CCSI

I’ve actually been avoiding this story for a week, but a colleague of mine sent it to me, so I guess it is time to post it.

Mark Changizi at RPI (and may I say: damn, do they have a good PR department) is being reported as having ‘proven that some people can see into the future’ or having ‘discovered the key to all optical illusions’, depending on who you read:

Crystal (Eye) Ball: Visual System Equipped With ‘Future Seeing Powers’ (Science Daily.com - a copy of the original press release, which can be found: at RPI)

Key to All Optical Illusions Discovered (Yahoo News)

I Can See The Future - And Apparently, So Can You (shortnews.com)

Scientist: Humans Can See Into Future (Fox News.com)

Humans can ‘foresee the future’ (Times of India)

I’m excited to hear about evidence for a neural correlate of the specious present, but let’s not get carried away with our science journalism, please! Whenever I bring the idea of the specious present up in class, I usually cite this interview with, of all people, LeBron James:

GQ-The Fast Education of LeBron James

In the third paragraph, he says “I don’t want to sound cocky when I say this, but it’s like I see things before they happen. I kind of know where the defenders are gonna be. I kind of know where my teammates are gonna be, sometimes even before they know.” Given that all human behaviors (esp. those with clean neural correlates like this story claims) are subject to standard statistical variation, is it not possible that LeBron (and perhaps most quarterbacks and point-guards) are just statistical outliers with respect to this ability?