HR Geeks

So, I was on a plane flight from Newport News to Boston this morning when a really cool thing happened to me. Shall I mention, 7AM is early early for me, and a 7AM flight requires even more time to drive to the airport and do the flight shindig, like stripping off the shoes and passing a stool sample. I figured, as I didn’t sleep well the prior night, that I could also catch some z’s during the flight, or at least ’till they deliver some coffee. Anyways, as we approached Boston, the flight attendant announced the temperature.

As long as I can remember, I have always tried to “predict” values before they are announced. In this case, the value being that of Boston’s temperature. So, when the attendant was jussssst about to fill in the “blank” in a phrase somewhat structured as: “The current temperature in Boston is ______” I decided to guess that value. My guess: 68. And to my surprise, I was right! Now, I decided to investigate this a bit more, being extremely tired, and just chillin’ with my eyes closed, this seemed like a fun exercise. So my conclusion follows.

First, lets assume coincidences do not exist. I started thinking about Schrödinger and his cat. If the value, that being the number on the display representing Boston’s temperature, was in some quantum superposition, the flight attendant’s observation might have knocked it out of superposition and made the value so. OR! Or possibly, my guess was observation enough to set the value. And then the attendant was announcing the number I mentally created. Well, of course this sounds a tad pseudo-scientific. I do not tout quantum physics, and this field has of course only confused many, as there are many aspects that seem to outsmart our inherent intelligence. In fact, maybe the mere fact that I had Feynman’s The Pleasure of Finding Things Out in my lap was enough to make me the thermostat of Boston. If only I focused on creating snow. In fact, maybe the result was not a Schrödinger cat act, but rather quantum entangling, and just flipping the neurons in my brain that were subconsciously trying to tune-in to the value. We could go in this hypothetical way for some time. Pretty cool. But lets try something else. How about a more statistical approach.

Since the radio informed me, upon travel to the airport, as being in the 70s or 80s in Virginia, I assume that the more northern locale of Boston should be cooler. Well, being August, I can guestimate a reasonable range of about 65 to 75. So that’s a rough range of 10 values or so. Being that I would also assume the number as natural, our fractions are eliminated. In this thought experiment, I now have a 1/10 probability of being the envy of all meteorologist. That seems a fair chance that I would make a reasonable guess.

So, either way, I was quite impressed with my conclusion of 68. Despite how I arrived at that value, I believe my subconscious had all to do in this case. I envision my subconscious as doing the churning here, and merely telling my conscious that “Hey conscious here’s a value for ya!”. At the time of guess, it seemed as if the number came out of nowhere. But upon deeper analysis, it seems logical that, however it happened, my subconscious had something to do. Therefore, upon delivery of this value to my conscious, and at the time not knowing where 68 came from, I felt mega-psychic. It was quite a humbling surprise. The mind is amazing. But, I confess, last night, I had the news on and Pick-Three came on. Well, to my surprise, I was off. I wonder if barometric pressure affects the results, pick-o-the beast. .