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LondonJohn · 14th December 2011, 02:26 AM

Originally Posted by John Albert

The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once.

If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest.

Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder...

If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature.

Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little.

There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you?

Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first?

"But, Derren gave them a suggestion, then touched the edge of the tank and suddenly the guys said the water felt warm!"

Without wishing to embroil myself in the escalating (and exponentially post-lengthening!) to-and-fro on the wider topic, I just wanted to address this particular point you brought up.

Basic thermodynamics and physics is very much at odds with much of your argument about the ice bath. The laws related to the specific latent heat of fusion mean that as long as there is ice in the water, the temperature of the water around the ice cannot be higher than 0 degrees Celsius (or even lower if the ice contains impurities). Convection currents, and the phenomenon that a) ice floats on water, and b) water is at its densest at around 4.5 degrees Celsius, mean that the water lower down in the tank is indeed likely to be at around 4.5 degrees*. But I can guarantee you that unless there is a heat source (direct or indirect), then it's impossible to achieve the illusion you're suggesting, and that the water in that tank would never have got warmer than 5 degrees Celsius until all the ice had melted. The only other option is that the ice itself was fake (e.g. white glass or plastic), but I don't think that's what you were suggesting.

So there are a number of basic inaccuracies in your argument. Firstly, the water in the tank is actually coldest at the surface (as I noted before, water is densest at around 4.5 degrees, so the temperature profile of a tank containing ice and water actually goes from 0 degrees at the top to 4.5 degrees at the bottom, until all the ice has melted).

Secondly, it doesn't matter what the thermal density (or, more relevantly, thermal conductivity) of the tank is, nor what the shape of the tank is, nor how the heat from the subjects' arms might be a factor: I reiterate that as long as there is still ice in the tank, the temperature of the water around the ice must, by definition, be 0 degrees, and the temperature of the water at the bottom must be no higher than around 5 degrees.

Thirdly, water at 4.5 degrees Celsius is a totally different proposition than air at the same temperature, when it comes to the way the body experiences it. Water conducts heat away from the body far more efficiently than air. If you were to stand naked in 4.5 degree air for half an hour, you'd be shivering and uncomfortable, but essentially OK. If you immersed your body in 4.5 degree water for half an hour, you'd be dead from hypothermia.

Fourth, your analogy of grabbing a cold beer from iced water is poor. A quick dunk in and out of iced water is a totally different proposition from even ten seconds of static immersion.

And lastly, your analogy of diving into a "cold pool on a hot day" is also poor. The water in your example is unlikely to be much colder than 15 degrees Celsius, and is probably closer to 20 degrees. The body has a short thermal shock if it has been previously heated up by the sun, but it would take a very long time (well over half an hour) for water of 15 degrees to wick enough heat away from the body to cause pain or other physiological effects. It's a totally different proposition to immersion at 4.5 degrees (and remember, this is the warmest the water in the tank is at - the temp profile goes from 0 degrees at the top to 4.5 degrees at the bottom).

I would suggest that it is practically impossible for a fully sentient person to immerse their arm in a tank of iced water for over ten seconds without visibly/audibly reacting to the growing pain. Get a large bucket, fill it with a large bag of ice and cold water, and plunge your forearm into it. You'll see what I mean after about 2 seconds......

* In practically every other solid/liquid matter, the laws of physics would dictate that the all of the liquid in the vessel has to remain at the melting temperature until all the solid has melted into liquid. It's only because of these two unique properties of ice and water that a small subversion of the law is allowed, such that the temperature at the bottom of the vessel can be higher than the melting point - but can be no higher than the temperature at which water is at its densest - 4.5 degrees Celsius.

JFrankA · 14th December 2011, 03:01 AM

Originally Posted by Checkmite

It's called resorting to Occam's Razor and/or defaulting to the null hypothesis in the absence of
a definite answer.

Yes, but you don't realize that there are other simple answers to magic tricks.

A magician's job in creating a trick is to avoid the easy secrets everyone would come up with and find another simple way to do a trick.

There are more than one simple answer.

Quote:

Hypnotizing someone into doing something like assassinating a person, as I've already said, means making them do something they're not willing to do. You're niggling this issue over semantics, claiming that if the person was willing to fire a gun (not at a person though), then that counts as it not being against the person's will. But of course that's nonsensical: Brown did not declare that he was going to hypnotize someone into simply firing a gun, he declared he was going to hypnotize someone into assassinating a person. Whether Brown used the exact phrase "against his will" or not, he stated pretty explicitly that he intended to hypnotize someone without their knowledge. Leaving aside the fact that it's impossible - if it were, the person would be an unwilling subject by definition.

But even choosing to argue over that particular phrase is a tangent. I don't believe Brown or anyone else is capable of actually "hypnotizing" someone into a suggestive state whether he claims to be doing so against their will or not.[/quote]

It's not semantics, it's fooling someone. It's quite easy to fool someone into something they wouldn't normally do - such as giving their wallet.

Quote:

You've also been arguing that hypnosis is real - whether independently from the Brown show discussion or not.

I have said that under the right conditions, the psychological tricks do work.

I have said that hypnosis is works if the subject believes it.

I have said that hypnosis is something we do everyday to ourselves in the fact that we are able to focus so much that we can ignore our surroundings. Add some trust to that frame of mind, then you have suggestibility.

Isn't it true that people daydream? Isn't it true that sometimes people concentrate so hard that they forget where they are? Isn't it true that when you trust someone you tend to do what they ask?

This is major parts of what hypnosis is. It's nothing magical. You do it. If you're reading this carefully right now, you are doing the basics of what hypnosis claims to be. If you trusted me, you'd be more inclined to believe me, but since you don't, you're going to dismiss this as wrong.

I am telling you again that hypnosis (and NLP) are blown out of proportions of basic psychological tricks and facts. A good magician would use them in an act.

Quote:

I'm not convinced by your arguments in that tangent because it looks like rather than discussing the original, long-standing conception of hypnosis, you're taking nebulous but more plausible-sounding notions and repackaging them as "what hypnosis really is".

Read above.

Quote:

This is a double-edged sword, my friend. If you think people are as malleable as they need to be in order for people to be "fooled" by Brown's "tricks", why aren't you bothered by the fact that he feels it's okay for him to "fool" a few malleable individuals into thinking they've been hypnotized into doing things like killing people without knowing it, for the sake of others' "entertainment" - and furthermore, why are you so averse to or unconcerned about the possibility that people who are malleable enough to fall for it will continue to believe it long after the show is over, perhaps to their own detriment?

I KNEW you were going to ask that. Shows you didn't read what I typed.

Sheesh why am I even bothering?

One more time and I'm sorry if I'm being snarky here:

A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more.

B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff.

C) If someone believed it and researched anything that they can find simply because some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault. Because

1) He cannot control who uses his name. Con artists use names that will get people's attention - I've even see Penn and Teller's name attached to cons.

2) There are some people are malleable because they want to believe the woo badly. So badly that you can even expose the trick to and they still will believe the woo because they want to. You can't do anything for those people.

D) I have said, over and over that psychological tricks work under certain conditions. People are malleable GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES.

I have more reasons. All based on logic.

Now again here is my question, reworded:

If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"?

LandR · 14th December 2011, 03:15 AM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more.

I disagree. Firstly, I doubt the majority of people who watched the show even know what dual reality is. Secondly, I think a lot of people will watch it not thinking it's a magic show. It's played completely straight and Derren Brown is known as a magician, but also as someone who can do all the pyschological stuff he claims. Hell, I've had arguments with people in the past who claim that Derren Brown isn't even a magician, because magicians do tricks and Derren Brown is actually doing the stuff he claims.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff.

They would also see a lot of stuff that supports the woo. How would they tell the difference ? Especially when Derren pulls it off so well, making it look so plausible ?

Originally Posted by JFrankA

some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault.

I agree.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"?

People are gullible.

Senex · 14th December 2011, 04:32 AM

I have two things to offer:

First: Darren Brown has no more woo power than I do. Most of his stuff is a variation on traditional mentalism and other tricks and he takes advantage of television editing. I could explain most of his effects because I read I and I study the subject. However.....

Second: I somewhat recently performed a woo show for the Wiccans and I didn't suck. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I'm not very creative but I can perform a successful mentalist act. How many of you can say the same.

LandR · 14th December 2011, 04:57 AM

Originally Posted by Senex

I have two things to offer:

First: Darren Brown has no more woo power than I do. Most of his stuff is a variation on traditional mentalism and other tricks and he takes advantage of television editing. I could explain most of his effects because I read I and I study the subject. However.....

Second: I somewhat recently performed a woo show for the Wiccans and I didn't suck. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I'm not very creative but I can perform a successful mentalist act. How many of you can say the same.

Not sure how relevant this post is.

1) No one is claiming Derren has woo powers.

2) Good for you, glad it went well

Again I'm not sure how relevant that is though. THis thread is about whether Derrens chosen style of presentation for his work is contributing towards peoples poor understanding or science / causing more people to believe in woo or reinforcing that belief. I think that's a conversation that people can have without having to be a magician themselves.

Montag451 · 14th December 2011, 05:52 AM

Quote:

The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once.

If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest.

Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder...

If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature.

Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little.

There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you?

Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first?

Londonjohn beat me to it (Kudos and extemely clearly written) but I think I have a little bit more to add

Incredible as it may seem I do not think a single part of these statements are either scientifically accurate or in any way relevant.

As was so clearly stated above, if ice is present then water temperature HAS to be close to 0. If the water temperature is greater than 0 then it isn't ice.

If you put your hand in an oven at 200°C you can leave it in there for a long time. This is because air is a very poor thermal conductor. The heat from the oven walls does not transfer to your skin very quickly because the air is an insulator. This is exactly why clothes ‘keep you warm’. I put this in quotes because even this is not quite correct. What you should say is that the air trapped in woven fibres reduces the flow of thermal energy from your body.
When you stand on a carpet with bare feet it feels warmer that tiles…. But they are both at the same temperature.

Could you try this experiment and report back on your findings? Turn on your oven to full and leave it on for 1 hour. Go back and firmly grasp the metal rack inside. This simple and harmless experiment will quickly show hoe metals conduct heat much faster than air.

Going back to air versus water. Water conducts heat approximately 24 times faster than air (assuming no impurities and STP). So going out in a T Shirt ( Are you a Newcastle United fan?) on a cold day may prove that you are extremely manly…. But ………….. proves nothing about the effects of the heat loss. Again next time it is near freezing air temperature, with sleet (closer to liquid water than snow) go and stand outside. The addition of water is what makes it not only painful but life threatening. The onset of hypothermia is greatly accelerated when wet.
I actually refuse to believe you are seriously suggesting that jumping into a pool on a warm day has any relevance whatsoever, honestly is this a joke?
The temperature of a pool unless cooled or heated will be approximately ambient air temperature. If the pool is being heated from the sun it may get a little warmer but the will always be in the close range of.
Now this may seem to fly in the face of logic and personal experience but I have another experiment you can try. Get a thermometer, it doesn’t matter if it is accurate or not. Now pour yourself a glass of water. Leave it somewhere, and this is important, leave the thermometer next to it but not in it. Wait an hour or so. Place thermometer in water and the temperature will be the same or in the close range. If you left it long enough it would be the same.
Pools feel cool because of…. Yes….. you’ve guessed it ……. Thermal conductivity. They transfer heat away from your skin. And as your body is 37 degrees, this is normally hotter than ambient so…….

As to the cooler. No I don’t recoil in agony when I grab a drink, I just take my hand out. The point is that ice water is used extensively in experiments that require pain to be applied and is an accepted method of producing pain which does not cause physical dame such as burning, shocks etc. Mythbuster (Yey what a program!!!!) did an episode which I believed was called ‘No Pain, No gain’ where they tested male/female responses to pain using this very method. Adam Savage has gained a lot of support from the skeptics community on his stance about the scientific methodology. While I may be touching on an argumentum ad verecundiam here, I think in this case it is justified.

Oh and magicians who get submerged in ice generally have a simple trick that allows them to do it. Long term acclimatization and just plain putting up with the fact it hurts a lot. People can and do put their limbs in ice, but the fact if it simply is painful, but like most things people can train themselves to deal with things. The problem arises when the pain reflex (to get out) is surpressed too far and this leads to hypothermia. This is why drunks often die of hypothermia. The alcohol causes dampening of their nervous system and they die because they don't recognise the signs of hypothermia onset. This is different to somebody passing out and shuttling of the mortal coil due to cold.

Also please remember this is just me commenting on your ideas concerning water and conductivity.

KuriousOrange · 14th December 2011, 10:11 AM

The whole ice thing was a let down for me from the start and I know nothing about magic tricks involving ice. The time they spent in the water/with their hands in the water didn't appear to be all that long. It was only last week I watched Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed holding their hands in ice cold water during a program about swearing and it's effect on the brain. Just by swearing while holding his hand in, Fry managed 2 mins 39 seconds, so I don't think the lengths of time Derren's guy was in the ice water was all that impressive to begin with. The guys were younger than Stephen, and not to mention the fact that the guy could've been chosen for his pain tolerance.

I wasn't impressed by the firing range part either. For one thing they gave him some kind of target pistol/air pistol with almost no recoil and then made out it was some amazing feat when his shots were all grouped. Then on the replay cleverly cut it to show a "real" handgun and spent cartridge cases hitting the ground. Sloppy.

There's quite obviously some visual trickery at play, as well as misinformation being fed to the studio audience/participants. I don't think he uses stooges per se; I don't think he would need them, but I don't really care if he does tbh.

What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by LondonJohn

Basic thermodynamics and physics is very much at odds with much of your argument about the ice bath. The laws related to the specific latent heat of fusion mean that as long as there is ice in the water, the temperature of the water around the ice cannot be higher than 0 degrees Celsius (or even lower if the ice contains impurities).

This is true, but it still does not mean my basic claim about the temperature of the water is necessarily wrong.

I suppose I implied otherwise when I said that the "coldest part" of the water was at the bottom, but you're also ignoring the possibility that the small amount of ice might be sitting atop a volume of warmer water without melting. Because ice is such a poor conductor of heat, it actually tends to insulate itself from melting, especially if the ice cubes are made from salt water (which melts much slower then pure water ice). The cubes might even have something like gelatin in them to prevent melting. Or, as you said, they might just be plastic.

Originally Posted by LondonJohn

Convection currents, and the phenomenon that a) ice floats on water

Convection currents actually help to speed up the heat transfer of fluids. As for your second assumption, you have no way of knowing that. It is entirely possible for ice to sit atop a volume of warmer water, at least until enough heat is absorbed for it to melt.

Originally Posted by LondonJohn

b) water is at its densest at around 4.5 degrees Celsius, mean that the water lower down in the tank is indeed likely to be at around 4.5 degrees*.

But I can guarantee you that unless there is a heat source (direct or indirect), then it's impossible to achieve the illusion you're suggesting, and that the water in that tank would never have got warmer than 5 degrees Celsius until all the ice had melted.

No, you cannot guarantee any such thing. There is indeed a heat source: the huge volume of room that the water is sitting in.

Originally Posted by LondonJohn

Secondly, it doesn't matter what the thermal density (or, more relevantly, thermal conductivity) of the tank is, nor what the shape of the tank is, nor how the heat from the subjects' arms might be a factor: I reiterate that as long as there is still ice in the tank, the temperature of the water around the ice must, by definition, be 0 degrees, and the temperature of the water at the bottom must be no higher than around 5 degrees.

I can't believe you're arguing thermodynamics while neglecting the conductivity rate and shape of a glass tank with that much surface area, supposedly holding a volume of liquid of a radically different temperature from the surrounding environment.

As I said, the glass walls of the tank are a poor insulator, and will allow the ambient warmth in the room to transfer into the tank over time. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, and an extremely cold volume of water in a warm room is going to be drawing a lot of heat out of the room. The fact that there are only a few half-melted ice cubes on the surface means that most of the water in the tank is not at (or possibly even near) freezing.

Originally Posted by Montag451

going out in a T Shirt ( Are you a Newcastle United fan?) on a cold day may prove that you are extremely manly…

Thank you, but I don't think I'd classify myself as "extremely manly." I just happen to live in an area where it happens to get very cold in the wintertime, and am somewhat conditioned to it.

By the way, have you ever heard of the "Polar Bear Club"? It's a group of regular people who meet every winter for a swim at the beach on frigid days. There are groups like this all over the northern areas of the US. Where I live, we see them on the news every New Year's Day: around 20-50 people swimming around in a freezing lake. It is obviously not so unbearably painful for people to spend a few minutes in some really, really cold water, especially when the water's not even all that cold, and only has a few ice cubes floating on top.

Originally Posted by Montag451

Oh and magicians who get submerged in ice generally have a simple trick that allows them to do it.

You don't say?

The "ice bath" trick is a very old one. It has been done by stage magicians and hypnotists for over 100 years. I'm surprised none of you so-called "magicians" has ever heard of it. It's a magic trick, not hypnosis, mind control, imperviousness to pain, or any other such wooish nonsense. If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith.

Originally Posted by KuriousOrange

What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true.

Of course they did! The entire audience for that show were hand-chosen from applicants to a talent agency's "cattle call" to be on his TV show. It is in fact the very same kind of situation (an "entire audience of stooges") that certain people were calling "ludicrous," earlier in this thread.

Checkmite · 14th December 2011, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Yes, but you don't realize that there are other simple answers to magic tricks.

A magician's job in creating a trick is to avoid the easy secrets everyone would come up with and find another simple way to do a trick.

There are more than one simple answer.

It's not semantics, it's fooling someone. It's quite easy to fool someone into something they wouldn't normally do - such as giving their wallet.

I have said that under the right conditions, the psychological tricks do work.

I have said that hypnosis is works if the subject believes it.

I have said that hypnosis is something we do everyday to ourselves in the fact that we are able to focus so much that we can ignore our surroundings. Add some trust to that frame of mind, then you have suggestibility.

Isn't it true that people daydream? Isn't it true that sometimes people concentrate so hard that they forget where they are? Isn't it true that when you trust someone you tend to do what they ask?

This is major parts of what hypnosis is. It's nothing magical. You do it. If you're reading this carefully right now, you are doing the basics of what hypnosis claims to be. If you trusted me, you'd be more inclined to believe me, but since you don't, you're going to dismiss this as wrong.

I am telling you again that hypnosis (and NLP) are blown out of proportions of basic psychological tricks and facts. A good magician would use them in an act.

Read above.

I KNEW you were going to ask that. Shows you didn't read what I typed.

Actually, if you read what you typed and anticipated that exact question, then that pretty much shows I read the same thing since I ended up asking it.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Sheesh why am I even bothering?

One more time and I'm sorry if I'm being snarky here:

A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more.

B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff.

C) If someone believed it and researched anything that they can find simply because some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault. Because

1) He cannot control who uses his name. Con artists use names that will get people's attention - I've even see Penn and Teller's name attached to cons.

2) There are some people are malleable because they want to believe the woo badly. So badly that you can even expose the trick to and they still will believe the woo because they want to. You can't do anything for those people.

D) I have said, over and over that psychological tricks work under certain conditions. People are malleable GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES.

I have more reasons. All based on logic.

Now again here is my question, reworded:

If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"?

The fact that it might be easy to get someone to look in a particular direction so that you can do something out of their sight, or the fact that you can get someone to focus on something enough that you can do something within their line of sight without them registering it, is not at issue. These things are plausible and easily demonstrable. What is not plausible is the idea that you can "fool someone into thinking" their hands are stuck together when they aren't. And you can stress the fact that it's possible to be so engrossed in a film that the fact you're sitting in a movie theater is no longer constantly running through your conscious mind, but none of it makes the stuck-hands thing more plausible.

Now according to you, hypnosis is something that can only be done if the subject believes in it and is at the moment wanting or at least willing to be hypnotized. So tell me how we are supposed to objectively discern between a person in such a state who has "really been hypnotized" and someone who is consciously pretending to be hypnotized.

As for Brown's responsibility - if he didn't portray his illusions as demonstrations of woo x, people would have nothing to look up, thus avoiding falling into the clutches of con artists. Brown very much has control over whether he is perceived to be supporting a particular woo: all he needs to do is simply stop including or alluding to said pseudoscience in his patter. It's literally that simple.

Montag451 · 14th December 2011, 11:46 AM

Quote:

The "ice bath" trick is a very old one. It has been done by stage magicians and hypnotists for over 100 years. I'm surprised none of you so-called "magicians" had ever heard of it. It's a magic trick, not hypnosis, mind control, imperiousness to pain, or any other such wooish nonsense. If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith.

The issue isn't whether it is possible, it has a huge amount to do with preparation and gradually becoming acclimatized to it. Just get yourself a bucket of water, stick some ice in, leave it to a few minutes and try it. It really does hurt a great deal. This is why, as I stated, it is used in pain research.

They have a similar swim every year in Britain too. The ones in the sea don't really apply here because the water temperature of the sea doesn't change much. The lake swims do seem very impressive though. However you have neglected to mention the effect of exercise which does help to keep your temperature higher, that is why we shiver. This does not address the pain issue however.

But simply put some peoples threshold for pain is different. That may be why 20-50 people do it and not 20000-50000. I don't think anybody would argue that it isn't possible to stand the pain, it is, but it is just incredibly painful for most people, especially without conditioning, which you yourself alluded to.

Quote:

Thank you, but I don't think I'd classify myself as "extremely manly." I just happen to live in an area where it happens to get very cold in the wintertime, and am somewhat conditioned to it.

I have had an ice bath after a sauna. A bunch us had a sauna and all just jumped in. A mixture of circumstance, bravado and adrenaline made us do it.

Do you in know way accept that this is part of what 'hypnotism' is?

I have done a bit of hypnotism in my past. In no way is it spooky mind powers travelling from my eyes to the subjects brain. It is a complex psychological mind game.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 12:09 PM

As I pointed out before, the water needn't have been that cold to have a few half-melted cubes floating on top. Ice takes time to melt, and that little ice atop that much warmer water would have been transferring very little heat out of the water as it melted.

It's a very old magic trick. Not hypnosis, not imperviousness to pain, or any other such woo. "Suggestion" only comes into play insofar as Derren Brown's "suggestions" gave them clues as to what he was expecting them to say when he asked them how it felt.

You guys arguing this vehemently that Derren Brown is making people impervious to pain with only a few casual words, is only furthering the case that his dishonesty is enough to fool even self-described "skeptics" into believing his pseudoscientific claims.

Azrael 5 · 14th December 2011, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by KuriousOrange

The whole ice thing was a let down for me from the start and I know nothing about magic tricks involving ice. The time they spent in the water/with their hands in the water didn't appear to be all that long. It was only last week I watched Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed holding their hands in ice cold water during a program about swearing and it's effect on the brain. Just by swearing while holding his hand in, Fry managed 2 mins 39 seconds, so I don't think the lengths of time Derren's guy was in the ice water was all that impressive to begin with. The guys were younger than Stephen, and not to mention the fact that the guy could've been chosen for his pain tolerance.

I wasn't impressed by the firing range part either. For one thing they gave him some kind of target pistol/air pistol with almost no recoil and then made out it was some amazing feat when his shots were all grouped. Then on the replay cleverly cut it to show a "real" handgun and spent cartridge cases hitting the ground. Sloppy.

There's quite obviously some visual trickery at play, as well as misinformation being fed to the studio audience/participants. I don't think he uses stooges per se; I don't think he would need them, but I don't really care if he does tbh.

What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true.

What else are Curious about today?

Azrael 5 · 14th December 2011, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

. If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith.

Well The University Dr. of pain from Birmingham Uni seem to suggest it was and he should know more than a poster on a forum who doesnt know what story to stick to.

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Of course they did! The entire audience for that show were hand-chosen from applicants to a talent agency's "cattle call" to be on his TV show.

Of course you will be proving this unlikely claim in your very next post.Along with an explanation on Posts #796 and #805

KuriousOrange · 14th December 2011, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by Azrael 5

What else are Curious about today?

Ooh, let me see...

Plenty of stuff that is waaay off topic here lol.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 12:23 PM

KuriousOrange · 14th December 2011, 12:34 PM

I think Mr Brown also likes to leave us little clues too! At one point he says "it's a very different feeling now isn't it? It's almost like you're pushing past those plastic ice cubes you can get..." Which could be exactly what they are.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 12:37 PM

I'm guessing the ice cubes were made with Knox, and the water was slightly less than tepid.

JFrankA · 14th December 2011, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

Looks to me like a pretense to completely evade nearly all the points I put so much time and effort considering, composing, and writing down in my last post, and instead spinning the discussion off in a direction you'd prefer to take. Nice little piece of "misdirection" there, Mr. "Magician." So much for all the bluster about being honest in one's dealings offstage.

I was and still am being honest. I have never stopped. I saw that a lot of what we were arguing was getting muddled. I'm sorry you are taking it this way. I am really trying to clarify what I am saying, Mr. "Skeptic".

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Wow, JFrankA. You're really hung up on semantics, aren't you? Your entire strategy seems to be identifying certain terms (like "powers" or "against their will"), and then vehemently objecting without looking past the turn of phrase to even consider the actual idea that is being discussed. I certainly appreciate the importance of precision in language, but come on, man. That's pretty damn nitpicky.

It is NOT semantics because it is NOT the same thing. It's like I'm describing the difference between baking something and frying something. And you are replying "What's the difference? They are both cooked! That's semantics!!!"

There is a clear, measurable, provable difference between fooling someone into thinking they are doing something they wouldn't normally do, and out-and-out getting something that they won't do against their will.

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Then on top of that, you've totally misrepresented most of the things I've said, and taken them completely out of context. Did you even bother to read, or are you just skimming the text for terminology to object to?

As have you while hiding behind the word "semantics". This is why I was I did that post. To clear the air a bit.

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And that's another strawman. Nobody ever argued that the shooter thought he was shooting at a live person.

What I said is that Derren Brown deliberately structured the entire show to make it appear as if hypnosis "programmed" the guy to shoot at Stephen Fry, while at the same time thinking he was at a firing range shooting at a target. In other words, the show dishonestly stages a fake "experiment" to ostensibly prove that Sirhan Sirhan's preposterous conspiracy theory is not only possible, but credible.

That is dishonest on Derren Brown's part, and it flies in the face of your pleadings that he's honest when talking about hypnosis. Derren Brown blatantly misrepresented hypnosis as the ability to "program" a subject to do something against the subject's will. This is not the only time he's made these kinds of extraordinary claims about what his hypnosis can do. He does it all the time.

It's called a magic act. More specifically mentalism. It's entertainment. When the show is over, he sings a different tune. If you want to argue that this kind of magic show is causing people to believe in woo, then argue that.

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That was my point all along, but you twisted the whole thing up into a tangential bicker-fest over a single phrase "against his will" instead of addressing the actual substance of what I said.

Checkmite and I have been saying all along that hypnosis cannot make someone act against their own will. You are the one who introcuced that claim yourself (in so many words), after I told you the "hypnotized" subjects were really just acting of their own free will:
That is wrong. People are just as capable of making conscious decisions while "under hypnosis." The state of hypnosis is not inherently confusing. People do not hallucinate situations proposed by the hypnotist, or otherwise uncontrollably comply without conscious thought. Your above statement is a misrepresentation of what hypnosis is.
Again, you are stating that these people are not acting of their own free will, that instead they are unable to make a conscious decision to do anything outside what the hypnotist tells them. That is false. Hypnosis cannot do that. You are also implying that people in a state of hypnosis cannot quit the state of hypnosis of their own free will, which is also false.

The girl you are referring to in the video merely pretended not to be able to separate her hands. She was not subconsciously tricked into thinking she was unable to pull her hands apart. She was indeed "acting," "role playing," "going along with the show," or however you choose to say it. As for her motives, we can only speculate. But the fact that she applied to be on Derren's show (as he clearly states in his introduction) suggests some rather obvious possibilities.

The fact of the matter is, if she'd refused to play along like a good little stooge, then they simply would have edited her out of the footage and we wouldn't even be discussing her right now.

Anyway, so after all that arguing wherein you tried to convince us that hypnosis was capable of rendering a person unable to make a conscious decision on their own, you waffled and denied it when I put it into the familiar terms, "hypnosis cannot make somebody act against their will."

Even though what you alleged was essentially the same thing, you expressed outrage at that particular phraseology, calling it a "strawman":
See?

You also stated numerous times that Derren Brown is entirely truthful about hypnosis and its effects on the ~~stooges~~ er, I mean, "members from the hand-picked audience supplied to him by the talent agency":

You know what? All I said was that he didn't need a stooge to perform the tricks he did. I tried to explain to you how it can be done without using a stooge, I tried to explain to you what hypnosis really is and how it's used in a stage performance, I tried to explain to you the difference between "against their will" and being tricked into doing something, I tried to explain to you that any magician and con artist uses the same techniques to do the effects, I tried to explain to you how DB mixes truth with semi-truth and lies to create an effect and in that case point out the bits that were truth, I've debated with you about the difference between people like Edwards and Brown, I've said over and over why I think you are overreacting to this show.

Again, this is why I restated my post.

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You claimed Derren Brown's telling it all "accurately and truthfully" and "giving [us] the secret of what he is doing." You said he never claimed hypnosis can make somebody do anything against their will, yet that's the entire theme of the TV episode we've been discussing all along!

Derren Brown is purporting to take a mild-mannered, nonviolent person from the audience and "program" him through the use of hypnosis into becoming a cold-blooded killer who attempts to assassinate a well-known figure at a public event.

The whole point of this thread is that Derren Brown has presented a TV show wherein he purports to prove that he can hypnotize somebody into being an assassin against their will. This thread is about how bogus that claim is, and how dishonest Derren Brown is for presenting such nonsense as a proven possibility.

The entire program is presented in terms of an "experiment," a scientific method of inquiry whereby real-world materials and phenomena are objectively tested in a controlled way, to determine an empirical conclusion.

Let me ask you something, without being rude or insulting. Are you that malleable? Do you completely believed every word he said rather than using that skeptical mind of your to determine which is real and which is not? Are you able to think to yourself "this is bullmess" or "this might be true" or "this is true"? If you can, why can't others? Especially since a lot of people watching this knows this is a magician.

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Now I'm going to go ahead and re-post his introduction yet again. There's a good reason why I took the time and bother to transcribe it verbatim, and you totally ignored my point in favor of whinging about some irrelevant semantic diversion.

I want you to read it carefully:

So, in this introduction, what he's proposing to do is perform an experiment to prove an hypothesis. You understand what that means, yes? He's purporting to examine evidence in an objective fashion. His hypothesis is that hypnosis can be used to "program somebody to kill, and without them realizing it."

So that's the setup, but then throughout the whole show he proceeds to use ~~stooges~~ pre-screened audience members selected through an agency, stock stage hypnotist gags, hackneyed Vaudeville-era stunts, and misleading TV editing to dishonestly prove something that is not only false, but completely impossible.

Or he could be putting on a show for entertainment purposes using his intro as a misdirection......

Considering he is an established magician......

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The control he boasts to have over his subjects is BS, and he makes these extraordinary claims in his books as well as on TV. Hypnosis can't do anything of the sort. It is nothing more than a state of concentration wherein a person focuses their attention. People might be a little more susceptible to suggestion while "hypnotized," but that "snap my fingers" rapid induction BS is not even hypnosis.

"Rapid induction" is just a parlor trick whereby the "hypnotist" surprises and momentarily confuses a person, uses that split-second of disorientation to gain the upper hand on them physically for about half a second, just long enough to spin them round and lay them on the floor. People are not "put to sleep" by rapid-induction hypnosis (unless maybe they have really high blood pressure or are otherwise prone to fainting from being suddenly shoved to the floor, but that could be dangerous). When you see that trick performed on a stage, and the "subject" just lies there afterward as if asleep, they're just play-acting. It's a fake trick that requires a docile, compliant subject to pull off. A magician performing it on a stage is one thing, but try walking up to a stranger in a bar and pulling something like that, and you're likely to get your ass kicked.

You are completely correct with your assessment except for the word "play-acting". "Play-acting" is a conscious, carefully thought out decision. "I am going to do this." What is happening is an unconscious instant decision.

Let me ask you this: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why?

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The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once.

If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest.

Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder...

If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature.

Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little.

There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you?

Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first?

"But, Derren gave them a suggestion, then touched the edge of the tank and suddenly the guys said the water felt warm!"

Hmmm... what possible explanation can there be for why people knowingly performing stunts for a TV magic act might say a thing like that...?

Someone else tackled that very nicely.

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Watch the video again, and pay attention to the edits. The two men were never even shown in the same room together. There's no reason to suspect anything "more clever" than TV editing trickery. Derren Brown had used lame tricks like this before on his TV shows. It's par for the course for him these days.

Okay, this we can debate. It could have been editing, it could have been something else no one here has thought of.

One of the reasons I say you'd make a poor magician. You've decided how it's done without any regard of maybe another none-woo possibility which you refuse to consider. As I said before, the job of a good magician, and one of Derren's major fortes as a magician, is to take a trick, think of how people would think how it's done, another way of doing the trick other than the obvious way.

Even so, it is a magician's job to fool the audience and make an effect work and be powerful. I don't care if it's done by editing. Does the effect work? Does it give an impact on the viewing audience?

That is what is important to a magician. Not pleasing some armchair magician saying "He did it that way - the trick sucks."

If you want to "suspend disbelief' for entertainment purposes that's one thing, but don't mistake that for critical thinking.

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Of all the stuff in my last post that you totally ignored, this is the most important part and I still want to hear your considered reply to it:

Sorry. I honestly didn't mean to ignore it. As I said I was doing that post at work and I ran out of time.

Originally Posted by John Albert

Originally Posted by JFrankA

But again, that's his shtick. It's just for show. If people are going to take his show (or any show on television) like this as red without any research, I'm sorry, it's my humble opinion that they are looking to believe.

Perhaps. But some people also implicitly trust Derren Brown, hang on his every word, and don't believe he'd ever lie about anything. Take a quick look back through this thread for significant evidence of that.

As I said. If someone is going to hang on his every word during a show and refuse to do the research and see that Derren is a magician and all of his books and websites and references show that he doesn't really endorse NLP and hypnosis as valid, then it's that person's own fault.

Cruel? Maybe. But that is the line.

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Then, he talks out of both sides of his mouth:

He pretends to use NLP techniques, then makes fun of the NLPers for recognizing the techniques for exactly what they are.

He claims to use nothing but tricks, misdirection, and psychology, then blatantly misrepresents "psychology" in the terms of some pseudoscientific gobbledygook.

He puts on a show where he plays the skeptic, debunking various forms of woo, then he puts on other shows wherein he pretends to prove other kinds of woo are real, by the use of disingenuous explanations, amateur actors and TV editing trickery.

Let me put this in caps:

HE IS A MAGICIAN AND WHAT HE DOES IN A SHOW IS ENTERTAINMENT. In real life he is a skeptic, but he plays a role on television. Are you going to blame the guy who plays House if someone takes his show seriously???

This attitude of people believing his show, regardless of what he does and says in real life is the reason I feel you are calling out the equivelent of "Think of the children".

You're looking to protect people from Derren's show, a show that is, by definition, entertainment only no matter how he presents it because he is a magician and nothing else.

If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

What can I say, he's being honest there. Misleading? Yes. But that's part of the dual reality. He's telling just enough to make the trick work and be interesting. How would you say something better? I know I couldn't come up with something that walks the line so nicely.

The "dual reality" is, the audience never know whether they're watching Derren Brown the skeptic, or Derren Brown the trickster. That's the "dual reality" this thread is about.

That's the "dual reality" he deserves to be called out on, because there really is no "dual reality." There is in fact reallyonly one reality, and misrepresenting reality in the mixed-up that way Derren Brown does is (as Checkmite said) a disservice to the public.

During the show. Yes. THAT'S HIS JOB. HE'S A MAGICIAN! Again, if he kept up the whole explanation after the show is over, then I would be right there with you.

He doesn't. He puts on a show. If people are going to believe an entertainment show without checking the background then it's their fault.

Checkmite · 14th December 2011, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo.

And why can't we just let people alone to believe in woo, amirite?

JFrankA · 14th December 2011, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Checkmite

And why can't we just let people alone to believe in woo, amirite?

And why don't we just cut down what I said what my point is to fit what you want it to say, amirite?

JFrankA · 14th December 2011, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by Checkmite

Actually, if you read what you typed and anticipated that exact question, then that pretty much shows I read the same thing since I ended up asking it.

The point I was making was that I've answered that question already before. Many times.

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The fact that it might be easy to get someone to look in a particular direction so that you can do something out of their sight, or the fact that you can get someone to focus on something enough that you can do something within their line of sight without them registering it, is not at issue. These things are plausible and easily demonstrable. What is not plausible is the idea that you can "fool someone into thinking" their hands are stuck together when they aren't. And you can stress the fact that it's possible to be so engrossed in a film that the fact you're sitting in a movie theater is no longer constantly running through your conscious mind, but none of it makes the stuck-hands thing more plausible.

It is plausible and doable, again, depending on the person involved and the conditions.

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Now according to you, hypnosis is something that can only be done if the subject believes in it and is at the moment wanting or at least willing to be hypnotized. So tell me how we are supposed to objectively discern between a person in such a state who has "really been hypnotized" and someone who is consciously pretending to be hypnotized.

So are we back to all hypnosis show "always" involve conscious role-playing and acting?

Simple, we ask them. So people will lie, some will not, some will not know. We have to trust the answers.

Just like when someone goes to the doctor's and says "I'm in pain" and the doctor asks "on a scale of one to ten, how much pain"? It is subjective, up to the person.

And that's why I've been calling it a parlor trick. However, the phenomenon of confusion and metal block can be measured. For example, a recent finding that simply walking through a door way can make you forget what you were doing.

There are tons of small examples that have been proven scientifically that do work. But again, they a) work under very specific conditions, b) don't work on all people c) don't last very long and are very easily dismissed. Magicians use them a lot, they are key to creating an effect. But the difference between a stage performer doing this for entertainment and a con artist doing this to bilk people is what is done after the show is over. A performer will, though s/he will not reveal the secret, will not claim to have any powers and just admit s/he's a performer. A con artist will keep the illusion going even after the show is over.

With the hands being clasped together, what Derren said during that time is true: it was a mental block she created because she believed without question what Derren told her. She was focusing (note: consciously) so hard on her hands, the more it created a mental block for her. Once she stopped focusing on her hands, i.e. the ball being tossed to her, it distracted her focus, the mental block, she forgot what Derren told her, etc for a split second.

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As for Brown's responsibility - if he didn't portray his illusions as demonstrations of woo x, people would have nothing to look up, thus avoiding falling into the clutches of con artists. Brown very much has control over whether he is perceived to be supporting a particular woo: all he needs to do is simply stop including or alluding to said pseudoscience in his patter. It's literally that simple.

Then what should he do, hmm? How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does? Or should all magicians be Penn and Teller? Should he do exactly like Max Maven? Or should he be exactly like Banachek?

Please give me an example of what patter you'd come up with while doing a hypnosis/mentalist show that a) will keep the audience guessing, b) just as engrossing c) is able to create a dual reality d) not be "preachy" e) doesn't reveal anything about the trick and f) different from everyone else.

Checkmite · 14th December 2011, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

It is plausible and doable, again, depending on the person involved and the conditions.

Still waiting for the part where you back this up.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

So are we back to all hypnosis show "always" involve conscious role-playing and acting?

Simple, we ask them. So people will lie, some will not, some will not know. We have to trust the answers.

All I can say is, it's a good thing science doesn't really work that way.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Just like when someone goes to the doctor's and says "I'm in pain" and the doctor asks "on a scale of one to ten, how much pain"? It is subjective, up to the person.

So a person is only hypnotized if they decide they are? How is this not conscious play-acting? How is this not simply consciously deciding to comply with a magician's requests? Is affirmatively responding to any requests at all a form of "hypnotism"? If not, why does it become hypnotism when it's Brown making the request?

Originally Posted by JFrankA

With the hands being clasped together, what Derren said during that time is true: it was a mental block she created because she believed without question what Derren told her. She was focusing (note: consciously) so hard on her hands, the more it created a mental block for her. Once she stopped focusing on her hands, i.e. the ball being tossed to her, it distracted her focus, the mental block, she forgot what Derren told her, etc for a split second.

No, I think Brown was spouting pseudoscientific babble just like he always does, and you bought it. And yes, she was pretending her hands were stuck together because that's what Brown wanted her to do.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Then what should he do, hmm? How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does?

He should refrain from claiming that his tricks are demonstrations of established pseudoscientific claims in action. Beyond that one, single, simple caveat, I don't care what else he does or how he does it.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

There is a clear, measurable, provable difference between fooling someone into thinking they are doing something they wouldn't normally do, and out-and-out getting something that they won't do against their will.

~~As viewers, we witnessed what he said to that girl who allegedly was unable to pull her hands apart. How exactly are you proposing he "fooled" her into thinking she could not pull them apart?~~

~~Please explain in detail, because this goes straight to the heart of the issue we've been debating about what "hypnotism" really can and cannot do.~~

ETA: Forget it.

I just read your explanation in your post above, and it's ridiculous. You've obviously been so taken my Derren Brown's pseudoscience gobbledygook that you fail to examine the "phenomenon" critically at all.

Rhetorical question: Is it possible that a magician might spend an entire career performing tricks on people and never even realize that there is in fact no trick at all, that the people have really just been "going along with the show"?

I guess in that case the tables would be turned, and the trick is on the magician himself. Kafkaesque, isn't it?

Originally Posted by JFrankA

As have you while hiding behind the word "semantics".

You've been the one hiding behind semantics, not me. If you would like me to provide numerous examples of your posts wherein you completely derailed the discussion over a simple choice of words, I will certainly do so.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

It's called a magic act.

It is?

Where, specifically, do you see it called "a magic act"?

I don't see it called that at any point whatsoever in the presentation. What I see it called is an "experiment." Not only is it called an "experiment," but it is also presented in the crude form of one, with an "hypothesis," so-called "tests" resulting in the generation of "evidence," and even a conclusive "result," all of which were faked.

Derren Brown states outright that he's "hypnotizing" people with his handshake-fakeout and snap-of-the-fingers tricks, a claim which we educated skeptics happen to know is total BS (though up until today, you had been alleging the very same nonsense).

Then Derren Brown appeals to the authority of professional psychologists to offer validity to his claims of what the hypnosis is supposedly capable of achieving, even though there is no real "hypnosis" to speak of actually going on. Of course, they fail to mention that what he's doing on stage is not really hypnosis at all, but a stage magic act misrepresented as science.

By the end of the show, he actually purports to demonstrate that hypnosis can be used to "program" (an NLP term, not an actual psychological one) a person into carrying out a crime, against their own will and without their own knowledge. That conclusion is, of course, false. Derren Brown knows it's false because he carefully constructed and then edited the entire show specifically for the purpose of misrepresenting that wholly false conclusion as a proven fact.

Now, given that Derren Brown widely promotes himself as a skeptic and often presents shows wherein he debunks various pseudoscience and supernatural claims, how are we to know just by watching this program, that this is not one of those kinds of shows? How are we to know it is intended as entertainment only, and not a presentation of scientifically-proven, little-known facts of psychology as he so often claims?

This is the side of the issue that you conveniently ignore every time I bring it up. I would appreciate it if you'd consider it thoughtfully and address it, please.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

If you want to argue that this kind of magic show is causing people to believe in woo, then argue that.

Are you serious?

What do you think I've been arguing this whole time?!?

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you're constantly misrepresenting my words with evasions and strawmen. You've been so busy arguing around the points instead of addressing them head-on in an honest way, that it's taken me literally thousands of words before you finally comprehended the very simple point I was trying to make.

YES.

I am arguing—have been arguing—that this kind of magic show that Derren Brown is presenting (specifically, the disingenuous way it's framed as a documentary intended to prove facts) is causing people to believe in woo.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

You know what? All I said was that he didn't need a stooge to perform the tricks he did.

No, that's not all you said.

You said those people were tricked by Derren Brown's hypnosis into doing things without any conscious decision, and I pointed out that is a false statement.

The truth is that the people on this show made the decision before even showing up at the studio that they were going to try and get on TV with Derren Brown (or else why would they have answered an Internet "cattle call" from a talent agency?) and that was the most likely motivation for them playing along with the show.

You dismissed that, and said it was all "hypnotic suggestion" and that they didn't know they had any alternative other than to believe everything DB told them. Now you're trying to backtrack and say it wasn't in fact hypnosis, but some other form of "psychological trick." The real trick is being played on the TV audience only, not the willing stooges we see on the TV screen.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

I tried to explain to you how it can be done without using a stooge

And most of those explanations were false.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

I tried to explain to you what hypnosis really is and how it's used in a stage performance

Again, you simply reiterated the false claims of Derren Brown, which he presented in his book Tricks of the Mind.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

I tried to explain to you the difference between "against their will" and being tricked into doing something

But you still have not explained exactly what you're talking about, only made vague references to a "trick" being played.

Well allow me to let you in on the secret. Some of us are able to see exactly how it's done, and you, the self-professed magician, are the one falling for the trick. You're still floundering about, grasping for explanations along the lines of "hypnotic suggestion" and "mental trickery" when in fact he hinted you the method right there in the introduction to the show.

They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands.

That's it. That's the "psychological trick": a play on the TV audience's tendency to believe everything they see on TV is real, even when the fakery is obvious if you really bothered to look and listen with a critical mind.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

I tried to explain to you that any magician and con artist uses the same techniques to do the effects, I tried to explain to you how DB mixes truth with semi-truth and lies to create an effect and in that case point out the bits that were truth, I've debated with you about the difference between people like Edwards and Brown, I've said over and over why I think you are overreacting to this show.

Yeah, but you still have not addressed the question of how you can say Derren Brown is honest, when he plays both sides of the fence like he does. How can you call him honest when he presents some shows with an truthful, critical, skeptical theme and other shows with dishonesty and magic, but fails to differentiate between the two? How can say he leaves the dishonesty behind on the stage when he does keep up the woo pretense even offstage, in his books and interviews?

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Let me ask you something, without being rude or insulting. Are you that malleable?

Depends on what you specifically mean by "malleable."

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Do you completely believed every word he said rather than using that skeptical mind of your to determine which is real and which is not?

Absolutely not. You ought to know better than to even ask that question. My discourse in this thread ought to be proof enough.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

If you can, why can't others?

This is a disingenuous argument. I don't expect most people to be as skeptical as I am. In fact, very few people are skeptical at all, and tend to live their lives taking far too many things for granted.

As I said before, we have a very big problem with this kind of open promotion of pseudoscience here in the USA, to the point where even news organizations can run blatant lies as historical information and political commentary.

I have already shown evidence that an awful lot of people believe DB achieves his effects through some kind of extraordinary psychological powers. It appears that too many people already are incapable of making the distinction, so the onus rests with Mr. Brown (and perhaps the TV authorities, if that's their business in the UK) to ensure that he's not making misleading claims as fact. As I've said many times already, Derren Brown does not do nearly enough to dispel those false notions about himself. In Pure Effect, he even talks at length about how much effort he puts in to carefully cultivate the impression of having extraordinary powers, of being an "extraordinary man." It appears that he's just got such a huge ego that he frankly doesn't care if he's misleading.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Especially since a lot of people watching this knows this is a magician.

But he also casts himself in the role of a skeptic, and these days he constantly blurs the distinction and never lets the audience know when he's wearing his "magician" cap and when he's wearing his "skeptic" hat.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Let me ask you this: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why?

That's irrelevant. Hypnosis does not grant anyone the ability to assume that kind of control over others. Derren Brown is lying when he says it does. As I said before, it's not too difficult to discern the motives of cherry-picked respondents who signed up for a special taping of his TV show.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Okay, this we can debate. It could have been editing, it could have been something else no one here has thought of.

All you have to do is open your eyes and look, pay attention to the details, and you can plainly see how it was edited to give number of false impressions.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

One of the reasons I say you'd make a poor magician.

As I said before, this is just an ad hominem, a likely attempt to poison the well. I've already pointed out how dishonest this line of reasoning is, and other than that I don't respond to ad hominems.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

HE IS A MAGICIAN AND WHAT HE DOES IN A SHOW IS ENTERTAINMENT. In real life he is a skeptic, but he plays a role on television.

Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

This attitude of people believing his show, regardless of what he does and says in real life is the reason I feel you are calling out the equivelent of "Think of the children".

I've already dealt with this one. It's a blatant red herring to deflect an ethical argument. If that's the case, then why be a skeptic and call out charlatans at all?

Originally Posted by JFrankA

If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo.

Another red herring. The police don't stop arresting people for shoplifting because it's only a misdemeanor and "people are always doing it anyway."

Originally Posted by JFrankA

During the show. Yes. THAT'S HIS JOB. HE'S A MAGICIAN! Again, if he kept up the whole explanation after the show is over, then I would be right there with you.

He promotes the same garbage in his books. Plus, he does skepticism also, so people look to him as a trustworthy figure they can rely on to show them what's real and what's fake. He deliberately blurs that distinction to play to the woo crowd for the sake of controversy.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

He doesn't. He puts on a show. If people are going to believe an entertainment show without checking the background then it's their fault.

Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want?

Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do.

banquetbear · 14th December 2011, 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

[strike]
Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie.

...wow. You seriously can't tell? When he is performing (like on TV or on stage) he is doing magic. When he isn't performing, he is not. Exactly how hard is it for you to understand this?

Quote:

Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want?

Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do.

Now you are comparing Brown to to Limbaugh and Beck. Exactly what sort of fantasy world do you exist in? I would compare Brown to people like David Copperfield and Paul Daniels: that would be a sensible comparison. Comparing him to a couple of talkback talking heads? Your obsession with Derren Brown is really driving you to say really silly things now John.

Azrael 5 · 14th December 2011, 05:40 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

He also says he uses neuro-linguistic programming (a pseudoscientific pop-psych woo) to hypnotize random strangers into just handing him their wallets and then walking away,

Quote:

As far as I'm concerned, it's every bit as bad as what John Edward does and what Uri Geller used to do.

Originally Posted by John Albert

He's not somebody like John Edward who, even offstage, goes around trying to convince people that he can relay messages to and from their dead relatives.

JohnAlbert you lost any arguement credibility with these posts,and most recently with a post claiming an audiecnce were recruited from a talent agency which you have failed to back up.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by banquetbear

...wow. You seriously can't tell? When he is performing (like on TV or on stage) he is doing magic. When he isn't performing, he is not. Exactly how hard is it for you to understand this?

Q: How do you tell when he's lying?

A: His lips are moving!

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Now you are comparing Brown to to Limbaugh and Beck. Exactly what sort of fantasy world do you exist in? I would compare Brown to people like David Copperfield and Paul Daniels: that would be a sensible comparison. Comparing him to a couple of talkback talking heads? Your obsession with Derren Brown is really driving you to say really silly things now John.

There you go with another...

What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments?

You obviously didn't even read what I actually said, just saw the names and went bananas.

I'm not comparing Derren Brown to Limbaugh and Beck. I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS.

It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it.

banquetbear · 14th December 2011, 07:58 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

Q: How do you tell when he's lying?

A: His lips are moving!

...not true. This is actually a lie: why are you lying John?

Quote:

There you go with another...

What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments?

Clowns? I thought you weren't going to call anyone names any more?

Quote:

You obviously didn't even read what I actually said, just saw the names and went bananas.

Yeah, I read what you said. Did you read what you said?

Quote:

I'm not comparing Derren Brown to Limbaugh and Beck.

Um, yeah you actually did.

Quote:

I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS.

JFrankA didn't use the same excuse as you.

Quote:

It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it.

You are the one who presented a strawman. Derren Brown, David Copperfield and Paul Daniels are all magicians who put on magic shows. When they are performing, they are performing and when they are not performing they are not performing.

There is no comparision with Beck and Limbaugh. Your argument is a strawman: and a lame one at that.

Alan · 14th December 2011, 08:21 PM

There are multiple methods for (at least) pretty much every effect. Saying "it's stooges" is basically the same as "it's camera trickery". Just as it's 'lazy'* for a magician to use that method, it's lazy to think that's the method.

*From at least this magician's standpoint, even self-working effects are less 'lazy' in the sense I'm using the term. I'm not saying that self-working effects are lazy in a negative sense, and I'm not referring to the presentation at all here.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Originally Posted by John Albert

Q: How do you tell when he's lying?

A: His lips are moving!

...not true. This is actually a lie: why are you lying John?

More of a joke, really.

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Originally Posted by John Albert

What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments?

Clowns? I thought you weren't going to call anyone names any more?

You mean you weren't joking? You were serious?

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Quote:

I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS.

JFrankA didn't use the same excuse as you.

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Quote:

It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it.

You are the one who presented a strawman. Derren Brown, David Copperfield and Paul Daniels are all magicians who put on magic shows. When they are performing, they are performing and ...

Yet another person who can't discuss things civilly without pulling quotes out of context and pointedly misrepresenting what others say.

Welcome to ignore!

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by Alan

There are multiple methods for (at least) pretty much every effect. Saying "it's stooges" is basically the same as "it's camera trickery". Just as it's 'lazy'* for a magician to use that method, it's lazy to think that's the method.

You know what's lazy?

Reaching a conclusion that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, without even bothering to watch the show and look for the evidence that they're referring to.

The evidence of dishonest editing is there, certainly. You just have to look for it and put the pieces together.

As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges, right?

banquetbear · 14th December 2011, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

More of a joke, really.

You mean you weren't joking? You were serious?

Yet another person who can't discuss things civilly without pulling quotes out of context and pointedly misrepresenting what others say.

Welcome to ignore!

...for the record I didn't pull anything out of context and I wasn't uncivil. But you really aren't reading what anyone else is writing and your arguments have now descended into offering up strawman. Your posts speak for themselves.

JFrankA · 14th December 2011, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by John Albert

You know what's lazy?

Reaching a conclusion that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, without even bothering to watch the show and look for the evidence that they're referring to.

The evidence of dishonest editing is there, certainly. You just have to look for it and put the pieces together.

As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges, right?

Oh...

Originally Posted by John Albert

"I NEVER SAID HE ALWAYS USES STOOGES IN THE FIRST PLACE."

Which is it John?

Either he uses doesn't always use stooges or he uses people from his audience that are

Quote:

"people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges

.

Congratulations. I was wrong. You provide better dishonest double talk than I thought. You'd make a great magician...or con artist.

John Albert · 14th December 2011, 11:33 PM

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Which is it John?

Either he uses doesn't always use stooges or he uses people from his audience that are .

I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it.

And no, I never said he always uses stooges. You keep alleging and implying I said that, but I never did. So knock it off.

It's a lie, and it's getting really tiresome.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Congratulations. I was wrong. You provide better dishonest double talk than I thought. You'd make a great magician...or con artist.

So we finally get to the punch-line of that chain of comments. Here's a little bit of advice: timing is everything. If you draw it out too long, the joke falls flat. You should have dropped the punch a lot sooner.

There's nothing dishonest about what I'm saying. The double-talk is not mine. I'm just explaining how Derren Brown described it, thus allowing himself a pedantic excuse if anyone accuses him of employing stooges. They're not technically stooges if he tells us right out at the start of the show that he's gamed the audience.

Originally Posted by banquetbear

...for the record I didn't pull anything out of context and I wasn't uncivil.

Yes you did. You quoted my words out of context and then misrepresented them. You accused me of comparing Derren Brown to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and that's not the point of what I said.

The comment in question was a response to JFrankA's argument that Derren Brown's lies and half-truths about hypnosis and psychology should be excused because his show is intended as entertainment, even though to all outward appearances it's presented as factual.

I rightly pointed out that is the exact same excuse that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck regularly use when they get criticism for telling lies. That excuse is equally lame no matter who uses it.

Originally Posted by banquetbear

But you really aren't reading what anyone else is writing and your arguments have now descended into offering up strawman.

You have absolutely no grounds for this accusation. I read every word, and I respond to all arguments.

Yet again, I'll make the same offer I've made numerous times before: if I have misunderstood or misrepresented something you said, then by all means quote the post where I did so and explain how I got it wrong, and I will gladly redress the error.

You accuse me of not reading and pitching strawmen, but how many other posters in this thread have offered as much?

None, by my count.

These false accusations are the uncivil behavior I'm talking about. You're misconstruing what I say, and then alleging your own strawman was created by me. That is a type of lie that you and others have been using consistently in this discussion.

As I've said before to Squeegee Beckenstein and Azrael, I'm now saying to you: I do not tolerate liars who misrepresent the things I say and then level false accusations against me based on their own misrepresentations. If I entertained every idiot who came at me with that kind of pointless and dishonest attacks, all my time would be wasted reiterating my own points and correcting their persistent lies ad nauseam. That leads nowhere but an endless series of dead ends, so that's why I stopped responding to their posts.

Originally Posted by banquetbear

Your posts speak for themselves.

I would certainly hope so, considering the amount of effort I put into them.

JFrankA · 15th December 2011, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by John Albert

~~As viewers, we witnessed what he said to that girl who allegedly was unable to pull her hands apart. How exactly are you proposing he "fooled" her into thinking she could not pull them apart?~~

~~Please explain in detail, because this goes straight to the heart of the issue we've been debating about what "hypnotism" really can and cannot do.~~

ETA: Forget it.

I just read your explanation in your post above, and it's ridiculous. You've obviously been so taken my Derren Brown's pseudoscience gobbledygook that you fail to examine the "phenomenon" critically at all.

Rhetorical question: Is it possible that a magician might spend an entire career performing tricks on people and never even realize that there is in fact no trick at all, that the people have really just been "going along with the show"?

I guess in that case the tables would be turned, and the trick is on the magician himself. Kafkaesque, isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Albert

I also know that acting is always in play for these "hypnosis mind control" acts, whether the actors are paid pros or just enthusiastic amateurs.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

always? Really! Please provide proof. Let me be specific. Please provide proof that whenever someone is hypnotized in an act that the subject is always acting. (As you are using the word: consciously and knowingly pretending).

Originally Posted by John Albert

In most cases, yes. In cases when a seemingly conscious person says "I can't get out of my chair! I'm stuck!" that person is acting. When guy falls on the floor after Derren grabs his hand and yells, "Sleep!" That guy is acting. When a girl closes her eyes and pretends to choke while Derren winds a rope around a doll, that woman is acting.

Originally Posted by JFrankA

Now bare in mind I'm not asking you to prove that hypnosis doesn't exist. I'm asking you to prove your statement that you know that "acting is always in play for these "hypnosis mind control" acts".

Originally Posted by John Albert

OK I concede it's not always in play. Sometimes it might be a trick, like PK touch or whatever, but certainly those people in The Experiments: The Assassin were acting.

Here's the point. If all people who participate as a subject in a hypnosis show has made a conscious decision to play along (act) like the suggestions the performer is giving in order to get on television then every hypnosis show, which you refer to as stooges, then all of mind control/hypnosis/Russian Gypsy Scam shows were done by stooges.

You take back your "always" only on a trick that is not attributed to hypnosis.

And then you scream that you've never said that DB always use stooges.

Now you are taking it a step further, saying that not only do all hypnosis shows uses stooges, the entire audience of thousands of people all over the world all at the same time is playing an elaborate secret trick on the performer.

Which is it, John? Tell me. Is it always the case, in all shows, all the time, that a the subject participating in a hypnosis show is consciously deciding to act and is consciously playing along for some kind of gain, and KNOWS without a doubt that they are play acting, so much so if someone later asks them if they were knew why they did what they did on stage, if they answered "no" they'd be lying?

I'm not being rhetorical. I am asking.

Quote:

You've been the one hiding behind semantics, not me. If you would like me to provide numerous examples of your posts wherein you completely derailed the discussion over a simple choice of words, I will certainly do so.

Oh, please do. And bare in mind I wasn't derailing I was clarifying.

Deny it all you want, hide it behind the word "semantics", cry "straw man" or whatever you want. Your claim that all people who participate as a subject in a hypnosis show has made a conscious decision to play along (act) like the suggestions the performer is giving in order to get on television is dead wrong.

Where I disagree with you, is that it is not always a conscious decision. A lot of the times people are fooled, or don't even know why, they followed the performer's suggestion.

That is a clear, major, measurable difference. And yes, it is relevant to the topic.

Quote:

Are you serious?

What do you think I've been arguing this whole time?!?

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you're constantly misrepresenting my words with evasions and strawmen. You've been so busy arguing around the points instead of addressing them head-on in an honest way, that it's taken me literally thousands of words before you finally comprehended the very simple point I was trying to make.

YES.

I am arguing—have been arguing—that this kind of magic show that Derren Brown is presenting (specifically, the disingenuous way it's framed as a documentary intended to prove facts) is causing people to believe in woo.

But you haven't been arguing about this specific show. You've been a) making assumptions and basing your arguments on only your assumptions. and b) arguing against all of what DB has done:

You've been arguing that "Russian Gypsy Scam" was done by stooges and no one would fall for it.

You've been arguing that the entire show is done by stooges.

You've been arguing that DB's books are no different than his show.

You've been arguing that DB is just like Uri Geller, John Edwards, Glen Beck.

You haven't been arguing only about the show and the consequences, you've been arguing against all of DB. Otherwise this conversation would be much shorter.

Quote:

No, that's not all you said.

You said those people were tricked by Derren Brown's hypnosis into doing things without any conscious decision, and I pointed out that is a false statement.

The truth is that the people on this show made the decision before even showing up at the studio that they were going to try and get on TV with Derren Brown (or else why would they have answered an Internet "cattle call" from a talent agency?) and that was the most likely motivation for them playing along with the show.

How the hell do you know? Do you have mind-reading powers? Do you know when someone makes a conscious decision and when someone just does something and not sure why?

Yes, they are there to be entertained and maybe thrilled to be chosen to be a subject. But do they know why they can't unclasp their hands or not be able to sit up? I a lot of cases, no they don't.

That's the difference. It's a major one.

Quote:

You dismissed that, and said it was all "hypnotic suggestion" and that they didn't know they had any alternative other than to believe everything DB told them. Now you're trying to backtrack and say it wasn't in fact hypnosis, but some other form of "psychological trick." The real trick is being played on the TV audience only, not the willing stooges we see on the TV screen.

Originally Posted by John Albert

"I NEVER SAID HE ALWAYS USES STOOGES IN THE FIRST PLACE."

Look up.

Quote:

And most of those explanations were false.

Welcome to magic patter. Deal.

Quote:

Again, you simply reiterated the false claims of Derren Brown, which he presented in his book Tricks of the Mind.

See? Not only the show you're arguing also his book which is about his life, his ideas and very good tips on how to perform magic, and a basic instruction on doing an hypnosis show.

Where is the false claims you speak of?

Quote:

But you still have not explained exactly what you're talking about, only made vague references to a "trick" being played.

Well allow me to let you in on the secret. Some of us are able to see exactly how it's done, and you, the self-professed magician, are the one falling for the trick. You're still floundering about, grasping for explanations along the lines of "hypnotic suggestion" and "mental trickery" when in fact he hinted you the method right there in the introduction to the show.

Wait. Let me guess. Is it.......no it can't be.... because you screamed "I NEVER SAID DERREN BROWN ALWAYS USES STOOGES!"...so...hmmmm....okay I can't think of any other answer you'd give.

I'm going to guess you're going to say "stooges", John! Was I right?

Quote:

They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands.

Wooo hoooo!!! I win!!!!! Despite your screams of "I NEVER SAID DERREN BROWN ALWAYS USES STOOGES!" you claimed it right here!

What do I win??????

EDITED TO ADD:

Quote:

I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it.

And no, I never said he always uses stooges. You keep alleging and implying I said that, but I never did. So knock it off.

It's a lie, and it's getting really tiresome.

Wait what? First you say "They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands." then you say "I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it."

....please make up your mind so we can have a serious debate rather than you changing what you are saying from post to post.....

Quote:

That's it. That's the "psychological trick": a play on the TV audience's tendency to believe everything they see on TV is real, even when the fakery is obvious if you really bothered to look and listen with a critical mind.

Of course, since you have explored every other possibility. You have thought of every possible scenario and you alone know every thing there is to magic and you know every possible way a people get fooled and you know the psychology of everyone in the audience and you know that all people who are hired in talent agency think the same way.

No, there couldn't be another way.

Quote:

Yeah, but you still have not addressed the question of how you can say Derren Brown is honest, when he plays both sides of the fence like he does. How can you call him honest when he presents some shows with an truthful, critical, skeptical theme and other shows with dishonesty and magic, but fails to differentiate between the two? How can say he leaves the dishonesty behind on the stage when he does keep up the woo pretense even offstage, in his books and interviews?

Back to my point. You haven't been just arguing the show. You've been arguing ALL of Derren's work including his books.

Quote:

Depends on what you specifically mean by "malleable."

In this case, and I admit, not quite the right word here, I mean taking everything he says in the show as a lie, rather than thinking "is this part true or not." Patter is usually a mixture of both.

Quote:

Absolutely not. You ought to know better than to even ask that question. My discourse in this thread ought to be proof enough.

So do you not believe him at all? Period? Nothing he says in his interviews and books cannot be trusted is that it? (Just looking for clarification).

Quote:

This is a disingenuous argument. I don't expect most people to be as skeptical as I am. In fact, very few people are skeptical at all, and tend to live their lives taking far too many things for granted.

As I said before, we have a very big problem with this kind of open promotion of pseudoscience here in the USA, to the point where even news organizations can run blatant lies as historical information and political commentary.

I have already shown evidence that an awful lot of people believe DB achieves his effects through some kind of extraordinary psychological powers. It appears that too many people already are incapable of making the distinction, so the onus rests with Mr. Brown (and perhaps the TV authorities, if that's their business in the UK) to ensure that he's not making misleading claims as fact. As I've said many times already, Derren Brown does not do nearly enough to dispel those false notions about himself. In Pure Effect, he even talks at length about how much effort he puts in to carefully cultivate the impression of having extraordinary powers, of being an "extraordinary man." It appears that he's just got such a huge ego that he frankly doesn't care if he's misleading.

...and you don't have a huge ego?

Psst. "Pure Effect" is a book on how to do some stage magic tricks and how to perform them so they are entertaining. Just letting you know that....

So what should he do? I'll ask you as I asked Chickmate, who wimped out on his answer. How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does? And please don't say "refrain from pseduoscience because a lot of magicians use that for patter.

Part of what magicians do is suspend disbelief in order to get an effect. They are doing entertainment, not teaching. If you are going to say that, then you might as well say that "Ghostbusters" should not be shown. That and plenty of other shows and movies deal with pseudoscience yet no one bugs tells the movie/television industry to stop doing those shows. (Even though Dan Akroyd is an avid believer in ghosts).

But then, I anticipate, you will say, "well they know that they are just stories, no one promotes pseudoscience. However, Dan Akroyd based "Ghostbusters" on what he believes is "research" into ghosts. And "Ghostbusters 3" is being made. Going to call out Dan Akroyd and say "Ghostbusters" should be shown?

It's entertainment. The people are not there to learn, they are there to be entertained.

Here's the difference, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Once the show is over, so is the patter. Go to DB's website right now. Go ahead. Do you see any course in woo? Do you see any paranormal stuff?

Now go to John Edwards site. Do you notice ANY difference in content between John's site and Derren's site, hmm?

That's the difference and it's a big one.

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But he also casts himself in the role of a skeptic, and these days he constantly blurs the distinction and never lets the audience know when he's wearing his "magician" cap and when he's wearing his "skeptic" hat.

Off stage he IS a skeptic. I've just proved that. On stage he is playing a role. Learn the difference and the importance. Sheesh.

Quote:

That's irrelevant. Hypnosis does not grant anyone the ability to assume that kind of control over others. Derren Brown is lying when he says it does. As I said before, it's not too difficult to discern the motives of cherry-picked respondents who signed up for a special taping of his TV show.

No, my question IS relavent. Don't avoid it.

Again: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why?

Quote:

All you have to do is open your eyes and look, pay attention to the details, and you can plainly see how it was edited to give number of false impressions.

That I'd go along with you. But I'm sure there's more going on than you claim of stooges and camera editing only. I'll say it again, that entire show can be done without the use of stooges.

Quote:

As I said before, this is just an ad hominem, a likely attempt to poison the well. I've already pointed out how dishonest this line of reasoning is, and other than that I don't respond to ad hominems.

I apologize. I will no longer say that you'd make a poor magician. I am so sorry I hurt your feelings. That was not my intention.

Quote:

Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie.

He lies on stage, he doesn't off stage. On stage is job - he's PAID to do that. People watch his shows because they want to be lied to and amazed. You want to know more about the real DB, watch his interviews and read his books and visit his webpage. He's not at his job at those times.

Quote:

I've already dealt with this one. It's a blatant red herring to deflect an ethical argument. If that's the case, then why be a skeptic and call out charlatans at all?

All magician lie about what they are doing. Banachek uses ghosts for his creation of PK touch. Should we compare him to John Edwards too? I use a trick where I say that I can time travel using astral projection with my mind. Should I be compared to John Edwards as well?

Quote:

Another red herring. The police don't stop arresting people for shoplifting because it's only a misdemeanor and "people are always doing it anyway."

That is a straw man. I am NOT saying that. What I am saying is that you are going after the wrong guy. I gave you the reasons why. You are going after a magician who will admit that he has no powers, no abilities to control people except in a show for entertainment purposes.

You want to do something productive, go after the guys who are really swindling people like John Edwards. He's the one who says his scam is real after the show is over.

This is why I am saying it's a "think of the children" type of crusade you're doing. You're going after the guy who is not serious in what he does and ignoring the people who are serious in what they are doing and doing the real damage.

Quote:

He promotes the same garbage in his books.

Where? Specifically where? This is what I mean. You really aren't just arguing about the show.

Quote:

Plus, he does skepticism also, so people look to him as a trustworthy figure they can rely on to show them what's real and what's fake. He deliberately blurs that distinction to play to the woo crowd for the sake of controversy.

....facepalm.....

Please don't make me repeat myself.

Quote:

Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want?

Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do.

You're going to make me repeat myself. *sigh*

Let me try it this way:

People who continue their woo performances and continues their claims on woo promotions after their show is over, this includes books, interviews, webpages:

John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck (Last two I wouldn't call woo. I'd call it propaganda, though).

People who drop their woo their woo performances and does not continue their claims on woo and does not promote any woo after their show is over, this includes books, interviews, webpages:

Derren Brown.

Fine. Good. Go on your crusade against a performer. I'm sure people like Uri Geller, John Edwards, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck would appreciate not having their woo in danger of being exposed because you're trying to bust a stage magician.

Enjoy.

Alan · 15th December 2011, 03:15 AM

I do think that patter, like any communication, can be irresponsible. And that Brown's patter in this show is an example of that.

JFrankA · 15th December 2011, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by Alan

I do think that patter, like any communication, can be irresponsible. And that Brown's patter in this show is an example of that.

Actually, I understand that position. But the way I see it, there's more going on than just the patter. A lot more.

In my opinion, and yes, only an opinion, to say that one show is going to influence a lot of people into believing woo is like saying that smoking that first marijuana cigarette will lead a lot of people to end up hooked on heroin.

Too many circumstances, personalities and factors to determine that kind of outcome.

Montag451 · 15th December 2011, 05:52 AM

Quote:

You know what's lazy?

Reaching a conclusion that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, without even bothering to watch the show and look for the evidence that they're referring to.

The evidence of dishonest editing is there, certainly. You just have to look for it and put the pieces together.

As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges, right?

How on earth is applying to go on a show proof of anything?

It the TV industry if people want to go on a show they have to apply. Whether it is to a specific show or being available on filming days.

There really are not rooms of people where performers just turn up to and perform to.

lane99 · 15th December 2011, 06:42 AM

Originally Posted by John Albert

...As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show,"...)

He does? What show is that? "The Experiments"?? What I heard there was a claim that, to the contrary, the audience "has not been prepared in any way" (owtte).

Azrael 5 · 15th December 2011, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by lane99

He does? What show is that? "The Experiments"?? What I heard there was a claim that, to the contrary, the audience "has not been prepared in any way" (owtte).

There is a visual disclalimer appearing on screen which states this,yes.

Derren presents intelligent programmes the Ch4 website states "entertainment",he trusts the viewers to distinguish and make a judgment.Which is the way TV should be. Its a magicians job to make the impossible believable.
Maybe someone can re quote my previous post to this at John Albert.He puts those who beat him with logic on ignore, better than dealing with his inconsistincies.

John Albert · 15th December 2011, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by lane99

He does? What show is that? "The Experiments"?? What I heard there was a claim that, to the contrary, the audience "has not been prepared in any way" (owtte).

His exact words were, "I haven't prepared these people in any way."

He never said that somebody else didn't prepare them.

14th December 2011, 02:26 AM	#841
LondonJohn Philosopher Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 5,599	Originally Posted by John Albert The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once. If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest. Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder... If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature. Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little. There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you? Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first? "But, Derren gave them a suggestion, then touched the edge of the tank and suddenly the guys said the water felt warm!" Without wishing to embroil myself in the escalating (and exponentially post-lengthening!) to-and-fro on the wider topic, I just wanted to address this particular point you brought up. Basic thermodynamics and physics is very much at odds with much of your argument about the ice bath. The laws related to the specific latent heat of fusion mean that as long as there is ice in the water, the temperature of the water around the ice *cannot* be higher than 0 degrees Celsius (or even lower if the ice contains impurities). Convection currents, and the phenomenon that a) ice floats on water, and b) water is at its densest at around 4.5 degrees Celsius, mean that the water lower down in the tank is indeed likely to be at around 4.5 degrees. But I can guarantee you that unless there is a heat source (direct or indirect), then it's impossible to achieve the illusion you're suggesting, and that the water in that tank would never have got warmer than 5 degrees Celsius until all the ice had melted. The only other option is that the ice itself was fake (e.g. white glass or plastic), but I don't think that's what you were suggesting. So there are a number of basic inaccuracies in your argument. Firstly, the water in the tank is actually coldest at the surface (as I noted before, water is densest at around 4.5 degrees, so the temperature profile of a tank containing ice and water actually goes from 0 degrees at the top to 4.5 degrees at the bottom, until all the ice has melted). Secondly, it doesn't matter what the thermal density (or, more relevantly, thermal conductivity) of the tank is, nor what the shape of the tank is, nor how the heat from the subjects' arms might be a factor: I reiterate that as long as there is still ice in the tank, the temperature of the water around the ice must, by definition, be 0 degrees, and the temperature of the water at the bottom must be no higher than around 5 degrees. Thirdly, water at 4.5 degrees Celsius is a totally different proposition than air at the same temperature, when it comes to the way the body experiences it. Water conducts heat away from the body far more efficiently than air. If you were to stand naked in 4.5 degree air for half an hour, you'd be shivering and uncomfortable, but essentially OK. If you immersed your body in 4.5 degree water for half an hour, you'd be dead from hypothermia. Fourth, your analogy of grabbing a cold beer from iced water is poor. A quick dunk in and out of iced water is a totally different proposition from even ten seconds of static immersion. And lastly, your analogy of diving into a "cold pool on a hot day" is also poor. The water in your example is unlikely to be much colder than 15 degrees Celsius, and is probably closer to 20 degrees. The body has a short thermal shock if it has been previously heated up by the sun, but it would take a very long time (well over half an hour) for water of 15 degrees to wick enough heat away from the body to cause pain or other physiological effects. It's a totally different proposition to immersion at 4.5 degrees (and remember, this is the warmest the water in the tank is at - the temp profile goes from 0 degrees at the top to 4.5 degrees at the bottom). I would suggest that it is practically impossible for a fully sentient person to immerse their arm in a tank of iced water for over ten seconds without visibly/audibly reacting to the growing pain. Get a large bucket, fill it with a large bag of ice and cold water, and plunge your forearm into it. You'll see what I mean after about 2 seconds...... In practically every other solid/liquid matter, the laws of physics would dictate that the all of the liquid in the vessel has to remain at the melting temperature until all the solid has melted into liquid. It's only because of these two unique properties of ice and water that a small subversion of the law is allowed, such that the temperature at the bottom of the vessel can be higher than the melting point - but can be no higher than the temperature at which water is at its densest - 4.5 degrees Celsius.
LondonJohn Philosopher Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 5,599	Last edited by LondonJohn; 14th December 2011 at 02:28 AM.

14th December 2011, 03:01 AM	#842
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by Checkmite It's called resorting to Occam's Razor and/or defaulting to the null hypothesis in the absence of a definite answer. Yes, but you don't realize that there are other simple answers to magic tricks. A magician's job in creating a trick is to avoid the easy secrets everyone would come up with and find another simple way to do a trick. There are more than one simple answer. Quote: Hypnotizing someone into doing something like assassinating a person, as I've already said, means making them do something they're not willing to do. You're niggling this issue over semantics, claiming that if the person was willing to fire a gun (not at a person though), then that counts as it not being against the person's will. But of course that's nonsensical: Brown did not declare that he was going to hypnotize someone into simply firing a gun, he declared he was going to hypnotize someone into assassinating a person. Whether Brown used the exact phrase "against his will" or not, he stated pretty explicitly that he intended to hypnotize someone without their knowledge. Leaving aside the fact that it's impossible - if it were, the person would be an unwilling subject by definition. But even choosing to argue over that particular phrase is a tangent. I don't believe Brown or anyone else is capable of actually "hypnotizing" someone into a suggestive state whether he claims to be doing so against their will or not.[/quote] It's not semantics, it's fooling someone. It's quite easy to fool someone into something they wouldn't normally do - such as giving their wallet. Quote: You've also been arguing that hypnosis is real - whether independently from the Brown show discussion or not. I have said that under the right conditions, the psychological tricks do work. I have said that hypnosis is works if the subject believes it. I have said that hypnosis is something we do everyday to ourselves in the fact that we are able to focus so much that we can ignore our surroundings. Add some trust to that frame of mind, then you have suggestibility. Isn't it true that people daydream? Isn't it true that sometimes people concentrate so hard that they forget where they are? Isn't it true that when you trust someone you tend to do what they ask? This is major parts of what hypnosis is. It's nothing magical. You do it. If you're reading this carefully right now, you are doing the basics of what hypnosis claims to be. If you trusted me, you'd be more inclined to believe me, but since you don't, you're going to dismiss this as wrong. I am telling you again that hypnosis (and NLP) are blown out of proportions of basic psychological tricks and facts. A good magician would use them in an act. Quote: I'm not convinced by your arguments in that tangent because it looks like rather than discussing the original, long-standing conception of hypnosis, you're taking nebulous but more plausible-sounding notions and repackaging them as "what hypnosis really is". Read above. Quote: This is a double-edged sword, my friend. If you think people are as malleable as they need to be in order for people to be "fooled" by Brown's "tricks", why aren't you bothered by the fact that he feels it's okay for him to "fool" a few malleable individuals into thinking they've been hypnotized into doing things like killing people without knowing it, for the sake of others' "entertainment" - and furthermore, why are you so averse to or unconcerned about the possibility that people who are malleable enough to fall for it will continue to believe it long after the show is over, perhaps to their own detriment? I KNEW you were going to ask that. Shows you didn't read what I typed. Sheesh why am I even bothering? One more time and I'm sorry if I'm being snarky here: A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more. B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff. C) If someone believed it and researched anything that they can find simply because some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault. Because 1) He cannot control who uses his name. Con artists use names that will get people's attention - I've even see Penn and Teller's name attached to cons. 2) There are some people are malleable because they want to believe the woo badly. So badly that you can even expose the trick to and they still will believe the woo because they want to. You can't do anything for those people. D) I have said, over and over that psychological tricks work under certain conditions. People are malleable GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES. I have more reasons. All based on logic. Now again here is my question, reworded: If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"?
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch

14th December 2011, 03:15 AM	#843
LandR Graduate Poster Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,058	Originally Posted by JFrankA A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more. I disagree. Firstly, I doubt the majority of people who watched the show even know what dual reality is. Secondly, I think a lot of people will watch it not thinking it's a magic show. It's played completely straight and Derren Brown is known as a magician, but also as someone who can do all the pyschological stuff he claims. Hell, I've had arguments with people in the past who claim that Derren Brown isn't even a magician, because magicians do tricks and Derren Brown is actually doing the stuff he claims. Originally Posted by JFrankA B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff. They would also see a lot of stuff that supports the woo. How would they tell the difference ? Especially when Derren pulls it off so well, making it look so plausible ? Originally Posted by JFrankA some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault. I agree. Originally Posted by JFrankA If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"? People are gullible.
LandR Graduate Poster Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,058

14th December 2011, 04:32 AM	#844
Senex Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: An autobody repair shop in Connecticut Posts: 3,575	I have two things to offer: First: Darren Brown has no more woo power than I do. Most of his stuff is a variation on traditional mentalism and other tricks and he takes advantage of television editing. I could explain most of his effects because I read I and I study the subject. However..... Second: I somewhat recently performed a woo show for the Wiccans and I didn't suck. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I'm not very creative but I can perform a successful mentalist act. How many of you can say the same.
	__________________ I am the one who knocks! Walter White

14th December 2011, 04:57 AM	#845
LandR Graduate Poster Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,058	Originally Posted by Senex I have two things to offer: First: Darren Brown has no more woo power than I do. Most of his stuff is a variation on traditional mentalism and other tricks and he takes advantage of television editing. I could explain most of his effects because I read I and I study the subject. However..... Second: I somewhat recently performed a woo show for the Wiccans and I didn't suck. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I'm not very creative but I can perform a successful mentalist act. How many of you can say the same. Not sure how relevant this post is. 1) No one is claiming Derren has woo powers. 2) Good for you, glad it went well Again I'm not sure how relevant that is though. THis thread is about whether Derrens chosen style of presentation for his work is contributing towards peoples poor understanding or science / causing more people to believe in woo or reinforcing that belief. I think that's a conversation that people can have without having to be a magician themselves.
LandR Graduate Poster Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,058

14th December 2011, 05:52 AM	#846
Montag451 Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Peru Posts: 372	Quote: The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once. If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest. Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder... If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature. Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little. There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you? Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first? Londonjohn beat me to it (Kudos and extemely clearly written) but I think I have a little bit more to add Incredible as it may seem I do not think a single part of these statements are either scientifically accurate or in any way relevant. As was so clearly stated above, if ice is present then water temperature HAS to be close to 0. If the water temperature is greater than 0 then it isn't ice. If you put your hand in an oven at 200°C you can leave it in there for a long time. This is because air is a very poor thermal conductor. The heat from the oven walls does not transfer to your skin very quickly because the air is an insulator. This is exactly why clothes ‘keep you warm’. I put this in quotes because even this is not quite correct. What you should say is that the air trapped in woven fibres reduces the flow of thermal energy from your body. When you stand on a carpet with bare feet it feels warmer that tiles…. But they are both at the same temperature. Could you try this experiment and report back on your findings? Turn on your oven to full and leave it on for 1 hour. Go back and firmly grasp the metal rack inside. This simple and harmless experiment will quickly show hoe metals conduct heat much faster than air. Going back to air versus water. Water conducts heat approximately 24 times faster than air (assuming no impurities and STP). So going out in a T Shirt ( Are you a Newcastle United fan?) on a cold day may prove that you are extremely manly…. But ………….. proves nothing about the effects of the heat loss. Again next time it is near freezing air temperature, with sleet (closer to liquid water than snow) go and stand outside. The addition of water is what makes it not only painful but life threatening. The onset of hypothermia is greatly accelerated when wet. I actually refuse to believe you are seriously suggesting that jumping into a pool on a warm day has any relevance whatsoever, honestly is this a joke? The temperature of a pool unless cooled or heated will be approximately ambient air temperature. If the pool is being heated from the sun it may get a little warmer but the will always be in the close range of. Now this may seem to fly in the face of logic and personal experience but I have another experiment you can try. Get a thermometer, it doesn’t matter if it is accurate or not. Now pour yourself a glass of water. Leave it somewhere, and this is important, leave the thermometer next to it but not in it. Wait an hour or so. Place thermometer in water and the temperature will be the same or in the close range. If you left it long enough it would be the same. Pools feel cool because of…. Yes….. you’ve guessed it ……. Thermal conductivity. They transfer heat away from your skin. And as your body is 37 degrees, this is normally hotter than ambient so……. As to the cooler. No I don’t recoil in agony when I grab a drink, I just take my hand out. The point is that ice water is used extensively in experiments that require pain to be applied and is an accepted method of producing pain which does not cause physical dame such as burning, shocks etc. Mythbuster (Yey what a program!!!!) did an episode which I believed was called ‘No Pain, No gain’ where they tested male/female responses to pain using this very method. Adam Savage has gained a lot of support from the skeptics community on his stance about the scientific methodology. While I may be touching on an argumentum ad verecundiam here, I think in this case it is justified. Oh and magicians who get submerged in ice generally have a simple trick that allows them to do it. Long term acclimatization and just plain putting up with the fact it hurts a lot. People can and do put their limbs in ice, but the fact if it simply is painful, but like most things people can train themselves to deal with things. The problem arises when the pain reflex (to get out) is surpressed too far and this leads to hypothermia. This is why drunks often die of hypothermia. The alcohol causes dampening of their nervous system and they die because they don't recognise the signs of hypothermia onset. This is different to somebody passing out and shuttling of the mortal coil due to cold. Also please remember this is just me commenting on your ideas concerning water and conductivity.
	Last edited by Montag451; 14th December 2011 at 06:00 AM.

14th December 2011, 10:11 AM	#847
KuriousOrange Scholar Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sheffield U.K Posts: 76	The whole ice thing was a let down for me from the start and I know nothing about magic tricks involving ice. The time they spent in the water/with their hands in the water didn't appear to be all that long. It was only last week I watched Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed holding their hands in ice cold water during a program about swearing and it's effect on the brain. Just by swearing while holding his hand in, Fry managed 2 mins 39 seconds, so I don't think the lengths of time Derren's guy was in the ice water was all that impressive to begin with. The guys were younger than Stephen, and not to mention the fact that the guy could've been chosen for his pain tolerance. I wasn't impressed by the firing range part either. For one thing they gave him some kind of target pistol/air pistol with almost no recoil and then made out it was some amazing feat when his shots were all grouped. Then on the replay cleverly cut it to show a "real" handgun and spent cartridge cases hitting the ground. Sloppy. There's quite obviously some visual trickery at play, as well as misinformation being fed to the studio audience/participants. I don't think he uses stooges per se; I don't think he would need them, but I don't really care if he does tbh. What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true.
	Last edited by KuriousOrange; 14th December 2011 at 10:49 AM.

14th December 2011, 10:57 AM	#848
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by LondonJohn Basic thermodynamics and physics is very much at odds with much of your argument about the ice bath. The laws related to the specific latent heat of fusion mean that as long as there is ice in the water, the temperature of the water around the ice *cannot* be higher than 0 degrees Celsius (or even lower if the ice contains impurities). This is true, but it still does not mean my basic claim about the temperature of the water is necessarily wrong. I suppose I implied otherwise when I said that the "coldest part" of the water was at the bottom, but you're also ignoring the possibility that the small amount of ice might be sitting atop a volume of warmer water without melting. Because ice is such a poor conductor of heat, it actually tends to insulate itself from melting, especially if the ice cubes are made from salt water (which melts much slower then pure water ice). The cubes might even have something like gelatin in them to prevent melting. Or, as you said, they might just be plastic. Originally Posted by LondonJohn Convection currents, and the phenomenon that a) ice floats on water Convection currents actually help to speed up the heat transfer of fluids. As for your second assumption, you have no way of knowing that. It is entirely possible for ice to sit atop a volume of warmer water, at least until enough heat is absorbed for it to melt. Originally Posted by LondonJohn b) water is at its densest at around 4.5 degrees Celsius, mean that the water lower down in the tank is indeed likely to be at around 4.5 degrees. But I can guarantee you that unless there is a heat source (direct or indirect), then it's impossible to achieve the illusion you're suggesting, and that the water in that tank would never have got warmer than 5 degrees Celsius until all the ice had melted. No, you cannot guarantee any such thing. There is indeed a heat source: the huge volume of room that the water is sitting in. Originally Posted by LondonJohn* Secondly, it doesn't matter what the thermal density (or, more relevantly, thermal conductivity) of the tank is, nor what the shape of the tank is, nor how the heat from the subjects' arms might be a factor: I reiterate that as long as there is still ice in the tank, the temperature of the water around the ice must, *by definition, be 0 degrees, and the temperature of the water at the bottom must be no higher than around 5 degrees. I can't believe you're arguing thermodynamics while neglecting the conductivity rate and shape of a glass tank with that much surface area, supposedly holding a volume of liquid of a radically different temperature from the surrounding environment. As I said, the glass walls of the tank are a poor insulator, and will allow the ambient warmth in the room to transfer into the tank over time. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, and an extremely cold volume of water in a warm room is going to be drawing a lot of heat out of the room. The fact that there are only a few half-melted ice cubes on the surface means that most of the water in the tank is not at (or possibly even near) freezing. Originally Posted by Montag451* going out in a T Shirt ( Are you a Newcastle United fan?) on a cold day may prove that you are extremely manly… Thank you, but I don't think I'd classify myself as "extremely manly." I just happen to live in an area where it happens to get very cold in the wintertime, and am somewhat conditioned to it. By the way, have you ever heard of the "Polar Bear Club"? It's a group of regular people who meet every winter for a swim at the beach on frigid days. There are groups like this all over the northern areas of the US. Where I live, we see them on the news every New Year's Day: around 20-50 people swimming around in a freezing lake. It is obviously not so unbearably painful for people to spend a few minutes in some really, really cold water, especially when the water's not even all that cold, and only has a few ice cubes floating on top. Originally Posted by Montag451 Oh and magicians who get submerged in ice generally have a simple trick that allows them to do it. You don't say? The "ice bath" trick is a very old one. It has been done by stage magicians and hypnotists for over 100 years. I'm surprised none of you so-called "magicians" has ever heard of it. It's a magic trick, not hypnosis, mind control, imperviousness to pain, or any other such wooish nonsense. If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith. Originally Posted by KuriousOrange What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true. Of course they did! The entire audience for that show were hand-chosen from applicants to a talent agency's "cattle call" to be on his TV show. It is in fact the very same kind of situation (an "entire audience of stooges") that certain people were calling "ludicrous," earlier in this thread.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 12:42 PM.

14th December 2011, 11:13 AM	#849
Checkmite Skepticifimisticalationist Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Third in line Posts: 14,977	Originally Posted by JFrankA Yes, but you don't realize that there are other simple answers to magic tricks. A magician's job in creating a trick is to avoid the easy secrets everyone would come up with and find another simple way to do a trick. There are more than one simple answer. It's not semantics, it's fooling someone. It's quite easy to fool someone into something they wouldn't normally do - such as giving their wallet. I have said that under the right conditions, the psychological tricks do work. I have said that hypnosis is works if the subject believes it. I have said that hypnosis is something we do everyday to ourselves in the fact that we are able to focus so much that we can ignore our surroundings. Add some trust to that frame of mind, then you have suggestibility. Isn't it true that people daydream? Isn't it true that sometimes people concentrate so hard that they forget where they are? Isn't it true that when you trust someone you tend to do what they ask? This is major parts of what hypnosis is. It's nothing magical. You do it. If you're reading this carefully right now, you are doing the basics of what hypnosis claims to be. If you trusted me, you'd be more inclined to believe me, but since you don't, you're going to dismiss this as wrong. I am telling you again that hypnosis (and NLP) are blown out of proportions of basic psychological tricks and facts. A good magician would use them in an act. Read above. I KNEW you were going to ask that. Shows you didn't read what I typed. Actually, if you read what you typed and anticipated that exact question, then that pretty much shows I read the same thing since I ended up asking it. Originally Posted by JFrankA Sheesh why am I even bothering? One more time and I'm sorry if I'm being snarky here: A) It's a show from a well-known magician who is famous for his dual reality tricks. Many people viewing it know that. That's why they watch it: to be entertained and nothing more. B) If someone believed it and researched Derren Brown's actual stuff, they will see nothing but stage magic and non-woo stuff. C) If someone believed it and researched anything that they can find simply because some con-artist stuck Derren's name on the product, that is not Derren's fault. Because 1) He cannot control who uses his name. Con artists use names that will get people's attention - I've even see Penn and Teller's name attached to cons. 2) There are some people are malleable because they want to believe the woo badly. So badly that you can even expose the trick to and they still will believe the woo because they want to. You can't do anything for those people. D) I have said, over and over that psychological tricks work under certain conditions. People are malleable GIVEN THE RIGHT CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES. I have more reasons. All based on logic. Now again here is my question, reworded: If people are not so malleable, then how is one show from a well-know magician, a man who known for playing mind tricks on people strictly for entertainment, going to make people believe that a person can become an assassin as, you are so fond of putting it, "against his will"? The fact that it might be easy to get someone to look in a particular direction so that you can do something out of their sight, or the fact that you can get someone to focus on something enough that you can do something within their line of sight without them registering it, is not at issue. These things are plausible and easily demonstrable. What is not plausible is the idea that you can "fool someone into thinking" their hands are stuck together when they aren't. And you can stress the fact that it's possible to be so engrossed in a film that the fact you're sitting in a movie theater is no longer constantly running through your conscious mind, but none of it makes the stuck-hands thing more plausible. Now according to you, hypnosis is something that can only be done if the subject believes in it and is at the moment wanting or at least willing to be hypnotized. So tell me how we are supposed to objectively discern between a person in such a state who has "really been hypnotized" and someone who is consciously pretending to be hypnotized. As for Brown's responsibility - if he didn't portray his illusions as demonstrations of woo x, people would have nothing to look up, thus avoiding falling into the clutches of con artists. Brown very much has control over whether he is perceived to be supporting a particular woo: all he needs to do is simply stop including or alluding to said pseudoscience in his patter. It's literally that simple.
	Last edited by Checkmite; 14th December 2011 at 11:18 AM.

14th December 2011, 11:46 AM	#850
Montag451 Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Peru Posts: 372	Quote: The "ice bath" trick is a very old one. It has been done by stage magicians and hypnotists for over 100 years. I'm surprised none of you so-called "magicians" had ever heard of it. It's a magic trick, not hypnosis, mind control, imperiousness to pain, or any other such wooish nonsense. If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith. The issue isn't whether it is possible, it has a huge amount to do with preparation and gradually becoming acclimatized to it. Just get yourself a bucket of water, stick some ice in, leave it to a few minutes and try it. It really does hurt a great deal. This is why, as I stated, it is used in pain research. They have a similar swim every year in Britain too. The ones in the sea don't really apply here because the water temperature of the sea doesn't change much. The lake swims do seem very impressive though. However you have neglected to mention the effect of exercise which does help to keep your temperature higher, that is why we shiver. This does not address the pain issue however. But simply put some peoples threshold for pain is different. That may be why 20-50 people do it and not 20000-50000. I don't think anybody would argue that it isn't possible to stand the pain, it is, but it is just incredibly painful for most people, especially without conditioning, which you yourself alluded to. Quote: Thank you, but I don't think I'd classify myself as "extremely manly." I just happen to live in an area where it happens to get very cold in the wintertime, and am somewhat conditioned to it. I have had an ice bath after a sauna. A bunch us had a sauna and all just jumped in. A mixture of circumstance, bravado and adrenaline made us do it. Do you in know way accept that this is part of what 'hypnotism' is? I have done a bit of hypnotism in my past. In no way is it spooky mind powers travelling from my eyes to the subjects brain. It is a complex psychological mind game.

14th December 2011, 12:09 PM	#851
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	As I pointed out before, the water needn't have been that cold to have a few half-melted cubes floating on top. Ice takes time to melt, and that little ice atop that much warmer water would have been transferring very little heat out of the water as it melted. It's a very old magic trick. Not hypnosis, not imperviousness to pain, or any other such woo. "Suggestion" only comes into play insofar as Derren Brown's "suggestions" gave them clues as to what he was expecting them to say when he asked them how it felt. You guys arguing this vehemently that Derren Brown is making people impervious to pain with only a few casual words, is only furthering the case that his dishonesty is enough to fool even self-described "skeptics" into believing his pseudoscientific claims.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 12:40 PM.

14th December 2011, 12:09 PM	#852
Azrael 5 Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Yorkshire,Uk Posts: 5,042	Originally Posted by KuriousOrange The whole ice thing was a let down for me from the start and I know nothing about magic tricks involving ice. The time they spent in the water/with their hands in the water didn't appear to be all that long. It was only last week I watched Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed holding their hands in ice cold water during a program about swearing and it's effect on the brain. Just by swearing while holding his hand in, Fry managed 2 mins 39 seconds, so I don't think the lengths of time Derren's guy was in the ice water was all that impressive to begin with. The guys were younger than Stephen, and not to mention the fact that the guy could've been chosen for his pain tolerance. I wasn't impressed by the firing range part either. For one thing they gave him some kind of target pistol/air pistol with almost no recoil and then made out it was some amazing feat when his shots were all grouped. Then on the replay cleverly cut it to show a "real" handgun and spent cartridge cases hitting the ground. Sloppy. There's quite obviously some visual trickery at play, as well as misinformation being fed to the studio audience/participants. I don't think he uses stooges per se; I don't think he would need them, but I don't really care if he does tbh. What I did find impressive was the control Derren had over the audience in general. They were eating out of his hand while he was blatantly telling them things that weren't even close to being true. What else are Curious about today?
	__________________ "I achieve these results through a mixture of magic,misdirection,suggestion and showmanship"-Derren Brown

14th December 2011, 12:15 PM	#853
Azrael 5 Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Yorkshire,Uk Posts: 5,042	Originally Posted by John Albert . If you guys really think a stage hypnotists's "suggestion" is enough to make a person not feel pain, then you're already a woo believer and nothing I can say will dissuade your faith. Well The University Dr. of pain from Birmingham Uni seem to suggest it was and he should know more than a poster on a forum who doesnt know what story to stick to. Quote: Of course they did! The entire audience for that show were hand-chosen from applicants to a talent agency's "cattle call" to be on his TV show. Of course you will be proving this unlikely claim in your very next post.Along with an explanation on Posts #796 and #805
	__________________ "I achieve these results through a mixture of magic,misdirection,suggestion and showmanship"-Derren Brown

14th December 2011, 12:20 PM	#854
KuriousOrange Scholar Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sheffield U.K Posts: 76	Originally Posted by Azrael 5 What else are Curious about today? Ooh, let me see... Plenty of stuff that is waaay off topic here lol.

14th December 2011, 12:23 PM	#855
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	<Snarky comment withdrawn, after consideration of Wolfman's "Critical Thinking Pledge" and my own earlier vow to avoid fanning flames with unnecessary ad hominems.>
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 12:35 PM.

14th December 2011, 12:34 PM	#856
KuriousOrange Scholar Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sheffield U.K Posts: 76	I think Mr Brown also likes to leave us little clues too! At one point he says "it's a very different feeling now isn't it? It's almost like you're pushing past those plastic ice cubes you can get..." Which could be exactly what they are.

14th December 2011, 12:37 PM	#857
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	I'm guessing the ice cubes were made with Knox, and the water was slightly less than tepid.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain

14th December 2011, 12:56 PM	#858
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by John Albert Looks to me like a pretense to completely evade nearly all the points I put so much time and effort considering, composing, and writing down in my last post, and instead spinning the discussion off in a direction you'd prefer to take. Nice little piece of "misdirection" there, Mr. "Magician." So much for all the bluster about being honest in one's dealings offstage. I was and still am being honest. I have never stopped. I saw that a lot of what we were arguing was getting muddled. I'm sorry you are taking it this way. I am really trying to clarify what I am saying, Mr. "Skeptic". Quote: Wow, JFrankA. You're really hung up on semantics, aren't you? Your entire strategy seems to be identifying certain terms (like "powers" or "against their will"), and then vehemently objecting without looking past the turn of phrase to even consider the actual idea that is being discussed. I certainly appreciate the importance of precision in language, but come on, man. That's pretty damn nitpicky. It is NOT semantics because it is NOT the same thing. It's like I'm describing the difference between baking something and frying something. And you are replying "What's the difference? They are both cooked! That's semantics!!!" There is a clear, measurable, provable difference between fooling someone into thinking they are doing something they wouldn't normally do, and out-and-out getting something that they won't do against their will. Quote: Then on top of that, you've totally misrepresented most of the things I've said, and taken them completely out of context. Did you even bother to read, or are you just skimming the text for terminology to object to? As have you while hiding behind the word "semantics". This is why I was I did that post. To clear the air a bit. Quote: And that's another strawman. Nobody ever argued that the shooter thought he was shooting at a live person. What I said is that Derren Brown deliberately structured the entire show to make it appear as if hypnosis "programmed" the guy to shoot at Stephen Fry, while at the same time thinking he was at a firing range shooting at a target. In other words, the show dishonestly stages a fake "experiment" to ostensibly prove that Sirhan Sirhan's preposterous conspiracy theory is not only possible, but credible. That is dishonest on Derren Brown's part, and it flies in the face of your pleadings that he's honest when talking about hypnosis. Derren Brown blatantly misrepresented hypnosis as the ability to "program" a subject to do something against the subject's will. This is not the only time he's made these kinds of extraordinary claims about what his hypnosis can do. He does it all the time. It's called a magic act. More specifically mentalism. It's entertainment. When the show is over, he sings a different tune. If you want to argue that this kind of magic show is causing people to believe in woo, then argue that. Quote: That was my point all along, but you twisted the whole thing up into a tangential bicker-fest over a single phrase "against his will" instead of addressing the actual substance of what I said. Checkmite and I have been saying all along that hypnosis cannot make someone act against their own will. You are the one who introcuced that claim yourself (in so many words), after I told you the "hypnotized" subjects were really just acting of their own free will: That is wrong. People are just as capable of making conscious decisions while "under hypnosis." The state of hypnosis is not inherently confusing. People do not hallucinate situations proposed by the hypnotist, or otherwise uncontrollably comply without conscious thought. Your above statement is a misrepresentation of what hypnosis is. Again, you are stating that these people are not acting of their own free will, that instead they are unable to make a conscious decision to do anything outside what the hypnotist tells them. That is false. Hypnosis cannot do that. You are also implying that people in a state of hypnosis cannot quit the state of hypnosis of their own free will, which is also false. The girl you are referring to in the video merely pretended not to be able to separate her hands. She was not subconsciously tricked into thinking she was unable to pull her hands apart. She was indeed "acting," "role playing," "going along with the show," or however you choose to say it. As for her motives, we can only speculate. But the fact that she applied to be on Derren's show (as he clearly states in his introduction) suggests some rather obvious possibilities. The fact of the matter is, if she'd refused to play along like a good little stooge, then they simply would have edited her out of the footage and we wouldn't even be discussing her right now. Anyway, so after all that arguing wherein you tried to convince us that hypnosis was capable of rendering a person unable to make a conscious decision on their own, you waffled and denied it when I put it into the familiar terms, "hypnosis cannot make somebody act against their will." Even though what you alleged was essentially the same thing, you expressed outrage at that particular phraseology, calling it a "strawman": See? You also stated numerous times that Derren Brown is entirely truthful about hypnosis and its effects on the ~~stooges~~ er, I mean, "members from the hand-picked audience supplied to him by the talent agency": You know what? All I said was that he didn't need a stooge to perform the tricks he did. I tried to explain to you how it can be done without using a stooge, I tried to explain to you what hypnosis really is and how it's used in a stage performance, I tried to explain to you the difference between "against their will" and being tricked into doing something, I tried to explain to you that any magician and con artist uses the same techniques to do the effects, I tried to explain to you how DB mixes truth with semi-truth and lies to create an effect and in that case point out the bits that were truth, I've debated with you about the difference between people like Edwards and Brown, I've said over and over why I think you are overreacting to this show. Again, this is why I restated my post. Quote: You claimed Derren Brown's telling it all "accurately and truthfully" and "giving [us] the secret of what he is doing." You said he never claimed hypnosis can make somebody do anything against their will, yet that's the entire theme of the TV episode we've been discussing all along! Derren Brown is purporting to take a mild-mannered, nonviolent person from the audience and "program" him through the use of hypnosis into becoming a cold-blooded killer who attempts to assassinate a well-known figure at a public event. The whole point of this thread is that Derren Brown has presented a TV show wherein he purports to prove that he can hypnotize somebody into being an assassin against their will. This thread is about how bogus that claim is, and how dishonest Derren Brown is for presenting such nonsense as a proven possibility. The entire program is presented in terms of an "experiment," a scientific method of inquiry whereby real-world materials and phenomena are objectively tested in a controlled way, to determine an empirical conclusion. Let me ask you something, without being rude or insulting. Are you that malleable? Do you completely believed every word he said rather than using that skeptical mind of your to determine which is real and which is not? Are you able to think to yourself "this is bullmess" or "this might be true" or "this is true"? If you can, why can't others? Especially since a lot of people watching this knows this is a magician. Quote: Now I'm going to go ahead and re-post his introduction yet again. There's a good reason why I took the time and bother to transcribe it verbatim, and you totally ignored my point in favor of whinging about some irrelevant semantic diversion. I want you to read it carefully: So, in this introduction, what he's proposing to do is perform an experiment to prove an hypothesis. You understand what that means, yes? He's purporting to examine evidence in an objective fashion. His hypothesis is that hypnosis can be used to "program somebody to kill, and without them realizing it." So that's the setup, but then throughout the whole show he proceeds to use ~~stooges~~ pre-screened audience members selected through an agency, stock stage hypnotist gags, hackneyed Vaudeville-era stunts, and misleading TV editing to dishonestly prove something that is not only false, but completely impossible. Or he could be putting on a show for entertainment purposes using his intro as a misdirection...... Considering he is an established magician...... Quote: The control he boasts to have over his subjects is BS, and he makes these extraordinary claims in his books as well as on TV. Hypnosis can't do anything of the sort. It is nothing more than a state of concentration wherein a person focuses their attention. People might be a little more susceptible to suggestion while "hypnotized," but that "snap my fingers" rapid induction BS is not even hypnosis. "Rapid induction" is just a parlor trick whereby the "hypnotist" surprises and momentarily confuses a person, uses that split-second of disorientation to gain the upper hand on them physically for about half a second, just long enough to spin them round and lay them on the floor. People are not "put to sleep" by rapid-induction hypnosis (unless maybe they have really high blood pressure or are otherwise prone to fainting from being suddenly shoved to the floor, but that could be dangerous). When you see that trick performed on a stage, and the "subject" just lies there afterward as if asleep, they're just play-acting. It's a fake trick that requires a docile, compliant subject to pull off. A magician performing it on a stage is one thing, but try walking up to a stranger in a bar and pulling something like that, and you're likely to get your ass kicked. You are completely correct with your assessment except for the word "play-acting". "Play-acting" is a conscious, carefully thought out decision. "I am going to do this." What is happening is an unconscious instant decision. Let me ask you this: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why? Quote: The "ice bath" is an old, old trick from the 19th Century at least. I imagine Houdini probably did it at least once. If you really think it's so impressive, consider the fact that before they first started, the thermometer (who knows how accurate it was, BTW) read that the water was 4.5°C. That's about 40°F. That's cold, no denying it. But it's not dangerously cold, nor even painfully intolerable for just a few minutes. It's only a few degrees colder than the inside of your refrigerator. I've been outside in a t-shirt in weather like that. The thermometer probe might even have been placed down at the bottom of the tank, where the water is the coldest. Also, ask yourself, what's the thermal density of the heavy glass tank the water is sitting in, and do you think that tank was pre-chilled before adding the water? Gee, I wonder... If it wasn't, then it's going to transfer some of its warmth to the water over time. Also, water that cold in a poorly insulated, oblong container with that much surface area is going to be losing a few degrees a minute just from exposure to the air, assuming the studio is maintained at a comfortable room temperature. Then you've also got the guys repeatedly sticking their arms in there. That's also going to warm the water up a little. There's very little ice on top, so you know that water's not going to stay cold for very long. Think about the last time you went to grab a beer out of a picnic cooler on a hot day, and there was only a thin, loose layer of melting ice on top. You didn't recoil your arm in agony after grabbing that beer, did you? Finally, consider the shock of diving into a cool pool on a hot day. After you've been in there awhile though, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? What happens if you get out of the pool for a few minutes, and then get back in? Does it feel just as cold getting into the pool the second time, as it did the first? "But, Derren gave them a suggestion, then touched the edge of the tank and suddenly the guys said the water felt warm!" Hmmm... what possible explanation can there be for why people knowingly performing stunts for a TV magic act might say a thing like that...? Someone else tackled that very nicely. Quote: Watch the video again, and pay attention to the edits. The two men were never even shown in the same room together. There's no reason to suspect anything "more clever" than TV editing trickery. Derren Brown had used lame tricks like this before on his TV shows. It's par for the course for him these days. Okay, this we can debate. It could have been editing, it could have been something else no one here has thought of. One of the reasons I say you'd make a poor magician. You've decided how it's done without any regard of maybe another none-woo possibility which you refuse to consider. As I said before, the job of a good magician, and one of Derren's major fortes as a magician, is to take a trick, think of how people would think how it's done, another way of doing the trick other than the obvious way. Even so, it is a magician's job to fool the audience and make an effect work and be powerful. I don't care if it's done by editing. Does the effect work? Does it give an impact on the viewing audience? That is what is important to a magician. Not pleasing some armchair magician saying "He did it that way - the trick sucks." If you want to "suspend disbelief' for entertainment purposes that's one thing, but don't mistake that for critical thinking. Quote: Of all the stuff in my last post that you totally ignored, this is the most important part and I still want to hear your considered reply to it: Sorry. I honestly didn't mean to ignore it. As I said I was doing that post at work and I ran out of time. Originally Posted by John Albert Originally Posted by JFrankA But again, that's his shtick. It's just for show. If people are going to take his show (or any show on television) like this as red without any research, I'm sorry, it's my humble opinion that they are looking to believe. Perhaps. But some people also implicitly trust Derren Brown, hang on his every word, and don't believe he'd ever lie about anything. Take a quick look back through this thread for significant evidence of that. As I said. If someone is going to hang on his every word during a show and refuse to do the research and see that Derren is a magician and all of his books and websites and references show that he doesn't really endorse NLP and hypnosis as valid, then it's that person's own fault. Cruel? Maybe. But that is the line. Quote: Then, he talks out of both sides of his mouth: He pretends to use NLP techniques, then makes fun of the NLPers for recognizing the techniques for exactly what they are. He claims to use nothing but tricks, misdirection, and psychology, then blatantly misrepresents "psychology" in the terms of some pseudoscientific gobbledygook. He puts on a show where he plays the skeptic, debunking various forms of woo, then he puts on other shows wherein he pretends to prove other kinds of woo are real, by the use of disingenuous explanations, amateur actors and TV editing trickery. Let me put this in caps: HE IS A MAGICIAN AND WHAT HE DOES IN A SHOW IS ENTERTAINMENT. In real life he is a skeptic, but he plays a role on television. Are you going to blame the guy who plays House if someone takes his show seriously??? This attitude of people believing his show, regardless of what he does and says in real life is the reason I feel you are calling out the equivelent of "Think of the children". You're looking to protect people from Derren's show, a show that is, by definition, entertainment only no matter how he presents it because he is a magician and nothing else. If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo. Originally Posted by JFrankA What can I say, he's being honest there. Misleading? Yes. But that's part of the dual reality. He's telling just enough to make the trick work and be interesting. How would you say something better? I know I couldn't come up with something that walks the line so nicely. The "dual reality" is, the audience never know whether they're watching Derren Brown the skeptic, or Derren Brown the trickster. That's the "dual reality" this thread is about. That's the "dual reality" he deserves to be called out on, because there really is no "dual reality." There is in fact reallyonly one reality, and misrepresenting reality in the mixed-up that way Derren Brown does is (as Checkmite said) a disservice to the public. During the show. Yes. THAT'S HIS JOB. HE'S A MAGICIAN! Again, if he kept up the whole explanation after the show is over, then I would be right there with you. He doesn't. He puts on a show. If people are going to believe an entertainment show without checking the background then it's their fault.
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch Last edited by JFrankA; 14th December 2011 at 02:27 PM.

14th December 2011, 01:46 PM	#859
Checkmite Skepticifimisticalationist Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Third in line Posts: 14,977	Originally Posted by JFrankA If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo. And why can't we just let people alone to believe in woo, amirite?

14th December 2011, 02:27 PM	#860
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by Checkmite And why can't we just let people alone to believe in woo, amirite? And why don't we just cut down what I said what my point is to fit what you want it to say, amirite?
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch Last edited by JFrankA; 14th December 2011 at 02:28 PM.

14th December 2011, 03:02 PM	#861
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by Checkmite Actually, if you read what you typed and anticipated that exact question, then that pretty much shows I read the same thing since I ended up asking it. The point I was making was that I've answered that question already before. Many times. Quote: The fact that it might be easy to get someone to look in a particular direction so that you can do something out of their sight, or the fact that you can get someone to focus on something enough that you can do something within their line of sight without them registering it, is not at issue. These things are plausible and easily demonstrable. What is not plausible is the idea that you can "fool someone into thinking" their hands are stuck together when they aren't. And you can stress the fact that it's possible to be so engrossed in a film that the fact you're sitting in a movie theater is no longer constantly running through your conscious mind, but none of it makes the stuck-hands thing more plausible. It is plausible and doable, again, depending on the person involved and the conditions. Quote: Now according to you, hypnosis is something that can only be done if the subject believes in it and is at the moment wanting or at least willing to be hypnotized. So tell me how we are supposed to objectively discern between a person in such a state who has "really been hypnotized" and someone who is consciously pretending to be hypnotized. So are we back to all hypnosis show "always" involve conscious role-playing and acting? Simple, we ask them. So people will lie, some will not, some will not know. We have to trust the answers. Just like when someone goes to the doctor's and says "I'm in pain" and the doctor asks "on a scale of one to ten, how much pain"? It is subjective, up to the person. And that's why I've been calling it a parlor trick. However, the phenomenon of confusion and metal block can be measured. For example, a recent finding that simply walking through a door way can make you forget what you were doing. There are tons of small examples that have been proven scientifically that do work. But again, they a) work under very specific conditions, b) don't work on all people c) don't last very long and are very easily dismissed. Magicians use them a lot, they are key to creating an effect. But the difference between a stage performer doing this for entertainment and a con artist doing this to bilk people is what is done after the show is over. A performer will, though s/he will not reveal the secret, will not claim to have any powers and just admit s/he's a performer. A con artist will keep the illusion going even after the show is over. With the hands being clasped together, what Derren said during that time is true: it was a mental block she created because she believed without question what Derren told her. She was focusing (note: consciously) so hard on her hands, the more it created a mental block for her. Once she stopped focusing on her hands, i.e. the ball being tossed to her, it distracted her focus, the mental block, she forgot what Derren told her, etc for a split second. Quote: As for Brown's responsibility - if he didn't portray his illusions as demonstrations of woo x, people would have nothing to look up, thus avoiding falling into the clutches of con artists. Brown very much has control over whether he is perceived to be supporting a particular woo: all he needs to do is simply stop including or alluding to said pseudoscience in his patter. It's literally that simple. Then what should he do, hmm? How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does? Or should all magicians be Penn and Teller? Should he do exactly like Max Maven? Or should he be exactly like Banachek? Please give me an example of what patter you'd come up with while doing a hypnosis/mentalist show that a) will keep the audience guessing, b) just as engrossing c) is able to create a dual reality d) not be "preachy" e) doesn't reveal anything about the trick and f) different from everyone else.
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch

14th December 2011, 03:22 PM	#862
Checkmite Skepticifimisticalationist Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Third in line Posts: 14,977	Originally Posted by JFrankA It is plausible and doable, again, depending on the person involved and the conditions. Still waiting for the part where you back this up. Originally Posted by JFrankA So are we back to all hypnosis show "always" involve conscious role-playing and acting? Simple, we ask them. So people will lie, some will not, some will not know. We have to trust the answers. All I can say is, it's a good thing science doesn't really work that way. Originally Posted by JFrankA Just like when someone goes to the doctor's and says "I'm in pain" and the doctor asks "on a scale of one to ten, how much pain"? It is subjective, up to the person. So a person is only hypnotized if they decide they are? How is this not conscious play-acting? How is this not simply consciously deciding to comply with a magician's requests? Is affirmatively responding to any requests at all a form of "hypnotism"? If not, why does it become hypnotism when it's Brown making the request? Originally Posted by JFrankA With the hands being clasped together, what Derren said during that time is true: it was a mental block she created because she believed without question what Derren told her. She was focusing (note: consciously) so hard on her hands, the more it created a mental block for her. Once she stopped focusing on her hands, i.e. the ball being tossed to her, it distracted her focus, the mental block, she forgot what Derren told her, etc for a split second. No, I think Brown was spouting pseudoscientific babble just like he always does, and you bought it. And yes, she was pretending her hands were stuck together because that's what Brown wanted her to do. Originally Posted by JFrankA Then what should he do, hmm? How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does? He should refrain from claiming that his tricks are demonstrations of established pseudoscientific claims in action. Beyond that one, single, simple caveat, I don't care what else he does or how he does it.

14th December 2011, 04:17 PM	#863
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by JFrankA There is a clear, measurable, provable difference between fooling someone into thinking they are doing something they wouldn't normally do, and out-and-out getting something that they won't do against their will. ~~As viewers, we witnessed what he said to that girl who allegedly was unable to pull her hands apart. How exactly are you proposing he "fooled" her into thinking she could not pull them apart?~~ ~~Please explain in detail, because this goes straight to the heart of the issue we've been debating about what "hypnotism" really can and cannot do.~~ ETA: Forget it. I just read your explanation in your post above, and it's ridiculous. You've obviously been so taken my Derren Brown's pseudoscience gobbledygook that you fail to examine the "phenomenon" critically at all. Rhetorical question: Is it possible that a magician might spend an entire career performing tricks on people and never even realize that there is in fact no trick at all, that the people have really just been "going along with the show"? I guess in that case the tables would be turned, and the trick is on the magician himself. Kafkaesque, isn't it? Originally Posted by JFrankA As have you while hiding behind the word "semantics". You've been the one hiding behind semantics, not me. If you would like me to provide numerous examples of your posts wherein you completely derailed the discussion over a simple choice of words, I will certainly do so. Originally Posted by JFrankA It's called a magic act. It is? Where, specifically, do you see it called "a magic act"? I don't see it called that at any point whatsoever in the presentation. What I see it called is an "experiment." Not only is it called an "experiment," but it is also presented in the crude form of one, with an "hypothesis," so-called "tests" resulting in the generation of "evidence," and even a conclusive "result," all of which were faked. Derren Brown states outright that he's "hypnotizing" people with his handshake-fakeout and snap-of-the-fingers tricks, a claim which we educated skeptics happen to know is total BS (though up until today, you had been alleging the very same nonsense). Then Derren Brown appeals to the authority of professional psychologists to offer validity to his claims of what the hypnosis is supposedly capable of achieving, even though there is no real "hypnosis" to speak of actually going on. Of course, they fail to mention that what he's doing on stage is not really hypnosis at all, but a stage magic act misrepresented as science. By the end of the show, he actually purports to demonstrate that hypnosis can be used to "program" (an NLP term, not an actual psychological one) a person into carrying out a crime, against their own will and without their own knowledge. That conclusion is, of course, false. Derren Brown knows it's false because he carefully constructed and then edited the entire show specifically for the purpose of misrepresenting that wholly false conclusion as a proven fact. Now, given that Derren Brown widely promotes himself as a skeptic and often presents shows wherein he debunks various pseudoscience and supernatural claims, how are we to know just by watching this program, that this is not one of those kinds of shows? How are we to know it is intended as entertainment only, and not a presentation of scientifically-proven, little-known facts of psychology as he so often claims? This is the side of the issue that you conveniently ignore every time I bring it up. I would appreciate it if you'd consider it thoughtfully and address it, please. Originally Posted by JFrankA If you want to argue that this kind of magic show is causing people to believe in woo, then argue that. Are you serious? *What do you think* I've been arguing this whole time?!?** See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you're constantly misrepresenting my words with evasions and strawmen. You've been so busy arguing around the points instead of addressing them head-on in an honest way, that it's taken me literally thousands of words before you finally comprehended the very simple point I was trying to make. YES. I am arguing—have been arguing—that this kind of magic show that Derren Brown is presenting (specifically, the disingenuous way it's framed as a documentary intended to prove facts) is causing people to believe in woo. Originally Posted by JFrankA You know what? All I said was that he didn't need a stooge to perform the tricks he did. No, that's not all you said. You said those people were tricked by Derren Brown's hypnosis into doing things without any conscious decision, and I pointed out that is a false statement. The truth is that the people on this show made the decision before even showing up at the studio that they were going to try and get on TV with Derren Brown (or else why would they have answered an Internet "cattle call" from a talent agency?) and that was the most likely motivation for them playing along with the show. You dismissed that, and said it was all "hypnotic suggestion" and that they didn't know they had any alternative other than to believe everything DB told them. Now you're trying to backtrack and say it wasn't in fact hypnosis, but some other form of "psychological trick." The real trick is being played on the TV audience only, not the willing stooges we see on the TV screen. Originally Posted by JFrankA I tried to explain to you how it can be done without using a stooge And most of those explanations were false. Originally Posted by JFrankA I tried to explain to you what hypnosis really is and how it's used in a stage performance Again, you simply reiterated the false claims of Derren Brown, which he presented in his book Tricks of the Mind. Originally Posted by JFrankA I tried to explain to you the difference between "against their will" and being tricked into doing something But you still have not explained exactly what you're talking about, only made vague references to a "trick" being played. Well allow me to let you in on the secret. Some of us are able to see exactly how it's done, and you, the self-professed magician, are the one falling for the trick. You're still floundering about, grasping for explanations along the lines of "hypnotic suggestion" and "mental trickery" when in fact he hinted you the method right there in the introduction to the show. They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands. That's it. That's the "psychological trick": a play on the TV audience's tendency to believe everything they see on TV is real, even when the fakery is obvious if you really bothered to look and listen with a critical mind. Originally Posted by JFrankA I tried to explain to you that any magician and con artist uses the same techniques to do the effects, I tried to explain to you how DB mixes truth with semi-truth and lies to create an effect and in that case point out the bits that were truth, I've debated with you about the difference between people like Edwards and Brown, I've said over and over why I think you are overreacting to this show. Yeah, but you still have not addressed the question of how you can say Derren Brown is honest, when he plays both sides of the fence like he does. How can you call him honest when he presents some shows with an truthful, critical, skeptical theme and other shows with dishonesty and magic, but fails to differentiate between the two? How can say he leaves the dishonesty behind on the stage when he does keep up the woo pretense even offstage, in his books and interviews? Originally Posted by JFrankA Let me ask you something, without being rude or insulting. Are you that malleable? Depends on what you specifically mean by "malleable." Originally Posted by JFrankA Do you completely believed every word he said rather than using that skeptical mind of your to determine which is real and which is not? Absolutely not. You ought to know better than to even ask that question. My discourse in this thread ought to be proof enough. Originally Posted by JFrankA If you can, why can't others? This is a disingenuous argument. I don't expect most people to be as skeptical as I am. In fact, very few people are skeptical at all, and tend to live their lives taking far too many things for granted. As I said before, we have a very big problem with this kind of open promotion of pseudoscience here in the USA, to the point where even news organizations can run blatant lies as historical information and political commentary. I have already shown evidence that an awful lot of people believe DB achieves his effects through some kind of extraordinary psychological powers. It appears that too many people already are incapable of making the distinction, so the onus rests with Mr. Brown (and perhaps the TV authorities, if that's their business in the UK) to ensure that he's not making misleading claims as fact. As I've said many times already, Derren Brown does not do nearly enough to dispel those false notions about himself. In Pure Effect, he even talks at length about how much effort he puts in to carefully cultivate the impression of having extraordinary powers, of being an "extraordinary man." It appears that he's just got such a huge ego that he frankly doesn't care if he's misleading. Originally Posted by JFrankA Especially since a lot of people watching this knows this is a magician. But he also casts himself in the role of a skeptic, and these days he constantly blurs the distinction and never lets the audience know when he's wearing his "magician" cap and when he's wearing his "skeptic" hat. Originally Posted by JFrankA Let me ask you this: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why? That's irrelevant. Hypnosis does not grant anyone the ability to assume that kind of control over others. Derren Brown is lying when he says it does. As I said before, it's not too difficult to discern the motives of cherry-picked respondents who signed up for a special taping of his TV show. Originally Posted by JFrankA Okay, this we can debate. It could have been editing, it could have been something else no one here has thought of. All you have to do is open your eyes and look, pay attention to the details, and you can plainly see how it was edited to give number of false impressions. Originally Posted by JFrankA One of the reasons I say you'd make a poor magician. As I said before, this is just an ad hominem, a likely attempt to poison the well. I've already pointed out how dishonest this line of reasoning is, and other than that I don't respond to ad hominems. Originally Posted by JFrankA HE IS A MAGICIAN AND WHAT HE DOES IN A SHOW IS ENTERTAINMENT. In real life he is a skeptic, but he plays a role on television. Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie. Originally Posted by JFrankA This attitude of people believing his show, regardless of what he does and says in real life is the reason I feel you are calling out the equivelent of "Think of the children". I've already dealt with this one. It's a blatant red herring to deflect an ethical argument. If that's the case, then why be a skeptic and call out charlatans at all? Originally Posted by JFrankA If people are going to believe that he is being truthful, then are looking to believe woo. Another red herring. The police don't stop arresting people for shoplifting because it's only a misdemeanor and "people are always doing it anyway." Originally Posted by JFrankA During the show. Yes. THAT'S HIS JOB. HE'S A MAGICIAN! Again, if he kept up the whole explanation after the show is over, then I would be right there with you. He promotes the same garbage in his books. Plus, he does skepticism also, so people look to him as a trustworthy figure they can rely on to show them what's real and what's fake. He deliberately blurs that distinction to play to the woo crowd for the sake of controversy. Originally Posted by JFrankA He doesn't. He puts on a show. If people are going to believe an entertainment show without checking the background then it's their fault. Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want? Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 05:35 PM.

14th December 2011, 05:36 PM	#864
banquetbear Critical Thinker Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 373	Originally Posted by John Albert [strike] Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie. ...wow. You seriously can't tell? When he is performing (like on TV or on stage) he is doing magic. When he isn't performing, he is not. Exactly how hard is it for you to understand this? Quote: Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want? Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do. Now you are comparing Brown to to Limbaugh and Beck. Exactly what sort of fantasy world do you exist in? I would compare Brown to people like David Copperfield and Paul Daniels: that would be a sensible comparison. Comparing him to a couple of talkback talking heads? Your obsession with Derren Brown is really driving you to say really silly things now John.

14th December 2011, 05:40 PM	#865
Azrael 5 Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Yorkshire,Uk Posts: 5,042	Originally Posted by John Albert He also says he uses neuro-linguistic programming (a pseudoscientific pop-psych woo) to hypnotize random strangers into just handing him their wallets and then walking away, Quote: As far as I'm concerned, it's every bit as bad as what John Edward does and what Uri Geller used to do. Originally Posted by John Albert He's not somebody like John Edward who, even offstage, goes around trying to convince people that he can relay messages to and from their dead relatives. JohnAlbert you lost any arguement credibility with these posts,and most recently with a post claiming an audiecnce were recruited from a talent agency which you have failed to back up.
	__________________ "I achieve these results through a mixture of magic,misdirection,suggestion and showmanship"-Derren Brown Last edited by Azrael 5; 14th December 2011 at 05:45 PM. Reason: added quote

14th December 2011, 06:11 PM	#866
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by banquetbear ...wow. You seriously can't tell? When he is performing (like on TV or on stage) he is doing magic. When he isn't performing, he is not. Exactly how hard is it for you to understand this? Q: How do you tell when he's lying? A: His lips are moving! Originally Posted by banquetbear Now you are comparing Brown to to Limbaugh and Beck. Exactly what sort of fantasy world do you exist in? I would compare Brown to people like David Copperfield and Paul Daniels: that would be a sensible comparison. Comparing him to a couple of talkback talking heads? Your obsession with Derren Brown is really driving you to say really silly things now John. There you go with another... What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments? You obviously didn't even read what I actually said, just saw the names and went bananas. I'm not comparing Derren Brown to Limbaugh and Beck. I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS. It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 06:16 PM.

14th December 2011, 07:58 PM	#867
banquetbear Critical Thinker Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 373	Originally Posted by John Albert Q: How do you tell when he's lying? A: His lips are moving! ...not true. This is actually a lie: why are you lying John? Quote: There you go with another... What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments? Clowns? I thought you weren't going to call anyone names any more? Quote: You obviously didn't even read what I actually said, just saw the names and went bananas. Yeah, I read what you said. Did you read what you said? Quote: I'm not comparing Derren Brown to Limbaugh and Beck. Um, yeah you actually did. Quote: I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS. JFrankA didn't use the same excuse as you. Quote: It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it. You are the one who presented a strawman. Derren Brown, David Copperfield and Paul Daniels are all magicians who put on magic shows. When they are performing, they are performing and when they are not performing they are not performing. There is no comparision with Beck and Limbaugh. Your argument is a strawman: and a lame one at that.

14th December 2011, 08:21 PM	#868
Alan Illuminator Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 3,658	There are multiple methods for (at least) pretty much every effect. Saying "it's stooges" is basically the same as "it's camera trickery". Just as it's 'lazy'* for a magician to use that method, it's lazy to think that's the method. *From at least this magician's standpoint, even self-working effects are less 'lazy' in the sense I'm using the term. I'm not saying that self-working effects are lazy in a negative sense, and I'm not referring to the presentation at all here.
	Last edited by Alan; 14th December 2011 at 08:28 PM.

14th December 2011, 09:23 PM	#869
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by banquetbear Originally Posted by John Albert Q: How do you tell when he's lying? A: His lips are moving! ...not true. This is actually a lie: why are you lying John? More of a joke, really. Originally Posted by banquetbear Originally Posted by John Albert What the hell is it with you clowns and the strawman arguments? Clowns? I thought you weren't going to call anyone names any more? You mean you weren't joking? You were serious? Originally Posted by banquetbear Quote: I rightly pointed out that the excuse JFrankA used was the same exact excuse Limbaugh and Beck commonly use when challenged for spouting BS. JFrankA didn't use the same excuse as you. Originally Posted by banquetbear Quote: It's a lame excuse, no matter who uses it. You are the one who presented a strawman. Derren Brown, David Copperfield and Paul Daniels are all magicians who put on magic shows. When they are performing, they are performing and ... Yet another person who can't discuss things civilly without pulling quotes out of context and pointedly misrepresenting what others say. Welcome to ignore!
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 09:58 PM.

14th December 2011, 09:29 PM	#870
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by Alan There are multiple methods for (at least) pretty much every effect. Saying "it's stooges" is basically the same as "it's camera trickery". Just as it's 'lazy'* for a magician to use that method, it's lazy to think that's the method. You know what's lazy? Reaching a conclusion that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, without even bothering to watch the show and look for the evidence that they're referring to. The evidence of dishonest editing is there, certainly. You just have to look for it and put the pieces together. As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges, right?
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 14th December 2011 at 09:40 PM.

14th December 2011, 10:37 PM	#871
banquetbear Critical Thinker Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 373	Originally Posted by John Albert More of a joke, really. You mean you weren't joking? You were serious? Yet another person who can't discuss things civilly without pulling quotes out of context and pointedly misrepresenting what others say. Welcome to ignore! ...for the record I didn't pull anything out of context and I wasn't uncivil. But you really aren't reading what anyone else is writing and your arguments have now descended into offering up strawman. Your posts speak for themselves.

14th December 2011, 10:40 PM	#872
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by John Albert You know what's lazy? Reaching a conclusion that somebody else doesn't know what they're talking about, without even bothering to watch the show and look for the evidence that they're referring to. The evidence of dishonest editing is there, certainly. You just have to look for it and put the pieces together. As for the evidence for stooges... well, he admits right upfront that the entire audience has been chosen from "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges, right? Oh... Originally Posted by John Albert "I NEVER SAID HE ALWAYS USES STOOGES IN THE FIRST PLACE." Which is it John? Either he uses doesn't always use stooges or he uses people from his audience that are Quote: "people who've applied to take part in [the] show," so I guess they're not technically stooges . Congratulations. I was wrong. You provide better dishonest double talk than I thought. You'd make a great magician...or con artist.
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch

14th December 2011, 11:33 PM	#873
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	Originally Posted by JFrankA Which is it John? Either he uses doesn't always use stooges or he uses people from his audience that are . I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it. And no, I never said he always uses stooges. You keep alleging and implying I said that, but I never did. So knock it off. It's a lie, and it's getting really tiresome. Originally Posted by JFrankA Congratulations. I was wrong. You provide better dishonest double talk than I thought. You'd make a great magician...or con artist. So we finally get to the punch-line of that chain of comments. Here's a little bit of advice: timing is everything. If you draw it out too long, the joke falls flat. You should have dropped the punch a lot sooner. There's nothing dishonest about what I'm saying. The double-talk is not mine. I'm just explaining how Derren Brown described it, thus allowing himself a pedantic excuse if anyone accuses him of employing stooges. They're not technically stooges if he tells us right out at the start of the show that he's gamed the audience. Originally Posted by banquetbear ...for the record I didn't pull anything out of context and I wasn't uncivil. Yes you did. You quoted my words out of context and then misrepresented them. You accused me of comparing Derren Brown to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and that's not the point of what I said. The comment in question was a response to JFrankA's argument that Derren Brown's lies and half-truths about hypnosis and psychology should be excused because his show is intended as entertainment, even though to all outward appearances it's presented as factual. I rightly pointed out that is the exact same excuse that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck regularly use when they get criticism for telling lies. That excuse is equally lame no matter who uses it. Originally Posted by banquetbear But you really aren't reading what anyone else is writing and your arguments have now descended into offering up strawman. You have absolutely no grounds for this accusation. I read every word, and I respond to all arguments. Yet again, I'll make the same offer I've made numerous times before: if I have misunderstood or misrepresented something you said, then by all means quote the post where I did so and explain how I got it wrong, and I will gladly redress the error. You accuse me of not reading and pitching strawmen, but how many other posters in this thread have offered as much? None, by my count. These false accusations are the uncivil behavior I'm talking about. You're misconstruing what I say, and then alleging your own strawman was created by me. That is a type of lie that you and others have been using consistently in this discussion. As I've said before to Squeegee Beckenstein and Azrael, I'm now saying to you: I do not tolerate liars who misrepresent the things I say and then level false accusations against me based on their own misrepresentations. If I entertained every idiot who came at me with that kind of pointless and dishonest attacks, all my time would be wasted reiterating my own points and correcting their persistent lies ad nauseam. That leads nowhere but an endless series of dead ends, so that's why I stopped responding to their posts. Originally Posted by banquetbear Your posts speak for themselves. I would certainly hope so, considering the amount of effort I put into them.
John Albert Illuminator Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 3,143	__________________ “In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” —Mark Twain Last edited by John Albert; 15th December 2011 at 12:24 AM.

15th December 2011, 03:02 AM	#874
JFrankA Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Hartford, CT Posts: 4,054	Originally Posted by John Albert ~~As viewers, we witnessed what he said to that girl who allegedly was unable to pull her hands apart. How exactly are you proposing he "fooled" her into thinking she could not pull them apart?~~ ~~Please explain in detail, because this goes straight to the heart of the issue we've been debating about what "hypnotism" really can and cannot do.~~ ETA: Forget it. I just read your explanation in your post above, and it's ridiculous. You've obviously been so taken my Derren Brown's pseudoscience gobbledygook that you fail to examine the "phenomenon" critically at all. Rhetorical question: Is it possible that a magician might spend an entire career performing tricks on people and never even realize that there is in fact no trick at all, that the people have really just been "going along with the show"? I guess in that case the tables would be turned, and the trick is on the magician himself. Kafkaesque, isn't it? Quote: Originally Posted by John Albert I also know that acting is always in play for these "hypnosis mind control" acts, whether the actors are paid pros or just enthusiastic amateurs. Originally Posted by JFrankA always? Really! Please provide proof. Let me be specific. Please provide proof that whenever someone is hypnotized in an act that the subject is always acting. (As you are using the word: consciously and knowingly pretending). Originally Posted by John Albert In most cases, yes. In cases when a seemingly conscious person says "I can't get out of my chair! I'm stuck!" that person is acting. When guy falls on the floor after Derren grabs his hand and yells, "Sleep!" That guy is acting. When a girl closes her eyes and pretends to choke while Derren winds a rope around a doll, that woman is acting. Originally Posted by JFrankA Now bare in mind I'm not asking you to prove that hypnosis doesn't exist. I'm asking you to prove your statement that you know that "acting is always in play for these "hypnosis mind control" acts". Originally Posted by John Albert OK I concede it's not always in play. Sometimes it might be a trick, like PK touch or whatever, but certainly those people in The Experiments: The Assassin were acting. Here's the point. If all people who participate as a subject in a hypnosis show has made a conscious decision to play along (act) like the suggestions the performer is giving in order to get on television then every hypnosis show, which you refer to as stooges, then all of mind control/hypnosis/Russian Gypsy Scam shows were done by stooges. You take back your "always" only on a trick that is not attributed to hypnosis. And then you scream that you've never said that DB always use stooges. Now you are taking it a step further, saying that not only do all hypnosis shows uses stooges, the entire audience of thousands of people all over the world all at the same time is playing an elaborate secret trick on the performer. Which is it, John? Tell me. Is it always the case, in all shows, all the time, that a the subject participating in a hypnosis show is consciously deciding to act and is consciously playing along for some kind of gain, and KNOWS without a doubt that they are play acting, so much so if someone later asks them if they were knew why they did what they did on stage, if they answered "no" they'd be lying? I'm not being rhetorical. I am asking. Quote: You've been the one hiding behind semantics, not me. If you would like me to provide numerous examples of your posts wherein you completely derailed the discussion over a simple choice of words, I will certainly do so. Oh, please do. And bare in mind I wasn't derailing I was clarifying. Deny it all you want, hide it behind the word "semantics", cry "straw man" or whatever you want. Your claim that all people who participate as a subject in a hypnosis show has made a conscious decision to play along (act) like the suggestions the performer is giving in order to get on television is dead wrong. Where I disagree with you, is that it is not always a conscious decision. A lot of the times people are fooled, or don't even know why, they followed the performer's suggestion. That is a clear, major, measurable difference. And yes, it is relevant to the topic. Quote: Are you serious? *What do you think* I've been arguing this whole time?!?** See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I say you're constantly misrepresenting my words with evasions and strawmen. You've been so busy arguing around the points instead of addressing them head-on in an honest way, that it's taken me literally thousands of words before you finally comprehended the very simple point I was trying to make. YES. I am arguing—have been arguing—that this kind of magic show that Derren Brown is presenting (specifically, the disingenuous way it's framed as a documentary intended to prove facts) is causing people to believe in woo. But you haven't been arguing about this specific show. You've been a) making assumptions and basing your arguments on only your assumptions. and b) arguing against all of what DB has done: You've been arguing that "Russian Gypsy Scam" was done by stooges and no one would fall for it. You've been arguing that the entire show is done by stooges. You've been arguing that DB's books are no different than his show. You've been arguing that DB is just like Uri Geller, John Edwards, Glen Beck. You haven't been arguing only about the show and the consequences, you've been arguing against all of DB. Otherwise this conversation would be much shorter. Quote: No, that's not all you said. You said those people were tricked by Derren Brown's hypnosis into doing things without any conscious decision, and I pointed out that is a false statement. The truth is that the people on this show made the decision before even showing up at the studio that they were going to try and get on TV with Derren Brown (or else why would they have answered an Internet "cattle call" from a talent agency?) and that was the most likely motivation for them playing along with the show. How the hell do you know? Do you have mind-reading powers? Do you know when someone makes a conscious decision and when someone just does something and not sure why? Yes, they are there to be entertained and maybe thrilled to be chosen to be a subject. But do they know why they can't unclasp their hands or not be able to sit up? I a lot of cases, no they don't. That's the difference. It's a major one. Quote: You dismissed that, and said it was all "hypnotic suggestion" and that they didn't know they had any alternative other than to believe everything DB told them. Now you're trying to backtrack and say it wasn't in fact hypnosis, but some other form of "psychological trick." The real trick is being played on the TV audience only, not the willing stooges we see on the TV screen. Originally Posted by John Albert "I NEVER SAID HE ALWAYS USES STOOGES IN THE FIRST PLACE." Look up. Quote: And most of those explanations were false. Welcome to magic patter. Deal. Quote: Again, you simply reiterated the false claims of Derren Brown, which he presented in his book Tricks of the Mind. See? Not only the show you're arguing also his book which is about his life, his ideas and very good tips on how to perform magic, and a basic instruction on doing an hypnosis show. Where is the false claims you speak of? Quote: But you still have not explained exactly what you're talking about, only made vague references to a "trick" being played. Well allow me to let you in on the secret. Some of us are able to see exactly how it's done, and you, the self-professed magician, are the one falling for the trick. You're still floundering about, grasping for explanations along the lines of "hypnotic suggestion" and "mental trickery" when in fact he hinted you the method right there in the introduction to the show. Wait. Let me guess. Is it.......no it can't be.... because you screamed "I NEVER SAID DERREN BROWN ALWAYS USES STOOGES!"...so...hmmmm....okay I can't think of any other answer you'd give. I'm going to guess you're going to say "stooges", John! Was I right? Quote: They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands. Wooo hoooo!!! I win!!!!! Despite your screams of "I NEVER SAID DERREN BROWN ALWAYS USES STOOGES!" you claimed it right here! What do I win?????? EDITED TO ADD: Quote: I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it. And no, I never said he always uses stooges. You keep alleging and implying I said that, but I never did. So knock it off. It's a lie, and it's getting really tiresome. Wait what? First you say "They're stooges, or "plants" if you like. The entire TV audience was sourced and screened by an online talent agency, and placed there because they've been predetermined to be compliant subjects, ready, wiling and able to perform as the show demands." then you say "I said they're not technically stooges because he told us straight-up that they were chosen from people who volunteered to be on the show. They would really only be "stooges" by definition if the audience were kept in the dark about it." ....please make up your mind so we can have a serious debate rather than you changing what you are saying from post to post..... Quote: That's it. That's the "psychological trick": a play on the TV audience's tendency to believe everything they see on TV is real, even when the fakery is obvious if you really bothered to look and listen with a critical mind. Of course, since you have explored every other possibility. You have thought of every possible scenario and you alone know every thing there is to magic and you know every possible way a people get fooled and you know the psychology of everyone in the audience and you know that all people who are hired in talent agency think the same way. No, there couldn't be another way. Quote: Yeah, but you still have not addressed the question of how you can say Derren Brown is honest, when he plays both sides of the fence like he does. How can you call him honest when he presents some shows with an truthful, critical, skeptical theme and other shows with dishonesty and magic, but fails to differentiate between the two? How can say he leaves the dishonesty behind on the stage when he does keep up the woo pretense even offstage, in his books and interviews? Back to my point. You haven't been just arguing the show. You've been arguing ALL of Derren's work including his books. Quote: Depends on what you specifically mean by "malleable." In this case, and I admit, not quite the right word here, I mean taking everything he says in the show as a lie, rather than thinking "is this part true or not." Patter is usually a mixture of both. Quote: Absolutely not. You ought to know better than to even ask that question. My discourse in this thread ought to be proof enough. So do you not believe him at all? Period? Nothing he says in his interviews and books cannot be trusted is that it? (Just looking for clarification). Quote: This is a disingenuous argument. I don't expect most people to be as skeptical as I am. In fact, very few people are skeptical at all, and tend to live their lives taking far too many things for granted. As I said before, we have a very big problem with this kind of open promotion of pseudoscience here in the USA, to the point where even news organizations can run blatant lies as historical information and political commentary. I have already shown evidence that an awful lot of people believe DB achieves his effects through some kind of extraordinary psychological powers. It appears that too many people already are incapable of making the distinction, so the onus rests with Mr. Brown (and perhaps the TV authorities, if that's their business in the UK) to ensure that he's not making misleading claims as fact. As I've said many times already, Derren Brown does not do nearly enough to dispel those false notions about himself. In Pure Effect, he even talks at length about how much effort he puts in to carefully cultivate the impression of having extraordinary powers, of being an "extraordinary man." It appears that he's just got such a huge ego that he frankly doesn't care if he's misleading. ...and you don't have a huge ego? Psst. "Pure Effect" is a book on how to do some stage magic tricks and how to perform them so they are entertaining. Just letting you know that.... So what should he do? I'll ask you as I asked Chickmate, who wimped out on his answer. How should he do his mentalism? Like everyone else does? And please don't say "refrain from pseduoscience because a lot of magicians use that for patter. Part of what magicians do is suspend disbelief in order to get an effect. They are doing entertainment, not teaching. If you are going to say that, then you might as well say that "Ghostbusters" should not be shown. That and plenty of other shows and movies deal with pseudoscience yet no one bugs tells the movie/television industry to stop doing those shows. (Even though Dan Akroyd is an avid believer in ghosts). But then, I anticipate, you will say, "well they know that they are just stories, no one promotes pseudoscience. However, Dan Akroyd based "Ghostbusters" on what he believes is "research" into ghosts. And "Ghostbusters 3" is being made. Going to call out Dan Akroyd and say "Ghostbusters" should be shown? It's entertainment. The people are not there to learn, they are there to be entertained. Here's the difference, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Once the show is over, so is the patter. Go to DB's website right now. Go ahead. Do you see any course in woo? Do you see any paranormal stuff? Now go to John Edwards site. Do you notice ANY difference in content between John's site and Derren's site, hmm? That's the difference and it's a big one. Quote: But he also casts himself in the role of a skeptic, and these days he constantly blurs the distinction and never lets the audience know when he's wearing his "magician" cap and when he's wearing his "skeptic" hat. Off stage he IS a skeptic. I've just proved that. On stage he is playing a role. Learn the difference and the importance. Sheesh. Quote: That's irrelevant. Hypnosis does not grant anyone the ability to assume that kind of control over others. Derren Brown is lying when he says it does. As I said before, it's not too difficult to discern the motives of cherry-picked respondents who signed up for a special taping of his TV show. No, my question IS relavent. Don't avoid it. Again: is every decision you have made in your life a conscious one? Or have there been decisions that you made because you don't know why or you're even a little unsure as to why? Quote: All you have to do is open your eyes and look, pay attention to the details, and you can plainly see how it was edited to give number of false impressions. That I'd go along with you. But I'm sure there's more going on than you claim of stooges and camera editing only. I'll say it again, that entire show can be done without the use of stooges. Quote: As I said before, this is just an ad hominem, a likely attempt to poison the well. I've already pointed out how dishonest this line of reasoning is, and other than that I don't respond to ad hominems. I apologize. I will no longer say that you'd make a poor magician. I am so sorry I hurt your feelings. That was not my intention. Quote: Except that he fails to differentiate when he's doing magic (lying) and doing skepticism (telling the truth). That fact alone makes every word out of his mouth as good as a lie. He lies on stage, he doesn't off stage. On stage is job - he's PAID to do that. People watch his shows because they want to be lied to and amazed. You want to know more about the real DB, watch his interviews and read his books and visit his webpage. He's not at his job at those times. Quote: I've already dealt with this one. It's a blatant red herring to deflect an ethical argument. If that's the case, then why be a skeptic and call out charlatans at all? All magician lie about what they are doing. Banachek uses ghosts for his creation of PK touch. Should we compare him to John Edwards too? I use a trick where I say that I can time travel using astral projection with my mind. Should I be compared to John Edwards as well? Quote: Another red herring. The police don't stop arresting people for shoplifting because it's only a misdemeanor and "people are always doing it anyway." That is a straw man. I am NOT saying that. What I am saying is that you are going after the wrong guy. I gave you the reasons why. You are going after a magician who will admit that he has no powers, no abilities to control people except in a show for entertainment purposes. You want to do something productive, go after the guys who are really swindling people like John Edwards. He's the one who says his scam is real after the show is over. This is why I am saying it's a "think of the children" type of crusade you're doing. You're going after the guy who is not serious in what he does and ignoring the people who are serious in what they are doing and doing the real damage. Quote: He promotes the same garbage in his books. Where? Specifically where? This is what I mean. You really aren't just arguing about the show. Quote: Plus, he does skepticism also, so people look to him as a trustworthy figure they can rely on to show them what's real and what's fake. He deliberately blurs that distinction to play to the woo crowd for the sake of controversy. ....facepalm..... Please don't make me repeat myself. Quote: Then by that same argument, all John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all the other woo promoters all over the world have to do is just claim it's "entertainment" and they should get a "free pass" to say whatever they want? Wrong. Derren Brown deserves a "pass" no more than any of those other charlatans do. You're going to make me repeat myself. sigh Let me try it this way: People who continue their woo performances and continues their claims on woo promotions after their show is over, this includes books, interviews, webpages: John Edward, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck (Last two I wouldn't call woo. I'd call it propaganda, though). People who drop their woo their woo performances and does not continue their claims on woo and does not promote any woo after their show is over, this includes books, interviews, webpages: Derren Brown. Fine. Good. Go on your crusade against a performer. I'm sure people like Uri Geller, John Edwards, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck would appreciate not having their woo in danger of being exposed because you're trying to bust a stage magician. Enjoy.
	__________________ "How perverted you are.", "I will bite you like a serpent. The poison will slowly kill your sophism..." - SnakeTongue "More truth is in a single issue of Mad than a year of Time." - Gord in Toronto "Oh, and one more thing: For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know." - Wise man in Sucker Punch Last edited by JFrankA; 15th December 2011 at 03:15 AM.

15th December 2011, 03:15 AM	#875
Alan Illuminator Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 3,658	I do think that patter, like any communication, can be irresponsible. And that Brown's patter in this show is an example of that.