OUT OF THIS WORLD
“But first… I want to talk about you. Somehow, each of you ended up here tonight. And I bet, if you thought about it, you could figure out exactly how it is you came to be here. Maybe a suggestion from a friend or family member pushed you to investigate. Or a strategically placed advertisement caught your eye. Whatever your route into that seat of yours, you’re most likely aware of how you made that decision.”
“What’s more interesting to me is when we make decisions with none of that obvious information. We tend to play this off as ‘random gut instinct,’ but I’m convinced there’s much more to it than randomness.”
EVAN takes out a deck of cards and sets up two wine glasses on a table.
You might know how you got here, but I’m fascinated by why you ended up here. I have a theory that it’s less random than it might appear. So let’s put it to the test.”
“I’m going to ask you to make a decision without any information to back it up. A… random choice, if you will.
Performer mixes the cards and shows the faces mixed up. He removes some single cards, then small packets of cards in time with the next lines and questions to the audience.
“If I asked you to guess if this were a red card or a black card, what would you say?”
Response.
“Exactly. What about this one?
Response.
“Absolutely incorrect. When we focus on where there’s no information, the result is a 50/50 split. Even odds. You couldn’t possibly know what the card is. “
“But sometimes we don’t have to understand the how if we understand the why. We are constantly absorbing information – more information than we could ever process consciously. So instead of focusing on the thing you don’t know, when I ask you what color the cards are, just focus on me.”
“Would these be red or black?”
“And these?”
EVAN continues until all the cards are split between the red and black glasses. The lines he says while pulling out packets of cards might be prompts of things we can’t possibly know. Or even better, illogical questions like “If you were making dinner for an old friend on a Thursday, what star sign would that make me?” This could be done as a way of distracting the conscious brain even further. Perhaps the questions get more illogical as we go.
“And this is exactly why you are all here. If you were truly a random group of people spouting off random guesses, then the result would be understandably random. But we find ourselves in a unique situation that proves you all must be connected and aware of something even more than you realize. A situation that proves we can accomplish something incredible without understanding the intricacies of how it’s possible.”
EVAN turns around the separated cards and the red cards are all in the red glass and the black cards are all in the black glass.
[I may want to bring up how it doesn’t matter if they know what the cards are, because I know what the cards are.]
“And if we trust that this particular group is meaningful. And here for some interesting reason; that begs the question ‘What am I doing here’?” [Segue to 10e: NO Poker]