Of Paul

The odds now are 1 to 256. Vitually impossible in my opinion. Is it really possible that there may be powers and abilities such as precognition after all?

Lets rewind. It was the start of the WC. I, personally, am not quite inclined to football. However, I did enjoy watching the passion and zeal that was clearly visible when the teams fought (They reminded me that we as humans have remained humans, despite the slow coldness that is creeping in due to Machine age). So, with faint interest, I saw the match-ups and cleared my schedule to fit in some matches which, I felt, would be interesting to watch. Most of them had Germany in them. My interest in Germany was because of the 2002 WC, which was the first time I had witnessed a WC on TV and in which Germany finished second. Despite being second, Kahn standing in front of the goalpost, with his determination to fight for the nation, left quite an impression on my impressionable, young mind.(I think he conceded only 3 in the whole WC, though I'm not quite sure). So, I watched the first few matches of Germany in WC 10'.Few events were unexpected, few weren't. It was when Germany defeated England, that the media started reporting of an Octupus named Paul, in some German city's(I think Oberhausen) aquarium. Reports claimed that Paul was psychic and had correctly predicted the results of the matches that Germany had played in. Initially, as was expected from me, I rubbished the issue and assumed it to be a freak incident. I waited for the Octopus to be disproved. But it never happened. More matches came by and more of his predictions were coming true. A small voice in my head starting bothering me. That small voice was used to viewing a sane world, where predictions meant dabbling with probabilities and no one could ever be sure of anything.

Soon, it became 5 out of 5, 6 out of 6 and it went on. It now becomes 8/8. Thats 1 in 256 chance of occurrence. Nostradamus had better odds.

I sat down and started thinking. There has to be some explanation, I told myself. I started googling for some analysis by experts which might help me understand how it happened. However, nothing solid surfaced. Infact, claims such as 'is the most intelligent invertebrate' only caused me greater bother. So, the next thing I did was to collect data about the event itself. At this point, I decoupled the event into 2 things (i) The manner in which Paul picks(assuming he is not psychic) and (ii) The fact that teams won as per the picks. These are two totally different things if we are to assume that Paul is not psychic. Most of the work below is just to try and understand point(i). Point (ii) coincidentally happening alongside (i) has actually been the cause of the hysteria. I'll leave point (ii) for a later blog. Here are some of the things that I found out and my conclusions from them.

1) Including the Euro Cup, the octopus has picked the German flag 11 out of the 13 times that Germany played against another. In the entire Euro Cup, Paul had always Germany. In WC, the only two times when Paul failed to pick German flag, was against Serbia and against Spain.

11 out of 13 times. It is more likely that he can commit a mistake 2 times out of 13, than him correctly picking 11 times. Hence, I firmly believe that Paul has been a victim of Pavlov's Classical Conditioning (by which a dog learnt to salivate just by hearing a bell) by which it has been trained to recognise the German flag.

Here is what I think must have happened. Over the preiod of its life, the keepers of the aquarium, must have fed the octopus in a certain fashion. They must have always fed the octopus by providing it food in two transparent containers. One of the containers must have had the German flag and the other must have had the flag of some other nation(say X). The trick that they must have used is that they must have kept X container's lid completely shut, i.e. no matter how much force the octopus could have applied, he would not have been able to open the X container. Hence, he would be forced to open the container having the German flag. Over a period of years, and being fed everyday in this fashion is enough to train humans to pick the container having the German flag. And the best part is that, the creature needs intelligence
to be trained in this fashion. Hence, the part stating that Octopi are the most intelligent invertebrates also fits in well.

Since, they are not as intelligent as humans, it is quite possible that they may make a mistake in choosing the containers during the WC. The error rate is 2/13 i.e. about 15.4 %. This number is more 'peaceful' to me than 1/256.

Now, if the above is true, I would assume that PETA could start investigating!!

2) The Octopus has always favoured flags with a dominant amount of Dark Red/ Black in them. This was very interesting to me, because literature claims that they are coulor blind and can at the best differentiate different shades of grey. In all its 14 matches (including Euro Cup), given a choice between a light shaded flag and a dark shaded flag, it has always picked the dark shaded ones. In some cases, where the shading of the flags have been similar, it has made a random choice. This can explain why it once chose Germany over Spain(Euro) and why it then chose Spain over Germany(FIFA WC). 2 occasions, 50 % chance; sound probability supports it.

The theory of evolution may also provide support to the dark shaded flag theory. Octopi are denizens of the deep sea. They find safety in caves which are dark. They find danger in the light as they are visible. Hence, instinct always tell octopi to head for dark areas. I don't claim this to be the exact reason as to why they choose dark shades, but it could a strong contributing factor.

3) The chance that the players might themselves be influenced by the so-called prophecy also exists. However, I'm assuming that the players would be rational enough to give very little weightage to an octopus and more weightage to their experience. Having said that, I'm not totally ruling out the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' possibility. There is a finite, reasonable chance that it is possible for the players to be influenced.

I hope I've provided some food (mussels and oysters actually) for thought. And I hope the world grows a bit saner before jumping on the bandwagon. I must admit that it is remarkable that such an event occurred, but, forgive me, if I don't call Paul a psychic.