Voodoo Archive 3
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Whence energy?
Posted by Cyrus on 11 October 1999, at 7:11 a.m.
[I'm starting a new thread, Doctor, because I foresee (no pun intended) that this issue may take a lot of space]
Dr Reed Holliday wrote "the correct term is 'energy field' "
An energy field in physics is tangible and measurable. Even in quantum physics, fields are identified through their 'collateral' effects, only by calculations, and robust ones at that. There is a cause, a source and a 'receptor' for any energy emission. The cards used in playing the game are made out of a plastic+paper material and are not invested, naturally nor artificially, with any electromagnetic force per se. Even if we account for some field being created during play (ie from the static created by the interaction with the cards' environment, like the table felt, etc), the ranks of the cards are indistinguishable in this. The difference in each rank's depiction (the number of pips, the amount of free/white space on the card's face, etc) is not sufficient to create a distinction between any 'field' that might appear.
These are my current assumptions. Which are of course open to challenges.
"Ten (10) hours of bj play a day, coupled with intense concentration on the dealer's hole card yields an astonishingly high rate of success in predicting the dealer's hole card."
You might be implying then that there's an energy field created between the player and the card, after certain conditions are met (long hours of play, concentration, etc).
We can speculate that there are occasions where intense involvement and concentration activate in our minds perceptions hitherto unremarked. The mind then may begin a subsconscious process which presents the conscious part with information 'out of the blue'.
We have touched upon this sometime ago on this board, the issue being Insticts and the human brain. The first post on that thread was titled "Intuition" and signed by Saturday Night Special. I had posted that functions available to our (not so distant) ancestors have been blunted by the technology of the past few centuries but have definitely not been eliminated! We still have the physical abilities to smell and see in ways routinely used by animals - only we never use them, so they wither and become unresponsive. In such instances we can speculate that not only inherent physical functions (including the brain's) are mobilized but that data thus far discounted is now incorporated into our decision-making processes. A case of extreme danger or extreme cirumstances in general, like having to rescue a dear person or after devoting night after night to playing Blackjack, may trigger such functions.
An example: We actually SEE each & every card (in a face-up game) being dealt out of the shoe, picked up and put in the discards in particular order. We then see the cards being shuffled, cut and put back into the shoe; this is done right in front of our eyes. Now, a computer could digest and exploit this information, without any problem at all (as a matter of fact, such programs do exist), but we cannot do it, because the data is overwhelming. We can, at best and on purpose, shuffle-track whole segments of cards - and even this, with a great degree of error.
But what if a sleeping mechanism is awakened and our inner, hidden multigigabyte 'disk' starts spinning and humming? What if we're faced with extreme circumstances, like staking our whole to winning the game? We could speculate that the human brain's function could rise to the point of identifying through the above-described shuffling process, the dealer's hole card. This is NOT through some 'energy field' but purely through the power of perception, the same function that allows a research scientist to make a quantum leap in his thinking.
This is as far as I go.
From then on, to me, we can only speculate. But I'm open - to anything. Your input is appreciated in advance.
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