in Dalarna, finally I ran into the president of the Swedish humanist society (Humanisterna) Christer Sturmark.
The first days were quite relaxed with only preparing things for our important demonstration that was to take place on Thursday. I had the opportunity to meet a few interesting people at a barbeque at the place we were living I also got to visit the largest ice-cream bar in Sweden with 120 flavours of ice-cream.
At the first day of handing out leaflets about our suicide attempt I ran into a person at the library in Visby. We (the activist) were about to occupy a table and I wanted to make sure that we did not disturb the girl at the table next to ours. I was startled, I had seen her before but could not place her right away. Elaine Bergqvist is a rhetoric consultant and we met very briefly at Missionskyrkan in Uppsala still we both recognised each other for some reason and my excuse and her reply was not exactly rhetorically correct since we were both surprised and thinking about were we had seen the other person before. It's from her book the advise about how you write a blog comes. I picked it up the day after I saw her and made sure to get it signed. Since I believe that I know a thing or two about rhetoric myself I have written a review, to be published here shortly.
Besides being activists and handing out leaflets we also tried to find others with the same interests in science and scepticism. We managed to meet a few at some interesting seminars but we were also interested in free food and got invitations to a session sponsored by an advertising firm. We were probably in no way the right kind of guests from the advertisings firms point of view but through connections we managed to get in. I really didn't think I would meet anyone there to talk to. It turned out that I was wrong apparently I'm quite well connected. I met not one, not two, but three different people from different organisations at that party that I already knew from before. It was a surprise to both myself and to my two friends who didn't recognised anyone.
That is about everything I did on Gotland apart from the important suicide attempt and a small miracle at a lecture about alternative medicine. And on the way home I once again met my old colleagues from my time at the department of Physical Chemistry, proving that it is indeed a small world.

Assumptions

2011-07-01T21:12:00.000+02:00

Right now I'm on my way to Gotland, though I am not sure when this will be posted. For some reason I assume that I will have some sort of Internet connection during my stay on the island but I have no idea about how and when; we do tend to assume a lot in life.
I am sure I will have plenty of time to post about my activities, planned and accomplished on Gotland later, that is if that Internet access materialize. So now a few lines about my recent performances at Uppsala castle for some of the brightest minds in the world.
I might have exaggerated some but theoretical physicists tend to be sharp and this was an international conference with some of the really well known names. Strings 2011 was actually to be visited by Stephen Hawking but unfortunately he had to cancel for health reasons. If people think that theoretical physicists much be serious and solemn people but that is not at all the case. In deed they were a very good crowed to perform for, but also extremely inquisitive.
As always I never confirm or deny any of the suggested explanations that I get to hear but in a room with scientist you know that some will be try to analyse everything and you can learn a lot from listening to what really intelligent people have to say about your show.
One group in the audience worked through the routines in a very scientific manner. They made some interesting assumptions. They assumed that I was working alone, and since I have no visible assistant that is understandable. In big productions invisible assistants can be very useful. They also assumed that I had not had any time to prepare something with any of the people attending the dinner a head of time. For conferences held in Uppsala this might prove a useful assumption, I will say no more on the matter. The third thing they assumed was that all the effect had to be bullet proof. That what I did would always produce the desired result.
I can not confirm or deny that these assumptions are correct, but I am happy that I got them so that I can take advantage of that in the future; we do tend to assume a lot in life.

P.S.
The blog post above did not start out as a text about assumptions, it was first when I was writing the last sentence that I realised the very obvious theme in the text. Sleep deprivation can apparently lead to interesting effects.

A short update before the storm

2011-06-30T01:03:00.001+02:00

Here in Sweden Midsummer is an important holiday and I spent it in Dalarna, the region of Sweden that I am from and also a region famous for its Midsummer celebrations that are very much according to all traditions. (I am not going to go into details about all the different types of celebrations but let us say that some of them involve large amounts of alcohol.)
What I enjoy with Midsummer is the sense of coming home, seeing people that you haven't seen in a very long time. And although I worked two of the days that I spent in Dalarna it felt very much as a holiday.
I even had plenty of time to reminiscence about when I lived in Dalarna. I found one train of thought particular interesting. I was walking by “Dalarnas regemente” that is the old army barracks in Falun. When I was living in the city we still had general conscription in Swede and the area was maybe not heavily guarded, but had barbed wire surrounding it and armed military guards at the entrances.
The thing is that I was heading for a place on the other side of the barracks and started to walk around it. But the entire barrack area have changed since Sweden changed to a having a professional army. It is now a business park with a lot of different companies. There are no armed guards, no barbed wire, not even a fence. Still I had begun to walk around the area.
I stopped and turned around, I had no reason to take the long way around, it was just out of habit that I started out on the usual way. But I actually had to stop and think about if I wanted to walk through the barracks area, it didn't feel right.
It is not that I had not been inside before. During my High School days I actually got inside once a week. My name was written down in a folder at the guard station among other people that practised fencing at the old gymnasium. Once I started my military service we were told that you could not get time of for participating in athletic events like football matches or things like that, but there were of course exceptions for certain sports with a more military flavour. So being a fencer had its privileges.
Maybe it was my experience of the area as an off limit and secure area that made it somewhat difficult to imagine that it could be possible to http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifjust cross it to get to the other side. In this case my reasoning faculties won fairly easily over my emotional response and I crossed the old barracks-yard, walked passed the old gymnasium where we practised fencing so many years ago. It was a long time ago I was there the last time, it is perhaps our memories of times gone by that makes us feel old, but I found no discomfort in remembering. I just found my reaction to the change of reality compared to my memories very revealing.

But what about the storm? Later today (after I have slept a bit) I will be performing for the conference “Strings 2011” at Uppsala castle, and the next month is extremely busy with a lot of things to do, in fact there are only three days I don't have plans for up to and including the first week of August. If I find the time that might imply some interesting posts on this blog.

The trick that can be explained

2011-06-21T11:38:00.001+02:00

In card magic there is one trick that requires a lot of experience and sometimes technical skill. It is called “the trick that cannot be explained” because well... you can't explain it. Though I understand that non-magicians might find it hard to believe that there might be a trick that has no explanation and want to learn more about it, I would like to talk a bout a trick that can be explained.

A few weeks ago I was recognized as being a mentalist, (it is amazing what a few minutes on national television can do for one's fame) and I had the opportunity to do this effect that I will now explain to you.

As we discuss mentalists and psychic abilities the person I am having the conversation with remarks on how he saw a mentalist on television and the mentalist had asked the audience to look at a person and try to feel what kind of drawing that person might do. Since he was able to “sense” what kind of picture the person on television had drawn he wondered if it really was possible to just look at a person and get such a feeling. He had done so himself but was still not convinced.
I concentrate and I tell the person, right there and then, what he managed to pick up from the person he saw on television. I tell him exactly what kind of object he was thinking of and I don't have him write anything down or choose something from a deck of cards.
After this feat I fight the urge to tell the person how I did it, the sense of wonder he feels does not deserve to be degraded by my mundane explanation.

I can explain the trick to you because I will never be able to perform this effect again and although I might perform many similar effects, that might involve you, this information will not help you the least.

The explanation is quite trivial as many explanations are. To be able to do this trick you need to know what show the person had seen and remember the picture the person on television drew. You also need to do this effect for a person that will rather believe that you managed to read them so well that you can tell what object they were able to pick up on a week ago, instead of just remembering what the picture was. And in my case you also need a person that has forgotten that you were the mentalist on television performing the effect in the first place.

Not so lucky

2011-06-20T11:57:00.003+02:00

Every now and again the evening press manages to surprise me. Generally it is not in a positive way. Like this Saturday one of the major evening newspapers had this message:

For those of you that are not familiar with the Swedish language it says, loosely translated, “The 'lucky shops' that hand out big prizes in Uppsala”.

I know that the point of printing newspapers is to get people to read them, but either the journalists responsible think that their readers are idiots that deserve to be misinformed about how games of chance works or they are themselves misinformed and thus present us with the question how they managed to become journalists to begin with.

The fact is of course that a random event has no recollection of what has happened before. Even if you flip heads 10 times in a row the odds that you will get another head the next time is still 50%. There cannot be any such thing as a lucky shop when it comes to the games of chance.
I am willing to make an exception for betting games there some skill is involved. It is possible that people betting at one particular shop have more knowledge of horses or football teams, and that can give the shop an advantage.

Now I know I should not critique something I have not read, and I did not read the article in Expressen. It is perhaps unfair of me to assume that they don't explain the gambler's fallacy in the article, but I will assume that they also forgot to normalise their figures.
If one shop sells 10.000 lottery tickets and another shop sell 1.000 it is not surprising if the shop selling the larger number of tickets also have a larger number of big wins. I am almost ready to bet that the reporter forgot to do this simple thing.

I would hope that newspapers like Expressen, that are read by a lot of people, do not rely on luck when they write their news, but if they do they were not so lucky this time.

Fenomen and Uri Geller

2011-03-26T18:39:00.002+01:00

I understand that a lot of people may be curious about the show, what is it all about and who is this Uri Geller guy?
On the web you will find a lot of information from Kanal 5 about both these things. But if in the interest of keeping an open mind you want to hear what others have to say I can direct you to this blog entry (in Swedish) by my good friend John Houdi.
As a sceptic I think it is important to keep an open mind and carefully weigh the evidence. And if you want to know even more try to listen to James Randi. He has a lot to say about Geller among other things.

Just as a reminder here are two sites 1, 2, where you can see the show and get more information about it. A friend of mine in London confirms that it is possible to at least see the short interviews though he could not understand a word I was saying.

The day before

2011-03-26T10:48:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow is the first day of the show Fenomen and it will also be my first experience with live television. At least from the point of view of a performer I have of course seen live television before.
Yesterday I was in Stockholm rehearsing on the set, going through the routine. My good friend Ian Rowland was there, flown in to be a consultant to Uri Geller, he gave me a few pointers how to improve the presentation.
It is unfortunately a fact in mentalism that you never rehearse with the same people as you will perform with (or perform on?). It would sort of take a way the mystery if you rehearsed what people were to think beforehand. The draw back is that you don’t know what will happen, if people will understand the instructions, stand where they are supposed to stand and things like that. But as a mentalist I should of course be able to communicate clearly what I want people to do.
If someone who doesn’t have Kanal 5 wants to see the show it is possible to do that online, either here or here. I am not 100% sure if it is possible to see the show from outside of Sweden but it is possible to see the short clips with presentations of the performers.
Just a warning before you watch the clips, remember that all are expert liars so everything they say may not be the truth. I was actually surprised myself by some of the stories that were told. As can be expected all the interviews are in Swedish and there are no subtitles so either learn Swedish or grab hold of someone that already knows this strange language. I don’t think google have a translation service for audio yet.

Good press before Fenomen

2011-03-25T10:26:00.006+01:00

I think it can be worth mentioning on this blog that I am getting some television time soon. Uri Geller is known to a lot of people and in recent years he has been doing this television show with different mentalist competing against each other. It is of course a bit strange that a person who started his career claiming to not be a magician now hosts a competition with mentalists. (Mentalist is the term used among magicians to describe those of us that simulate psychic abilities.) In Sweden it is on kanal 5 that one can see the Swedish version of the show that is called Fenomen (Phenomenon). The first program will air on the 27th March 20:00 CET and it is live television so I can’t say anything here about how it is going to go, at least not without having the power to predict the future. But I can say this, so far I have got good press, only good press, and this is before the show have started.
We had a meeting with the press on Tuesday with reporters from some of the major newspapers, so far I have been mentioned by two. At least that is what I know about.
First we had the reporter from Expressen, she was not very impressed by my friend Peter Gröning who didn’t get the card she was thinking of right away but had to get it on the second attempt, I think that should have been impressive enough. Later she asked Dan Kirsch a very gifted mentalist (not in any supernatural way) to read her mind and he apparently did a mathematical effect that didn’t impress her very much. After all that she was convinced about the non-existence of any supernatural powers. But after that she had the misfortune to meet me. Apparently I managed to impress her with some metal bending, an old Uri Geller speciality. But of course I didn’t have the benefit of supernatural powers so I had to resort to the art of illusion. The article is not online but those of you who know Swedish can read it since I scanned it and posted it here. What I consider the interesting part is this:

När träffen är över är jag övertygad, det finns inga magiska krafter. Men mentalismen (sic) Per Johan Råsmark rubbar min övertygelse när han böjer en gaffel – med minimal muskelstyrka och mig som hjälp. Hur det gick till vet nog bara han.

(When the meeting is over I am convinced, there are no magical powers. But the mentalism (sic) Per Johan Råsmark alters my conviction when he bends a fork – with minimal muscle force and my help. How it was done he is probably the only one who knows.)

At the meeting with the press I also met an old friend Clas Svahn a journalist from Dagens Nyheter (DN) the most prestigious newspaper in Sweden. The article that he wrote can be found online. It is of course mostly about Geller but the only mentalist that is more than just named in the article is me. Svahn who is very sceptical minded and loves investigating different phenomenon and strange stories, writes not only about what I do but also about my involvement in the sceptic movement. The entire article is in my opinion as sceptical as it should be, people will se amazing things in this television show but it will be a question of us mentalists fooling the audience. The only difference between magicians and mentalists is that to us “magic” is just one of the techniques used to fool our audience.
Here are some of the interesting parts in the DN article:

En bit längre bort står en av de svenska mentalisterna och böjer skedar för brinnande livet. Per Johan Råsmark, som jag har haft nöjet att träffa förut, är både välutbildad och kritisk till bland annat det Uri Geller har ägnat sig åt. Som medlem i Vetenskap och Folkbildning är inte tron på påstådda paranormala fenomen något han vill underblåsa.
– Jag har inga okända förmågor men jag vet hur jag ska få folk att tro att jag har dem, säger han.

(A little further away stands one of the Swedish mentalists and bends spoons as if his life depended on it. Per Johan Råsmark whom I have had the pleasure to meet previously, is both well educated and critical of among other things what Uri Geller have been doing. As a member of Vetenskap och folkbildning (the Swedish sceptics) the belief in paranormal phenomenon is not something he wants to support.
– I have no unknown abilities but I do know how to make people believe that I do, he says.)

As a comment I like to point out that as far as I remember I only bent one spoon and one fork during this meeting with the press. Concerning the spoon it was a spoon brought by a photographer for “Aftonbladet” (if I am not mistaken). The spoon was handed to Geller but since he really doesn’t do things like that any more unless he is really sure to get away with it he handed the spoon to Peter Gröning who was standing right next to him. Since Gröning don’t do much metal bending but knows that I do he handed the spoon to me. I used a Richard Osterlind technique and did a good bend before handing it back to Geller, who without hesitation signed the spoon and gave it to the photographer.

Huvudpersonerna är tio svenskar: Claudia de la Creme, Peter Varg, Stefan Odelberg, Claes Danell, Alexander Vasiliou, Dan Kirsch, Riku Koponen, Henrik Silver och Per Johan Råsmark.
Alla duktiga mentalister som kan få våra ögon att inte tro vad som utspelar sig framför dem. Exakt vad de ska visa vet vi inte. Men efter att ha sett Per Johan Råsmark lura skjortan av ett rum fyllt med kritiska kursdeltagare när UFO-Sverige höll fältundersökarutbildning för ett par år sedan är jag beredd på det mesta.

(The main characters are ten Swedes: Claudia de la Creme, Peter Varg, Stefan Odelberg, Claes Danell, Alexander Vasiliou, Dan Kirsch, Riku Koponen, Henrik Silver och Per Johan Råsmark.
All accomplished mentalists that can make our eyes not believe what takes place right in front of them. Exactly what they will do we do not know. But after having seen Per Johan Råsmark completely fool a room filled with critical minded attendees of a field investigator course held by UFO-Sweden a couple of years ago I am prepared for almost anything.)

Just a short comment about the other competitors: I didn’t know many of them before the show but I have got the impression that they are all very nice people and it is a pleasure working with them. Because at the moment that is what we all feel, we are working with each other to make as good a show as possible. It is unfortunate that some of us are going to be voted off the show. Still I miss some of my friends that I would have hoped would have been on the show.

Not another day at the office

2011-01-01T10:10:00.001+01:00

Some time ago I had the privilege to perform before a truly captive audience at one of Sweden’s correction facilities. That was quite an interesting experience and the audience was not that different from the kind of crowds I normally meet, maybe just a bit more sceptical.
New Years Eve I also met a different kind of crowd. I performed at one of Uppsala’s student nations. (The organisation of the students into different nations is a long tradition in Sweden, at least in the older university cities.)
It is always different to do a show for students in Uppsala compared to any other gig, not only because there is always some inquisitive and intelligent people in the audience, that you can find anywhere. Not only because students in general are a cheerful crowd that love everything a bit different, you can find good audiences at many other venues. No the big difference is all the familiar faces in the audience.
I have studied for a long time at the university and many different topics so it seems like I always have people that know me from one course or another in the audience. This time I met people I have studied critical thinking, theory of science, rhetoric, psychology, and cinematic storytelling with. Besides old classmates I also met one person originally from the same village as me, and an old acquaintance I actually know socially.
One effect of having that many people that already know you in the audience is that they will be much more likely to remember you afterwards so from a networking point of view it is beneficial. But what I really like with already knowing your audience is that there are so many other things to talk about afterwards so I do not need to be the “mentalist” all the time.
Of course it is still so that the majority of people don’t know me from before and it is fun to get to know new people, hopefully some of them will remember me.

Concerning Alternative Medicine

2010-09-07T19:06:00.001+02:00

Alternative medicine is a complicated topic and politics even more so. In Sweden’s major paper it was today possible to read an opinion article concerning both topics. As one of he authors there are perhaps a few things that I should explain concerning my involvement, what has a mentalist to do in an article about science and state subsidizes?

I have signed the article as a “mentalist” since that is my profession at the moment. I also have a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry so I have some understanding of scientific method and chemistry. As a mentalist I know a lot about how to fool people, how to use suggestion, tricks, cheating and psychology to create an image of supernatural powers. Powers not unlike what is claimed for some alternative treatments. Even more important I know a lot about how people fool themselves. We have one very good tool to differentiate between those of our convictions that correspond to reality and those that don’t, that tool is science.

I want to see the state using our money wisely. It is preferable if the state only gives money to things that is known to be effective. The way to know what is effective is to try it in a controlled way. A lot of alternative medicine has not been tested in this way, or if it has been tested it has been shown to have no effect, or even to been harmful.
It is still true that alternative medicine that has been shown to work is called medicine.
Each individual should have the right to try the treatments that they like but I can see no reason for the state to give money to unproven treatments apart from in researching the effects of those treatments. I know how easy it is for a person to believe in something without adequate information. That is true for the supernatural powers that I “demonstrate” in my show and it is true for some peoples believes in alternative treatments. Believing something does not make it so. That is why the state should not give money to things just based on peoples believes. If an alternative treatment has an effect it will give a positive result in a proper scientific test, why is it so controversial to ask for evidence?

It is apparently necessary to point out that as a mentalist I am an entertainer, a magician, or in the words of Jamy Ian Swiss, I am an honest liar. A blogger raised some concern regarding my involvement in the article. I hope I have explained my involvement above. In no way is anything that I do supernatural and I never claim that it is.

In the end I must say that I am very much pleased with the response to our article. It was mentioned in the SVT (Swedish television) news and a radio debate between the chairman of the Swedish sceptics and one of the politicians mentioned in our article was also conducted.

Talking about what we know and what we believe

2010-04-16T13:12:00.005+02:00

I don't write that much on my blog but when other people write about me on their blog I think it would be rude not to link to them.
This is what my friend John Houdi wrote about a discussion we had about skepticism, science and religion among other things.
Vad en ärlig lögnare tror
The text is in Swedish.

2009-12-12T13:29:00.003+01:00

There are a lot of things that can be said about the libel case against Simon Singh, and even more that can be said about the libel laws of England (and to some degree Wales if I am not misinformed.)
And a lot of things have been said, you can find it all over the Internet if you care to look. The important thing is that I believe that the libel laws of England need to be reformed and although I am not an Englishman I feel I can say this for three reasons.

1. English libel laws affect people outside of England. What is called libel tourism is increasing since anyone with a reputation to uphold in England can sue anyone else for libel if they published something that have reached an audience in England, which in the Internet age is not that hard to do.
2. I have friends in England who are in this struggle against an obviously flawed piece of legislature and I like to show them my support.
3. The freedom of speech is important, it is vital for all struggles toward a better society, and it is at the heart of the scientific process. Whenever and wherever the free scientific discussion is threatened rational people must stand up and make their voices heard.

The background to the Simon Singh trial can be read at this sight on this page. To learn about how English libel laws compare to the rest of Europe read this report. It is possible to sign a petition urging the English government to change its libel laws here. Go there, sign the petition, stand up for science!

A truth with modification

2009-11-12T00:28:00.006+01:00

I don't do children parties, that is supposed to be a fact, but since there are few things that are certain in life it happens once in a while that I do.
I found that the nice people in Harbo that asked me to come and do a show put up some photos on their blog so I have no hesitation to share some of the photos with my readers.

The truth is that I really like children but they can be a tough crowd to please so I usually stay with what I know best, mentalism for an adult audience.

But of course if anyone really wants a show for children that is also enjoyable for adults they can always get in touch with me.

2009-11-02T09:46:00.004+01:00

Mind over matter or just an illusion? My recent performance for UFO Sverige 25th October. Photo by Håkan Blomqvist.

I usually do not write about the performances and lectures that I do since I consider it to be something between me and the people that hire me.
About a week ago I did a lecture/show for UFO Sverige (a Swedish organization that studies UFO reports) and I have no problem quoting from what others have written about that event.
Unfortunately for international readers it is all in Swedish.

En av höjdpunkterna var när mentalisten/trollkarlen Per Johan Råsmark från Uppsala körde en nästan två timmar lång kombinerad show och föreläsning. Per Johan, som jag träffade på Missionskyrkan i Uppsala för en månad sedan då han bjudit in mig dit för att prata om ufo, visade sig kunna läsa tankar, böja skedar och få oss att välja de siffror och kuvert som han ville att vi skulle välja. Kul och lärorikt var det!

This was written by Clas Svahn in his report about the conference my lecture/show was a part of. Clas' blog for UFO Sverige can be found here.

Håkan Blomqvist also writes about the conference and my performance.

En fascinerande programpunkt var ett föreläsning/show av mentalisten/illusionisten Per Johan Råsmark. Han visade, med en kombination av psykologi och fingerfärdighet, att man kan lura vem som helst att man besitter magiska krafter, kan telepati, böja skedar med mera. Allt var förstås bluff men vi var många som undrade hur i alla världen det gick till. Onekligen mycket skickligt.

It is possible to read the entire blog entry from Håkan here.

Helping out

2009-08-15T23:35:00.005+02:00

I have been away, I have been in Prague. And I choose to be emotional for a moment, I love that city. I feel very much alive among all the history and culture. My Czech still needs a lot of work but it is getting better. Perhaps I should start to look for a well paying job in Prague because that is probably one of the few ways that I could be motivated to get a proper job.

While I was in Prague I met some old friends and some new friends as well. Some of my magical friends are going to do a show in a theater in Prague and we discussed a few ideas about different effects. It will be interesting to see what they will do in the end.

Now I am back in Sweden. I have spent today helping a friend with shooting a tv-pilot with the working title "mentalisten" (the mentalist). I did most of my work in the background. Though it was not all carrying bags, I did do some consulting and had a hand in one very good effect. Unfortunately I am not able to go into details but I am sure no one who watches the show will be able to figure it out, the camera crew were not able to figure it out and they were all magicians.

I actually did more magic today than I have done in a very long time because we had people around us all the time. I even performed on the train back to Uppsala. This day was a good day.

FISM world championship of magic

2009-07-31T16:32:00.004+02:00

I have been absent for quite some time but resent events are making it impossible not to write this entry.
Although a majority of the people in the world don't know and probably don't care the FISM world championship of magic is now finished and the results are interesting. Three years ago the competitions were held in Stockholm and this time it was Beijing. (The championships are held every third year.)
Here are the results:

Comedy Magic
- 1st place … not awarded
- 2nd place … Brynolf & Ljung - Sweden
- 3rd place … Cheff Magic - Denmark

Mentalism
- 1st place … not awarded
- 2nd place … tie - Nicolai Friedrich - Germany - and Rob & Emiel - Netherlands
- 3rd place … Tony Montana - Argentina

Stage Illusions
- 1st place … Julius Franck - Germany
- 2nd place … Magic Sky Group - China
- 3rd place … not awarded

General Magic
- 1st place … Soma - Hungary
- 2nd place … Ma Yanyan - China
- 3rd place … Siebensinn - Austria

Manipulation
- 1st place … tie - Yo Kato - Japan - and Han Seol-Hui - Korea
- 2nd place … Sebastian Nicolas - Germany
- 3rd place … An Ha Lim - Korea

Invention:
- Jorge Luengo - Spain

Most Original Act:
- Charming Choi - Korea

Micro Magic
- 1st place … not awarded
- 2nd place … Vittorio Belloni - Italy
- 3rd place … tie Simon Coronel - Australia and Johan Stahl - Sweden

Cards
- 1st place … Shawn Farquhar - Canada
- 2nd place … Kristian Nivala - Finland
- 3rd place … Olmac - France

Parlour Magic
- 1st place … Marc Oberon - UK
- 2nd place … Charlie Caper - Sweden
- 3rd place … Latko - Argentina

Why is this so interesting? Well it is not because Shawn Farquhar went on to win the Gran Prix in the close-up category or that Soma won the Grand Prix for stage, though congratulations to them both.
Let us see how well the different national teams did:
(Giving 3 points for a gold, 2 for a silver, and 1 for a bronze)

1st place Germany with 7 points
2nd place Sweden with 5 points
4th place Korea and China with 4 points
8th place Hungary, Canada, Japan, and the UK with 3 points
12th place Netherlands, Argentina, Italy, and Finland with 2 points
16th place Denmark, Austria, Australia and France with 1 point

The invention category (Spain) and most original act (Korea) not counted

Congratulations to Brynolf & Ljung, Johan Ståhl, and Charlie Caper

Confession

2008-09-19T01:26:00.001+02:00

If Socrates was right that ”the unexamined life is not worth living” it is evident that we must examine not only others but perhaps even more importantly ourselves. The other day I discovered yet again that I don’t always have an open mind. I overheard a conversation between two students after a seminar. During the seminar we had briefly discussed the meaning of a certain word in Nietzsche’s work. In German there are more words for “explanation” than in Swedish and one of the words has a meaning more like “illumination” perhaps with a hint of “self-evident”.

Translations between languages are always difficult and a reason to really learn different languages and understanding the meaning of the words, not merely a translation of the words, is that it will let you understand how your own vocabulary limits your possibility to think, and of course to expand those limits with new concepts. But I digress.

I am an imperfect human. I over heard this conversation and I at once formed my opinion that this person was not thinking in an intelligent way, that he was a buffoon, a philosophical buffoon but all the same a buffoon. Of course my reasons for thinking this can be found in what he said. But no matter what he said I had not sufficient evidence to jump to that conclusion.

Before I explain what I found so silly in this overheard conversation I have to confess that my opinion of this person is still negative although I know that I didn’t hear enough to be in a position to form a well founded belief. First impressions last.

The person who did most of the talking was writing a master thesis in sociology. He was glad that he had found a new idea of what an explanation is. He wanted to get away from the “theoretical explanations” that he found in sociology and have something more like “revelation”.

I hope that what he wanted was a way to describe how people use the word “explanation”. It is perhaps not always the case that what is given as an explanation in everyday life really explain things.

Of course I do not know what he meant with “theoretical explanation” but in my mind I formed the idea that he wanted to avoid analytical explanations, explanations that divide things into little pieces, explanations that limits the mind from seeing the big picture, so that he could just understand how it is. Indeed I got the impression that he wanted to steer away from old time ideas about explanations that limits the free and open mind of the researcher in sociology.

I am afraid that he will only find conviction, and conviction is a poor substitute for explanation. The important point of an explanation is that it explains things. It gives others the possibility to follow the analytical train of thoughts that lead to an understanding of how something works. A conviction, an understanding that is only based on revelation can never be anything else but personal. A personal explanation as well as a personal language is dead. Explanations are theoretical and analytical because they have to communicate something.

What good is philosophy?

2008-08-31T10:43:00.001+02:00

In Sweden the university studies are starting for the term. Here in Upppsala one can see many new faces, students new to the city and the university. Last week there was an introduction to philosophy in the main university building. One professor spoke about the use of philosophy she quoted a passage from a source that elude my memory at the moment.

The quote began to say that if you want to be a barrister, economist, or a MD you probably do not have much use of philosophy. This is not a new idea, since the earliest days of philosophy the thinkers have been accused of being useless in all ways practical. In the end though we were told that if you study philosophy you will at least be able to spot when other people speak BS. (If this is in accordance with the old proverb “it takes a thief to catch a thief” I leave unsaid.)

If it is a fact or not, that philosophers learn to detect BS, is an interesting question. Is it true and is it enough. Even if you might be better at detecting inflated claims and dishonest reasoning with others as a philosopher, there is one very necessary thing missing. Do you as a philosopher learn to detect when you are talking BS to yourself?

The question about if it is true that philosophers are good at detecting BS probably needs some careful studying. I would think that after learning how to analyse arguments and looking at all kinds of fallacies philosophers might be better at realising when someone violates the rules of deduction or infer too much from a statement. On the other hand a philosopher without the proper premises are as lost as anyone else.

If the BS a philosopher is offered do not go against his or hers all ready formed ideas about how the world works, and if the construction of the arguments agree with the laws of logic, a philosopher is as likely as anyone else to fall for BS.

Unless of course it is the kind of philosopher that likes to throw everything they got at even their most cherished ideas. Fortunately that seems to be just the kind of people that becomes philosophers.

Everyday Epistemology

2008-08-30T20:18:00.002+02:00

Epistemology is in philosophy the study of how we know things, often contrasted with ontology, the study of what is. There are many strange ideas about how to attain certain knowledge and some more realistic ideas about how to attain provisional knowledge. (The kind of knowledge that might be replaced by better knowledge in the future and leading to the question if the replaced knowledge really was knowledge to begin with.)

Everyday epistemology is something slightly different. Learning how to evaluate truth-claims is all very good but it is just impossible for one human being to build her entire world-view on tested claims. Each and every one of us, no matter how sceptical we want to be, accept things unchallenged out of necessity. With everyday epistemology I try to take a look at the limits of the examined life from a different perspective than what is traditionally done in philosophy.

In many discussions about epistemology the focus is how to find the truth about one thing or in one situation. In the real world we piece together billions and billions of impressions and data to form a picture of how the world is. Even if we had a perfect method of how to find the truth of each piece of data we would not have time to implement the method for each and every bit. When you want to study how a person knows how the world is, how her picture of reality is attained, it is a fact that mostly the knowledge, or information is perhaps a better word, is uncritically accepted.
(I use the word ‘information’ about bits and pieces of data without concern about if it is true or false, or even if it makes any sense.)

But very few accept everything they hear or see. At certain times people are more likely to test the claims that they encounter at other times they simply dismiss it. When people try to test new information we reach the field of classical epistemology, we ask ourselves if it is true and how can we find out if it is true. But before this we have the question of what makes people want to test new information and also when they should question not only new but old information.
The urge to test new information will arise then the information contradicts earlier ideas considered to be knowledge and it cannot be simply dismissed. The urge should arise than the information becomes, or is, an important part of ones world-view.

Factoids (mainly in Swedish) are interesting; they are small pieces of information that are not true, or at least unsubstantiated, but they are well known to be true or at least well know. Everyone knows Galileo’s famous utterance at the end of his trial because it is a good story. It is regarded as a true fact although it is not. For biographers of Galileo the story is important so they go through the trouble of checking the sources and find that they have to remove that piece of information from their knowledge of the world. Few people have that kind of a special interest in Galileo and the story will likely not contradict their world-view and thus simply becomes accepted as a small part of what they know. Factoids are not a perfect example of how information that is not confrontational and unimportant is easily accepted, because factoids are interesting and entertaining enough to be spread unlike much other information. Still they tell us that much of what a person know is uncertain because everyday we accepted information uncritically.

So the first “law” of everyday epistemology, the study of how people attain knowledge about the world in real life, is that everything is accepted as true.
The second “law” is that if new information contradicts what is all ready considered true there are three ways to handle the new information, testing the truth claim, dismissing the information without testing, or have a world-view that allow for contradictions.
It is out of necessity that we do not always test all the claims; it is out of necessity that we readily accept or dismiss information that agree or disagree with what we think we know. What is in my opinion a problem is that many appear to think that what is done out of necessity is also sufficient. Even when a set of believes have a prominent place in a persons world-view they think that accepting or dismissing information without testing is enough.

Perhaps the study of how people in fact form their world-view is more psychology and sociology than philosophy. I still think it is of huge importance to understand this part of epistemology if one wants people to live an examined life in the real world. Socrates said “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

Magic Balls

2008-08-15T15:59:00.001+02:00

There is no such thing as magic, and if something sounds to good to be true it probably is. Strangely enough this blog entry is in a way connected to the previous one because it is about scams.

A few days ago a Swedish newspaper (In Swedish) mentioned a test of environmental safe ways to wash your clothes made by a Norwegian consumer rights organization. Among the tested products was a “magic ball” that contained some ceramic beads that was claimed to have some remarkable properties.

In the test the magic ball had no effect above washing the clothes in plain water. A similar product had been sold in a chain of stores in Sweden (Design torget) and the newspaper contacted that chain to get a comment. The product had sold very well and they had no complaints, they had actually sold out; but now they were not going to take in any more until they had them tested by an independent third party.

I saw the product in the stores before they were sold out and reading the description on the back about how it was supposed to work it was obvious that it did not. At least if it was working it was not working in the way that was described.

If you sell something to people that does not work that is to scam them, isn’t it?

I assume that the stores are not as cynical that they are selling something that they know does not work. And I am sure that people are not as stupid that they buy things that they know does not work. The problem is that people do not always know enough to understand what works and what does not.

So whos responsibility is it to make sure that people are not scammed? Is it a matter of caveat emptor so that if you buy something that does not work it is your own fault? Or is it the person that sells a product that is responsible to make sure that it works? Could it be the manufacturer that should know their products enough to be sure it works?

There is no easy answer because even if it is not legally the buyer’s responsibility there will always be con men out there and people selling dreams so it is necessary to be aware.

And if you sell something that does not work but is not aware of the fact are you when perpetrating a scam? I guess that depend on if you were supposed to understand that it did not work.

Everyday we accept a lot of information uncritically. And if what we hear does not go against anything we know even if it is just because we do not understand it, we do not react. It is possible to sell a non-working product without consciously trying to scam your customers. Of course if you make a lot of money from selling something you may choose to disregard your doubt in a product and just not put in the effort to find out if it works or not.

If buyers and sellers had excuses surely the manufacturers cannot get off as easily. If some one is to know if a product works or not it must be the people that invented it and makes it. And yes, they should know. There are those that perpetrate scams creating products that they know does not work, you can make a lot of money with cheap labour, good public relations, and without scientific testing. But that is true even if you do not want to scam people and really believe in your idea. The problem is of course that being convinced that your product works is no guarantee and no substitute to scientific testing.

I do not know the makers of the magic ball, it might be that they are good willing and simply does not know how to test their product or they can be not so good willing scammers. None the less even the manufacturer may not be guilty of purposefully committing a fraud when a non-working product is sold.

The last blog entry was about how people are scammed, this one was about how people may lose money on products without anyone trying to scam anyone. Knowledge is the way to avoid both.

The Real Hustle

2008-08-13T20:21:00.002+02:00

This is not news for people in the UK. Objective productions, the company that has produced Derren Brown’s TV shows and TV specials, have a wonderful series about how to con people. Although I should perhaps say that it is about how to avoid being conned but knowledge is a double edged sword. Dishonest people watch TV as everyone else so it is not impossible that some of them learn some new tricks.

One of the differences between a magician and a cheat is the same as the difference between an educated person and an expert. The magician knows many more moves than the cheat but the cheat has perfected his. The audience tend to be less forgiving to a mediocre cheat than to a mediocre magician.

But even if some scoundrels learn a few more tricks I think the overall effect of the series is positive. First, con artist are specialized so they will only try a few if any of the scams. Second, to do a scam requires effort and practice; to see through the same scam and avoid being fooled you only need knowledge. So I see no reason why they could not show The Real Hustle in Sweden, though I hope they show the original British version.

The series is on its sixth season in Britain and the British version is the better one in my opinion. I do not understand why Americans always need their own version; proper English isn’t that hard to understand.

The three people staring in the show are Alex Conran, Jessica-Jane Clement, and Paul Wilson an excellent magician who's lecture I attended at the world championship of magic in Stockholm 2006.

They are really good at explaining how the different scams work because there are a lot of different layers in working a con. There are the practical details of the scam and the psychology that draws the victim into the fantasy world. Appealing to emotions work quite well, especially greed. It is also great fun to watch the show and the reaction of the people that are conned.

Anyone with an interest in how con artists operate can search youtube for some practical psychology at work (and some physics as well). Unfortunately the very best youtube channel was shut down, I guess that someone did not want these shows available for free. But some places to start looking are here, though they might be shut down soon so hurry:

ScamOnTv
Realhustledotcom
Scamplot’s

I think it is possible to learn a lot more from the series than only the mechanics of the plots and the specific psychological hooks that are used. In essence a good con artist let the mark fool himself. To avoid fooling oneself is perhaps something of the most difficult there is, it requires knowledge about the world and how we think and to apply it to oneself.

I guess that when a show is written (by Paul Wilson and Alex Conran incidentally) this is not what they think about; there is a clear educational angle to the series but focused more on consumer awareness than science and philosophy.

I should say something about the American version as well but I let someone else do it.

Objective Productions/Crook Productions’ new show, The Real Hustle, features a pickpocket/security consultant, a magician, and an actress hustling innocent passersby on television. Apollo Robbins, who made national news when he picked the pockets of Secret Service agents while performing for former president Jimmy Carter, heads up the team. New York City magician Ryan Oakes supplies the sleight-of-hand expertise, while Dani Marco is the actress onboard. Her credits include Law&Order The Sopranos, and most recently the Chris Rock movie, I Think I Love my Wife.

Magic Magazine, No 5, vol 17, January 2008, p.27

Caveat emptor

2008-08-11T18:44:00.001+02:00

That the buyer should beware is something most people know. Even in countries where you have a lot of consumer rights it is not always enough to protect the public from unethical people but that is not what this post is about. In this post buyer and seller as well as all innocent bystanders are assumed to act ethical, in the normal sense of the word.

When writing about this I regret that I do not know anything about economics because I find this an interesting and important aspect of how business is conducted and I am sure it has been studied. Probably there are a number of dissertations and papers on this that I have not read. But then again I am only a stupid uneducated scientist and magician not an economist.

As an example I will take public transport and how you decide what payment system to use. I guess that it is a good idea to have someone that have studied economics to compare different systems, how much the system will cost initially, how many that will avoid paying for the public transport by bypassing the system, the maintenance cost, personnel cost etc. There are probably many more variables that will be important. And I am no expert when it comes to public transportation or economics, but I do think I know a thing or two about people.

I have some ideas about what can influence the choice so that it is perhaps not the least expensive and most manageable system that is chosen. I think this was the case when they decided in Stockholm what system to use.

Having been to Vienna and having lived in Prague I consider their payment systems to be among the best I have experienced. And I also think that I know why it would never make it in a competition with for example the system they have in Paris.

There are no expensive machines in the Viennese system or the one in Prague and that is why they are less likely to be chosen by someone that has to invest a lot of money in a new payment system.

I do not know how much personnel the system in Paris requires compared to the systems in Vienna or Prague. The cities are not of the same size and not all the people that work within the public transport system are concerned with the payment system. But I do know that the system they have in Paris and Stockholm is less practical from a user perspective. In Prague or Vienna if you have your ticket you can get on and of trams and busses, in and out of the subway without taking the ticket out of your pocket and without any gates or detectors.

The reason why I think that a system like the one in Vienna or Prague is less likely to be chosen when someone is deciding on a new payment system is that no one is selling the system. There is no large investment in machines and thus there is no company spending money on selling the system. Sure there are som machines that you can buy tickets from set up in the subway stations but that is it.

The people selected to try to find a new payment system do not have to be taking bribes for the influence from the big companies to be a factor. Persuasion is a very important tool to make people do something. Companies with large budgets have more money to try to persuade people to buy their products. The simple system has no one that speaks up for it and I think that will make a huge difference. People do not always care so much about the hard facts, the comparison of how much the system will cost initially, how many that will avoid paying for the public transport by bypassing the system, the maintenance cost, personnel cost etc. People care about what other people tell them, and if there is no one that speaks up for the better system it will probably not be chosen.

It would be very interesting to learn if this hypothesis of mine have been tested and what the result was.

Making an impression

2008-08-10T09:54:00.002+02:00

I guess that as from today I have an official web page. I have had a Swedish version up for some time but now the first version of the full web page is up. I have heard that a web page is a little bit like a house, it is a never ending project. The people I know that owns a house at least confirm the part about a house always being in need of something. So this is a first version of my presence on the Internet and I realise that much improvement can be done. The page is fairly simple, although at this point I am at least prepared to focus on other projects for a while.

Who knows what the next version of the page will look like. www.rasmark.com

Arguments regarding intelligence gathering

Although most of the people in the world are unaware of what the Swedish government are up to I happen to live in Sweden so I take an interest. The quick background story is that the government want all Internet providers to connect their networks to FRA’s computers. The acronym FRA stands for “Försvarets Radio Anstalt”, which translates as something like “The Defence’s Radio Department”. Strangely enough this is a civilian and not a military authority.

Traditionally FRA has been listening to radio communication of military importance but with more and more communication going through cables instead of through the air they are trying to find other tasks to justify their existence.

In line with many other nations that introduced legislation that could be seen as an infringement of personal integrity after 9/11 the Swedish government legislated to “filter” all communication across the nations border. (As I understand it the new law actually says ALL communication and is not specifically about electronic communication.)

Since a lot of domestic communication is likely to pass over the boarders en route to its destination and thus becoming international communication this law leads to a large portion of all the communication being monitored by the government, but that is not the point here.

In the debate one argument for connecting all networks to the governments computers is that it will enable the nation to keep an eye on Russia (in Swedish). Much of the international Russian traffic goes through cables that cross Swedish borders. Recent events confirm that it is a good idea to keep an eye on Russia. But is that what the politicians are really interested in?

It is obvious that a lot of money must be invested in new technology and FRA also wants to increase the number of employees. The exact numbers are not important, numbers can be confusing, ‘a lot’ suffice.

One very important way to get information about another country is to have an efficient embassy in that country, that is one of the reasons countries have embassies.

You would think that if information about Russia really is important than the Swedish embassy in Russia would be able to sustain a qualified staff. Unfortunately this seems not to be the case. Apparently the Swedish embassy in Moscow cannot pay competitive wages for local staff (in Swedish). In comparison with the money the government want to spend on eavesdropping on the Russians this is clearly not a question of a lot of money.

If an argument is to carry any weight it is difficult to use it to defend a big change at a high cost while a small cost to the same goal is simply overlooked. That might make people wonder how much weight the argument really carries.

Strictly speaking this is not a logical fallacy, just because an argument is used to support one thing that you want to do does not imply that something you do not want to do has to be done because the same argument support that as well.

Although it is not a logical fallacy it will weaken the convincing power of the argument when it seems to only be important when it supports something that you want.

A rose by any other name…

2008-08-02T15:31:00.004+02:00

Shakespeare was of course right and yet so wrong. The fragrances a flower emits are the same no matter what name we have for that flower. Our mere naming of a plant does not affect its molecules. But our perception of the smell of anything is determined to some degree by our expectations. And the names of things do lead us to expect certain things.

I am sure that there is no need for examples of how the wrong name for a project, a product, or a person have led to missed opportunities. Though I would have liked to back up the previous statement with a reference to some carefully researched paper, some papers are sure to exist.

The reason for this entry regarding names is that people have asked me about the name of my company. Unlike many other artists I have not, apparently, used simply my own name. It might be a mistake since I, as all other performance artists, am selling my self as the product, thus there might be an advantage to have the product name and the company name being the same.

My unscientific opinion is that lecturers and educators unlike performance artists quite often use their company names to sell their product, at least if they are not themselves famous. I guess that although many on the lecture circuit are simply selling a performance under the disguise of motivation or education they like to give the impression of being serious.

Some day I will let the world know my opinion of people that sell BS as information, education, or training. For now I limit myself to the observation that no matter if they believe their own BS or not they rob people of a lot of money.

Still I like to be perceived as serious lecturer myself some day, when I am sure that I am not peddling BS. Hence I created a company with a name different, but not unconnected, from my own.

Here is the explanation to the company’s name, PJOR Entermation.

As can be seen it consists of two parts, the last part is a made up word, my contribution to the English language. Everybody has heard of ‘infotainment’ a melange of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’, which is a synonym for “pointless-distraction-under-the-cloak-of-importance”. I guess that my opinion on infotainment is quite clear.

My melange of the two words, (enter-tainment and info-rmation) is supposed to convey an idea similar to “important information delivered in an entertaining fashion”.

The first part of the company name can be read out as ‘pure’, and in deed it should be with all the positive connotations the word ‘pure’ carries. The spelling is explained by the proud Swedish tradition of putting your initials in the company’s name (think IKEA). Unlike Ingvar Kamprad I do not confuse the point with the names of the places I am from. PJOR simply stands for Per Johan Olov Råsmark.

A friend pointed out a very good example of the importance of names and how inconsistent we humans are. We all know how calories should be avoided and energy is something good. A drink that has a lot of energy is a good drink and a bagel with a lot of calories is a bad bagel. It might not be necessary to have studied both physics and semantics to notice that they are two names for the same thing, but it helps. The SI unit for measuring energy is Joule but calorie is traditionally used in measuring the energy content of food. The lovely energy rich drink by the other name of “lots of calories” does not smell as sweet.

Hiatus

2008-07-29T14:50:00.003+02:00

It is true that new publications often have a few hiatuses but it still does not look good when a new blog is not updated for an entire month; some people may even stop reading it regularly.

Although it is in the middle of the summer it is not a case of the beautiful weather distracting me from writing. Not saying that there have not been a few very beautiful days.

Neither is it the case that I have been travelling, for the first time in five years I missed the Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. If it had been possible I would have been there with some of the best and most interesting people in the world.

I have been working on new material. I had a performance on the 23^rd this month and did an entire show with my own material, that is my own effects not only my own presentations. The new effects that had their world premier were Intuition, Synchronicity, and Silver Touch. Then I performed some older routines like Starter 1A, Daybreak, and My Rune – Your Rune as well. I also threw in some examples of the power of suggestion. In all a fairly good sized show I would say myself, although I still don’t have any dancers, the drawback with doing mentalism instead of stage illusions.

Developing new material takes a lot of time, coming up with the ideas in actually the easy part in my mind. And to be honest this performance was very much a test run of the material and I have ideas for a few changes.

The great thing with doing an entire show instead of only one or two effects is that it gave me a possibility to tie the routines together with a single theme. I got inspired watching Neil Tobin perform in the Excalibur Nightclub in Chicago. His Ghost story theme worked very well and the effects became a part of a story. Ghost stories do not suite my presentational style so I changed that, and since I only did my own effects there was no overlap there so it would probably be difficult to see where my inspiration came from without knowing it. Actually even knowing were the inspiration came from it is impossible to see it.

My theme for the show was “valfrihet” a fairly good translation as a title of a show would be “free will” although “freedom of choice” might be a more literal translation. The theme was the choices we make, how we make them and our illusions about our reasons to make certain choices. It might be presumptuous to believe that it had some educational value besides being an entertaining show but I strive to make people think. Preferably they should not think about the small illusions I perform but the great mysteries of the universe and the big illusions we live in.

A few days later on the 26^th I performed at the summer dinner at Västgöta nation. A larger audience but a shorter show. I only mention it as a part of my excuse that I have not updated this blog sooner.

Amazingly I had enough time to write a sermon for the service on Sunday morning the 27^th. Although I should perhaps not say how much time that was; because some actually seemed to appreciate what I said and they might as well rest in the belief that a lot of work went into writing the sermon.

All of this sounds, at least to me, like some really good excuses though I hope everyone who read this understand that you only got my word that any of it is true.

Lost Integrity

2008-05-29T09:21:00.003+02:00

It has happened again. It appears as if it is an eternal struggle and a lingering question, what kind of scientific rigour should you aspect from a university. Although, or perhaps because, Uppsala University is my Alma Mater I have to voice my concern. It happened May 22^nd and it was the defence of a doctoral thesis named The Eucharist as Orikonso at the faculty of theology.

The thesis is only one example of a fundamental problem at many universities and since I have not read it myself I will not linger in critiquing the thesis. Anyone can read the abstract of the thesis, it gives some idea of what aim the author had with his work. First the thesis and latter the defence is described by one knowledgeable source as:
“The author does not hide in his book that his ambition from the outset has been a normative one, not a scientific one.”
“When the author is ranking religions and cultures no secular values, norms or characteristics seem to be used but only private evaluations and declarations.”
At the defence of the thesis:
“In front of the faculty opponent he frankly declared that he as a Christian theologian is in his full right to formulate a Christian theology as a doctoral thesis. This is what he had done, he said. He seemed to be very satisfied with himself.”
It is certainly not the first time that someone uses a doctoral thesis to push his or her own ideas and it will not be the last.

A conviction is a dangerous thing because it can have a person looking for all the things that support the conviction and disregard anything that contradict it. This behaviour appears to have no correlation to the intelligence of the individual. In Uppsala the person that discovered the lymphatic system and who started the botanical research continued by Linnaeus was the same man who wrote a book “proving” that Sweden was the ancient Atlantis. His name was Olof Rudbeck and he was living in a time when the understanding of the scientific method was not common knowledge. (Not that the scientific method is common knowledge today.)

There will always be people with strong convictions that want the seal of approval from universities. It can be for strange theories where the facts do not agree with the preferred conclusion, violating the scientific method, or it can be for ideas and interpretations of a purely subjective nature, outside the scope of the scientific method.
These two types of conviction can be compared to claiming that chocolate ice-cream always contain pineapple and that chocolate is the best flavour of ice-cream; clearly none deserve any kind of endorsement from a university.
Still universities in Sweden and without any doubt throughout the world, give passing degrees to people that do not meet the requirements. Why?

A great number of other examples from Swedish universities can be found in the book Högskolans lågvattenmärken (in Swedish). And talking to friends still at university I know that teachers are now told to make sure that every student pass certain classes. This is of course recommendable if it implied making sure that the students all learn the curriculum unfortunately that is not the case.

Without doing the necessary research I can think of three different reasons why unscientific thesis are accepted and students that have not learned the curriculum are given a passing degree.

It is a fear of conflict. Every student consider it their right to get a passing degree and it is easier to give it to them than to have them making a fuss about it. (People that feel unjustly treated can make a real big fuss about it.)

It is an economic matter. Since a department receives money for each student they pass (meant to be an incentive for high quality education) in financially strained times money is more important than quality.

It is a question of epistemology. The universities are filled with people that have a relativistic view of knowledge where each opinion is of equal value.

Of these three the last one is the least likely because if the professors and researchers believed in that kind of relativism they would not complain. But perhaps more people will come to have this relativistic opinion even at the universities.

Whatever the reason, when the scientific rigour is abolished the university has lost its integrity and if the university loose the idea about the scientific method it has lost its soul. It was supposed to be about searching for the truth and not about pushing opinions.

A close encounter

2008-05-26T15:28:00.002+02:00

Although I am very interested in the phenomenon that is called New Age I have unfortunately not met that many people who can be said to have this belief, or type of believes. New Age is not new nor one belief; it is a goody bag of ideas some of great antiquity and others from today although they might claim to be from tomorrow. Recently though I had a close encounter with some very nice New Age people.

New Age is old news so I will not talk much about it. Confronted with some of the teachings the questions that are raised can be both scientific and theological. I overheard statements about energy lines, alternative medicine, and the god within oneself when I eavesdropped on the blonde angel-like guru. I would not have mind to learn more about her message and her theology than the few minutes I had together with her allowed.

What I will write about is my own experience of meeting the enthusiastic people that organised what they termed a lecture and a course though I would rather label it a religious service.

I am no enemy of religion unlike some sceptics and rational thinkers. Indeed I am religious myself in case someone like to know. It is interesting to think about religion and not just dismiss it because it has no foundation in science. Even if there are no gods people have religious convictions, feelings, and traditions, that is a fact.

The people I met really felt their religion; that was the impression I got. They wanted to feel the energy, the peace of mind, the oneness with the universe. The focus was very much on feeling perhaps to the deterioration of reflective thought. This flight from asking questions is not unique to New Age but if one is to accept everything it is perhaps a prerequisite that not too many questions are asked.

Without contradicting myself I have to say that a lot of questions were asked and the “guru” Anette Carlström answered them all. But they were practical questions and not critical questions. No one seemed concerned with the critical questions about truth or epistemology and if there was any discussion about the consequences of the theological message I did not hear it.

Not asking critical questions is not being stupid. The people I met were all very pleasant to be around and I do not get along well with stupid people. They were all very good people, open and friendly, I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them.

Sceptics are sometimes unnecessarily condescending toward New Age believers. We are all living on the same planet (at least most of the time) and we try to live our lives the best we can. If we are open and ask questions we might understand each other better.
That goes for more traditionally religious people as well, just remember that understanding someone is not the same as agreeing with them.

How did I meet these people? They had rented space in the church I belong to and it was my turn to act as a host that day.

My first blog entry

2008-05-24T18:48:00.000+02:00

I do not care that former vice president Al Gore thinks that blogging is a way to save democracy in a world where reason is assaulted. The majority of the blogs I have seen have been inane comments to known events so it is with some hesitation I have begun mine contribution to the information overflow on the Internet.

The only justification for a blog in my opinion is to either present well considered comments to known events or present new information before the major media corporations get hold of the news. If one is really lucky one might be able to do both but to do neither is a waste of bandwidth.

To stumble over a spectacular news story is perhaps not that easy so one may excuse people that write blogs from failing to do so on a regular basis. But having the belief that one’s own opinion on any topic is of vital importance to the entire world is something many bloggers can be blamed for.

It would serve any serious blogger well to chose a topic for his or hers comments since few of us can have well founded opinions in all matters of public interest although everyone has an opinion.
This will be the topic of this blog: Well founded opinions and believes, and of course not so well founded opinions, gut reactions, silliness, and the manipulation of people, the question of how do we know what we know and are we sure about that?

So in one sense I cheat, I have been know to do that from time to time, this blog can discuss a great variety of different topics under the disguise of focusing on the arguments presented without contributing with any factual knowledge.

I do have factual knowledge of a few things but my expertise is limited and all to often I do not have a good source for where my knowledge comes from. This is true for most people but we rarely see it as a problem but it can become a problem.
When two believes stand against each other it is vital that we know how to determine what proposition is correct. Or if it is merely a matter of subjective opinion where both believes are equally valid we need to be able to determine if this is so.
Unfortunately neither is self evident. Leibniz had the idea that with a perfect language and knowledge of logic it would be possible to sit down and calculate the answer to a question instead of endless debating but where is the fun in that.

Hopefully the readers will find some of the comments I make well considered since I am unlikely to present any revolutionizing news. People have been thinking and debating since before antiquity and there is a wealth of material to comment upon and loads of warning examples. (Although the examples from before recorded history are scarce.)

This blog will not stop the assault on reason but if it can be a contribution in the battle I am content.