[Note: I have not watched this show, but I have a horrible feeling I’m going to]
The first step would be to carry out a preliminary study to properly identify the nature of Pinky Pie’s claim, and make sure it’s not trivially explainable. If the claim is that her tail twitches whenever anything in the world is dropped, and Pinky Pie has early-onset Parkinson’s Disease, we can all go home early.
We should compile all anecdotal accounts of Pinky Pie’s precognitive tail twitches. Given the prevalence of falling objects in the world, there is presumably some limiting factor and factors distinguishing falling objects she can predict and falling objects she can’t. I would hypothesise the two most important factors are mass and distance.
We would need to then devise a mechanism for recording the time, and if possible the geolocation, of every tail twitch Pinky Pie experiences. It would also be useful to ascertain whether the tail twitch is a binary state or if there are different magnitudes of twitch. A good initial experiment would be to introduce Pinky Pie to a) an environment with lots of falling objects, and b) an environment where there are no objects to fall, using her natural habitat as a control environment, to see if the frequency of her tail twitches corresponds with what I will term “ambient fallyness”.
Assuming this establishes the veracity of her claim, we would need to establish a more precise description of the trigger event in order to determine the nature of the phenomenon, as well as in order to reliably reproduce it in experimental circumstances. Will objects induced to fall artificially still trigger the tail twitch, or does it exclusively happen with “natural” falling objects? The latter strikes me as a less likely trigger for an acausal physiological response in a talking pony, simply because it relies on the ability to determine volition, whereas the former could have a straightforward mechanical anticause.
Working on the assumption that artificial falls can trigger the twitch, once we’ve arrived at this juncture, it becomes important to distinguish whether or not the trigger is the subjectively observed event of an object falling or the mechanical event of an object being accelerated by gravity. To this extent, Pinky Pie must be made to observe objects in her own inertial frame of reference while subject to a parabolic flight path, while in free fall, and while having achieved terminal velocity.
She has a hot-air balloon and has voluntarily traveled to a pegasus community where all the surfaces on which she could stand were clouds, so I think it is safe to assume that she does.
[Note: I have not watched this show, but I have a horrible feeling I’m going to]
The first step would be to carry out a preliminary study to properly identify the nature of Pinky Pie’s claim, and make sure it’s not trivially explainable. If the claim is that her tail twitches whenever anything in the world is dropped, and Pinky Pie has early-onset Parkinson’s Disease, we can all go home early.
We should compile all anecdotal accounts of Pinky Pie’s precognitive tail twitches. Given the prevalence of falling objects in the world, there is presumably some limiting factor and factors distinguishing falling objects she can predict and falling objects she can’t. I would hypothesise the two most important factors are mass and distance.
We would need to then devise a mechanism for recording the time, and if possible the geolocation, of every tail twitch Pinky Pie experiences. It would also be useful to ascertain whether the tail twitch is a binary state or if there are different magnitudes of twitch. A good initial experiment would be to introduce Pinky Pie to a) an environment with lots of falling objects, and b) an environment where there are no objects to fall, using her natural habitat as a control environment, to see if the frequency of her tail twitches corresponds with what I will term “ambient fallyness”.
Assuming this establishes the veracity of her claim, we would need to establish a more precise description of the trigger event in order to determine the nature of the phenomenon, as well as in order to reliably reproduce it in experimental circumstances. Will objects induced to fall artificially still trigger the tail twitch, or does it exclusively happen with “natural” falling objects? The latter strikes me as a less likely trigger for an acausal physiological response in a talking pony, simply because it relies on the ability to determine volition, whereas the former could have a straightforward mechanical anticause.
Working on the assumption that artificial falls can trigger the twitch, once we’ve arrived at this juncture, it becomes important to distinguish whether or not the trigger is the subjectively observed event of an object falling or the mechanical event of an object being accelerated by gravity. To this extent, Pinky Pie must be made to observe objects in her own inertial frame of reference while subject to a parabolic flight path, while in free fall, and while having achieved terminal velocity.
I hope she likes heights.
Having now watched the first two episodes, I’m not entirely convinced that Pinky Pie doesn’t have early-onset Parkinson’s Disease.
She has a hot-air balloon and has voluntarily traveled to a pegasus community where all the surfaces on which she could stand were clouds, so I think it is safe to assume that she does.