I was reading Tom Morris (who did the Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy) today. In his chapter on what a person is, he gets into “mind” and, of course, the mind/body problem and the various solutions (monism vs dualism, idealism vs materialsm) that have been given. But he asks an interesting question: Can our minds communicate to other minds independent of physical means of communication? You know, ESP.

Morris tells an interesting story about an event that deeply affected him. He was teaching philosophy at Duke at the time. He decided to try an experiment with his ten year old daughter, Sara. He took a deck of Uno cards that are, as you know, divided evenly into four colors. He would pick a card, look at it and then think hard on its color, actually try to project the color in his mind to his daughter, who was to think hard on what color the card was.

He picks the first card and thinks on it. She gets it right. The second. She gets it right. She gets the third right. Then she gets the fourth wrong. He asks, “Was the color you guessed the first color that impressed your mind?” “No,” she said, “it was…” and she named the correct color. “OK,” Tom said, “just go with your first impression.”

She correctly named the next 20 colors in a row.

Morris decided to change the rules. He decided to pick a card and NOT look at it. He would just place the card face down on the back of her neck. She would guess, and then he would look to see if she got it right.

After 38 correct guesses in a row, Mrs. Morris demanded that they come to dinner.

Anybody care to calculate the odds of 20 (really 24) + 38, or 62 correct guesses in a row? There are four possible colors for each guess.

What I'm more interested in is this--does anybody here think 62 correct guesses in a row is PURELY coincidental (that is, no real mental causation is responsible for the event)?

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/26/2007 11:36:45 PM (GMT-5)