from very early on in life we learned
that our there are things that are
impossible in life it’s impossible to
make something disappear in thin air
it’s impossible to tell what’s going to
happen tomorrow or next week we cannot
predict the future objects are
impenetrable it’s impossible that my
hand go through an object we learn all
these things these are physical laws but
I want to challenge them today a little
bit so if if everything is right you
should have in your chairs an envelope
and inside that envelope there are two
rubber bands please if you were very
disciplined persons you didn’t play with
them so you didn’t lose them please take
them out now to do an experiment with me
take off because magicians tend to put
things in their sleeves so take one of
the rubber bands in one of your hands
that put it in the index and thumb
finger like this I hope everyone can see
just make a little loop let’s call this
take the other rubber band hold it with
the index finger and make it go inside
that loop so they are now interlace you
cannot take them out correct
can you try yes I said objects are
impenetrable I don’t know if everyone
can see but the rubber bands can stretch
a bit so if you play a little bit with
them you can can you do it
okay so I just proved that one of the
things that we learned is not really
impossible it’s not impossible objects
are not really impenetrable I’ll get
back to this at the end of the table so
don’t worry so if this is true other
things might be true as well so perhaps
it’s possible to predict the future so I
have this light now as a question please
if you believe really believe that I
mariano mendes can predict the future
correctly and consistently meaning every
time i predict something i’m right
if you think that please raise your hand
now Wow I made a prediction this morning
nobody will raise their hand right you
think online right I made another
prediction I forgot to count the guy at
the back yeah he was racing to her so it
is possible to predict the future as I
have just showed you and I will teach
you I will tell you how you can do that
but before I do that I have to do a
disclaimer a legal disclaimer because if
you this explanation is only meant for
educational purposes it’s like when you
go to these places where they teach you
how to hack a computer they say this
just to be safe I cannot be held
responsible if you follow my
instructions but not exactly and you
make mistakes so you may be sued by
someone I cannot be held responsible if
you follow my instructions exactly
either so one way or the other and oh no
this is for another presentation sorry
it was a mistake sorry okay
so let me tell you the story of how I
learned to predict the future a few
years ago when I lived in Argentina I
once was at home and I received a letter
post a letter on paper from a guy yes at
that time there was no internet so there
were no emails and that
this guy wrote a letter to me and said
look I know you it will be difficult for
you to believe but I can predict the
future and I know that you’re going to
be skeptical because you’re a scientist
but please hold on a moment with me and
I will show you that I can predict the
future and he said the first thing I
want to say is that tonight there is a
football game like here like the Europa
League attractive alex is playing
Manchester United there was a football
game the in South America that night and
he said team a is gonna win actually
team a wasn’t the strongest so I thought
this guy is just making it up anyway I
went wrong with my life the following
day I picked up the newspaper yes team
a1 Wow coincidence who knows the week
after I received another letter for the
guy from the guy says look I predicted
team a was going to win and it won now I
show you a completely you can think it’s
a coincidence I’ll show you that it’s
not I’ll show you another one and he
made another prediction there was a
basketball final like the NBA final and
he said Team B is going to win again I
was not so impressed but ok the
following day I read the newspaper team
we won Wow the week after he sent me
another letter and says you know this
company the shares of this company are
gonna go up tomorrow in the market again
didn’t believe the next thing I read the
newspaper they went up and so he went on
for 9 weeks in a row predicting exactly
what was going to happen at that point I
was convinced if you’re not convinced
you’re very skeptical so week number 10
I get another letter recess now tonight
there is a boxing match boxer a is
playing box for B you can bet because I
tell you who’s gonna win you now if
you’re convinced you can go on BET and
win some money and he said I do this you
might wonder why I don’t don’t do it
myself why don’t I go and bathe myself
and make my
of millionaire and he said the reason is
that it happens I don’t know why but I
can tell the future but whenever I tried
to use to profit
myself it doesn’t work so I need to make
someone else profit voluntarily this
person doesn’t have to do it it’s just
their own decision that makes it work
and the next thing is I asked him a
little payback if they make it if they
bet and if they win because I give him
the prediction I ask them ok pay me
something bad I thought well it’s fair
if he tells me how to make money it’s
fair so I went collected my famous there
wasn’t there was not enough money
my parents had money under the mattress
for a second honeymoon I didn’t tell
them anything took the money went with
all this money to the betting shop stood
on the role on the road to the counter
and said I want to bet for bobster a
because that was the guy he told me was
gonna win next to me there was another
person also betting for that boxing
match and he was waiting for boxer be
and I thought he doesn’t know poor guy
is gonna lose his money because I’m
gonna win because the guy told me anyway
so I bet he looked at me a bit also bit
strange but he left before me and we
resource living he let something fall
from his pocket a piece of paper so I
thought ok I’ll pick it up and give it
to him when I picked it up and look at
it it looked familiar to me started
reading it was the same text of all the
letters that I had been receiving the
last nine weeks except except now in my
case it said boxer a was going to win in
this case it said boxer B was going to
win so you start to imagine how I felt I
put the money of my parents all my money
so I was going to become poor and also
my purse will this was never like me
anymore and I realized immediately or
after a while I realized what was going
to happen then explain you what the guy
did is he collected the list of 1024
persons
and he divided them into groups of 512
each so he then sent letters to each
person in each group and half of them
got the prediction a the other half got
the prediction B that was the first
tradition he made he waited to see what
was the result of that event and he said
okay if a was the result then B did not
happen so all these parcels are now
discarded I keep the other 512 so I
divide them now in two groups again 256
each and I sent half of them prediction
and half of them prediction B wait for
the result see what happens if B is what
happens I lose those 256 I’m left with
256 I divide them in two group of 128
and I continue doing that nine times and
thing I’m left with only two persons and
if you do that you send prediction 8:1
and prediction B to the other and one of
them will win and one of them will give
you the money we’ll send you money if
they bet they will send this guy money
so the way it works is like this I have
this little animation you start with
1024 this number is just a power of two
that means that you can always keep
dividing it by two by two by two and so
what you do is you divide them in these
two groups you check or B is not happen
then I take a so B is not happen I go a
and you follow the lines that are not
crossed whenever there is a cross that
part of the people you just forget you
keep with keep going with the others
until you’re left only with two and
that’s when you give them the final
prediction and one of them no matter
which one we win so you can imagine
that was not nice because I had to hold
through now that I would read I don’t
tell you what happened in the end I tell
you I had to use this trick many for
many many years to pay my penance back
now really this is not something that
happened to me this is a story that is
told in a movie by Hitchcock is called
the male or the prophet from 1957 with
these two actors and actually it’s
exactly what happens
the story is exciting but it’s only that
he bets the money from his company
instead of his parents but it’s a very
nice estill story and the reason I say
that is because it uses something that
is called a cognitive illusion is called
the survivors bias if I tell you I have
a company that sells parachute the
parachute must be fantastic because I
never heard a complaint from any user
right so if I look at the filters that
survived they will not complain the ones
that died will not complain either there
was this guy in during the Second World
War Abraham wall who realized this was a
problem they were sending planes to
bombard the Nazis and when the planes
came back they looked at where they were
hit they make an inventory of the places
where the planes were hit and they said
okay we have to reinforce those places
because otherwise they thought they
couldn’t reinforce the whole plane
because it was becoming too heavy so
they have to choose the places but this
guy said no you don’t have to reinforce
those places you have to reinforce the
places where you don’t see hits because
the place that came with those hits
actually came lightly the ones that did
not come back were hit in those places
where these ones were not hit right so
you should you should reinforce the
places where the planes that come back
are not hit because the other place fell
and that works
this is the survivors wires it happens
in many other things I wrote something
here like 90% 95% of the world
population is happy or extremely happy
shows a study of the Facebook profiles
of a large number of persons when you go
to a Facebook profile of someone they
had fantastic holidays they went to
fantastic restaurants they had fantastic
wine they never had this awful
restaurant where the food was very bad
and they went to a holiday will it rain
the whole time you know another one
almost everybody is a paranoid a
concluded psychiatrist on the basis of a
sample of his patients yes so this is
called the survival aspire bias and it
was actually introduced way longer 2500
years ago by a philosopher called
Diogenes I will not go to so you can
look it up on internet if you want I
don’t have too much time to talk about
that one of the things that happens to
that is also something that we all had
experience with is called premonition we
had a dream that something bad was going
to happen or something good was going to
happen and it happened the following day
it happened and the feeling that you get
Wow
I dreamt it it happened or you’re at
home and moving papers and suddenly if a
picture of a friend that you haven’t
seen for 20 years well maybe you are so
young that maybe four five five years
ten years let’s say you haven’t seen
them and then the next day you see that
person at the supermarket Wow how does
that happen well the way it happens is
we dream every night about someone or
something we see pictures of people many
times but we don’t see them the next day
at the supermarket and so we forget we
don’t remember that we had the dream we
only remember when it happens the next
day so we only remember the survivors we
forget the ones who died
the feeling is fantastic
I heard it too but you can explain it
scientifically
in science we have those problems is we
don’t want we need to know how ignorant
we are about our ignorance we need to do
that it’s something called completeness
if you look at the sample of animals or
stars or anything you have to think how
are the stars that we don’t see that we
missed how do they contribute how do
they make me understand what I see now
the human mind cannot deal with non
events things that don’t happen we
cannot deal with those everyone
remembers what happened on September 11
2001 right almost everyone knows no one
knows what happened on July 7 no one
knows what happened on October 6 no one
one knows what happens and children 14
don’t they say you nothing perhaps in
one of those days there was a guy who
prevented a similar attack as the one on
September 11 but you don’t know because
it didn’t happen you know there was a
guy who failed preventing the attack on
September 11 because it happened your
faculty your Institute your country runs
over day after day day after day if I go
to my in my Institute is there tomorrow
when tomorrow is a holiday but the day
after is still there actually but I’ll
still there because someone
many people took care that it didn’t
collapse that the budget is there that
the positions are there the computers
are working but if one day I go there
and nothing works and the building is
falling apart I will remember right I
don’t notice the positive things that
happen if something like in Alice in
Wonderland the unbirthday there are 364
am birthdays and one birthday we don’t
know much about the am birthdays you
know this guy likely Steve Jobs this guy
is remembered because he dropped out of
school University he went to a garage
started a company and make it a billion
dollar business but you don’t know that
there are millions of others who did
exactly the same but never made it
so if you look at the at the at the
stairs let me see how it goes I went the
wrong direction sorry is this one is
still a Steve Jobs is this last one over
there I forgot no one gave me the
pointer but it doesn’t matter is day one
there but you don’t remember so he’s
that one we remember the one that
survived but we forget all the others
human mind likes causality so things are
caused by things so he became a mission
a millionaire because he dropped school
but there are many random things all
those other 1023 if you had all these
crossed numbers they add up to one
thousand and twenty three and if you
count there are nine there are actually
nine rows until you find the last one is
nine times
you split the thing in two but we forget
and we tend to think there are cash cash
cash wells things that produce this but
it’s full of this life is full of
accidents randomness this guy is
abnormal pricing economy but he said
psychologist he said our minds are
strongly biased towards causal
explanations and cannot deal well with
me randomness stories of businesses
empires people companies whatever that
rise and fall strike a chord in our mind
because it gives us what we want we find
the reason why this happened but this
happened just by chance and it happens
many more times that people fall then
that they rise so the last 30 seconds
are to explain how the rubber band trick
works so now you see because you cannot
predict the future it’s a trick so you
cannot make things go through so can you
please be the witness for the rest of
the world here that the things are
really are correct ants okay so what and
my my sleeves are ok actually I’ll do
something else this time
I only have one so things can disappear
in thin air thank you very much
[Applause]
that our there are things that are
impossible in life it’s impossible to
make something disappear in thin air
it’s impossible to tell what’s going to
happen tomorrow or next week we cannot
predict the future objects are
impenetrable it’s impossible that my
hand go through an object we learn all
these things these are physical laws but
I want to challenge them today a little
bit so if if everything is right you
should have in your chairs an envelope
and inside that envelope there are two
rubber bands please if you were very
disciplined persons you didn’t play with
them so you didn’t lose them please take
them out now to do an experiment with me
take off because magicians tend to put
things in their sleeves so take one of
the rubber bands in one of your hands
that put it in the index and thumb
finger like this I hope everyone can see
just make a little loop let’s call this
take the other rubber band hold it with
the index finger and make it go inside
that loop so they are now interlace you
cannot take them out correct
can you try yes I said objects are
impenetrable I don’t know if everyone
can see but the rubber bands can stretch
a bit so if you play a little bit with
them you can can you do it
okay so I just proved that one of the
things that we learned is not really
impossible it’s not impossible objects
are not really impenetrable I’ll get
back to this at the end of the table so
don’t worry so if this is true other
things might be true as well so perhaps
it’s possible to predict the future so I
have this light now as a question please
if you believe really believe that I
mariano mendes can predict the future
correctly and consistently meaning every
time i predict something i’m right
if you think that please raise your hand
now Wow I made a prediction this morning
nobody will raise their hand right you
think online right I made another
prediction I forgot to count the guy at
the back yeah he was racing to her so it
is possible to predict the future as I
have just showed you and I will teach
you I will tell you how you can do that
but before I do that I have to do a
disclaimer a legal disclaimer because if
you this explanation is only meant for
educational purposes it’s like when you
go to these places where they teach you
how to hack a computer they say this
just to be safe I cannot be held
responsible if you follow my
instructions but not exactly and you
make mistakes so you may be sued by
someone I cannot be held responsible if
you follow my instructions exactly
either so one way or the other and oh no
this is for another presentation sorry
it was a mistake sorry okay
so let me tell you the story of how I
learned to predict the future a few
years ago when I lived in Argentina I
once was at home and I received a letter
post a letter on paper from a guy yes at
that time there was no internet so there
were no emails and that
this guy wrote a letter to me and said
look I know you it will be difficult for
you to believe but I can predict the
future and I know that you’re going to
be skeptical because you’re a scientist
but please hold on a moment with me and
I will show you that I can predict the
future and he said the first thing I
want to say is that tonight there is a
football game like here like the Europa
League attractive alex is playing
Manchester United there was a football
game the in South America that night and
he said team a is gonna win actually
team a wasn’t the strongest so I thought
this guy is just making it up anyway I
went wrong with my life the following
day I picked up the newspaper yes team
a1 Wow coincidence who knows the week
after I received another letter for the
guy from the guy says look I predicted
team a was going to win and it won now I
show you a completely you can think it’s
a coincidence I’ll show you that it’s
not I’ll show you another one and he
made another prediction there was a
basketball final like the NBA final and
he said Team B is going to win again I
was not so impressed but ok the
following day I read the newspaper team
we won Wow the week after he sent me
another letter and says you know this
company the shares of this company are
gonna go up tomorrow in the market again
didn’t believe the next thing I read the
newspaper they went up and so he went on
for 9 weeks in a row predicting exactly
what was going to happen at that point I
was convinced if you’re not convinced
you’re very skeptical so week number 10
I get another letter recess now tonight
there is a boxing match boxer a is
playing box for B you can bet because I
tell you who’s gonna win you now if
you’re convinced you can go on BET and
win some money and he said I do this you
might wonder why I don’t don’t do it
myself why don’t I go and bathe myself
and make my
of millionaire and he said the reason is
that it happens I don’t know why but I
can tell the future but whenever I tried
to use to profit
myself it doesn’t work so I need to make
someone else profit voluntarily this
person doesn’t have to do it it’s just
their own decision that makes it work
and the next thing is I asked him a
little payback if they make it if they
bet and if they win because I give him
the prediction I ask them ok pay me
something bad I thought well it’s fair
if he tells me how to make money it’s
fair so I went collected my famous there
wasn’t there was not enough money
my parents had money under the mattress
for a second honeymoon I didn’t tell
them anything took the money went with
all this money to the betting shop stood
on the role on the road to the counter
and said I want to bet for bobster a
because that was the guy he told me was
gonna win next to me there was another
person also betting for that boxing
match and he was waiting for boxer be
and I thought he doesn’t know poor guy
is gonna lose his money because I’m
gonna win because the guy told me anyway
so I bet he looked at me a bit also bit
strange but he left before me and we
resource living he let something fall
from his pocket a piece of paper so I
thought ok I’ll pick it up and give it
to him when I picked it up and look at
it it looked familiar to me started
reading it was the same text of all the
letters that I had been receiving the
last nine weeks except except now in my
case it said boxer a was going to win in
this case it said boxer B was going to
win so you start to imagine how I felt I
put the money of my parents all my money
so I was going to become poor and also
my purse will this was never like me
anymore and I realized immediately or
after a while I realized what was going
to happen then explain you what the guy
did is he collected the list of 1024
persons
and he divided them into groups of 512
each so he then sent letters to each
person in each group and half of them
got the prediction a the other half got
the prediction B that was the first
tradition he made he waited to see what
was the result of that event and he said
okay if a was the result then B did not
happen so all these parcels are now
discarded I keep the other 512 so I
divide them now in two groups again 256
each and I sent half of them prediction
and half of them prediction B wait for
the result see what happens if B is what
happens I lose those 256 I’m left with
256 I divide them in two group of 128
and I continue doing that nine times and
thing I’m left with only two persons and
if you do that you send prediction 8:1
and prediction B to the other and one of
them will win and one of them will give
you the money we’ll send you money if
they bet they will send this guy money
so the way it works is like this I have
this little animation you start with
1024 this number is just a power of two
that means that you can always keep
dividing it by two by two by two and so
what you do is you divide them in these
two groups you check or B is not happen
then I take a so B is not happen I go a
and you follow the lines that are not
crossed whenever there is a cross that
part of the people you just forget you
keep with keep going with the others
until you’re left only with two and
that’s when you give them the final
prediction and one of them no matter
which one we win so you can imagine
that was not nice because I had to hold
through now that I would read I don’t
tell you what happened in the end I tell
you I had to use this trick many for
many many years to pay my penance back
now really this is not something that
happened to me this is a story that is
told in a movie by Hitchcock is called
the male or the prophet from 1957 with
these two actors and actually it’s
exactly what happens
the story is exciting but it’s only that
he bets the money from his company
instead of his parents but it’s a very
nice estill story and the reason I say
that is because it uses something that
is called a cognitive illusion is called
the survivors bias if I tell you I have
a company that sells parachute the
parachute must be fantastic because I
never heard a complaint from any user
right so if I look at the filters that
survived they will not complain the ones
that died will not complain either there
was this guy in during the Second World
War Abraham wall who realized this was a
problem they were sending planes to
bombard the Nazis and when the planes
came back they looked at where they were
hit they make an inventory of the places
where the planes were hit and they said
okay we have to reinforce those places
because otherwise they thought they
couldn’t reinforce the whole plane
because it was becoming too heavy so
they have to choose the places but this
guy said no you don’t have to reinforce
those places you have to reinforce the
places where you don’t see hits because
the place that came with those hits
actually came lightly the ones that did
not come back were hit in those places
where these ones were not hit right so
you should you should reinforce the
places where the planes that come back
are not hit because the other place fell
and that works
this is the survivors wires it happens
in many other things I wrote something
here like 90% 95% of the world
population is happy or extremely happy
shows a study of the Facebook profiles
of a large number of persons when you go
to a Facebook profile of someone they
had fantastic holidays they went to
fantastic restaurants they had fantastic
wine they never had this awful
restaurant where the food was very bad
and they went to a holiday will it rain
the whole time you know another one
almost everybody is a paranoid a
concluded psychiatrist on the basis of a
sample of his patients yes so this is
called the survival aspire bias and it
was actually introduced way longer 2500
years ago by a philosopher called
Diogenes I will not go to so you can
look it up on internet if you want I
don’t have too much time to talk about
that one of the things that happens to
that is also something that we all had
experience with is called premonition we
had a dream that something bad was going
to happen or something good was going to
happen and it happened the following day
it happened and the feeling that you get
Wow
I dreamt it it happened or you’re at
home and moving papers and suddenly if a
picture of a friend that you haven’t
seen for 20 years well maybe you are so
young that maybe four five five years
ten years let’s say you haven’t seen
them and then the next day you see that
person at the supermarket Wow how does
that happen well the way it happens is
we dream every night about someone or
something we see pictures of people many
times but we don’t see them the next day
at the supermarket and so we forget we
don’t remember that we had the dream we
only remember when it happens the next
day so we only remember the survivors we
forget the ones who died
the feeling is fantastic
I heard it too but you can explain it
scientifically
in science we have those problems is we
don’t want we need to know how ignorant
we are about our ignorance we need to do
that it’s something called completeness
if you look at the sample of animals or
stars or anything you have to think how
are the stars that we don’t see that we
missed how do they contribute how do
they make me understand what I see now
the human mind cannot deal with non
events things that don’t happen we
cannot deal with those everyone
remembers what happened on September 11
2001 right almost everyone knows no one
knows what happened on July 7 no one
knows what happened on October 6 no one
one knows what happens and children 14
don’t they say you nothing perhaps in
one of those days there was a guy who
prevented a similar attack as the one on
September 11 but you don’t know because
it didn’t happen you know there was a
guy who failed preventing the attack on
September 11 because it happened your
faculty your Institute your country runs
over day after day day after day if I go
to my in my Institute is there tomorrow
when tomorrow is a holiday but the day
after is still there actually but I’ll
still there because someone
many people took care that it didn’t
collapse that the budget is there that
the positions are there the computers
are working but if one day I go there
and nothing works and the building is
falling apart I will remember right I
don’t notice the positive things that
happen if something like in Alice in
Wonderland the unbirthday there are 364
am birthdays and one birthday we don’t
know much about the am birthdays you
know this guy likely Steve Jobs this guy
is remembered because he dropped out of
school University he went to a garage
started a company and make it a billion
dollar business but you don’t know that
there are millions of others who did
exactly the same but never made it
so if you look at the at the at the
stairs let me see how it goes I went the
wrong direction sorry is this one is
still a Steve Jobs is this last one over
there I forgot no one gave me the
pointer but it doesn’t matter is day one
there but you don’t remember so he’s
that one we remember the one that
survived but we forget all the others
human mind likes causality so things are
caused by things so he became a mission
a millionaire because he dropped school
but there are many random things all
those other 1023 if you had all these
crossed numbers they add up to one
thousand and twenty three and if you
count there are nine there are actually
nine rows until you find the last one is
nine times
you split the thing in two but we forget
and we tend to think there are cash cash
cash wells things that produce this but
it’s full of this life is full of
accidents randomness this guy is
abnormal pricing economy but he said
psychologist he said our minds are
strongly biased towards causal
explanations and cannot deal well with
me randomness stories of businesses
empires people companies whatever that
rise and fall strike a chord in our mind
because it gives us what we want we find
the reason why this happened but this
happened just by chance and it happens
many more times that people fall then
that they rise so the last 30 seconds
are to explain how the rubber band trick
works so now you see because you cannot
predict the future it’s a trick so you
cannot make things go through so can you
please be the witness for the rest of
the world here that the things are
really are correct ants okay so what and
my my sleeves are ok actually I’ll do
something else this time
I only have one so things can disappear
in thin air thank you very much
[Applause]
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