How do you guys explain really bizarre cases of synchronicity?

[quarky]

Juggler Joe, you're pretty serious about this.

I doubt you'd like to entertain stuff like dreaming awake, and generating or accessing alternate universes with different laws?
Or the possibility that we each occupy a different universe, however similar; or that there may be a single quark that was the big bang and is creating all the bigger pieces by moving very fast. Very very.

We could be in for all sorts of surprises. Maybe not, sure. Definitely not? That's like a barrier that doesn't seem necessary. Consciousness might pre-exist matter.

 

[fromdownunder]

We could be in for all sorts of surprises. Maybe not, sure. Definitely not? That's like a barrier that doesn't seem necessary. Consciousness might pre-exist matter.

Perhaps we could/should wait for the surprises, but every time I fart, should I sit amd contemplate (for example) that just maybe I have created 50,000 new universes, or should I think that I have just disposed of excess wind?

Maybe? Definately? Should I spend the rest of my life worrying or even thinking about this possibility?

Reality as I understand it seems so much more practical.

Norm

 

[Moochie]

Still, it's sometimes nice to dream.


M.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why are you moving the goalposts? Previously, you stated: "Sometimes we get a 'bad vibe' about a person or situation. That gut feeling is just as apt to be wrong as any conscious opinion or conclusion." Now, apparently, you're claiming only that, for you and others you know, gut feelings "have OFTEN proven to be wrong." Even if true, that doesn't support your original claim and is also simply based on your opinion, rather than a study.

What sort of evidence do you want? Again, why don't you answer my question, do you think intuition is less apt to be wrong than rational thought?

I certainly don't believe that intuition is infallible, but I'm open to the idea that it's correct more than chance would dictate.

And "open to the idea" means "but I'll ignore it when it's clearly demonstrated that these things are not correct more often than chance". (But again, the question here wasn't about how often intuition is wrong compared to chance, but compare to rational, conscious thought.)

You questioned my claim and I cited evidence that intuition is often wrong. In the absence of evidence that intuition is less often wrong, it's entirely reasonable to think it is at least as prone to error as rational thought. To assert otherwise, is to claim some magical mechanism for intuition, which I reject.

Now I ask you yet again, are you just playing games or do you disagree and think that intuition is less apt to error than rational thought?

This thread isn't about Sylvia Browne. Pretty obviously, however, her 80% claim is on shaky grounds, but she contends that she can solve missing persons' cases without even knowing the missing person. That's different than someone meeting a person, and deciding that there is some undefined thing about the person that indicates trustworthiness or untrustworthiness.

How so? Sylvia Browne and many modern astrologers overtly state that their power is some sort of "intuition" (however they mistakenly attribute the source of the idea as an external one). That sounds like the no true Scotsman fallacy. Any time I point to an example of someone making claims about intuition, you claim they're not really talking about intuition.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Juggler Joe, you're pretty serious about this.

What's the point of this observation? (It sounds like maybe it's meant to be some kind of an insult? ETA: Also is the use of a modified version of my user name meant to be insulting or patronizing or otherwise disrespectful?) I pointed out already that this thread isn't about people making joking observations like knocking on wood or something. Rodney and Teapots Happen, at least, actually believe that synchronicity is an alternative explanation to mere coincidence even when we show that probability predicts the occurrence of these low probability events and coincidences through chance alone.

I doubt you'd like to entertain stuff like dreaming awake, and generating or accessing alternate universes with different laws?

I'm not sure what you mean by "dreaming awake" but I don't deny that the human mind can experience hallucinations.

You're right, though, that I reject "accessing alternate universes". First, there's no need for such an unparsimonious explanation. Second by definition a different universe is wholly disconnected causally with our own so "accessing" one is impossible. In other words, if you're talking about accessing something, then that something is part of our universe.

Or the possibility that we each occupy a different universe, however similar; or that there may be a single quark that was the big bang and is creating all the bigger pieces by moving very fast. Very very.

Yeah, this is a common New Age conceit--that we can each create our own universe. But again, that's simply an abuse of terms that really have meaning. If we were each in a different universe, we could not interact with each other in any way at all. If we can interact with each other, we are in the same universe.

We could be in for all sorts of surprises. Maybe not, sure. Definitely not? That's like a barrier that doesn't seem necessary. Consciousness might pre-exist matter.

I suppose anything is possible, but again you run into the same two huge problems: 1) this explanation is unnecessary and 2) all the evidence points against this explanation (or at the very least, there is no evidence to support consciousness independent of matter).

In fact, I would say that making a claim of knowledge that we do not have is more of a barrier to learning something new than discarding an unparsimonious, unnecessary hypothesis for which there is no evidence (and even a vast accumulation of evidence against it).

I think we're in for all sorts of surprises, but I predict all those surprises will be, as they have been in the past, the result of science and not New Agey-"exploration" of disembodied consciousness or metaphysics.

 

[Rodney]

What sort of evidence do you want?

A controlled study showing that intuition is useless.

 

[Dr Adequate]

What kind of demonstration are you looking for?

A demonstration of a pattern. Two teapots do not a pattern make.

 

[Dr Adequate]

A controlled study showing that intuition is useless.

In what field? It should be fairly easy to demonstrate, for example, that intuition is useless in deciding whether a roulette wheel's going to stop on red or black. An entire industry has been built on that fact.

 

[fromdownunder]

An entire industry has been built on that fact.

I once hit a single number twice in a row at Wrest Point Casino in Tasmania. My intuition told me this would happen.

Well, the story is true, but the intuition bit is not. I simply forgot to remove my original chip from the table as I counted my winnings and it stayed on the same number for the next spin.

Norm

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

A controlled study showing that intuition is useless.

First, you'd have to define intuition. As I've said, no neuroscientist denies that humans have a remarkable ability to recognize patterns (especially faces) that goes beyond their ability to explain how they recognize them. (Note: I do not mean to say that neuroscience can't explain how this works, rather that we can recognize patterns when we can't verbalize how we're doing it.) Similarly, many people can recognize musical notes without measuring the frequency of the tone.

That definition of "intuition" is entirely testable, but I don't think there is anyone who doubts the utility of that ability. Now if you claim intuition is something like receiving ideas that come from sources external to the mind, then you have to clarify what you mean.

However, the claim of "synchronicity" is that there is something other than normal probability resulting in low probability outcomes.

How do you propose to investigate this? (When you suggested we need to investigate this, you were talking about synchronicity, not intuition.)

And answering "a controlled study testing the existence of synchronicity" is not really an answer. How exactly do you set up a controlled study?

I believe that any outcome you get will be the same outcome you'd get if there is no such thing as synchronicity. So far, you haven't been able to answer the question I've asked repeatedly--how do you distinguish between a low probability event that is merely a coincidence and one that is synchronicity.

At first you tried to claim that it was just whether or not a person claims the event has meaning or significance, but you took that back when you realize that it makes no sense. (It's just circular reasoning.) You still claim that it's something to do with probability, but you've yet to distinguish a low probability outcome that is mere coincidence from one that is synchronicity.

I think your inability to do this means it is utterly impossible for you to set up any kind of controlled study that will make the case for or against synchronicity.

About the best question you've asked is "What are the odds of that happening?" but you refuse to listen to the answer (that is, the odds of that outcome are the same as the odds of other low probability outcomes that you don't think are cases of synchronicity).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

A demonstration of a pattern. Two teapots do not a pattern make.

I think the claim is not of a pattern, because we all know random data do yield patterns sometimes. The claim is that the pattern is significant or meaningful. (As if a deity or a person or the universe intentionally made that pattern.)

Two teapots could be a meaningful pattern. If I had one teapot, and intentionally went looking to obtain a close match, the resulting close match would be significant and meaningful.

Some mechanism that just randomly resulted in the exact same two teapots would be a pattern (their similarity) that is not meaningful (since it happened randomly).

In fact, Teapots Happen's story could be meaningful in that the store nearest the house has sold the same type of teapot for a long time and the proximity of the house to the store means that if someone living in that house wanted a teapot, the probability is greatly increased that the person would end up buying that type of teapot. But that's not the kind of meaning or significance that the "synchronicity" hypothesis suggests. It is, rather some kind of inexplicable significance.

 

[Rodney]

First, you'd have to define intuition. As I've said, no neuroscientist denies that humans have a remarkable ability to recognize patterns (especially faces) that goes beyond their ability to explain how they recognize them. (Note: I do not mean to say that neuroscience can't explain how this works, rather that we can recognize patterns when we can't verbalize how we're doing it.) Similarly, many people can recognize musical notes without measuring the frequency of the tone.

That definition of "intuition" is entirely testable, but I don't think there is anyone who doubts the utility of that ability. Now if you claim intuition is something like receiving ideas that come from sources external to the mind, then you have to clarify what you mean.

What I objected to was your claim that "Sometimes we get a 'bad vibe' about a person or situation. That gut feeling is just as apt to be wrong as any conscious opinion or conclusion." My point was, that to my knowledge, that type of intuition has never been subjected to a controlled test.

However, the claim of "synchronicity" is that there is something other than normal probability resulting in low probability outcomes.

How do you propose to investigate this? (When you suggested we need to investigate this, you were talking about synchronicity, not intuition.)

And answering "a controlled study testing the existence of synchronicity" is not really an answer. How exactly do you set up a controlled study?

I believe that any outcome you get will be the same outcome you'd get if there is no such thing as synchronicity. So far, you haven't been able to answer the question I've asked repeatedly--how do you distinguish between a low probability event that is merely a coincidence and one that is synchronicity.

At first you tried to claim that it was just whether or not a person claims the event has meaning or significance, but you took that back when you realize that it makes no sense. (It's just circular reasoning.) You still claim that it's something to do with probability, but you've yet to distinguish a low probability outcome that is mere coincidence from one that is synchronicity.

I think your inability to do this means it is utterly impossible for you to set up any kind of controlled study that will make the case for or against synchronicity.

About the best question you've asked is "What are the odds of that happening?" but you refuse to listen to the answer (that is, the odds of that outcome are the same as the odds of other low probability outcomes that you don't think are cases of synchronicity).

I don't accept your answer because it begs the question. By your logic, if Teapots Happen were to search under another hundred houses at random and were to find an identical teapot under each one, it still would not be a synchronicity. I grant you that it would be difficult to specify exactly what the odds of this happening would be, but "off the charts" would be one way of expressing them. So, what I would like to see is a team of probability experts analyze seemingly astonishing coincidences and try to determine whether those coincidences could reasonably be expected to happen to someone somewhere in a realistic timeframe-- or not.

 

[Dr Adequate]

I don't accept your answer because it begs the question. By your logic, if Teapots Happen were to search under another hundred houses at random and were to find an identical teapot under each one, it still would not be a synchronicity.

That's one of the things that I would count as a "pattern".

But this does not actually happen, does it?

 

[fls]

I don't accept your answer because it begs the question. By your logic, if Teapots Happen were to search under another hundred houses at random and were to find an identical teapot under each one, it still would not be a synchronicity. I grant you that it would be difficult to specify exactly what the odds of this happening would be, but "off the charts" would be one way of expressing them. So, what I would like to see is a team of probability experts analyze seemingly astonishing coincidences and try to determine whether those coincidences could reasonably be expected to happen to someone somewhere in a realistic timeframe-- or not.

You're approaching it from the wrong end. It doesn't help to look for the probability that a particular coincidence would occur if it were due to chance. What you need to consider is the list of possibilities which would be taken as astonishing coincidences. For example, using Teapots Happen's example - finding an identical teapot in another location which she/he could have explored but for some reason never did before (the attic, a locked cupboard at her/his place of employment, etc.), the acquisition of an identical teapot by anyone of his acquaintance, the acquisition of a similar teapot/picture of an identical teapot/movie or book which included an identical teapot, a coincidence related to other objects or places which generated an intuitive sensation after the mystical experience, etc. What you need is a much better understanding of the numerator, not the denominator.

Linda

 

[quarky]

What's the point of this observation? (It sounds like maybe it's meant to be some kind of an insult? ETA: Also is the use of a modified version of my user name meant to be insulting or patronizing or otherwise disrespectful?) I pointed out already that this thread isn't about people making joking observations like knocking on wood or something. Rodney and Teapots Happen, at least, actually believe that synchronicity is an alternative explanation to mere coincidence even when we show that probability predicts the occurrence of these low probability events and coincidences through chance alone.


I'm not sure what you mean by "dreaming awake" but I don't deny that the human mind can experience hallucinations.

You're right, though, that I reject "accessing alternate universes". First, there's no need for such an unparsimonious explanation. Second by definition a different universe is wholly disconnected causally with our own so "accessing" one is impossible. In other words, if you're talking about accessing something, then that something is part of our universe.


Yeah, this is a common New Age conceit--that we can each create our own universe. But again, that's simply an abuse of terms that really have meaning. If we were each in a different universe, we could not interact with each other in any way at all. If we can interact with each other, we are in the same universe.


I suppose anything is possible, but again you run into the same two huge problems: 1) this explanation is unnecessary and 2) all the evidence points against this explanation (or at the very least, there is no evidence to support consciousness independent of matter).

In fact, I would say that making a claim of knowledge that we do not have is more of a barrier to learning something new than discarding an unparsimonious, unnecessary hypothesis for which there is no evidence (and even a vast accumulation of evidence against it).

I think we're in for all sorts of surprises, but I predict all those surprises will be, as they have been in the past, the result of science and not New Agey-"exploration" of disembodied consciousness or metaphysics.

No disrespect intended, JoeTheJuggler. I was merely concerned about how sure you are. Perhaps I like to pretend in a magical possibility. I won't let it interfere with scientific observation, but I'm glad for some of the mystery that remains. Agnostic, I guess, though I play atheist with the religious nuts surrounding me. I blame lsd.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

..........

I don't accept your answer because it begs the question. By your logic, if Teapots Happen were to search under another hundred houses at random and were to find an identical teapot under each one, it still would not be a synchronicity. I grant you that it would be difficult to specify exactly what the odds of this happening would be, but "off the charts" would be one way of expressing them. So, what I would like to see is a team of probability experts analyze seemingly astonishing coincidences and try to determine whether those coincidences could reasonably be expected to happen to someone somewhere in a realistic timeframe-- or not.

I'm sure when a team of probability experts observe what they consider to be an astonishing coincidence, such as the same teapot under a hundred houses chosen at random, they will investigate it ...

So far, we only have one ( teapot ) ... Nothing astonishing at all ..

Bring us an astonishing coincidence..

 

[Marshmallow]

What are the odds of these weird coincidences happening to the same person over and over in a small amount of time?

For example:
Someone sees a pale blue butterfly on a TV show and a couple of seconds later they see a pale blue butterfly on a page of a book or magazine that they flip open (one that they've never read before) and later they see a similar butterfly on a website they've never been to before, and the next day sees it again in another unexpected place, etc.

I'm only asking because synchronicities like this actually happen to me sometimes (only it's with stuff that's personally meaningful and specific). They seem so bizarrely improbable that I don't know what to make of them.

I know I can't prove that stuff like this happens to me (how can I? you only have my word for it), but please suspend your disbelief for a couple of minutes and imagine what it would be like if stuff like this happened to you. How would you explain it?

 

[fls]

What are the odds of these weird coincidences happening to the same person over and over in a small amount of time?

For example:
Someone sees a pale blue butterfly on a TV show and a couple of seconds later they see a pale blue butterfly on a page of a book or magazine that they flip open (one that they've never read before) and later they see a similar butterfly on a website they've never been to before, and the next day sees it again in another unexpected place, etc.

I'm only asking because synchronicities like this actually happen to me sometimes. They seem so bizarrely improbable that I don't know what to make of them.

I know I can't prove that stuff like this happens to me (how can I? you only have my word for it), but please suspend your disbelief for a couple of minutes and imagine what it would be like if stuff like this happened to you. How would you explain it?

You are not alone. This is a common phenomenon. The fallacy is in thinking that taking notice of something means that the frequency of its occurrence has increased, or that any of this is bizarrely improbable. Why shouldn't you see blue butterflies all over the place?

ETA: Sometimes it seems to me that those who find these co-incidences astonishing must be the type of person who usually never pays attention to anything.

Linda

 

[Rodney]

You're approaching it from the wrong end. It doesn't help to look for the probability that a particular coincidence would occur if it were due to chance. What you need to consider is the list of possibilities which would be taken as astonishing coincidences. For example, using Teapots Happen's example - finding an identical teapot in another location which she/he could have explored but for some reason never did before (the attic, a locked cupboard at her/his place of employment, etc.), the acquisition of an identical teapot by anyone of his acquaintance, the acquisition of a similar teapot/picture of an identical teapot/movie or book which included an identical teapot, a coincidence related to other objects or places which generated an intuitive sensation after the mystical experience, etc. What you need is a much better understanding of the numerator, not the denominator.

Linda

I think you need to look at both the numerator and denominator.

 

[Rodney]

You are not alone. This is a common phenomenon. The fallacy is in thinking that taking notice of something means that the frequency of its occurrence has increased, or that any of this is bizarrely improbable. Why shouldn't you see blue butterflies all over the place?

Can you explain why s/he should, and why this would happen in clusters?

ETA: Sometimes it seems to me that those who find these co-incidences astonishing must be the type of person who usually never pays attention to anything.

It frequently occurs to me that most people on this forum are desperate to dismiss unlikely coincidences for fear that they might have to re-think their worldviews.