Why Paul the Octopus was right

Thursday, July 8, 2010 14:47 IST

It is rather interesting to see the two year old Paul the Octopusget all his predictions right. His prediction
skills have reached an unprecedented high with the latest correct prediction of Spain beating Germany in the
second semi-final.

While analysts have gone to town trying to explain Paul's prediction skills, it is essentially simple
mathematical probability or chance at work and nothing beyond that.

Let us try and understand this through a simple coin tossing exercise. When a coin is tossed there are
essentially two outcomes possible, heads or tails. Given this the chance of a coin landing a head (or a tail for
that matter) is ½ or 0.5, every time a coin is tossed.

So if the coin is tossed twice what is the probability of the coin landing a head (or a tail) twice? The answer
is very simple. The probability is ¼ or 0.25 ( .5 x .5). Or there is a 25% chance that the coin will land head
two times in a row.

Similarly if the coin is tossed five times, what is the probability of the coin landing head (or tails for that
matter) five times in a row? 0.03125 (0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5). Or there is a 3.125% chance the coin will
land head five times in a row.

Now what is the probability that the coin will land a head ten times in a row? 0.0009765625 or there is
0.098% chance of the coin landing head ten times in a row.

So what does this coin tossing experiment tell us? There is a chance of the coin landing head constantly all
the time, even though the probability of it landing head over and over keeps going down, as the number of
coin tosses increase.

Similar is the case with the predictions of Paul the Octopus. Every match has two results since we are in the
knockout stage. Either of the two teams can win. So the probability of

Paul the Octopus getting the prediction of an individual match right is 0.5.

Now Paul has predicted the results of six matches correctly for Germany? Now what is the probability of
getting the results of six matches right? The answer is 1.5625%, which is a rather small probability, but is a
probability none the less.

So Paul is no oracle, it's just a matter of chance that he has got things right, till now. This phenomenon can
be observed in various other facets of life. John Allen Paulos in his rather engaging book A Mathematician
Plays the Stock Market gives the example of e of a stock newsletter scam wherein the publisher sends out
the newsletter each week predicting the way a common stock market index (like the Sensex or the Nifty)
will go. In the first week, the newsletter is sent out to 64,000 people, picked up randomly. To half of these
people, the newsletter predicts that the index will go up and to the other half the newsletter predicts that
the index will go down. Whatever happens to the index by the end of the week, 32,000 people would have
received a correct prediction. The same process would be repeated again, but this time with the half which
got the newsletter with the correct prediction. So 16,000 people will get a newsletter predicting the rise of
the index and to the rest the newsletter predicting the fall of the index.
This process will be repeated a few times more. By the end of the sixth week, 1000 people would have got
correct predictions for six consecutive weeks. To these people another letter would go, pointing out the good
performance of the newsletter. And from now on if the individuals wanted to continue getting the
newsletter, they would need to pay for it.

The phenomenon of Paul getting his predictions right is just the same. Nassem Nicholas Taleb, in his
book Fooled by Randomness which he wrote before he became famous for writing The Black Swan, explains
this phenomenon brilliantly.

He says, "If one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of (strongly built) typewriters, and lets them
clap away, there is a certainty that one of them would come out with an exact version of the Iliad".Having
said this, Taleb asks "Now that we have found that hero among monkeys, would any reader invest his life's
savings on a bet that the monkey would write the Oddessey next?"

Calls for killing Paul the Octopus have already begun in Germany, for predicting Germany's loss to Spain
correctly. I just hope, Germans turn vegetarians for a while.

PS: I am not surprised that Paul has retired from making any more predictions. The owner obviously
understands all good luck runs out someday.

Paul the Octopus has recently become very famous after his predictions for Germany and Spain
during the World Cup 2010 came right. The 100% accuracy tag distinguishes him from any other
diviner who had attempted a prediction during the World Cup. There were responses and reactions
from various people including sportsmen, statesmen, and mathematicians. Whatever, the use of Paul
has demonstrated once again that mankind’s search for an extra-temporal, psychic foresight has not
quelled through the historical calendar returning a decade over this millennium. The question before
us is can such predictions as those of Paul be counted on as reliable (in other words, can they be
seriously taken as true)?

The mathematicians have plumped for chance. It’s all a matter of probability, they say (BBC News).
However, the argument of chance in itself is weak. The mathematics of chance will calculate that the
probability of Paul being right seven times out of seven is 1/128. But, the conclusion is not a
necessary one. It does not dictate anything and so amounts to nothing. It itself is a matter of chance
that the conclusion of such calculations comes right, after all.

Of course, there are certain reasons why Paul would have chosen the flag of the winning team each
time. Can a creature without the vertebrae make intelligent choices? The media, however, doesn’t fail
to apply to it titles such as “diviner”, “psychic”, and “clairvoyant”. However, we may have to look to
the zoologist and the psychologist to come forward and investigate the reasons of those choices; and,
of course, they have come with some explanations (“Potential biases”, Wiki. A few more controlled
experiments can help give some scientific answer.

But, some would ask, weren’t animals and birds used in historic past for ascertaining the future? What
reasons do we have to not believe in their intuitive powers? Even today, the howling of a dog is
considered as an omen of death in the neighborhood in several places. Someone may even state a
case of a death ten times out of ten whenever a dog howled. In such cases, further, there is no need
of establishing a necessary relation between the howling and the death, since the howling is not at all
supposed to cause the death – it only predicts it. However, if the howling is not followed by death in,
even, a few cases, we have reasons to believe that the howling is not very reliable; in which case, it
may also be understood that such foresight or knowledge or just omen of the future is not absolute
and determinative. On the other hand, even if the howling is followed by death in all the cases, the
conclusion is not reliable since the premise “If the dog howls, there will be death” is still open to
falsifiability. We haven’t established any reason why that statement may not go wrong someday. It’s
not conclusive and so not reliable.

The question, “Can animals possess psychic powers”, is now to be considered. Philosophical scientists
have different answers. Those who believe in the Block Universe theory, for instance, (also known as
Eternalism) believe that events don’t transpire; they are already there (Wiki). This would only be one
step before determining how information between events can travel, and if that’s established (which
seems a bit impossible since nothing is supposed to travel faster than light), then the possibility of
accurate prediction of events may not be so easily ruled out. And, then, the issue of memory (past,
present, and future) also comes to play. The Presentists, however, will not accept such a hypothesis.
To them, only the present exists, the past and the future are unreal, and so intuition of them is
impossible. Presentism is more a common-sense view, because almost anyone would believe that
things “happen”; they are not already there. They were, they are, and they may or may not be. If this
were not the case, then the only choice would be determinism. To say that events are already there
would be tantamount to saying that what is cannot be changed, in which case man has no free choice
(not even Paul the Octopus). But, if everything is determined, then Truth would not be an independent
category, since it would also be determined; in which, case we have no way to ascertain what is truth
and what is false. Therefore, if we are to preserve any sense of “truth-possibility” and an answer to
this question “Is Paul the Octopus reliable,” we would have to opt for a free and open universe; in
which case, psychic prediction can be ruled out.

So, we conclude that the view that the Octopus or any other diviner is not reliable is the only view
which would make sense of the world, of time, of truth, and our own experience of freedom and
choice.

NGO files PIL against astrologer Bejan Daruwalla

Published: Thursday, Feb 25, 2010, 1:48 IST 

Is astrology a science or an art of making money? The city-based NGO, Janhit Manch, has started a debate on the issue in the Bombay high
court.

A public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the manch and its convener Bhagwanji Raiyani, along with his associate Dattaram Kumkar, has
questioned the validity of predictions by well-known astrologers, including Bejan Daruwalla, and unknown babas like Brahmarshi Shri Kumar
Swami.

Taking note of the PIL, a division bench of justices FI Rebello and JH Bhatia on Wednesday directed the Union government, Maharashtra
government and state director-general of police to file separate affidavits, stating the number of cases registered by the authorities under The
Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.

As Daruwalla and Brahmarshi were not represented by their advocates, the court issued notices to them to file their replies in four weeks.
The more than 100-page petition pointed to several cases, including that of Indira Gandhi and Charan Singh becoming prime ministers,
despite opposite predictions.

Hearing the submissions, justice Rebello remarked: “It is difficult to understand how wearing a stone on a finger can change one’s fate! But
astrology is a science and that has been accepted by the Supreme Court.”

The PIL referred to Daruwalla, the “famous name of an astrologer and that numerologist among the elite class” who operates “somewhere
from Colaba and Ahmedabad”, with his contact numbers on his website. When Kumkar contacted the astrologer’s office, Bapu, his personal
assistant, told him to send a Rs25,000 cheque/cash for an appointment, which would be any time after 10 days; if the appointment was
urgent, an extra charge of Rs3,000 would have to be made, the PIL stated.

Representing the Union government, advocate Advait Sethna told the court that even the SC had accepted that astrology was a science and
many universities had included it as a subject. “Science, which is 4,800 years old, cannot be banned,” Sethna argued.

The PIL urged the authorities to ban articles, advertisements, episodes and practices promoting astrology and its related subjects like vastu,
reiki, feng shui, tarot, palmistry, zodiac signs and rashifal.

“Local trains and newspapers are full of advertisements regarding astrological predictions. They misguide innocent people,” Raiyani told the