Each magic experiment is a program. The conjurer is a programmer and his audience a computer. The program is a set sequence of instructions. A computer requires programs to function, and typically executes the program's instructions in a central processing unit, commonly known as its head. However this computer also has a heart and so the conjurer dresses up the program with nice entertainment, as he puts the facts of the program across to the computer. One or more of the steps in the program's sequence are facts in effect only, which leads the computer into dilemma: It computes but does not at the same time.

Is one did that to an actual computer then what would it be called I wonder.

Computer brains are easily tricked by optical illusions, too!


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/19578......ions-too

Emmmm

I think the computer would just ignore the dressing. For instance, a very very simple routine in old-time BASIC:

10 LET a = 5
20 LET b = 10
30 LET c = 20
40 LET d = 30
50 PRINT a + b
60 END

The computer would print the answer, 15, even though c and d were declared.

Kinda reminds me of some discussions here on how engineers automatically tend to go for figuring out the method, no matter how much entertainment value you put into the trick.

@Tommy, closer to a rhetorical argument. The audience has to accept the basic context/premise for each item in the argument as it pertains to the trick or it's just "here's a plastic thingie that I fuss with - now I show my hands again - oh look aces!" performance art piece.

Of course no fact on earth has to be accepted. However, in the hands of a skilled programmer, the reasonable computer, will be convinced that every step in the program, is clearly a stone cold fact, based on the evidence before its every eye.

? not understanding you. As far as I know computer's don't believe, accept, or have any notion of fact. They just do what's in memory. one of the things they can do is look at a location for what to do next.

it's us, with our sense of self, who believe, argue and fret over what we fan accept as evidence.

Binary is the way of the step. There are no answers of the third kind to a magic experiments step, like maybe or perhaps not or I am not or I feel so.

"Will someone now kindly see that there are no more Queens in the deck." (Hand
deck for inspection.) "There are no more Queens in the deck? Thanks!"
Note the answer is either: yes or no, true or false. It is Black or White, 0 or 1.
We know their answer to each step before we ask. We run those steps, like a program through them. They compute them as facts as opposed to opinions or feelings. So the effects are like programs, we are like programmers and the pigeons are like computers.

The plausible nonsense is a dreamlike virtual reality anyhow and the magic tends to wake them up in it and leaves them there.

Agreed that we spend much time running some kind of pattern/programs - and that much trickery depends on established programs being used in place of accurate perceptions.

People may be rational but not always strictly logical. Rational as in their beliefs and perceptions and expectations about rewards are kept intact, validated ...
Predictable in terms of "what others have done in this situation"... sure given something that tests as rational with a little bit of plausible... but that's mostly about what they are already "programmed" to do, IMHO. Not so much what you can introduce as programming as with a computer.

Let's go with your example as a premise to show off a classic force. You pull out the queens. They check for more queens. Then you put the queens in your pocket. You go to four volunteers. Please take the five of hearts. They humor you and pull out a card. Next one - please take the jack of clubs, and so for two other volunteers. You ask them if it worked...and to show the rest fo the folks their cards. They each have a queen. You reach into your pocket and take out the named cards.

Not logical at all. But pretty much realisticly rational. hmmm?

"That does not compute."
-- The robot in Lost in Space

:)

That sounds like a great example of what Gerald Deutsch calls Perverse Magic.

It is a simple matter to offer the impossible and for it to be unquestionably accepted by simply offering it up as fiction. The impossible of a magic experiment, on the other hand, is not only questionable but also unacceptable, because it is offered up and computed as a matter of fact.