Zero Worship: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #6

Chapter 14 - 18.98Hz

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Zandra repeats the three-card monte game on the TV tray. The stakes may be lower, but they don't feel any different to her.

Chad swallows a mouthful of chewed chip paste and says, "M'kay, so, the odds are always one in three of guessing right, right? Or two in three?"

Zandra overturns the cards so that they're face down. She scoots them around on the TV tray to mix up their order.

"Forget the odds, child. Clear your mind. Tune into something deeper than numbers," Zandra says. She looks directly at Bexley. "You know you have the power inside of you. Use it. Show me where the black seven is, child."

Bexley closes her eyes in meditation. When she opens them, she points at the middle of the three cards.

As good a guess as any. That'll do.

Zandra flips over the card on the left. It's a red seven. Bexley grins.

"Now, child, this is where you must reach even deeper, because now you must decide if you'll switch your selection," Zandra says, waving her lit cigarette over the TV tray like a magician's wand. "Don't search for or expect an answer. Search for the truth. Feel the truth. Feel for the same universal groove of reality that causes the wind to blow or the leaves to fall or an arrow to fly after it's released from a bow or a knife to cut. The underlying way of things. The underlying truth of things."

Is that enough woo-woo fairy dust or do I need to sprinkle it on even thicker?

Bexley takes a moment to bathe in the bullshit. Then, finally, she says, "I switch."

Excellent choice.

"Let's make sure I have this correct. First, you chose the middle card as the black seven. Now, you're saying the card on the right is the black seven, and the card in the middle is not, correct?" Zandra says.

"Correct."

Zandra turns the remaining two cards over. The black seven is on the right. Bexley's switch worked. It's enough to get Chad to put down the chips.

Bexley is flabbergasted. "Am I...am I...a...am I a...psy..."

"Are you a psychic? Oh, child, we're all psychics," Zandra says. "It's just that some people know it and others don't."

And those who actually know it are savants. Marilyn vos Savant, to be specific, although that'd be one hell of a name for a psychic.

Had Zandra the time or inclination, she would've explained to Bexley how Marilyn vos Savant relates to the three cards on the TV tray.

I don't, but maybe you do.

Born in 1946, Marilyn vos Savant is known as one of the smartest people to have ever lived. She landed in the Guinness Book of World Record for possessing the highest IQ on record. Among her other achievements is the counterintuitive way she solved the "Monty Hall Problem," named after the game show host.

Like a game of three-card monte, the Monty Hall Problem involves a contestant on a game show choosing one of three doors. Behind two doors are goats, and behind one door is a new car. The contestant wins the car if they can choose the door it's hiding behind.

At the outset, the contestant has a one in three chance of guessing the door with the car. That seems easy enough, but there's a twist. After the contestant makes their guess, the host of the game show opens one of the doors the contestant did not select, revealing a goat. The host then asks the contestant whether they'd now like to stick with their original guess or to switch doors. This is question at the heart of the Monty Hall Problem.