So, I decided to roll a bunch of dice, only I would tell the dice which number to come up as, by concentrating on that number and visualizing it while I rolled with my eyes closed:
This is how it went:
Fist, I'll roll 6's:
Not bad, eh? I got off to a good start!
Now, I'll roll 5's!
Oops! That didn't work... I still don't know what went wrong with that one.
Now, I'll try 4's
Did better, but not the spectacular result I'm looking for... Let's try something else:
Now, I'll roll anything except 1's (In order to get 1's)
Wow! That worked!
Let's try rolling for 5's again now
Right on!
Now, I'll try tolling 5's while looking at a 5 to help the concentration:
Did it again!
5's Again:
Good, but not the best
5's again:
Getting worse... I'll try getting rid of those pesky other numbers:
Now I try to roll 5's while thinking "only 5"
Oops! I guess "only 5" translated as "only one 5"! That didn't work!
Now I try for 5's while looking at this group of fives:
Notice though, that the other faces are all 6's, which distracted me.
5's (with an errant thought of 6's)
Oops! Look what that errant thought about 6's did!
Let's try for 6's:
Bam! Did it!
6's
Again!
6's
And again, pretty much.
6's
It seems to be wearing off... I think I see a pattern here: The longer I try for one thing, the worse I get!
6's (and I return the three examples into play)
Getting worse still!
6's
Still getting worse!
I'm having trouble visualizing the 6's: Other numbers keep popping into my head; I'll try something else for a while:
1's
Pretty good.
2
Right on!
3
okay
4
mediocre
5
Something's wrong! I'm having trouble again! Try harder:
6
okay
6
Perfect!
6
Decent...
6
Perfect!
6
meh
Let's try for something new: 6's and 3's!
Well, it did okay...
Let's try for only high numbers:
Did pretty good there.
Totals of results: (Last two are hard to score and don't count)
7 Perfect (Desired # is highest)
3 Very Good (Desired # is tied for 1st)
7 Good (Desired # is 2nd or 3rd)
3 Mediocre (Desired # is average)
2 Explicable Failure (Desired # is low for known reasons)
4 Failure (Desired # is low for no reason.)
Total Scored:
26
Perfect / Non Perfect:
7/19 (Should be 17%, not 37%!)
Perfect or very good/Not
10/16 (38%, but should be a little over 17%!)
Favorable/Unfavorable
17/9 (65%, instead of 50%!)
Favorable/Unfavorable, adjusted for explicable failures
19/7 (This method effects the results enough to make what should be 50% be 73%!)
*Percents are rounded.
*Favorable means perfect, very good, or good.
So, perhaps this is a way to bend or break the laws of probability...
Perhaps with practice, I could make extremely unlikely things happen...
Posted in science, because I tried to make it as sound as possible an experiment.
The skeptics among you have two escapes:
1: It's all a lie: I arranged the dice that way and made all this up. (Not likely, if you know me)
2: It's all just a coincidence, if you do it again tomorrow, you would probably get different results. (I theorize that the possibility of it being a coincidence has to be there, or it will not work)
Last edited by ocalhoun on Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:30 pm; edited 1 time in total Sounds like you'r ready for a trip to the casino.
If you can roll a pair of dice with a high probability of coming up a pair of six's, you need to hit the craps table. Apair of six's is a hardway 12 and it pays 9:1 .
Be sure to orient and hold the dice the same way each time.
well I have to doubt the whole thing but well.. it can happen but I think it is just coincidence: Do you think you changed the physical laws the dice abide by thinking of some special results? Or how would you explain the whole thing? Do you have a special method of rolling a dice?
Seems like you have a lot of time on your hands. Your score system is somewhat flawed though. In order to do a proper statistic probability test, you have to precisely pin down what the result is. "Perfect" / "Very good" etc. are subjective terms which cannot be used for that.
The probability test mentioned above is used to calculate the chance that you'd obtain a certain result if the distribution is indeed random. In other words, it's used to determine whether the distribution is random or not. Should the test conclude your result is very unlikely to be obtained in a random distribution, then either the dice is rigged, or you've a non-random throwing technique.
Just try e.g. throwing sixes 100 times. The expected distribution is Bin(100,1/6). The chances of getting X or more sixes can be mathematically determined (or, for lazy people like me, using a TI / Casio / whatever). For instance for X=20 (meaning 20 or more sixes) the chances are 0.21975 or ~22%. For X=30 only 0.00068 or ~0.07%.
The expected value E(X) = 100/6 = ~17 but don't be fooled: chances for exactly 17 sixes are only 10,524%. Usually it's no good using exact values of X, in this case also you should use cumulative values as done above.
I'm not sure if that's exactly a valid experiment - third place is average, so there's a very fine line between your definition of good/mediocre. Also, although there were many dice, there were relatively few throws.
Only what happens in R+G are dead can be considered defying the laws of probability.
Has anybody worked out the total number of times that each number came up? I suppose I could count them myself - maybe I'll count the sixes and others can take it from there?
David.
I'll count the one's and twos.
EDIT: 134 one's, 121 two's. Nothing strange there.
Well there are 162 6's rolled and only 134 1's - my eyes hurt so not going to count the other numbers but there seems to be a fairly large discrepancy there.
But pretty sure its coincidence 
David. | poly wrote: |
| well I have to doubt the whole thing but well.. it can happen but I think it is just coincidence: Do you think you changed the physical laws the dice abide by thinking of some special results? Or how would you explain the whole thing? Do you have a special method of rolling a dice? |
I don't know how it works, but it does. I don't think I've changed the physical laws, I just suspect that I'm finding evidence for a physical law that we're not aware of yet. A special method of rolling the dice? You'll notice I'm rolling over twenty dice at a time (quite a handful), and I'm doing it with my eyes closed. If I can physically manipulate the way the dice roll out in that situation, I do need to take a trip to a casino!
| caroline wrote: |
I'm not sure if that's exactly a valid experiment - third place is average, so there's a very fine line between your definition of good/mediocre. Also, although there were many dice, there were relatively few throws.
|
True, I realized that the favorable/unfavorable statistic is flawed because I was counting a tie for third as favorable.
However, the perfect/non-perfect is still valid. There are six different numbers that could 'win', and supposedly an equal chance that each will: 1 in 6, Which is about 17%. (Neglecting the possibility of a tie, which would make it a little more unlikely)
However, My results were 7/26, which works out to about 37%.
The conclusion: Using this method, the number I was trying for was the most common number 20% more often than it should have been.
| caroline wrote: |
I'll count the one's and twos.
EDIT: 134 one's, 121 two's. Nothing strange there. |
Er, that would be significant if I was trying to get the same number every time, but I was changing what number I was trying for often, so there should be little difference between the numbers. (Except that I was trying for fives and sixes a lot, you might expect there to be more of them than of the other numbers.)
As for having rigid definitions of perfect, very good, good, et cetera:
I gave my criteria for that:
Perfect (Desired # is highest)
Very Good (Desired # is tied for 1st)
Good (Desired # is 2nd or 3rd)
Mediocre (Desired # is average)
Explicable Failure (Desired # is low for known reasons)
Failure (Desired # is low for no reason.)
Good and above are considered favorable, mediocre and below are considered unfavorable.That's still not suitable for mathematical operations. When I'm determining physical constants for some equilibrium in the chem lab, I'm not going to write down at t=0s the [X] was highest, second was t=10s, third was t=20s .... that won't get me any information except the sign (- or +) of some constants.
| Quote: |
| Mediocre (Desired # is average) |
Yeah, that's a rigid definition alright. You need to work with exact numbers. And then you need an experiment with a high enough n (numtrial) to pass a deviation test with the P-value.
Technically it's impossible to break the laws of probability, because no matter how large n you have, there will always be a chance that all throws are e.g. 6. I've never considered the law of probabilities to be a law because it really isn't. It's closer to the prediction of probability.
| Afaceinthematrix wrote: |
| I've never considered the law of probabilities to be a law because it really isn't. It's closer to the prediction of probability. |
well, i agree on the point. law is too much, probably as "a theory" will suit. thermodynamically, the claims are true due to the avogadro's number of particles. im currently studying statistical mechanics and the subject on probability isn't that easy. its kind a hard!Using a "true" random number generator (random.org), I got this sequence on my first try. Here are the first few terms:
# 96
# 41
# 91
# 24
# 71
# 12
# 80
# 2
# 99
Hey look! There are 3 numbers over 99 out of the 9 - that's a third! I broke probability! (No you didn't.)
There's also only one number between 30-70: there should be about 4. Numbers are tending towards extremes. I broke probability! (No you didn't.)
The same type of thing is happening here.
I wonder why roll 29 dice ? , the only reason I can see is to give "some" result , If I decided to see if I could alter the outcome of the roll ( and believe me I have ) then I would only roll one die, and based on the success of that move on to two dice, ect ect , I'm not sure how else I could convince myself I had actually got a desired result.
If we could truly affect the outcome of dice rolls by focusing on the desired outcomes, why don't I win at Yatzee more often?
| Jinx wrote: |
| If we could truly affect the outcome of dice rolls by focusing on the desired outcomes, why don't I win at Yatzee more often? |
Did you believe that you could influence it? In things like this, belief plays a huge role.
| nilsmo wrote: |
Hey look! There are 3 numbers over 99 out of the 9 - that's a third! I broke probability! (No you didn't.)
There's also only one number between 30-70: there should be about 4. Numbers are tending towards extremes. I broke probability! (No you didn't.)
The same type of thing is happening here. |
Were you trying to get lots of numbers over 90?
Were you trying to get only one between 30-70?
If you had established these goals before generating the numbers, it would be much more convincing. There are, of course, always abnormalities deviating from the laws of probability. The interesting thing here is that they deviated in the way I wanted them to. | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Jinx wrote: | | If we could truly affect the outcome of dice rolls by focusing on the desired outcomes, why don't I win at Yatzee more often? |
Did you believe that you could influence it? In things like this, belief plays a huge role. |
Prove it.
| Quote: |
| If you had established these goals before generating the numbers, it would be much more convincing. There are, of course, always abnormalities deviating from the laws of probability. The interesting thing here is that they deviated in the way I wanted them to. |
There are no abnormalities deviating from the laws of probabilities at all.Another researcher at my Equine Dream organization has done similar tests, and come up with exciting results. It would seem that anyone who believes it is possible can do this, and that we get similar results.
| WhiteFlame wrote: |
Sorry it took so long for me to find enough time. Here are the results. I did a similar six-sided die test of the theory, just so that there are even more data points. I will attempt to use several twenty-sided die once I have another moment.
Experiment 1: Rolling one die at a time until all twelve are rolled while concentrating on obtaining the most of a particular number that was randomly selected before each test. The results of this test were very good. Unfortunately, I performed the rolls 45 more times and my concentration began to diminish. I will post the data charts for the other tests if you would like, but for now, I will just give the final results for them as these charts take a while to line up.
[It took me a while to understand this table, but it does make sense. The numbers in the 6 right side columns are not the result of the dice, but the amount of the results matching the number at the top of the column. Numbers in bold are the ones he was trying for.]
Then average probability of getting the desired number in this experiment was 88 (total desired number hits)/ 300 (# of dice rolls) = 29.333%, much greater than that of a regular roll, 1/6 = 16.667% chance
For the second test immediately following, the results were 72/300 or 24%.
For the third test, the results were 57/240 (I was getting tired) = 23.75% chance of desired roll.
These results combined with your previous tests make the notion seem pretty final. Of course, I have yet not adjusted the figures for possible error, but I am pretty confident in the validity of the theory. As I became more and more tired, the percentage decrease, which would make sense due to lesser concentration.
|
I would say that this considerably weakens the theory that these results are because of a meaningless coincidence. OK, if you seriously want to do some research then let's do it properly. This forum represents a great resource in this regard since there are a number of people here who are not known to each other and who could, therefore, provide a reasonable test group. I'll certainly take part in an experiment, and I'm sure others may also be willing.
As I said, let's do it properly, so:
Firstly, what are the experimental aims?
Secondly what is the experimental protocol - what dice are being rolled, how many times, what recording method? What other requirements are there? I can see roughly what the experiment is but let's have it properly defined before we move on.
It is important to note that you cannot specify that people carrying out the experiment must 'believe' anything. If part of the experiment requires one to concentrate on trying to achieve a particular outcome then that is fine, but specifying in advance that the person must believe that it is possible is not fine and violates proper experimental protocols.
Once this is done we can set about getting some results and then analyse them properly.
| Bikerman wrote: |
It is important to note that you cannot specify that people carrying out the experiment must 'believe' anything. If part of the experiment requires one to concentrate on trying to achieve a particular outcome then that is fine, but specifying in advance that the person must believe that it is possible is not fine and violates proper experimental protocols.
|
Perhaps, but I suspect that the person's belief is an important condition that must be present for the experiment to succeed. Much in the same way that a certain temperature is a condition that must be present for a chemistry experiment to succeed.
It would be interesting, though, to find out if belief is really needed, or if it is only concentration.
As for making a formal experiment of it, feel free to do so; I suspect you're better qualified to define the particulars of it than I am. I would be very interested to see what results others get.
Another update: I tried it with coins, and it did not work. I would always start out strong (at one point 16 heads against 5 tails), but the advantage would erode away and become nearly an even 50%.The reason why 'belief' cannot be a prerequisite is simple. People who believe strongly in a certain thesis will sometimes subconsciously, and sometimes even consciously, introduce errors in data observation, recording, reporting and analysis. There are numerous incidents of this in science which is why external, impartial corroboration and repeats of experimental results are required for any claim to be taken seriously.
Any 'belief' on the outcome of a cube-toss on Earth that a particular gamble-bot may have will have no discernible effect on a properly controlled experiment. Ask Randy to set one up? 
| newolder wrote: |
| Any 'belief' on the outcome of a cube-toss on Earth that a particular gamble-bot may have will have no discernible effect on a properly controlled experiment. Ask Randy to set one up? |
Excellent idea. Just what we need - Randy tosser will produce meaningful output I have two cubes balanced precariously. After next fall, i'll report the face up id on each.
Currently they are both marked once on that face.
If 'belief' goes as r^-2, it'll have only a remote chance of effecting the outcome here... 
ed.
Well, those that believed the next fall would take either to an 'up' state may leave now...
One has fallen to be now showing three dots on its upper face: it fell down 50 mm or so and, although it is less precarious, it still may fall another 30mm, or so, to the table-top, soon... | newolder wrote: |
I have two cubes balanced precariously. After next fall, i'll report the face up id on each.
Currently they are both marked once on that face.
If 'belief' goes as r^-2, it'll have only a remote chance of effecting the outcome here...
ed.
Well, those that believed the next fall would take either to an 'up' state may leave now...
One has fallen to be now showing three dots on its upper face: it fell down 50 mm or so and, although it is less precarious, it still may fall another 30mm, or so, to the table-top, soon... |
The suspense (lit) is killing me | Bikerman wrote: |
| The reason why 'belief' cannot be a prerequisite is simple. People who believe strongly in a certain thesis will sometimes subconsciously, and sometimes even consciously, introduce errors in data observation, recording, reporting and analysis. There are numerous incidents of this in science which is why external, impartial corroboration and repeats of experimental results are required for any claim to be taken seriously. |
Well, there's an interesting topic. Are we to exclude scientists that are driven to (dis)prove a particular thesis and consequently only accept those that are totally neutral and not in support of any theory?
In a strict sense, any result is a valid result (as long as no numerical errors have been made when determining or calculating values) but the way it is obtained determines the conclusions that can be drawn from it. E.g. throwing 50% sixes with a dice (assuming n=infinite) is a valid result, but the only conclusion that can be drawn from it is that under the circumstances the experiment was performed you will get a six half the time. Those circumstances would probably be a messed up dice.
From a chemist's point of view this is especially significant, seeing that many discoveries have been made by accidental deviations. The obtained results are always valid (chemicals don't lie) but it is crucial to know exactly how the experiment was performed. In this field that's often not exactly according to the protocol, which is no problem as long as you know what you did. Of course that's not always easy - we're assuming that pots contain what the label states, but what if a previous user contaminated the powder? If interesting results are obtained, it'd be useful to analyse the used substances in retrospect.
To get back to the topic. Usually, the people performing an experiment are not part of it. Their opinions / beliefs etc. are not part of the protocol and not supposed to be part of the experiment. Otherwise a researcher may do things different than the protocol describes, thus obtaining valid results - but not valid in connection with that protocol, leading to invalid conclusions unless it is known in what way was deviated. Which is often blurred when personal bias is involved.
So in a sense that could be what we're trying to clear up with the experiments in this topic. Ocalhoun seems to be interested in the influence of the researcher's mental focus on the results of an experiment, but in order to establish that, we have to make sure there are no other influences from the researcher involved.
For this reason I think using a non-human researcher is not going to be any good. It's kind of avoiding the real problem.
Last edited by Arnie on Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:42 am; edited 2 times in total | Arnie wrote: |
| Bikerman wrote: | | The reason why 'belief' cannot be a prerequisite is simple. People who believe strongly in a certain thesis will sometimes subconsciously, and sometimes even consciously, introduce errors in data observation, recording, reporting and analysis. There are numerous incidents of this in science which is why external, impartial corroboration and repeats of experimental results are required for any claim to be taken seriously. |
Well, there's an interesting topic. Are we to exclude scientists that are driven to (dis)prove a particular thesis and consequently only accept those that are totally neutral and not in support of any theory? |
Not at all...we simply insist that their experimental results are reproducable by others who may not share their zeal.
{snipped because I agree with the rest} | Quote: |
| The problem with this particular experiment is that we're actually investigating the influence of the person performing it. |
Agreed. The correct experimental protocol would therefore be to conduct an independantly observed experiment with the individual concerned under laboratory conditions. Unfortunately that is not possible in this case.Not knowing you were already replying, I added some stuff to my post. That always happens when I reread long typings...
| Quote: |
| Not at all...we simply insist that their experimental results are reproducable by others who may not share their zeal. |
That's what I continued about in the next paragraphs. | Arnie wrote: |
Not knowing you were already replying, I added some stuff to my post. That always happens when I reread long typings...
| Quote: | | Not at all...we simply insist that their experimental results are reproducable by others who may not share their zeal. |
That's what I continued about in the next paragraphs. |
Not a problem. 
As I said, I agree with your arguments.
I just don't see how, in this case, we could possibly conduct an experiment which could include the experimentor as a factor in the results, unless we descend on Ocalhoun, forcibly remove him to a lab, make him roll, and watch closely You can't require that the participants believe, but include a requirement for them to rate their level of belief when they submit their results... how about a scale of one to ten - one being highly skeptical, 10 being strong belief. Perhaps not the best solution, but it will at least give you some idea of whether or not belief is a factor.
I can see both sides of this argument. Bikerman is right in that strong belief can lead to the possible contamination of evidence (even subconsciously), since humans tend to want to remain in their comfort zones - and having a belief disproved can be pretty uncomfortable to one's worldview.
On the other hand, confidence in one's ability to do something can affect how well it is done. This applies to real, physical actions, not just ESP and paranormal stuff. I won't go so far as to say that it's been proven, but there is plenty of common wisdom that points out how far a positive attitude can go to helping one be successful in any endeavor. ( I wonder if anyone has done any studies on how mental attitude affects performance?)
Anyway, if you guys do set up an experiment, I'm willing to roll a few dice in the name of science. (assuming I can find my Yatzee game ) ocalhoun you should work full time on this as you will only need to inhabit the Casino in your new career 
Don't bet the house or the castle though 
A legend in chemistry is that an explosive gas mixture will detonate when you take an angry look at it. Perhaps we should try that instead, putting people with smiles and angry faces near a H2 and Cl2 mixture. Although in that case the lighting has to be very constant 
