Modern belief in psychics!! ??

It does mean what I think it means.

Of course they can; that's not what's at-issue here.

You are trying to use events in a work of fiction - events that make for a good read because they are implausible (otherwise the fictional character would hardly be memorable) - as evidence that the events, as they were written, are plausible in real life.

Look, I could write a story where a ten year old boy could look at a flower and deduce the four forces of nature from it. It could happen. Anybody could do it. If they were incredibly lucky in real life. So what? I can't now use my story to try to lend credence to real-life scientists making a living out of looking at flowers.

 

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But they're not implausible.

 

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I was hoping for some input from folks who pay so-called psychics for advice.

BTW: If I were psychic, I would not waste time getting small fees from folks who wanted advice.

I would make money at casinos or by stock market transactions. ​

 

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The Sherlock Holmes & Hercule Poirot stories were delightful fiction.

The deductions made by these characters seemed quite plausible, although I would not expect to find any real life character to be as consistently accurate in such deductions.

 

They only seem plausible because the story is contrived.

It's plausible for a software developer in Toronto to win $60 million the lottery. And you can simply write it into your story.

See, the clues Holmes picks up are there because the author put them there. I think there was one example where he deduced the identity of someone by the type of tobacco he uses, which is only grown in one place in the country of etc....
The other 999 villains don't have such uniquely-defining traits. Oh, some might have other traits, and he's pretty clever at that, but come on.

Holmes gets lucky. A lot. And that is not very plausible.

 

Point of note: neither of these fictional detectives really used deductive reasoning. They were pretty much in the realm of inductive (or in Holmes' case abductive) reasoning.

There is a difference between the three, but I'm fairly certain that their use of actual deductive reasoning was minor compared to the other two.

Basically, if you start with the conclusions, or the evidence after an event, and want to work back to establish what event gave rise to those conclusions / evidences, this is inductive reasoning.
You enter a room and see the evidence of a baby crying and a foul smell in the air. You can therefore induce that the baby has soiled its diaper and needs it to be taken care of. This might be seen as the most likely explanation but it is not infallible.

 

Often psychics will.

• Suggest that the client is special. A Goddess in the making or something else grandiose that flatters the client.
  
• Seek to offer validation and empathy for life's hard decisions.
• Leave the client in a state of wanting more insight so that they return and part with more cash. ( invariably cash, not card)

During my earlier years, as part of a long car journey I visited a psychic unknown to me in a capital city. I felt led to find him. I did find him. Wandering around in this city with no real idea where i was.
The first thing he did was exclaim how special I was. Even getting a college to take our photo together. He then went on to describe certain futures and titles (pagan) and on departure left me with some old Sanskrit to decipher as a challenge to my commitment. (Chuckle)
Of course the challenge was to solicit a return visit. Even though he knew i lived nearly 800kms away.
Cost $45 aud. no photo given.
Sanskrit easy to decipher.
Obviously a charade. Yet many thing said were stunningly close to the truth then and even now (as foretold)
I know of perhaps 6 psychics, astrologers and none have proven genuine. However, their scramble to make a buck actually can provide insight not because they are psychic but because they seem to subconsciously pick up on stuff that would not normally be picked up on in normal mainstream psychological counseling sessions. ( pushing boundaries of credibility)
A degree of craziness that has a certain value perhaps?