Fooled by an Inanimate Object Performing a Double Lift

Fooled by an Inanimate Object Performing a Double Lift

Tuesday Night

It was cold*¹, below freezing in fact, I wrapped up really warm in my old winter coat and my lovely sheepskin gloves. I walk out of the house. I am meeting with some magicians in Kemp Town, Brighton, for a magicians open mic night. Tonight was going to be an important night read about it here: "New Years Resolution 2012".

Heading into town I felt how cold it actually was, so I walked as fast as I could to warm up. When I was about half way into town I had the disappointing realisation that I only had £5 on me. Stopping at the nearest cash point I was forced to remove my gloves and stop walking, it was cold.

I put the card into the machine, entered my pin number and decided £20 would be plenty. Put the card back into my wallet and waited for the cash...

...the machine spat the cash out of its mouth. It gave me one £10 note and one(!) £5 note. That only adds up to £15. I started to get annoyed (sure it is only £5, but I am getting ripped off by a robot!), but I guess I instinctively double check, so I took the cash and did a kind of one handed fan with it, I spread the fiver over the tenner, there was definitely only one of each. Then I looked closer.

Looking closer I realised that there were two fivers, perfectly square and held as one. Money isn’t as slippery as cards are, so when I spread the notes they were probably less likely to separate, and due to the cold my fingers were dry (and also less dexterous as they were so cold) so they wouldn’t grip the notes enough to provide the friction required to separate them.

I was fooled by a cash machine.

I guess I could argue that I wasn’t fooled, since I figured it out fairly quickly... but I was fooled enough to get wound up over it, and it wasn’t until after I had accepted that I only had £15 and was putting it into my wallet that I took the closer look. So I was well and truly fooled.

Why was I fooled? Let me know if you have any theories, here is mine:

I was fooled for two reasons.

1. It is not physically possible for a cash machine to perform a double lift. Well... apparently it is, but before this happened it wasn’t possible. In fact it was inconceivable to me, so I just couldn’t even consider that the two notes were being displayed as one.
2. The machine wasn’t intending to deceive me. I knew that the machine didn’t mean to deceive me so I couldn’t consider that it would, instantly jumping to the simplest solution (Occam’s Razor *²).
3. Not an actual reason, just an observation – the cash machine was so casual about it! You would never suspect that this robot, with such a casual attitude was setting out to deceive you.

Thoughts

With the first reason, imagine if we could make it physically impossible for us to be able to perform a double lift (or any other sleight, move or method). Would this prevent the audience from ever suspecting it? Obviously we would have to indirectly prove that it was impossible, we couldn’t overtly draw attention to it, but I think if the conditions proved that a double lift was physically impossible then there is no (or very little) risk of it ever occurring to a spectator that maybe the magician was secretly holding two cards.

Following on from that, what if we considered which methods an audience was likely to suspect and then made all of those suspected methods physically impossible? What would they suspect then?

The second reason intrigues me. Magicians set out to deceive their audience. Perhaps deceive is a strong word, magicians set out to entertain their audience with the use of deception. The audience knows from the start of the performance that the magician is going to deceive them so perhaps they are on their guard. Even if they are not on their guard they are aware of the deception at some level.  

Hypothetically if the audience was not aware that you were planning on deceiving them how would this affect the outcome of the trick itself. Would it be more likely to fool the audience? Would it increase the experience of magic for the audience? Would it prevent the audience from looking for a method or solution and just allow them to enjoy the performance?

Is this how con men work? Although we are not aware that they intend to deceive us they do it anyway.

In regards to the third reason/ observation I will post my thoughts on this and its connections with the study of martial arts separately.

Lessons/questions to take from this (please respond with any thoughts/opinions):

1. Always check when taking cash out of your wallet that you only took one note.
2.  How can we indirectly prove that a certain method is physically impossible?
3. How can we present a trick, but eliminate any perceived intention to deceive?

*¹ I have a weird relationship with temperature, much to the annoyance of my colleagues I spend all day in the office (all through summer and winter) with my window wide open, the fan on, and my shirt sleeves rolled up and often I am still too hot.
When I am at home I wrap up warm, usually in a big woolly jumper my girlfriend knitted for me, and still I sit here shivering and asking if she minds me turning the heating up – her response: put on another jumper.
Most people would put on my sheepskin gloves and immediately feel their hands get warmer, but my hands feel colder when I am wearing the gloves – I accept that this is all in my head and the gloves are probably good for my overall warmth.

*² The principle (attributed to William of Occam) that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary.
How can Occam’s Razor be applied to magic?
In creating a trick perhaps it can help us create the cleanest and simplest solution.
In terms of performing a trick it could help us to figure out what solution (if any) an audience is likely to suspect.