Is it possible to . . .

[banja]

. . . flip a coin in your head?

My housemate and I were discussing this earlier. I'd had a dream where I was flipping a coin but was unable to look at the result without knowing it first. I woke up and tried it, but it's pretty hard to do.

I imagined throwing the coin so it landed behind the settee so I could sneak up on it, but no matter how I clear my mind or try to focus, the result of the flip always enters my brain a split second before I see it.

I need to get out more.

 

[dirtydog]

Is it possible to start a thread with a vague thread title :/

 

[Insanity]

I need to get out more.

Cant argue with that...

 

[TheDarAngel]

Hm I think you need better imaginations...my dreams are all pornographic a bit more interesting than flipping a coin...

 

[Stripe]

I thought this was quite interesting.

it's always tails for me. tails never fails.

 

[ReeceKB]

hmm so you saying you flip it and it goes into your head

 

[Raikiri]

hmm so you saying you flip it and it goes into your head

If only we could insult people on here

He is talking about an imaginary coin, imagine flipping a coin and not knowing what the result will be - is it possible.

 

[Glaucus]

. . . flip a coin in your head?

My housemate and I were discussing this earlier. I'd had a dream where I was flipping a coin but was unable to look at the result without knowing it first. I woke up and tried it, but it's pretty hard to do.

I imagined throwing the coin so it landed behind the settee so I could sneak up on it, but no matter how I clear my mind or try to focus, the result of the flip always enters my brain a split second before I see it.

I need to get out more.

NO,

because you need to know what the result is, otherwise your brain can't imagine the picture on the coin.

 

[woodsy2k]

The answer to the Schrodingers cat problem has arrived! all hale the new mind of quantum mechanics!

 

[Zogger]

in a dream do we know everything that happens before it happens*? I think it's possible, but you can't be specifically thinking about flipping the coin or you will know the result before seeing it.

*having said that I often find in dreams that what you 'expect' to happen in your head does happen... because it's in your head... I guess... Also there's lucid dreaming.

 

[Psyk]

Well I can imagine flipping a coin and imagining what the result is. But it takes me a second or two to decide what the result will be. Our brains are pretty poor when it comes to picking random numbers. Funnily enough computers seem to be better at it even though they cannot pick truly random numbers without an outside source of entropy (like the time or how many buttons the user pressed, etc.)

 

[banja]

NO,

because you need to know what the result is, otherwise your brain can't imagine the picture on the coin.

Well your brain can hold information that your conscious mind cannot access. For example when you can't remember the name of a band or an actor or anything. You know the info is in there, but you can't grasp hold of it. Then later on it just pops in there.

I suppose this problem is asking whether you can instruct your subconscious to do something, while you remain unaware of it. Nikola Tesla could supposedly do something like this, where he would give himself a mathematical problem or something to work on, then would consciously return to the results in his big brain later on. I don't have any proof of this though.

 

[Glaucus]

Well your brain can hold information that your conscious mind cannot access. For example when you can't remember the name of a band or an actor or anything. You know the info is in there, but you can't grasp hold of it. Then later on it just pops in there.

I suppose this problem is asking whether you can instruct your subconscious to do something, while you remain unaware of it. Nikola Tesla could supposedly do something like this, where he would give himself a mathematical problem or something to work on, then would consciously return to the results in his big brain later on. I don't have any proof of this though.

but that information would still have to be sent to your higher brain before it could draw the picture(in your mind), You can't draw a picture without knowing what it's going to look like

 

[Joe42]

I think this is the same as asking can you generate random numbers? The answer i believe is no, but you can generate pseudo-random numbers, which is essentially the same thing. The number will have come from somewhere but it would be very difficult to find out where or why you chose that number.
So how about if you say an odd number is heads and an even number is tails, then pick a number. You should get something akin to flipping a coin.

However to imagine something you have to decide what it is before your brain can visualise it, so you can't imagine flipping a coin without knowing the outcome.

You could imagine the motions of a coin flipping and then randomly choose what side it would land on, but you would have to have decided which side it has landed on before you visualise it.

 

[Psyk]

I think this is the same as asking can you generate random numbers? The answer i believe is no, but you can generate pseudo-random numbers, which is essentially the same thing. The number will have come from somewhere but it would be very difficult to find out where or why you chose that number.

There's an easy way to show this is true. Ask loads of people to think of a random number between 1 and 100. 37 will probably come up more than any other number.

 

[Joe42]

There's an easy way to show this is true. Ask loads of people to think of a random number between 1 and 100. 37 will probably come up more than any other number.

Or ask someone to come up with a lot of random numbers and you'll see the same ones repeated a few times. But if you look at the number of odd numbers picked vs the number of even ones i reckon it would be fairly well balanced and fairly random.

 

[AtreuS]

*ignore* forums being daft again and putting post in the wrong thread.