My Opinion on Magic Tricks

[Farid]

Hello Everybody,

I just wanted to express my opinion on magic tricks. I have seen many magic tricks on YouTube and other media platforms. And, most of them are extremely hard to explain. My opinion on it is that some of them are just illusions, and some of them are real. What do I mean by "real?" By that, I mean that if a magicians disappearing trick is real, it means that the magician has actually disappeared. 

 

 

[CharonY]

!

Moderator Note

This is more suitable for the Lounge. Note that the idea of a good illusion is of course to make it difficult for the viewer to figure out how it is done. It would be quite a jump to suddenly conclude that magic is real (unless you believe that there a lot of uncles with detachable thumbs).

 

[Strange]

2 hours ago, Farid said:

Hello Everybody,

I just wanted to express my opinion on magic tricks. I have seen many magic tricks on YouTube and other media platforms. And, most of them are extremely hard to explain. My opinion on it is that some of them are just illusions, and some of them are real. What do I mean by "real?" By that, I mean that if a magicians disappearing trick is real, it means that the magician has actually disappeared. 

It seems infinitely more likely that you just haven’t worked out how the trick is done. 

This should not be surprising: even professional magicians are not always able to work out how a trick was done. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Fool_Us - even when they are fooled, they have never said “well, I guess you must have really made it disappear”

 

[Bufofrog]

7 hours ago, Farid said:

By that, I mean that if a magicians disappearing trick is real, it means that the magician has actually disappeared. 

Think of the money he could make if he sold that magic trick to criminals.  Get caught, plead guilty, go to jail and disappear.

[John Cuthber]

7 hours ago, Farid said:

some of them are real.

No.

None of them is real, at least not by this definition
 

7 hours ago, Farid said:

if a magicians disappearing trick is real, it means that the magician has actually disappeared. 

 

[paulsutton]

On 7/7/2020 at 12:58 PM, John Cuthber said:

No.

None of them is real, at least not by this definition
 

 

 

On 7/7/2020 at 8:16 AM, Strange said:

It seems infinitely more likely that you just haven’t worked out how the trick is done. 

This should not be surprising: even professional magicians are not always able to work out how a trick was done. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Fool_Us - even when they are fooled, they have never said “well, I guess you must have really made it disappear”

 

I think Gabriel on Swordfish (movie from 2001) he suggests Mis-direction, at least in the case of Houdini.

[joigus]

I couldn't resist quoting this:

Quote

'I'm writing a book on magic,' I explain, and I'm asked, 'Real magic?' By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. 'No,' I answer: 'Conjuring tricks, not real magic.'

Real magic, [for most people] in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

Lee Siegel

Net of Magic, Wonders and Deceptions in India.

(my emphasis and my additions in square brackets)

I once went to a conference by James Randi, and it was very interesting. He's the guy who debunked Uri Geller when even professional scientists had failed to do so. Ask any professional magician and they will tell you that all magic is real (meaning based on deception, and not supernatural). The reason is very simple: it can actually be done.

[Janus]

4 hours ago, joigus said:

I couldn't resist quoting this:

Lee Siegel

Net of Magic, Wonders and Deceptions in India.

(my emphasis and my additions in square brackets)

I once went to a conference by James Randi, and it was very interesting. He's the guy who debunked Uri Geller when even professional scientists had failed to do so. Ask any professional magician and they will tell you that all magic is real (meaning based on deception, and not supernatural). The reason is very simple: it can actually be done.

Another person who debunked Geller was Johnny Carson.  He had Geller on his show to have him display his abilities.   Carson was however an former magician himself, first made sure that everything was on the up and up. The result:Geller failed to perform even one pyscic feat.

[Farid]

I'd be more impressed by magician's intelligence if all of their tricks were actually an illusion and not really happening. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Farid

[Janus]

14 minutes ago, Farid said:

I'd be more impressed by magician's intelligence if all of their tricks were actually an illusion and not really happening. 

Then be impressed, because they are all just illusions.

[MigL]

Ha !
I've met some magicians; I wasn't that that impressed  .

[Janus]

9 hours ago, MigL said:

Ha !
I've met some magicians; I wasn't that that impressed  .

And if Farid learned just how those illusions are done, I doubt he'd be impressed either.  (Want to disappoint someone?  Tell them how you did the trick that just "blew their mind".

[MigL]

My niece works with Greg Frewin, a magician in Niagara Falls.
He does this one simple trick with cards, where the face value of the card continuously changes.
He then goes on to explain how he does it, and everyone in the audience feels like an idiot, because it is extremely simple.

[dimreepr]

Derren Brown does blur the line with his mind control (series), but he does call himself an illusionist.

[Phi for All]

Michael Carbonaro does some impressive close-up illusions, mostly sleight-of-hand, but his real trick is that you don't know he's a magician. In one of his stunts, he's the clerk behind the counter at a sporting goods store. A customer walks up and starts talking to him, but he stops her and asks her to please hand him the box on the floor in front of the counter that UPS just delivered. She hands it over to him, and while he's talking to her, he opens the box and dumps out a basketball which filled the whole box. He sets the box on its side, still talking (and perfectly distracting her at this point), then reaches back into it and pulls out a bowling ball like it's no big deal. The woman knows the box wasn't that heavy, nor could it have held both balls, and says something about it. Carbonaro explains that they ship them that way to save weight, since the basketball is lighter. When she objects because of the size of the box, he explains that the bowling ball is smaller than the basketball so it can fit inside.

He has an answer for everything, and it drives the lady crazy. But it's really all about distracting her after he puts the box on its side so the left hand can lift that bowling ball from under the counter (without any obvious strain) up into the box smoothly, and then the right hand can reach in to remove it. What's magic is being able to fool someone standing across the counter from you.

[CharonY]

For close up card tricks Richard Turner is fun to look at. He can tell you exactly when he is going to do something and it is still close to impossible to see how he does it as his movement are just incredibly smooth.

[swansont]

Ricky Jay card tricks were the best.