I used to be into magic. I was never very technically accomplished, but it’s been a surprisingly useful model and source of allegory for a lot of other experiences. When people recount a technical issue they’re having, for example, they recount it the way they would a magic trick, confusing the sequence of events and omitting/forgetting salient explanatory information that may make them appear stupid.
A concept that springs to mind reading this post is the “Invisible Compromise” in Derren Brown’s earlier writings. Since the magician is performing an apparently impossible feat, there has to be a compromise somewhere.
In a Book Test, the performer hands the participant a book, requests they silently read something from it, then deduces the text they just read. The compromise is the book. If the performer is genuinely capable of reading minds, why the book (or the deck of cards, or the sealed envelope, or whatever conceit removes the information from the participant’s head)? The idea of the Invisible Compromise is to make the necessary mechanic as transparent and unquestionable to the spectators and participant as possible.
I used to be into magic. I was never very technically accomplished, but it’s been a surprisingly useful model and source of allegory for a lot of other experiences. When people recount a technical issue they’re having, for example, they recount it the way they would a magic trick, confusing the sequence of events and omitting/forgetting salient explanatory information that may make them appear stupid.
A concept that springs to mind reading this post is the “Invisible Compromise” in Derren Brown’s earlier writings. Since the magician is performing an apparently impossible feat, there has to be a compromise somewhere.
In a Book Test, the performer hands the participant a book, requests they silently read something from it, then deduces the text they just read. The compromise is the book. If the performer is genuinely capable of reading minds, why the book (or the deck of cards, or the sealed envelope, or whatever conceit removes the information from the participant’s head)? The idea of the Invisible Compromise is to make the necessary mechanic as transparent and unquestionable to the spectators and participant as possible.