Justification as Presentation
/Joe M. writes:
My favourite maxim in magic is this:
"If you cannot hide it, paint it red."
Well - one of my interests is philosophy. And I was recently looking up the work of the philosopher David Chalmers. In the 90's - the most widely cited philosophy paper was one by David Chalmers called The Extended Mind.
In the paper - he argues that when you use either a phone or a notebook to remember something it becomes a part of your mind.
Not just as a metaphor - but literally.
Here is a 5 mins clip where he explains his reasoning:
I wonder if this sort of idea could be used to justify having a spectator write something down in a mentalism trick?
You could say you want the spectator to remember something as part of their unconscious mind rather than their conscious mind. And then go into the spiel above. Perhaps it is easier to read a thought when it is buried in the unconscious?
If you watch the clip above - you can see how it would work well as the opening presentation to a mentalism trick where the spectator writes something down.—JM
Yeah, this is a good idea.
That video itself is a specifically good justification for why you might have someone write something in the notes field of their phone, which is a methodology I’ve been seeing fairly frequently recently.
But really I just wanted to use Joe’s email as a chance to talk about justifications more generally.
Here’s something that I’ve been thinking about….
The best justifications are disguised as presentation.
Here’s what I mean. I recently saw someone “read someone’s mind” and he went into it saying something like, “Often when people think of ‘mind reading’ they think someone can imagine any thought and the mind reader can pluck it out of their brain. But that’s not how it works. We need to get you to focus more directly on a word. Writing it down is one way to properly focus…,” etc., etc.
The message there is: “Here’s why I’m not just having you think of a word and telling you what it is.” But I think, ideally, that shouldn’t be the magician’s focus.
The justification shouldn’t come off as: “Here’s why I’m not doing X.”
It should come off as: “Here’s why I am doing Y.”
So instead of saying: “I can’t have you just think of a word. I need to have you write it down so I can focus your mind properly.”
You say something like, “When we write something down, it puts that information in our mind in a way that just thinking about it never could. There was this research study where they had people write down a phone number three times, or repeat it in their head 20 times. The group that wrote it down had far greater recall of the information when tested later on. Writing is both a physical and mental activity, so when something is written it becomes—in a way—highlighted in the mind. It makes it much easier to recall and project that information. I’ll show you something cool you can do. I want you to write down…” etc., etc.
Do you see the difference there?
The first way, I’m giving the audience an “excuse” as to why they need to write the word down.
The second way, I’m telling them something about the uniqueness of how the brain processes the actions of writing words. And then I’m demonstrating that. I’m not making any excuses. So it feels like my focus is only on this interesting thing I have to show them.
By giving the justification as presentation, it prevents the question of, “Can you do it without me writing it down?” from really ever coming up. It wouldn’t make sense to ask that given what I’m supposedly demonstrating to them.
Lead with the reason why, not the reason why not.
And if all you have is a reason “why not” then try to turn that into a reason “why.”
This might be confusing, so here’s another example:
“If I ask you to just think of a word, there’s a chance I could guess what that word is based on knowing you. So we’re going to have you choose a word randomly by flipping through this book.”
That’s a justification. That’s an excuse. That’s a reason “why not.” A reason why you’re NOT just letting them think of a word.
“Have you read this book? No? Consider yourself lucky. It sucks. In June of last year, I went on a 3-week hike on this offshoot of the Appalachian Trail with a couple of friends. And this book was all we had between us to pass the time. We thought there would be more opportunity to connect to the internet via our phone, so we didn’t really bring much else with us to keep us entertained. My friend had a copy of this book and we would just read it out loud to each other every night. Putting on all the voices. Eventually acting out whole scenes together just for something to do. We went through it at least a dozen times. We made up a sequel as we walked. It was a whole thing. I bought a copy just because I have good memories associated with it, even though the book blows. What’s weird though is that because we were so immersed in this stupid book for those weeks, I’ve noticed a bizarre connection to the material. It’s really strange. It doesn’t always work, but let’s try. Flip through the book and think of any word, go for something sort of interesting.”
That’s a presentation. That’s a reason “Why.” That’s a way to keep the spectator from thinking, “Can I just think of any word in the world?” without specifically focusing them on the fact that they can’t just think of any word in the world.