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by Alan Smithee

Pinkie Pie: An In-Depth Study

Pinkie Pie: An In-Depth Study

By Simon Abraham Berkowitz, Master’s of Mathematics

Abstract:
BF Skinner found that pigeons trained to peck at a button to receive food exhibited interesting behavior when the experiment was changed to dispense food at random button presses.

When the pigeon performed a simple action - say, looking over her left shoulder - and by coincidence received food twice in rapid succession, the pigeon would begin to perform the action repeatedly, even though looking over the left shoulder did not improve her chances of receiving food.

These results indicate that superstition is a natural consequence of normal animal learning. Here, we shall investigate a specific instance of mass superstition.

Introduction:

In my adopted hometown of Ponyville, I have encountered a fascinating superstition surrounding one specific earth pony - a mare named Pinkie Pie. She is reputed to possess the ability to predict the immediate future through queues given her by her body. Such superstitions are almost universal among humans - my mother claimed that she got a headache whenever her brother was about to call. To this day I can recall with perfect clarity the image of her sitting in the living room with her eyes closed and her fingers on her temples, saying “Sam’s going to call any minute.”
I can also recall with perfect clarity my own dubiousness when Uncle Sam failed to call that night, or at all for a full week.

What separates the case of my mother from the case of Pinkie Pie is that nobody really believed in my mother’s supposed ability. While it is not particularly hard to get a person to believe something without evidence, an effort has to be made to get people to believe. My mother never tried to get anyone to believe her. By contrast, almost every citizen of Ponyville I’ve asked has admitted to believing in Pinkie’s Extra-Sensory Perception, even though Pinkie Pie herself denies ever attempting to convince others of its validity.

Aside from her alleged supernatural abilities, Pinkie Pie is well-known among Ponyvillians for having organized countless social events. She has a reputation for being a very friendly pony, but also for being insecure and eccentric.

In this paper, we describe a series of double-blind tests performed to investigate what ponies have dubbed “The Pinkie Sense”. Most of these tests were inspired by experiments performed in the 20th and 21st centuries on psychics, dowsers, mediums, tarot card readers, and other professed fortune-tellers.

I wish to thank Twilight Sparkle for supporting me in this endeavor, and for feeding me and housing me as I worked on it. She was with me for most of these experiments, and gave me counsel when I was unsure if something was ethical.

I wish to thank Spike the Dragon for acting as my voice during the verbal portions of this experiment.

I wish to thank the Cutie Mark Crusaders - Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo - for assisting me in these experiments. I also thank their teacher, Miss Cheerilee, for allowing them to assist.

Finally, I would like to thank Pinkie Pie for her cooperation and patience with me.

Part 1 - Pinkie Pie

I first met Pinkie Pie in November of last year. She immediately struck me as a particularly special pony. I’m not qualified to assign her a Meyers-Briggs personality, but I would definitely label her an extravert.

Twilight Sparkle has already done a study on Pinkie Pie, and has concluded that her predictions are accurate. I intend to study Pinkie’s ability under more controlled conditions than my predecessor.

In preparation for this study, Pinkie and I had an interview where I assessed her own perception of her abilities.

A full transcript of the interview is found in Appendix A.

At the interview, Pinkie was positive, cheerful, and comfortable.

One thing that struck me about Pinkie Pie’s attitude toward her own ability is that she seems to believe in her predictions cautiously. She used the phrase ‘supposedly predict the future’ more than once throughout the interview. I was given the impression that she trusts her instinct without understanding it.

We took Pinkie Pie to two Ponyville physicians to get independent, professional assessment of her health. Both doctors told us the mare is in excellent health, though one of them cautioned her about her eating habits (she works at a bakery that specializes in sweet baked goods).

Part 2 - The Pinkie Sense

During our interview, Pinkie said her Pinkie Sense allows her to ‘supposedly predict the future’ based on sensations in her body, or sometimes series of sensations in sequence. Pinkie gave a few examples for me:

Twitchy Tail - “Something is about to fall”
Itchy Back - “Today’s my lucky day”
Flapping Ears - Someone will need a bath
“Pinchy” Knee- “Something scary is about to happen”
Achy Shoulder - “There’s an alligator in the tub”
Ear flop, knee twitch, eye flutter - “The sky is about to be graced by a beautiful rainbow”
Ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch - “Look out for opening doors” (Pinkie adds this is “usually” what it means.)
Itchy nose - “Bees”

Like most claimed psychic powers, many of her ‘predictions’ are vague. For example “Today is your lucky day” was a common phrase in horoscopes, though it was usually followed by an equally vague call for caution. “Something is about to fall” is especially vague, since at any given time, something can be said to be “falling”, even if it’s a fluid particle moving downward due to Brownian motion.

Some of these, on the surface, seem rather specific. For example, predicting the presence of an alligator in a bathtub is an astonishing claim. However, once we look into the claim, we find that Pinkie owns a pet alligator, and is likely one of the few ponies to own such an exotic pet. Since alligators need to spend most of their time in water, Pinkie may be merely predicting what is true most of the time.

All this being said, Pinkie is occasionally able to give a more specific prediction than usual, sometimes giving a time or location. For example, during a recent episode, Pinkie was overcome with violent shivering. She interpreted this to mean that some major event (she described it with the word “doozy”) was going to occur at Froggy Bottom Bog outside Ponyville. Pinkie Pie and three friends - Twilight Sparkle included - went to investigate, and were attacked by a four-headed creature called a “hydra” that had apparently been awoken by their presence. Interestingly, after the group had escaped unharmed, Pinkie continued to shiver and maintained that the predicted event had not yet passed. Twilight Sparkle, who was understandably distressed by the events of the day, professed her belief in the truth of the Pinkie Sense. Pinkie then announced that that was the ‘doozy’: A rational, scientific mind putting faith in something she couldn’t explain or understand.

Once again, this prediction is more top-heavy than it may appear on the surface. First, the only reason the prediction came true was that all present believed it would come true. The argument can be made for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Second, the only reason Pinkie and Twilight were at Froggy Bottom Bog was that Pinkie predicted something would happen there. Rather than predicting the event, Pinkie Pie may have actually caused it.

The ultimate reason to be skeptical is that, regardless of how eerily accurate Pinkie’s predictions are, there simply isn’t any evidence to support that she made those predictions without some awareness of the situation beforehand. For example, when Pinkie gave the prediction, “Watch out for opening doors” prior to Twilight Sparkle falling down an open cellar door. Cellar doors, steep staircases, manholes, and subway grates are all serious hazards. If Pinkie were aware of the door - we have no evidence that she wasn’t - she may well have been concerned enough that her senses gave her a warning. Twilight’s unfortunate accident would then prove nothing more than that Pinkie was right in regarding the cellar door a hazard.

Part 3 - Locating Hidden Objects

I started with this test because of an experience I had with Pinkie Pie this winter: She found me at a place no one knew I was going to be, and apparently did so effortlessly. Rainbow Dash has shared a similar experience with me.

The experiment was set up as follows :

Twelve identical boxes, each labeled with a unique number, were placed in the testing area. One box contained a bucket of water. All other boxes contained buckets of dirt. Neither the tester nor the subject knew which box contained which item. The subject was instructed to give the number of the box containing the water to the tester. This experiment was performed twelve times.

For this experiment, two random variables were created: The number of the box containing the water, and the number of the box chosen by the subject. Therefore, we have 144 possible outcomes, of which 12 could be considered an accurate guess. The probability that a subject should select a box containing water if she were to choose completely at random is one in twelve.

The control group consisted of three ponies - one earth pony, one pegasus pony, and one unicorn - and one human (myself). Their results were as follows:

Subject Number of Correct Guesses
Unicorn 12/12
Pegasus 2/12
Earth Pony 2/12
Human 3/12
Pinkie Pie 2/12

I asked the unicorn to explain how she was able to find the water correctly each time. She explained to me she used a spell to “sense” water. The nature of unicorn magic is beyond my understanding, so must be eliminated as a variable.

If we disregard the unicorn’s results, we find that Pinkie Pie’s predictions were no better than the control group.

I decided to vary the test on the grounds that Pinkie seems extremely adept at locating ponies and humans. My initial idea was to put a live pony (a filly) in one of the boxes and have Pinkie Pie attempt to locate her. Twilight Sparkle has advised me not to do this on ethical grounds, so I’ve settled for a lock of hair from the fillies’ tails.

The experiment was repeated, with the following results:

Subject Number of Correct Guesses
Unicorn 12/12
Pegasus 1/12
Earth Pony 3/12
Human 0/12
Pinkie Pie 4/12

While Pinkie did better than all the other subjects (except the Unicorn, who once again used magic to locate her sister’s hair), she did not demonstrate our hypothesis that she can locate an individual or object under arbitrary conditions with high accuracy.

Part 4 - Testing the Pinkie Sense

In this experiment we explore whether Pinkie Pie can predict events before they happen, in total absence of external stimuli.

The setup of the experiment is as follows:

Pinkie Pie and myself were placed alone in a small, four-walled enclosure within a larger building, with the following items:

One 20 Kilogram sand bag, suspended over a china teacup using a pulley tied to a cleat outside the enclosure

One wooden door, swinging inward, hinged as close to the corner of the room as possible.

One china vase, positioned on the floor to be between the door and the wall when the door opens.

One bucket filled with mud, suspended over me using a pulley tied to a cleat outside the enclosure.

Outside the enclosure, two ponies were positioned by the cleats securing the sandbag and the bucket, and one pony was positioned by the door. A two-faced clock was set into the wall of the enclosure so the three ponies outside the enclosure, as well as Pinkie Pie and myself, had a synchronized time reference. A script was prepared ahead of time indicating the time at which certain events were to happen. On their time cue, the ponies outside would either drop the sandbag on the teacup, dump the mud on my head, or kick open the door with enough force to shatter the vase. Inside, I was equipped to take note of any predictions Pinkie gave me. Procedures were in place to reset the experiment in minimal time in order to perform as many independent tests as possible. The script was written to allow for a reset before another event took place.

A “Hit” was only counted if the event was correctly predicted significantly prior to that event and no other event.
Only one prediction was allowed between events.

The script was written ahead of time, and was unknown to either myself or Pinkie Pie. Sessions lasted four hours per day, six days a week (We did not work Saturdays) for three weeks. The results follow:

Day Hits/Total Number of Events
1 1 / 4
2 2 / 5
3 3 / 6
4 1 / 5
5 2 / 6
6 2 / 6
7 2 / 7
8 4 / 6
9 5 / 5
10 1 / 4
11 1 / 6
12 3 / 6
13 2 / 6
14 2 / 5
15 1 / 5
16 1 / 5
17 1 / 6
18 1 / 6

Average: 0.35

The average is remarkably close to the expected value of one-third if one were to guess the events at random.

On the final day of the experiment, I unexpectedly left the room. I searched the town and found Rainbow Dash, a friend of Pinkie Pie’s. I brought her back to the lab, and announced into the room (without opening the door),

“Who have I brought with me?”

Without hesitation, she declared, “Rainbow Dash”

I found another pony from Ponyville, and repeated the action. I did this nine times, and each time Pinkie Pie guessed the correct name.

I am unsure how to interpret these results, but since they were not under perfectly controlled conditions, they can be safely discarded. My best explanation is that Pinkie possibly identified the approaching pony by the sound of their hoofsteps.

Part 5 - Conclusions

A few days after experimentation concluded, Pinkie Pie visited me and gave me a very peculiar message. Apparently this message was brought by the “combo”: knee twitch, nose itch, eye flutter, knee twitch, tail twitch, eye flutter, back itch.

She told me, “I know you miss Mimi; I’m sure she was a good poodle. But you gave her a good life”

The truth is that I did own a poodle named Mimi, and I do think about her from time to time and, like most things in life we no longer have, I wish to see her again.

One of the few benefits of my inability to speak is that all intelligible discourse I’ve had with any pony has been recorded on paper. Most of those papers have been saved (though a few may have been disposed or discarded). I have gone through every paper I can get a hold of to find any mention of Mimi. So far I have found none. I have asked Twilight, with whom I’ve spoken the most, does not recall me ever mentioning my dog.

Since I cannot be sure that a piece of paper was not lost, I conclude that this event was not controlled and therefore is inadmissible as evidence for Pinkie’s abilities.

The major find of this experiment is that we have found Pinkie Pie’s ability to accurately predict the future to be largely over-exaggerated. To be sure, she may possess acute situational awareness, and may be able to anticipate from that awareness better than most other ponies, this is the result of natural, understandable processes and shouldn’t be attributed to something beyond the realm of nature.

---

---

Twilight Sparkle sat by the fire on her haunches, holding with her horn a bound copy of her human’s paper. On the other end of the room, its author leaned back in a rocking chair, watching her reactions while pretending to read a book.

Occasionally she giggled, hummed or gasped at something she read. Every reaction gave Simon a new pang of joy.

At last, the purple unicorn looked up from the paper, and beamed at him.

“This is amazing work, Simon! I’m proud of you!”

He squirmed with excitement at these words.

Twilight smiled; she blushed a little.

“I have something for you,” she said a little nervously. Simon sat forward attentively. The mare crossed the room to the kitchen. When she emerged, she had a cloth pouch with her. She levitated it to him; he took it without much discomfort. He looked inside: The bag was filled with bits. He hadn’t handled much Equestrian currency, and had no idea how much it was worth. He reached in and began pulling them out one by one to count them…

“There’s a hundred bits in there,” said Twilight before he got too far.

He looked up at her.

“You’ve earned it”

Simon felt empowered. He’d grown up in a well-to-do household, and had possessed some sought-after skills, so money had never been much of a problem. Since arriving in Ponyville, he’d been completely dependent on Twilight Sparkle’s charity to survive, and he was suddenly infused with a feeling of independence. He’d worked a month furthering Twilight’s understanding of Pinkie Pie, and he received in return the ability to do any of a number of things. He knew immediately what he was going to do with it. Simon tossed his money bag in the air and caught it. He sauntered out of the library, heading in the direction of Carousel Boutique.

Twilight was a little bewildered by Simon’s hasty exit. She was a little less bewildered when Pinkie Pie barged in less than half a second later.

“Heya, Twilight!” The pink pony bounced.

“Hi, Pinkie,” Twilight responded,”What’s up?”

“Just wanted to see if you’ve read the experiment yet”

“As a matter of fact, I just finished!”

“What did you think? Did I do a good job?”

“You did an excellent job, Pinkie. You were very cooperative”

“...and Simon got exactly the result he wanted!”

“...wait, what?” asked Twilight, but Pinkie was gone.

Edited by Admari, moral support by Hustlin Tom

Author's Note:

The formatting on the tables sucks. I'll try to fix it.

Comments

[Hustlin Tom]

I see you restrained yourself on the statisticals. And the Pink Menace was brought to justice by the illustrious Simon Berkowitz.

OR WAS SHE?!

[amiamera]

This makes me like Pinkie less if she manipulated the data so that he got the answer he wanted.

[Hurgusburgus]

i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/639/320/462.gif

[Alan Smithee]

5097373
Wat?

[Hurgusburgus]

5097378

“...and Simon got exactly the result he wanted!”

i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/750/197/b46.gif

[YbJ]

Achy Shoulder - “There’s an alligator in the tub”

I don't think you meant to repeat that.

Pinkie's last line implies that she rigged the experiment so Simon would get a negative result instead of a (correct) positive result.

Honestly, Pinkie should know better than to do that. If Simon ever finds out, he'll be angry at her for wasting his time and ruining the experiment. More importantly, Simon will never trust Pinkie to tell him the truth, because she doesn't trust him to be able to handle it, which is horrible for their friendship.

And does Pinkie really think that Simon can't handle knowing about Pinkie sense? He seems to have accepted the other oddities of Equestria (unicorns, dragons, magic, etc). There's really no reason for Simon to be a Pinkie sense denialist.

[Morphy]

To sum up this chapter:

Science, Magic, and Pinkie... never shall the three be able to quantify the other.

Tho, I really want to know what Simon plans on doing with his 100 bits.

[Alan Smithee]

5102629
A perfect summary of this chapter!

What do you want him to spend it on?

[Morphy]

5102778

Cheap hookers and hard cider!

What?

Oh! You meant Simon. Oooh, ok. Er, I dunno, a decent pair of shoes? Some (hopefully) non-bejeweled non-fabulous ordinary set of work clothes? I'm not sure Rarity can manage it however.

[wildlander84]

5102629 never minding that in the mlp fim universe, magic is a branch of science and is entirely quantifiable.

[Morphy]

5109793

Yes, in Twilight's mind science and magic work together but for Simon, a human, from a world with no real magic... I think you see where I'm going with this retort.

[Alan Smithee]

5105894
Human in Equestria checklist:
Human lands in Equestria, specifically in Everfree Forest...check.
Human bamboozled by Pinkie Pie...Check.
Human gets clothes from Rarity...

[The Drunken Sailor]

So you read my story and gave fair criticism and helped my a bunch right? So I was all like 'I'm going to read on of his stories and criticize it! MWAHAHAHAHA!' But then I realize your the author of fucking Last, a HiE story that I fell in love with a long time ago but never got around to getting up-to-date with.

...Well I feel insignificant.

But I will now! You read my story and you bet your bloody bow tie I'm going to read yours!

[Alan Smithee]

5132349
Gopher it!

I look forward to combating your criticisms! Ha ha ha!

[The Drunken Sailor]

5140538 Oooooh

It. Is. On!