Hey now, no one is saying the laws of physics are nonsense. But perhaps the "observed laws" aren't the full story? I really don't see why this is so hard for you to accept as a possibility ... do you really think we know it all? Or we almost do?
I lol at the thought.
I think that consciousness probably interacts with the 'external world' in ways that current basic physics cannot account for, sure. I don't rule out future science figuring things out that would absolutely blow the doors off the billiard-ball materialism that fearful reductionists cling to.
I do not claim anything "supernatural" - merely "unknown" and/or mysterious.
Some of you seem deeply, deeply uncomfortable with the unknown and mysterious, have you noticed that? Don't feel OK until it's been bagged, tagged, and buried inthe "random meaningless abberant data, nothing to see here" pile ...
I'm amused by the multiple screennames on here who dismiss the coincidence of the teapots by stripping away the context entirely - thus reducing the story to the bare-bones level you can find comfort in - "wow, you bought a teapot and then you found one that was the same, big whoop" ... ignoring what I was thinking and feeling, the mystical experience and intuition-following lead-up, the fact that an insanely active 'urban explorer' had never been into his own crawlspace before, that I never bought teapots and only bought the one I did because I had a totally inexplicable intuitive desire to buy it, etc etc etc ...
Many of you have simply dropped that stuff out of the equation entirely, while others seek to dismiss it by pretending that they have rational grounds to do so - that it is "more probable" that some kind of misfiring psychology has made me misremember what I was thinking and feeling (you know, in order to support this incredibly powerful woo-drive I have to believe in something super comforting like "I really don't understand the universe.') The latter approach might be more sophisticated than the former, but it's just that same reductionist-excuse-for-reasoning in action.
If you want to see "magical thinking," just read your own posts, fellows - what you're doing here is not reasoning, and it is not skepticism. You're True Believers in an utterly explicable world, willing to instantly dismiss anything that seems to challenge the ridiculously simplistic model you have of reality.
"Assigning meaning" is not a belief, so please try again - what conclusions have I come to?
Perhaps that reality is more complex than our understanding of it is? That I don't have all the answers? That we can't tell the difference - even in theory - between a random pattern and a pattern with an unknown or even unknowable cause? That unknown or unknowable causes exist? That it is possible and even quite likely that there is a lot more going on than we know about - and given this, it's quite reasonable to abstain from leaping to firm conclusions about seemingly-aberrant data? Conclusions like "all strange coincidences and patterns are random"?
Or wait - those just negations of faith-based conclusions that you guys hold, aren't they?
Reductionist rationalism is, indeed, a very powerful and useful tool. But it is not the only tool in the box. And the simplistic, useful models it employs are not to be mistaken for the reality, itself. It is merely one finger pointing in the direction of truth ... but rather than following where that finger points toward, some seem to prefer to suck on it for comfort.
I find your lack of lack of faith disturbing.
“Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.
I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple.
I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of – or can be dreamed of – in any philosophy.”
- J.B.S. Haldane
