My brother says he gets "funny feelings"

[friedonions]

Hi all :)

My brother plays Bad Company 2 and says he gets "funny feelings" then turns around and kills a guy behind him without knowing the guy is there. He admits that sometimes he gets "funny feelings", turns around and no one is there. I then told him it doesn't matter that he gets "funny feelings" and that he is lucky instead. He admits its luck but also says he gets "funny feelings" then says its a "lucky feeling".

I'm trying to tell him what he is saying is that he is psychic but the thinks that's an insult and instead refers to it as "funny or lucky feelings". How can I convince him that that these "funny feelings" don't matter?

Thanks :)

Also, his "proof" was that him turning a corner, shooting a guy and that he got a "funny feeling" there. But when he died I asked him if he got a "funny feeling" and he says I was distracting him.

[Sledge]

If he acknowledges that these feelings aren't always right, I'm not sure what your problem is. It sounds more like you want him to say he's psychic so you can prove him wrong.

[friedonions]

If he acknowledges that these feelings aren't always right, I'm not sure what your problem is. It sounds more like you want him to say he's psychic so you can prove him wrong.

Well what is the point of him saying he gets "funny feelings" then? Isn't that the same?

he's saying the funny feelings matter because he was right a few times. but i say they dont matter at all since he died sometimes when he gets them.

lol :D

[shandyjan]

Maybe he is counting the hits and discarding the misses, meaning he thinks his funnny feelings are more valid than what they are...just his mind doing its thing!

[WildCat]

The same thing happens to me playing Modern Warfare 2, but that's because you can hear the enemy.

[Dancing David]

Without blinding any cues ,it would be hard to say, the question is the rate of funny feelings to actual events and the pointed out confirmation bias by Shandy Jan.

[Cavemonster]

Hi all :)

My brother plays Bad Company 2 and says he gets "funny feelings" then turns around and kills a guy behind him without knowing the guy is there. He admits that sometimes he gets "funny feelings", turns around and no one is there. I then told him it doesn't matter that he gets "funny feelings" and that he is lucky instead. He admits its luck but also says he gets "funny feelings" then says its a "lucky feeling".

I'm trying to tell him what he is saying is that he is psychic but the thinks that's an insult and instead refers to it as "funny or lucky feelings". How can I convince him that that these "funny feelings" don't matter?

Thanks :)

I don't know the game, but is it possible that he often gets these funny feelings when, for instance, passing places where there is a high likelyhood of someone being behind him? For instance, someone may look out the window and get a funny feeling there will be traffic soon. Of course they always do this when it's about 4:45. Your brother may be lucky, or he may be responding to signs he's not actively aware of. Hell, I don't know the game, maybe the person behind him is making noise that he doesn't realize he hears.

Another confounding factor could be frequency of people lurking around. The reason dowsers keep fooling themselves is because in many parts of the world, there is often water if you dig deep enough, the odds are really good, you don't even need to be particularly lucky to find it.

So if it's worth investing a little time, watch him for a session of gaming, see how frequently he gets a feeling and under what circumstances. Count the hits and also the misses. Then have him turn around at regular, similar intervals instead and compare the hits or misses to the ones from the feeling.
It could be a simple matter of cherry picking.

If he's just been lucky, then a few trials of Feeling based vs Regularly spaced turning around should yield similar results and show him he's been bad at counting his hits and misses. If he's responding to signs without recognizing them, that's a little harder to show, but look for any patterns when he gets his feelings.

[friedonions]

Yea he says sometimes his funny feelings save him and thats why it matters. He admits that it doesn't always work. But then why even say he get's funny feelings if he is wrong more than right.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

He gets a "funny feeling" when a man is close behind? Is it kind of a wonderful, tingly feeling? I think that means he's gay. :)

[friedonions]

I don't get him. He admits he gets lucky, but then says he actually feels hairs stand on the back of his neck. And "you ever get the feeling like someone is watching you?" That's not possible right guys? :D

Thanks for the comments :)

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Uu1RP34FLXU

[plumjam]

Sounds like your brother gets funny feelings.

[NoZed Avenger]

Sounds like your brother gets funny feelings.

It's all a part of growing up.

Soon, you'll have to have 'the talk' with him.

[ExMinister]

Now I know I'm getting old. I read the OP as follows: My brother plays Bad Company (anybody but me know that's the name of a rock group?) and then gets funny feelings and turns around and kills the guy behind him. Good grief, I thought you were talking about actual killings, or having a psychotic breakdown.

Nice to know it's a game! Duh.

Yeah, I know, I'm old.

My guess is he's gotten good at playing the game, anticipitating who's likely to be where, or he's making more of the funny feelings he gets than he needs to, considering they're often wrong. Our minds are like that. We notice the "hits" because they seem so amazing, and overlook the "misses" since they pale in comparison to the way the "hits" feel.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think this is the least of his worries. You say he killed a guy?

~~ Paul

[Rairun]

Like it's been said, it's not an uncommon feeling in that type of game. If you memorize the map, are more or less aware of the enemies' location, and don't keep the sounds muted, the chances are that you're going to anticipate a lot of moves pretty much instinctively. It fails sometimes, but I wouldn't doubt it's better than chance.

[Cainkane1]

Hi all :)

My brother plays Bad Company 2 and says he gets "funny feelings" then turns around and kills a guy behind him without knowing the guy is there. He admits that sometimes he gets "funny feelings", turns around and no one is there. I then told him it doesn't matter that he gets "funny feelings" and that he is lucky instead. He admits its luck but also says he gets "funny feelings" then says its a "lucky feeling".

I'm trying to tell him what he is saying is that he is psychic but the thinks that's an insult and instead refers to it as "funny or lucky feelings". How can I convince him that that these "funny feelings" don't matter?

Thanks :)

Also, his "proof" was that him turning a corner, shooting a guy and that he got a "funny feeling" there. But when he died I asked him if he got a "funny feeling" and he says I was distracting him.
My so called funny feelings are usually unpleasant.

[Soapy Sam]

Maybe the programmers are playing subliminal "Look behind you!" messages through his speakers?
Also subliminal "Buy the upgrade!" messages.

[Uncayimmy]

If he acknowledges that these feelings aren't always right, I'm not sure what your problem is. It sounds more like you want him to say he's psychic so you can prove him wrong.

You really don't see the problem? By definition he's saying that sometimes the feelings *are* right, and that's a problem. It's the same thing psychics say. The guy is very close to making the connection that the feelings are actually meaningless, and that's the lesson that needs to be learned.

I'd start bringing the guy a drink at random times without explaining why. Eventually he's going to get annoyed. I would explain that I get the feeling that he's thirsty, and sometimes I'm right.

[Tiktaalik]

I think in operant conditioning if you only give the rat (for example) a food treat every once in a while when it presses a lever, it's actually harder to extinguish the behavior than if it got a treat every time (it "assumes" there's just a gap in the frequency with which it gets a treat). So assuming your brother is like a rat, it's going to be very hard to exptinguish this behavior if he gets a hit every once in a while...

/weird analogy

[Sasha]

Now I know I'm getting old. I read the OP as follows: My brother plays Bad Company (anybody but me know that's the name of a rock group?) and then gets funny feelings and turns around and kills the guy behind him. Good grief, I thought you were talking about actual killings, or having a psychotic breakdown.

Nice to know it's a game! Duh.

Yeah, I know, I'm old.

sigh...........thought it was just me. :blush:

[George]

Perhaps your brother Jake is trying to make a deal with the preacher?







Or am I getting my seventies bands mixed up.
:confused:

[vIQleS]

I don't know about you guys, but I feel like making love...

[Sledge]

Klingon sex? Kinky.

[lionking]

Now I know I'm getting old. I read the OP as follows: My brother plays Bad Company (anybody but me know that's the name of a rock group?) and then gets funny feelings and turns around and kills the guy behind him. Good grief, I thought you were talking about actual killings, or having a psychotic breakdown.

Nice to know it's a game! Duh.

Yeah, I know, I'm old.



You're not the only one, and I thought the "2" referred to the second Paul Rogers era, commencing in 1998.

BTW, I saw a concert of their's recently on TV. They still seriously rock.

[Snixtor]

To what does he attribute the sensation? As many here have already hypothesised, unconscious or semi-conscious assessment of the in-game situation would have him perform better than sheer chance. His conscious connection to this could easily be described as a "funny feeling".

I don't see why responding to the sensation infers that he thinks he has psychic abilities.

[jakesteele]

Well what is the point of him saying he gets "funny feelings" then? Isn't that the same?

he's saying the funny feelings matter because he was right a few times. but i say they dont matter at all since he died sometimes when he gets them.

lol :D

He might have died more without them.

[Furcifer]

I'd start bringing the guy a drink at random times without explaining why. Eventually he's going to get annoyed.

Annoyed? I'd probably marry the guy. :D

I agree with this tactic though. If it were my brother I'd just sneak up on him and smack him in the back of the head and say "What? You didn't see that coming?"

Increase the intensity and frequency until the subject relents from his delusion.

This might not work if he's the older or bigger brother though. In that case a more passive approach like UY suggests may be in order. Peppering him with random events and making him assign some meaning to them might get your point across.

I sympathize though. I had a room mate once that "felt" things were going to happen. Yah, she could predict when her phone was going to ring, but the dog sitting at the back door 30 minutes after she gave it water, total mystery.

[XLDS03]

It's good you're calling your brother on this now. He might grow up and take his 'funny feelings' and hard-earned cash to a Vegas one-armed bandit.

I'm not a gamer, but I find it hard to believe an unseen AI could create a psychic sense. There's nothing to cold read.

[bigjelmapro]

'Funny feelings' on a FPS on a static map. Not surprising.

Its called instinct and I think the 'funny feeling' is more indicative of his instincts telling him why the hell he didn't do it sooner.

[RSLancastr]

It's good you're calling your brother on this now. He might grow up and take his 'funny feelings' and hard-earned cash to a Vegas one-armed bandit.

I'm not a gamer, but I find it hard to believe an unseen AI could create a psychic sense. There's nothing to cold read.The game doesn't create the "psychic sense," her brother's mind does. The game just creates the situations.

I know that when I used to play the Doom games constantly, I (and my "wing man" son) got pretty good at guessing when there would be a baddy behind a door, or when a door would open behind me when I passed it. In those cases, it was most likely due to the level designers' unintentional reuse of certain "cliches" (patterns of doors/hallways/baddies).

Combine that with some low-level audio cues that the player might not even consciously hear (such as the breathing of a baddie), and I can quite easily see how someone could "count the hits and forget the misses", leading them to interpret this all as their having devloped some "psychic sense"

So yes, the OP's brother has developed a "funny feeling" - it's called "getting used to how the game works"

One example of this from Doom: If you entered a room which was seemingly empty of baddies, but there was a highly-desirable item sitting in plain sight on the floor on the other side of the room, you could be pretty certain that appraching that item would trigger something unpleasant happening: doors would open with baddies behind them, or something similar. Whenever we thought "this is too easy" or "this is too good to be true", we were usually right.

[Nursefoxfire]

Have him play with muted sound for a while and see if he still gets the same success rate.

For that matter, would he object to you sitting next to him and marking down each time he tells you he's getting the funny feeling, then seeing whether it results in a kill or a miss?

In other words, encouragingly tell him you find it all very interesting and want to document his awesome ability. Then look over the results (both with and without sound) and see if you find a pattern.

[XLDS03]

The game doesn't create the "psychic sense," her brother's mind does. The game just creates the situations.

I know that when I used to play the Doom games constantly, I (and my "wing man" son) got pretty good at guessing when there would be a baddy behind a door, or when a door would open behind me when I passed it. In those cases, it was most likely due to the level designers' unintentional reuse of certain "cliches" (patterns of doors/hallways/baddies).

Combine that with some low-level audio cues that the player might not even consciously hear (such as the breathing of a baddie), and I can quite easily see how someone could "count the hits and forget the misses", leading them to interpret this all as their having devloped some "psychic sense"

So yes, the OP's brother has developed a "funny feeling" - it's called "getting used to how the game works"

One example of this from Doom: If you entered a room which was seemingly empty of baddies, but there was a highly-desirable item sitting in plain sight on the floor on the other side of the room, you could be pretty certain that appraching that item would trigger something unpleasant happening: doors would open with baddies behind them, or something similar. Whenever we thought "this is too easy" or "this is too good to be true", we were usually right.

Okay, I get it. I was mistaken in thinking that the games were more random like a game of computer solitaire. I played Doom years ago, so I should have thought of that.

[learner]

Just tell him to stop playing the stupid game and the "feelings" will go away.