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This. Also, not quite sure about the hoodwinked part. If by hoodwinked you mean "didn't bother because I've seen/done a bunch of things similar to this throughout grade school", then, yea, you got me alright.

I did similar things too. I never experienced the revelation that simply believing that I could do it immediately made all the difference. Breaking out of hypnosis so dramatically is something I'd never experienced either. One minute my leg was spasmodically jerking out of orbit as if I had no control over it, the next everything was smooth and the spell was broken. I evidently attended the wrong schools.

But you, in particular, were hoodwinked into believing it was something beneath you. Not worth your time. You're still telling yourself that. If I had put it any other way then you'd have had your guard up, which would have invalidated the experiment. That you have no way of proving that you were "above" it, matters more to you than it does me, otherwise you'd not be responding to this thread.

You separate physiology and psychology? interesting.

Well I'm not at the point where through thought alone I can thwart the knee-tap-kick reflex, or adjust the size of my pupils at will. Or sneeze.

I agree it's a spectrum rather than a clean compartmentalisation, however I assume the use of those words which lie at different points on the spectrum indicate a bias/weighting in those directions.

Further, I wouldn't think it 100% psychological, just as the patting/rubbing head and tummy thing isn't 100% psychological. In both the tendency is for the brain to send 'similar' signals rather than different ones to two active bits at once. Either concentration or practice will overcome this. In the example here, when I tried it, I simply concentrated and it worked fine. I fear that you might be reading 'psych' into something that may well not be as simple as you think.

Initially I couldn't do it no matter how hard I concentrated. Then I decided to believe that it was an elaborate hoax, and I could immediately do it without concentrating, or with.

To me that screams psych.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "hoodwinked 100% of the ... regulars here".

Ah, still playing the "ass", sorry. If one pretends for long enough, there loses all distinction.

And you assumed that when I said "motor-skill quirkery" that I wasn't considering mental trickery being a part of that equation.  Am I right? 

You're absolutely right. Is mental trickery so commonplace here such that it doesn't deserve an explicit mention when it is the obvious answer to a question asked? If so, that's two assumptions I failed upon - sorry!

It's like memetic magic, done poorly with failsauce applied liberally to the top.

Maybe, but unless you performed the experiment beforehand, you cannot prove to yourself that you had the mental wherewithal to withstand that particular onslaught of suggestion. All of the respondents on this thread put it down to a quirk of physiology, when it is entirely psychological.

How can it be done so poorly, when it hoodwinked 100% of the random sampling of regulars here?

Why does it take intellectual curiousity?  Our human bodies have lots of weird quirks to them, this appears to be one of them, though, with a bit of concentration, I'm able to do it.  So why don't you give us your take on this little bit of motor-skill quirkery?

Thank you. And sorry (forum) for the intellectual curiusity/kick to the balls. Especially to those members who have no balls. You kinda broke the spell with the "bit of concentration" line. It's not a motor-skill issue - it's just a mind-fuck - literally.

It has a whole bunch of manipulative elements: the comic sans font (I'm not threatening), it came from a doctor (appeal to authority fallacy), repetition that you won't be able to do it - "there's nothing you can do about it" (power of suggestion), "how smart is your right foot" - repeated (encouraging separation of consciousness), the author professes they can't do it either (follow-the-leader).

Question - is it likely all these elements came together by accident? If not - who has an interest in monitoring the collective suggestibility of the populace with forwards like these?

If you're still having trouble doing the simple exercise, just repeat "I am not a robot" a few times, and understanding that all talk of the "difficulty" is an intentionally made-up lie, you'll have no trouble doing it.

Is there _anyone_ on this board with enough intellectual curiousity to try the experiment?

Yeah, sorry man, that's pretty old news. I think it's one of those games the phys ed teacher had us play in 6th grade.

Then can you tell me the punchline - why it works the way it does? It's a two part question I ask, the first being the initial post, but I can't ask the second without invalidating your answers to the first.

I don't think that cartoon is accurate. The author seems to use his position to challenge dominant memes within a subculture. The thought that it could be true is an interesting mind fuck. But anyone who has worked in a moderately sized office knows of many people for whom that thought would never arise. Those people have to get to work somehow.

I think it's the comic sans font, it's making my brain turn off.

Precisely - but can you do the circle and the 6?

I can assure you, the only thing likely to interest people on this site less than chain-mail spam messages that everyone has seen before is failing whatever "test" you seem to think they should pass.

Welcome, regardless.

Thanks for the advice. And for the welcome. I don't see any way to present the subject other than playing the ass. This isn't a test, it's a question. The only alternative is to literally beg for your indulgence in following the instructions in the first post, and I would do that in a second if I thought that would work.

FUCK YOU!  MY MOM CUT OFF MY RIGHT LEG!

Damn - because it doesn't work if you try it with the left leg. If you still have the right leg lying around, you can try holding it in your left arm. I'm not sure if that'll work but it's worth a try.

I realise I'm breaking all rules of proper etiquette and lurkage. However, I would humbly ask in which way responding with nothingness is less of a transgression than my original one? There is a payoff. If you google the text you'll find 95% of people who try it cannot do the circle and the six. You've already failed the first test - can you pass the second?

Got an annoying forward in the mail today while reading through Illuminatus! Thought it might be of interest to Discordians. Or perhaps I was more interested in what Discordians would make of it. Anyway, it's worth a try, or a fry. And hello!