How do you guys explain really bizarre cases of synchronicity?

[Marshmallow]

There are plenty of examples of meaningful coincidences occurring, and I have experienced them myself. In one case, even a highly skeptical friend had to admit that there was probably something paranormal going on.

Do a quick web search and you'll see mountains of anecdotal evidence (I'm a newbie, so I can't post links yet). Some things are too timely and specific for me to dismiss as mere coincidence, including things I've experienced myself. How do you rationalize things that are so far outside of the laws of probability?

Note: I admit that many of these occurrences are, in fact, mere coincidences, but nowhere near all of them.

 

[bluesjnr]

Unfortunately that is what is going on - mere coincidence. That and a helping of confirmation bias.

Think of how many "million to one" incidents you've heard or read about!

 

[Sledge]

What incidents are you thinking of? I don't wish to seem rude, but I don't want to go trawling the whole internet, only to have you constantly say "that's not what I was talking about" every time I bring back an example and refute it.

 

[Marshmallow]

Unfortunately that is what is going on - mere coincidence. That and a helping of confirmation bias.

Think of how many "million to one" incidencts you've heard or read about!

In most cases, I would probably agree with you. However, there are certain series of events that seem like they would have closer to a "billion in one" probability of occurring.

 

[Marshmallow]

What incidents are you thinking of? I don't wish to seem rude, but I don't want to go trawling the whole internet, only to have you constantly say "that's not what I was talking about" every time I bring back an example and refute it.

That's understandable.

The specific events I'm referring too are a bit too personal for me to relate here, however, there are many other strange incidents, such as these:

strangecosmos (dot) com/content/item/143960 (dot) html

www (dot) 2spare.com/item_51964 (dot) aspx

Hopefully that will work. Just replace the (dot)s with actual dots and delete the spaces.

 

[malbui]

In most cases, I would probably agree with you. However, there are certain series of events that seem like they would have closer to a "billion in one" probability of occurring.

Yeah, and think about how many billion people there are on this planet and how many things they all do every day. If you haven't already read it, John Allen Paulos's book Innumeracy is pretty good on stuff like this.

 

[Marshmallow]

Yeah, and think about how many billion people there are on this planet and how many things they all do every day. If you haven't already read it, John Allen Paulos's book Innumeracy is pretty good on stuff like this.

I'll have to check that book out. I just think it's really strange when something happens to just the right person at just the right time (and sometimes more that once in a short time period) without any known causal factor.

 

[Mojo]

What about all the occasions when coincidences don't happen? For example, I just picked up my copy of Innumeracy to find the stuff about coincidences, and it didn't fall open at just the right page.

 

[Starthinker]

A series of coincidences saved my life. Sometimes I feel as if something supernatural was going on but in the end I know it was all just a bunch of coincidences.

 

[bluesjnr]

To help out marshmallow

www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/143960.html

www.2spare.com/item_51964.aspx

 

[Sledge]

What about all the occasions when coincidences don't happen? For example, I just picked up my copy of Innumeracy to find the stuff about coincidences, and it didn't fall open at just the right page.

I think that has to be the response to every example given. The classic example is you answer a ringing phone only to find it's the person you were just thinking of on the other end. Amazing, right? Maybe, until you think about how many times you think about someone and they don't call, and how many times you pick up the phone and it isn't the person you were just thinking about.

 

[Brian-M]

Think about it... let's say that every day, world-wide, there are a billion possible ways for a billion-to-one coincidence to happen. This would mean that you could expect, on average, a billion-to-one coincidence to happen somewhere in the world every single day.

Given how many billions of people there are in the world, doing all kinds of stuff every day, a billion possible ways for a billion-to-one coincidence to happen is actually an understatement.

 

[Sledge]

Doesn't this just come back to the human brain being wired to look for patterns?

 

[Starthinker]

Those sites remind me of this story:

In 1922 a Mr. John Lords was living in Hyderabad, India, when he discovered that his next door neighbor was also an American. He introduced himself and they quickly discovered that not only were they from the same small town in Nebraska, but they lived right next door to each other on the same street. After talking some more they learned that they had both moved to New Orleans after school and also lived right next door to each other and both worked for shipping companies. This was their third time being next door neighbors, even on the other side of the world.

See what I did there?

 

[Elaedith]

The fact that something is meaningful does not make it less likely to be coincidence.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

The fact that something is meaningful does not make it less likely to be coincidence.

Indeed. And let's not forget that there's no such thing as "nearly impossible". Either it's possible or not.

And having something POSSIBLE happen, isn't paranormal at all...

 

[Maia]

Okay, this reminds me of what we like to call "the Nashville effect..."

Everyone I know has experienced it. Once you live here, you will run into people you know under the most bizarre and unlikely conditions imaginable (including randomly in other states in the middle of cross-country drives at truck stops in the middle of the night.) Every human being will suddenly become either someone you know or the friend of a friend.

I finally realized that there simply had to be some kind of logical explanation for this. It wasn't confirmation bias, because it literally almost never happened in the area where I'd grown up-- I could count the number of times on one hand. In Nashville, it was constant. That might be explained by the fact that the social circles were smaller, but only to a degree-- and what about the fact that the same thing would happen no matter where I went? (I'd decided that if I was ever lost in the middle of the Siberian wasteland, all I'd have to do would be to sit down and start chewing on some reindeer jerky, and my best friend from Nashville would undoubtedly stroll along in the next five minutes. No other attempts at rescue would be required.)

I think this is actually a very good example of how seemingly inexplicable coincidences can be explained, because I've realized what the logical explanation probably is. Back in Minnesota, people didn't really talk to each other. (In my childhood, it was extremely homogenous;we were a bunch of Scandinavians-- we did things like shaking hands at family reunions.) If you had anything in common with a stranger, you'd never find out. If you even knew someone walking by you on the street, you might not find out, because of the entire lack-of-eye-contact thing. When I moved to the South, it took a long time to get used to the weird way everyone was constantly hugging and smiling and using weird appellations such as "honey". However, it meant that we all got to know each other, and then we'd actually do things like start a conversation with people we didn't know in other areas and find out if we knew someone in common.

So it's either that, or the sinister influence of the Freemasons meeting in that limestone building on Broadway across from the downtown Episcopal church with the mysterious bell tower...

 

[Rrose Selavy]

Yep, we see and make significant meaning and without releasing, disregard all the stuff that doesn't seem to make sense or even appears uncannily remarkable.

There's also the cluster effect. If you take a handful of stones and throw them onto the ground they don't fall at an equal distant etc , they fall in random unequal groups , or clusters. Some closer to others.
Same with events. some appearing more signficant than others.

A striking coincidence I find that happens quite often is when I read a word and at the exact same time I read it the word is spoken on TV.

-

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

In most cases, I would probably agree with you. However, there are certain series of events that seem like they would have closer to a "billion in one" probability of occurring.

Given the multiple billions of things that happen in the World every single day it would be far more supernatural if billion to one shots didn't happen fairly regularly.

 

[Kritikos]

So it's either that, or the sinister influence of the Freemasons meeting in that limestone building on Broadway across from the downtown Episcopal church with the mysterious bell tower...

Plainly it's the Freemasons. How else to explain the uncanny fact of my reading this the day after being in a Masonic hall (using their space for a musical rehearsal).