Appearance and reality: in conversation with Derren Brown
The Open University’s Nigel Warburton talks to psychological illusionist Derren Brown about appearance and reality, and what kind of people are most gullible.
The Open University’s Nigel Warburton talks to psychological illusionist Derren Brown about appearance and reality, and what kind of people are most gullible.
Interesting. I’m a gullible person but very open minded. I trust nobody and I understand where you’re coming from. I think Derren’s success is due to his ability to get people to like and trust him.
ooo never noticed you had said “fake psychics” when I watched this yesterday. Which means you do think there are real psychics in this world?
Not sure if i should believe what I just saw! Kiddin I have to keep myself more alert for deceptions.
Love to listen to any conversation with Derren! This was very interesting thanks for posting it up on the blog 🙂
Ah .. To be honest .. people tend to go from A to D while talking quite a lot as well .. we learn to read between the lines .. in that area we do (well, people like me that is), we dont dislike reading between the line, never done anything else (links back at times to way of upbringing .. ), but checking movements of hands … nope .. (unless they approach me ofcourse (no, now you should not do something with that other hand .. taking advantage of a response to that other hand).
Gullible .. what a word (mother tongue is not english, therefor .. gullible .. how strange .. our word is Onnozel or goedgelovig .. (yeah, try pronounce that ..).
Okay, brilliant ! (hm .. who did I hear say that more often ..)
Hm .. grammar … that is kinda catchy, to put it like that …
Derren comes across as a very nice interviewee. And I mean “nice” in the traditional sense of the word… just a nice guy. =)
@Mark
That doesn’t follow logically… All he’s asserting is that the psychics he’s talking about aren’t real.
Incidentally, I thought I’d point out that Derren, and indeed everyone who pretends to do magic, is a fake magician 🙂
derren certainly has matured. a joy to watch. just lovely. 🙂 and it’s true–everyone does take the path of least resistance. it may not look that way to us; but that’s just because we dunno the other guy’s mentality.
BTW, doctors think it’s NOT better to have a false positive. 😀
It’s interesting that Derren doesn’t appear to think his “victims” are gullible as such, but “trusting”. I’m not convinced there is really such a difference between the meanings of the words, especially in relation to his tricks of persuasion. I think he just doesn’t doesn’t want to be seen as taking the piss out of people because “gullibility” is seen as a negative trait, but “trusting” is a positive one.
There must be a correlation between the people who are gullible enough to believe/trust what they see in advertisements and the people who are more suggestible to (magic) suggestion. After all, when Derren is selecting people for his tricks on the streets, he’s looking for particular people, isn’t he? Sheeple = gullible people.
Arty, I’m personally fairly suggestible to things like hypnosis (my friends and family find it quite funny how easy it is for someone I trust to put me in a trance-ish state), but I’m not that sensitive to commercial suggestion or scams or the like. In fact, I’m usually the one warning my friends to stop forwarding those ‘microsoft will give you cash’ e-mails and spotting the pickpockets in a crowd.
So for me, it’s not gullibility that causes suggestibility. If you want to take my own analysis for it, I think it’s mainly a mix of mild submissiveness (not that I take orders from just anyone, but I do like being told what to do by someone I trust and then doing it well) and being very sensitive to authority.
Derren told me to trust him, so I did as I was told. 😉
I thought at one point that they were doing a strange close-up of that lampshade, then I realised it was the back of your head.
(A thousand apologies – I couldn’t resist)
Interesting. A shame it was so heavily edited, is there anywhere we can see the full conversation?
It’s me or the video editing is awful?
I find solace in the words…Ultimately Probable Positive
the rest i find worrying, dóh :p
For those of you who have read “Trick Of The Mind” this is explained thoroughly in the beginning chapters.
@Mark – all psychics are fake.
@ Berber Anna,
Remember the movie, the day that the earth stood still, “I am Klaatu, humans cannot be trusted”.
Anyone who has money, power, position, a gift and is smart has followers. If not a cult following. Can they be trusted ? No. It is well known that you can’t even trust YOURSELF. You will fail at some point at some situation in time. How can you trust another ? This has nothing to do with a paranoid attitude. Anything that can go wrong goes wrong. Is the trust that you had worthy to be trusted in an individual ? Is anyone impregnable or even infallible ? These questions need to be asked to one self. Simply because one error can trigger off an event that can effect millions. It even will create a direction in which things could go. Are they for the good or are they for the worse?
Got me thinking… which is scarier, being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger or being chased by half a sabre toothed tiger? The first is scary but the second one scary and pretty damn freaky as well.
If anything I’d be mildly reassured if I saw the back quarters of said sabre-toothed tiger follow the front end round the corner if I wasn’t expecting them already.
Zombie disected sabre-toothed tigers are the stuff of nightmares.
Then again, maybe I missed the point.
Did anyone else notice how intimidated that guy looked by interviewing THE derren brown?!
KJ, you may say that’s not paranoia, but it sounds a whole lot like it. Of course people fail sometimes, that’s life. But if you don’t trust anyone, you’re not going to have much of a social life, nor would it be a very happy existence. We’re a social species, we’ve evolved to trust our own ‘tribe’, and that’s how we function best — by trusting those who have a track record of trustworthiness.
I hardly have the power to affect millions, nor do I affect anyone who affects millions. Don’t worry, that lovely red button is far out of my reach. So if it’s all the same, I’d prefer to stay non-paranoid, thanks.
@ Berber Anna,
What is a social life? If it is for the sake “I want to belong to “something”” as in I can’t be an individual unless I “must” trust someone to be in a “tribe” and follow A direction that leads many a times to nowhere. Time filled in, is not time used in usefulness. Think about evolving what you could do with your time for the less privileged, the weak, the stumbling, the hurting, the dying, the lonely. If you want a social life that counts, those are the one’s that need your attention. Doing this is a great reward in return. I think our focus is wrong on those that are “successful”. Sometimes a way we walk on looks good because it “feels” good, but the end of it leads to death or is a dead end. You think that is the purpose of your life or anyone else to that effect ?
@ Berber Anna,
It is expedient that you should affect millions with your life. But with what ? How do you want to be remembered ? Someone who runs after others and you and others gain little from it, or someone that makes one want to to run after you, because you did something for them worthwhile very exceptional and totally life-changing forever ? It’s not what you do, it is what you do in that close and spiritual relationship with another that lasts and will be remembered. I think it is not the ability to entertain someone that is at stake here, it is the ability to change a person to become the next president, the next leader for the sake of all that can benefit out of it.
“It’s interesting that Derren doesn’t appear to think his “victims†are gullible as such, but “trustingâ€.
To me he was saying something rather different: that given a little experience “trusting” people were less gullible than suspicious ones.
We may never totally eradicate our inherent propensity for gullibility. But if we all posed each other a single simple question, we might ameliorate the problem somewhat. That query being, “Before I consider your paradigm. Am I permitted to ask you as many questions, as my mind may devise?â€.