WILL 119: SCIENCE OF MAGIC AND ILLUSION

Final
Examination
Answer the prompts completely. Short answers and/or bullet points are
perfectly acceptable. You may reference any material from the course: your
notes, my lecture slides, final presentations, and external sources (except
classmates). Do not share your responses with others. You may submit
responses – before 11:11pm, May 5 – by e-mail (rog @ rice.edu), via
OwlSpace, or to my mailbox at Will Rice. By submitting your responses to
this exam, you pledge that on your honor, you have neither given nor
received unauthorized aid on this assignment.

1. Briefly restate Plato’s allegory of the cave (1PT) and Descartes’s notion of
mind-body dualism (1PT).
Describe the significance of each in the context of magic and illusion. (2PTS)
Basically, people live in mental caves that disallow them the ability
to see through elaborate subterfuge i.e. Chinese ruler Cao Cao
being unable to stop his advisor Sima Yi's machinations from killing
his son Cao Pi. Mind-body dualism is the idea that humans are
capable of using only either their mind OR their body at any given
time. Thus if you're able to focus their mind on something (i.e.
naked women) then they're physically incapacitated. Alternatively, if
you force them into physical action (i.e. knife fighting), they are
typically unable to solve complicated calculus problems.
2. Magic relies on an audience’s lack of domain knowledge (knowing about
magic methods) and
scientific knowledge (understanding the scientific principles behind an
illusion). Give an example
of each (2PTS) from our discussions of early (pre-Europe) magic history.
Lack of domain knowledge: Sacrificing slaves every day to make the
sun rise for the Aztec Empire. The audience did not understand that
it was the intricate channels down which the the victim's blood
flowed, and not the actual removal of the heart, that caused the sun
to rise.
Lack of Scientific Knowledge: When Caesar prevented Brutus from
killing him using an elaborate setup of mirrors to draw out the
traitor. Brutus did not understand that he was trying to stab an
image of Caesar, not the actual person.
3. Describe Reginald Scot’s motivation for publishing The Discoverie of
Witchcraft (1PT) and explain why the text represents a turning point in the
world of magic and illusion (1PT).
Before this point, mages and witches were a terror to the medieval
world and had incredibly powerful magical forces at their command.
However, Reginald Scot understood that if he could make the
masses believe not in arcane forces but in the scientific principles
behind magic and illusion then he could break the power of these
long-feared individuals. This book represents the point at which
“true” magic perished, and was replaced by the modern idea of
magic as a combination of misdirection and legerdemain.

4. Describe the illusion produced by the Ames Room demonstration (1PT).

Explain how the illusion
works. Mention both the physical construction (1PT) and the reason this
construction causes a
misperception (1PT). A sufficient response will briefly describe the concept of
perceptual
constancy (1PT).
During the Ames Room demonstration, a physical manisfestation of
death seemingly appears to reap your soul. While this fact is untrue,
it feels real to the viewer because of the way that the scythe and
rags interacts with the fog. Owing to the tendencies of people to
forcefully integrate parts of their environment into a whole cohesive
explanation (perceptual constancy) they convince themselves that
this is in fact a grim reaper despite the fact that it is just a fog-
machined room with a scythe covered in rags with some LEDs for
eyes.

5. Define the concept of change blindness (1PT), describe an example (1PT),

and explain how this is
significant to our understanding of attention and gaze (1PT). (Bonus: 1PT if your
example of change blindness is not one that we discussed in class.)
Change blindness is defined as the tendency for humans to focus on
what is constant in front of them rather than what is changing. For
example, in the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the
audience's attention is often drawn to the framing of the scenes and
the background imagery, rather than the explosions and
transforming metal hulks in the foreground (which is in part why the
movie is considered bad by critics, the audience gets bored looking
at scenery). Change blindness is important in understanding
attention and gaze, but I can't remember why because I was looking
at a hot girl sitting a row in front of me, and not Michael Rog giving
the lecture or the slideshow, due to change blindness.
6. Give an example of active misdirection (1PT) and passive misdirection (1PT).
Name (2PTS) and
describe (2PTS) the attentional control schemes by which attention is allocated
to each.
Active misdirection: throwing change all over the place in a building
to distract people from the fact that I am naked.
Passive misdirection: Using a class on the science of magic and
illusion as a cover for gradually turning an entire room of people
into hypnotized mind-slaves over the course of a semester.
For active misdirection: the attentional control scheme is called
lookatit mechanica. Attention is apportioned to objects based on
how fast they are moving and how shiny they are. (example, chaff
consists of very shiny foil metal, and effectively appears to be a
larger obejct on radar and tends to fatally distract missile guidance
systems not based on heat)

For passive misdirection: the attentional control scheme is named

'thousand minor gnats' because attention is split between many
small minor details and thus fails to see larger events unfolding (i.e.
Michael Rog is wearing a plaid suit and talking to you while showing
you a magic trick, causing you to fail to notice that he has navigated
his way into the room and taken your car keys)

7. BONUS: What was your favorite topic in WILL 119 (1PT)? How has learning
about that topic changed the way you think or act (1PT)?
I really enjoyed the guest lecture where Brett Arnold came in and
yelled at Michael Rog for an hour straight about the course, it was
informative and enjoyable to watch. From this topic I've learned that
lying is viable in interpersonal relationships so long as the other
person does not find out about the lie. Thus, I've felt more
comfortable lying to my friends about arrival times to events and
also about drinking mango tea with mango pudding.