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Coincidences

fuelair

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Possibly (likely) because I purposely take in large quantities of information on general principles and a great number of topics, I frequently find myself with data that is supported within a day or two of my finding it and seeing unexpected support of it. Last night, for example, I was watching a show on the Weather Channel that talked about flooding annually in Venice*. I am typing this watching a mystery show occurring during that same flooding period. In Venice! The good part is that I do not see this as a sign of psychic abilities or related, Merely a sign that I take in and keep data and sometimes different data are related . Coincidences are just coincidences, nothing more.



eta: * which I previously was not familiar with.
 
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This is the single most unskeptical thing I have seen posted on this forum.
A true skeptic, upon experiencing such a coincidence, would think "Whoah, dude! Spooky!", then calculate, without actually doing any calculations, that the odds of this happening were astronomically low, so low, in fact, that this could only be evidence that god is talking to you, and the universe is a simulation.
I trust you are suitably ashamed.
 
I ran into my Australian cousin on my first trip to Hong Kong, our children's teacher on our first time in London a few days later and an old friend on the Champs Élysées about a week after.

Spooky man.......
 
I first encountered the term "friends of Dorothy" on this forum a couple of weeks ago, then heard it mentioned on Radio 4 the very next day. I take this as proof that Radio 4 is a simulation.

Dave
 
Last weekend I was driving down rural back roads, not seeing anyone while listening to 'Dune' on audio book. On one road there was a man pushing a pushchair down the road, the only person I'd seen for some time, as I passed them Stilgar referred to Paul as 'Man-Child' for the first time.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Last weekend I was driving down rural back roads, not seeing anyone while listening to 'Dune' on audio book. On one road there was a man pushing a pushchair down the road, the only person I'd seen for some time, as I passed them Stilgar referred to Paul as 'Man-Child' for the first time.
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Creepy.
That same thing happened to me. I was listening to the audio book and Stilgar does talk about Paul. And I was driving too.

Some things cannot be explained no matter how hard we try.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Last weekend I was driving down rural back roads, not seeing anyone while listening to 'Dune' on audio book. On one road there was a man pushing a pushchair down the road, the only person I'd seen for some time, as I passed them Stilgar referred to Paul as 'Man-Child' for the first time.
Click to expand...


The most disturbing thing I find about this is that someone actually listens to 'Dune' on an audio book!
 
Driving home from work this morning to look after my son because his support worker hadn't been able to turn up, I caught the beginning of an episode of a radio serial about a young woman with a disability having to get through a difficult day without her support worker. It's another typical example, I suppose, of the phenomenon that, if you're bombarded by information all the time, sometimes it's bound to coincide with what happens to be going on in your own life.

Dave
 
fuelair said:
Last night, for example, I was watching a show on the Weather Channel that talked about flooding annually in Venice*. I am typing this watching a mystery show occurring during that same flooding period. In Venice!
Click to expand...


I'm not sure it's entirely coincidental. One appear to be at least partially the cause of the other.
 
I notice this when I watch a lot of TV. When my wife and I used to watch a lot of CBS comedy shows (How I Met Your Mother, etc) it seemed like each show in the block was echoing the one that came before it. It even seemed to happen when we switched to another network. They'd all have the same theme or had a motif that seemed to recur in each show. I can't remember a specific instance of this happening but I know it happened often enough that my wife and I suspected the show writers were all getting together and agreeing: "Hey, this is duck week! Don't forget to include ducks in your script."
 
I was on vacation with my dad. During a meal at a Chinese restaurant he told me about a family he'd met at an airport in Hong Kong, and later in the conversation, about the "Click Song", a 1960s novelty hit that I'd never heard of.

We randomly met the family he'd met at the airport as we were leaving the restaurant and then the Click Song played on the radio as we were driving away.

Double whammies like that are rare enough that I still remember this 40+ years after the fact.
 
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fuelair said:
Possibly (likely) because I purposely take in large quantities of information on general principles and a great number of topics, I frequently find myself with data that is supported within a day or two of my finding it and seeing unexpected support of it. Last night, for example, I was watching a show on the Weather Channel that talked about flooding annually in Venice*. I am typing this watching a mystery show occurring during that same flooding period. In Venice! The good part is that I do not see this as a sign of psychic abilities or related, Merely a sign that I take in and keep data and sometimes different data are related . Coincidences are just coincidences, nothing more.



eta: * which I previously was not familiar with.
Click to expand...

Well since you were previously not familiar with the subject, you would not have noticed the next occurrence.

I have certainly had similar experiences, I think most have. Perhaps we could call it "attention bias": When a subject has your attention, you notice references to it that you would not otherwise have given any thought.

Hans
 
fuelair said:
Coincidences are just coincidences, nothing more.
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Agree 100%. That said, get this:

I made an especially close personal friend on this forum. He has traveled across the country to visit me and vice versa. Plus we've taken a road trip together. This experience stands alone by far, compared to other casual meet ups I've had.

I made an especially nasty enemy on this forum -- the ugliest situation I've been involved in here. I could prove this with a link, but I'd rather not dredge it up. This experience stands alone by far compared to other minor dust-ups.

Both of these relationships grew out of Swift Boat threads during the 2004 election. But that's not the juicy part. Both of these people were Quakers from Tennessee, or at least they claimed so. I didn't know this initially, so you can rule out the possibility that I have a weird fixation with Tennessee Quakers.

In the case of my friend, I can vouch he is actually a Friend who lives in Tennessee. It amuses me to no end the degree to which he is unimpressed by this coincidence.
 
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One time I was riding the bus to my friends house, a trip I had made lots of times. I was listening to my Sony walkman, grooving along to the Doors LA woman. For some reason I missed my stop, I got off a block passed where I usually get off. Just as I got off the bus Jim was getting into the "Mr Mojo Risin" part and I was singing along. As I walked passed the bus stop, I looked at the back of the bench and written on it was, Mr Mojo Risin, as I was singing it I was reading it.

Was the ghost of Jim Morrison messing with me or was it just a coincidence?
 
Nakani said:
One time I was riding the bus to my friends house, a trip I had made lots of times. I was listening to my Sony walkman, grooving along to the Doors LA woman. For some reason I missed my stop, I got off a block passed where I usually get off. Just as I got off the bus Jim was getting into the "Mr Mojo Risin" part and I was singing along. As I walked passed the bus stop, I looked at the back of the bench and written on it was, Mr Mojo Risin, as I was singing it I was reading it.

Was the ghost of Jim Morrison messing with me or was it just a coincidence?
Click to expand...

Jim's not dead. He wrote that on the bench just before you arrived.
 
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