The octopus Paul: supernatural or natural logic?

One
philosophical explanation.

This is another good example of how we are influenced and prefer explanations that do not
require us to reason! There is an octopus in a German zoo, called Paul, to him are offered
two acrylic boxes with a food are placed inside. Outside of the boxes are placed the flags of
the teams that will play the next match of World Cup 2010 in Africa. What was observed is
that Paul opens the lid and pick the food in the box whose flag is the same team that will
win the match the next day. And he hit ten from eleven matches since the EuroCup
tournament among national soccer teams in Europe.

I used the phrase "another example" because the case of Paul reminded me of the cat
Oscar, a resident of an asylum in the United States that seems to predict which patients will
die within hours. In an episode of "Dr. House", is presented to us an interesting solution: the
cat looking for warm places, or because the terminal patients have fever, or because they
are placed on thermal blankets! I watched it in my house: when I leave the couch and my
position as the "drop", my pet cat go!

In this article, I present what I think is a discovery about the "octopus prophet":

1st) let’s the boxes and their positions (this seems important), match to match of the
Germany team in Africa’s world cup:

Box A Box B
Germany 4x0 Australia
Germany 0x1 Serbia
Ghana 0x1 Germany
Germany 4x1 England
Argentina 0x4 Germany
Germany 0x1 Spain

2nd) If instead the names of the teams we call the first box "A" and second "B", we find that
"Paul" chose the boxes in the following order:
The first game = box A
Second game = box B
Third game = box B
The fourth game = box A
Fifth game = box B
Sixth game = box B

We still need to observe the two finals games of World Cup to prove what seems to me
clear: the octopus follows a pattern in the choice of boxes and the default is A, B, B, A, B,
B, etc! If there is even such a default, we believe that the octopus will choose the box "A" in
the next seventh game and box "B" in the eighth game (final).

7th game Uruguay x Germany

8th game Holland x Spain

Other conclusions:
(1) octopus thinks (!) and it is observed in the fact that he follow a pattern, an ordered
thought, repetitive, methodical!
(2) How is the octoupus percentage is so high, when one would expect the normal 50%
accuracy and 50% error? We think it does’t depend of the animal but depende of soccer
players of the teams involved. Maybe single hungry octopus “profecies” can unstabilizing
emotionally the german soccer players!