Weird Experience

[sadhatter]

I've been obsessing about death lately. My wife is very spiritual, and yesterday she said, "Why don't you ask my mom (deceased, lived with us for years) for help? I know you're a skeptic, but it doesn't cost you anything". My wife then told me she gets signs from her mom all the time, mostly in the form of seeing license plates, particularly New Mexico. It has something to do with some experiences they had in New Mexico. I rolled my eyes (pareidolia, and all that).

But I said, OK, and mentally asked for a sign yesterday morning. A few hours later, we're walking out of a theater, and we walk down the wrong row of cars, looking for my car, and of course, there's a New Mexico plate. My wife gets all excited, and even I think it's a little strange, because we don't see them much in California (they're bright yellow plates). So we go down another row of cars and there's another New Mexico plate. And this is literally hours after she told me about the license plate thing.

I could laugh it off as coincidence (and no doubt anyone reading this probably is), but it was very strange. I commute an hour a day on the freeway and can't recall seeing a New Mexico plate in a long time. It's a small state, doesn't border California, I live in the sticks, and it's rare to see any non-California plate.

Anyway, I thought it was strange. Does anyone else have experiences like that?

If you really want to take the spooky out of this situation ask your wife the following question.

What version of spirituality does she subscribe to in which an individual spirit has the ability to bend reality so much that people are appearing at random simply as a laugh.

Because if these are signs then these people are being diverted. Now either her mother is controlling them, our simply poofing then into existence miles away. Either way, if every dead person has this ability, there are some serious philosophical questions that require explaining.

 

[Dr. Keith]

When I bought my new car a year ago, I couldn't recall ever seeing one on the streets. Roughly a month after buying it, I was seeing them everywhere - same model, same colour... weirdness or priming (confirmation) bias? I vote the latter.

Had the same thing happen after buying a new car for my wife, saw them everywhere! Then, I thought I saw one with her license plate!!

I knew she was home and the car was home but that car in front of me was exactly like hers and had the same license plate, except maybe last digit. I actually called her to verify the car was in the garage and she did not laugh as much as I had hoped. I thought it was pretty darn funny.

 

[Fudbucker]

Well, again my post is ignored, and a new member becomes a target for sarcasm.

What I mentioned up thread, is that I believe his opening sentence explains a lot. He has stated that he has been having obsessive thoughts about death. I believe that is really the issue. The fear is enough to make him grasp at straws. Seeing car plates is very secondary.

I would like to know more about his obsession with death, if he is willing to open up about it. Because I believe it is crucial to his story.

But really folks, pointing out the absurdity with endless sarcastic jokes is getting old and repetitive.

Just my opinion, if anyone cares.

I was partying with friends and had a bad trip (weed) and began obsessing about death. Now the thought is stuck in my head.

I've had this sort of episode before. I'm 38 and healthy and I went to the doctor today and got a scrip for Zoloft. Last time it happened (15 years ago), it was Prozac that helped me through it. I assume Zoloft will probably do the trick.

I have to address one other post, and then I'm done with this thread (and probably this forum). I have 1200 posts here, from almost two years (almost all Science and Politics), and I'm really disgusted by some of the patronizing responses here.

 

[Fudbucker]

Yes, but none of that happened. An if it did, it could still be coincidence.



Sure it would (be rational to chalk it up to coincidence). No different than you picking three random numbers, being sure you'll win, and actually winning. Why would somebody else picking the numbers for you be any more of a coincidence? How many other times has that person told other people to play different numbers and been wrong? If I play the numbers in my fortune cookie and win, does that mean fortune cookies provide accurate fortunes? Or that particular fortune cookie was somehow magical when none of the others were? Or was it a very favorable coincidence?

This is wrong. If someone applied for Randi's Million Dollar Challenge with the claim: "I'm going to channel a spirit that will give me the winning powerball numbers AND they won the powerball (1 in 175 million chance), then they deserve to win the million-dollar challenge. If they didn't win the challenge, it would rightly be considered as unwinnable.

Consider: if someone claimed they had ESP, and then got 7 out of 10 Zener cards right in a controlled trial, AND in a subsequent trial, the person got 6 out of 10 right, AND then in another trial got 6 out of 10 right, the rational conclusion would be some kind of psi ability, because you're talking odds of over 1 in 100 million of getting that kind of result by random chance, which are similar odds of predicting (and winning) the Powerball Lottery.

So in either case, they either win Randi's Challenge, or the Challenge becomes meaningless because no matter what a person does (100 out of 100 Zener Cards right, three lottery wins in a row, etc.), the "luck" hypothesis will always win out.

 

[Stray Cat]

... So in either case, they either win Randi's Challenge, or the Challenge becomes meaningless because no matter what a person does (100 out of 100 Zener Cards right, three lottery wins in a row, etc.), the "luck" hypothesis will always win out.

It has always been stated that someone winning the MDC will not actually prove the existence of paranormal powers. It will simply be the first stage in finding something potentially interesting to investigate.

We even had a thread last year discussing that the more tests that are taken, the higher the chance is of someone winning by luck alone.

 

[Fudbucker]

And I'm not a clueless moron who has no idea of the area he's lived in for 38 years. We don't get many out of state people, so plates that are out-of-state (and of a bright color, like N.M. plates) stick out. I won't swear to it, but I believe that's the first time I've even seen N.M. plates, because I was surprised at the bright yellow color. But I may have seen a few over the years.

I still think it was coincidence, but a remarkable coincidence because of the specificity of the claim, the rareness of the claim, and the fact that it happened twice within hours of the conversation. My wife's explanation is that my dead mother-in-law put the suggestion in our minds to see that particular movie at that particular time and park in that particular spot so that we would notice the plates that were already there. Not that the people who drove out here from N.M. were under some sort of compulsion to fulfill my request.

To use the shooting-star analogy I used earlier, I haven't seen a shooting star for years, because I rarely look at the night sky. If someone told me I would see two in one night, without any deviation in my normal hardly-look-at-the-night sky routine, it would be very surprising, and very surprising results demand explanations, and those explanations aren't always "it was just chance" (see Multiverse theory as an explanation for the Fine-Tuning problem. Esp. See Max Tegmark's responses in the thread I started)

 

[Fudbucker]

It has always been stated that someone winning the MDC will not actually prove the existence of paranormal powers. It will simply be the first stage in finding something potentially interesting to investigate.

We even had a thread last year discussing that the more tests that are taken, the higher the chance is of someone winning by luck alone.

That's a ridiculous statement. Someone who can accurately predict, under controlled circumstances (mechanical die roller, person in another room, etc.), die rolls 200 times in a row has a psi-ability, case closed. There's only three competing hypotheses- luck, cheating, or ESP. You can control for cheating and only an idiot would believe it was random chance. Certainly, you would study the person further, but you would also have to conclude, before you study them at all, they have an ESP ability.

 

[Stray Cat]

That's a ridiculous statement. Someone who can accurately predict, under controlled circumstances (mechanical die roller, person in another room, etc.), die rolls 200 times in a row has a psi-ability, case closed. There's only three competing hypotheses- luck, cheating, or ESP. You can control for cheating and only an idiot would believe it was random chance. Certainly, you would study the person further, but you would also have to conclude, before you study them at all, they have an ESP ability.

No, it would be silly based upon one relatively small study to conclude that someone had powers that up to now have not been shown to exist.

No one with an ounce of sense would form a conclusion at the start of a study... It would be anti-scientific to do so.

Of course before taking the MDC, what constitutes a win are agreed by both parties and if someone did what they claimed to be able to do, they would get the money regardless. Remember that the challenge does not ask that an explanation of "how" be offered or proven, but only that a claim can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the agreement.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

To use the shooting-star analogy I used earlier, I haven't seen a shooting star for years, because I rarely look at the night sky. If someone told me I would see two in one night, without any deviation in my normal hardly-look-at-the-night sky routine[...]

But do you normally pay particular attention to the licence plates in rows of parked cars? If not, then you did change your not-looking-at-the-licence-plates-in-rows-of-parked-cars routine. If so, then why?

 

[skullerello]

Once, on a cross-state roadtrip with my old paint-ball team, I told them I could auger the outcome of the tournament -to which we were headed -by reading a discarded shopping list I'd found in the parking lot of a liquor store we were forced to visit. (by me...)
After a good 13 seconds of dedicated, drunken scrying, I determined that all the signs were in our favor: We would be victorious. All the determinant factors indicated a positive outcome; I mean, noone else in our group could even recognize the portents of finding a discarded shopping list in the parking lot of a liquor store, let alone being able to intèrpret such an auspisious item. What are the odds of coming across such an unnatural, divinely-deposited, positively propitious piece of information?!

Need I offer the punch-line?

 

[marplots]

That's a ridiculous statement. Someone who can accurately predict, under controlled circumstances (mechanical die roller, person in another room, etc.), die rolls 200 times in a row has a psi-ability, case closed. There's only three competing hypotheses- luck, cheating, or ESP. You can control for cheating and only an idiot would believe it was random chance. Certainly, you would study the person further, but you would also have to conclude, before you study them at all, they have an ESP ability.

This isn't really so. You can never determine the cause of some happenstance merely by observing that the event happened - unless you know something more. The rarity of an event doesn't matter as much as you think. I was one of an estimated 100 million plus sperm - yet here I am.

This is why coincidences and patterns are only a start. We need explanations to go with them. Explanations are where the rubber meets the road. The best we can say at this point is that something happened and no one knows exactly why or how.

I'm guessing and so is everyone else. That's all we can do with so little information. I think my guesses are more likely, but how could I possibly do other than guess?

 

[Iamme]

I would think "oh, what a coincidence" and get on with my life.

In fact. I was once at a festival, sitting on the ground in a circle with a bunch of people I knew. I was enjoying myself just sitting there and couldn't be arsed to stand up, but I noticed that I was starting to feel thirsty. I said "I could really use a drink" out loud and at that instance a man leant over my left shoulder and said "Mind Over Mango?". He had a tap coming out of his sleeve attached to a tank on his back and he was going round giving out free samples of a new soft drink. As soon as I voiced that I wanted something there it was, right in front of me.

I thought then that it was nothing more than a coincidence, and I've continued to think that ever since.

There's a page somewhere on the internet which I can't find just now which is nothing but a list of incredible coincidences that have happened to people. Some put both yours and mine to shame. That's because there's a lot of people in the world.

If Fuducker would be the go-between, between his wife and us, we could keep this thread going awhile.
Hey Fuducker. Get your wife to read that coincidences website Squeegee here is refering to. Perhaps google something like World`s Most Unusual Coincidences. Then tell us what she thinks, and then now what she thinks about the NM license plates coincidence.
.
Now, i`m going to refresh you all about my coincidences. Yes, i would imagine all of us have stories to share about odd coincidences where you might think the spirit world is trying to get our attention. But the thing is with me, I`ve had a run of so many of them, with syncronicity of usually between instant and about a 1/2 day. And that`s after i have weeded out more explainable coincidences where say i ate a filet o fish and on tv comes their filet o fish ad they are running during Lent.
But one thing that has kept my skeptic radar up a little, is the fact that there never seems to be a pattern or replication to convince me that someone or somerhing is sending hints my way. For example, when i got that Monopoly house, why didnt i also find other meaningful items as well? Or why when i cleaned the next rental wasnt there similarly one item left behind, that had some extra meaning only to me?
Why only these sporadic coincidences. Like...opening up the phone book...well, just today, on the very page i opened, what popped out at me without searching, is a guy i know who roofs and sides for the guy i work for! Boom, there it was! Small print just like any residential name listing. Or, how many times above chance i look at the time and it`s 11:11.
Here is a good one for you that i just remembered: I used to buy my gas, often, in a resort town i lived, at a particular station. I then moved about 1700 miles south. For a hobby, i helped at a gas station there sometimes, on a weekend. In comes the owners of the gas station from the resort town! I pumped THEIR gas.
Or, the one where a house i used to live in got featured in state newspapers, and i wasnt always reading the paper at that time, and i`m reading the Home Section C, full page pics and story, no address given, and something caught my eye regarding the side sidewalk and a shed in the backyard. Then i read and it gave the town. My ex-town, with that house, 265 miles away from where i saw it in the paper. I called up my sister who still lives in that town, to run over to the house to see if that realtors sign was out front. Yep. That was it. What is the odds?
Well, after the shock wore off, i did a rough figuring of the odds. Turns out that as spectacular a coincidence as it seemed, the odds of this was NOT 17,000,000: 1, like some lotteries are. It was in the thousands to 1. (Single family housing units in my state, divided by how many are up for sale at any one given moment.). But still, a very significant coincidence. One of those once in a lifetime jobbies, like the one i had with the gas station owners.

 

[marplots]

I don't think the odds tell you anything of interest, but I am at a loss on how to communicate this idea with any force.

 

[stanfr]

To use the shooting-star analogy I used earlier, I haven't seen a shooting star for years, because I rarely look at the night sky. If someone told me I would see two in one night, without any deviation in my normal hardly-look-at-the-night sky routine, it would be very surprising, and very surprising results demand explanations, and those explanations aren't always "it was just chance" (see Multiverse theory as an explanation for the Fine-Tuning problem. Esp. See Max Tegmark's responses in the thread I started)

This is where you are going wrong, Fudbucker. As mentioned in the preceding post, shooting stars are extremely common. I do a lot of night photography and even in light polluted areas ive seen a gazillion meteors. Where you are going wrong is saying "without any deviation..." immediately following your statement that "if someone told me..." The latter would make it almost certain that you would deviate Same goes for the NM plates. You can't make the statement 'you never see these plates' when you havent actually done the study--go out there and start counting out-of-state plates!

I sympathize with your reaction to some of the comments (been there, experienced that...) but i have to agree with the others--you are misunderstanding the significance of rare events. If someone predicts the lottery numbers (and incidentally, if i could do that, i wouldnt be wasting my time on the MDC, id already be a trillionaire) that proves nothing, regardless of whether it satisfies the rules of some challenge. (although the 200 die rolls would be a better example than the relatively easy lottery win). Start replicating, and explaining, and then you're on the right path.

Oh--and another thought about the plates. My first guess is that it was part of a group, not different random folks. You can't all park right next to each other. So, most likely it was just one mere coincidence and not multiple ones.

 

[stanfr]

Why only these sporadic coincidences. Like...opening up the phone book...well, just today, on the very page i opened, what popped out at me without searching, is a guy i know who roofs and sides for the guy i work for! Boom, there it was! Small print just like any residential name listing. Or, how many times above chance i look at the time and it`s 11:11.

Ha, Dave--that reminds me of this classic scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahuPW6_t-z0

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

If someone predicts the lottery numbers (and incidentally, if i could do that, i wouldnt be wasting my time on the MDC, id already be a trillionaire) that proves nothing, regardless of whether it satisfies the rules of some challenge.

Is it worth pointing out that someone does correctly predict the lottery numbers, at a rate of about 1 person a week?

 

[Spock Jenkins]

This is wrong. If someone applied for Randi's Million Dollar Challenge with the claim: "I'm going to channel a spirit that will give me the winning powerball numbers AND they won the powerball (1 in 175 million chance), then they deserve to win the million-dollar challenge. If they didn't win the challenge, it would rightly be considered as unwinnable.

You didn't say "powerball" in the post I replied to. You said daily 3. You also didn't say anything beyond somebody told you to play three numbers and you played them and won (hypothetically). You didn't not specify a controlled environment. I think this is referred to as "moving the goal posts".

I'll confess, I have little knowledge of Zener cards beyond what I can conclude from your comments. They would seem to be some part of a test for psychic ability. Spotting license plates from New Mexico in California, however, would not be.

 

[skullerello]

I might add: If someone were to announce two-weeks prior to winning the Mega-bucks/Power-Ball jack-pot, using numbers they'd magically gleaned from some magical entity that they informed noone of, two weeks hence actually won said lottery, I'd give that a little more credence.

 

[marplots]

I might add: If someone were to announce two-weeks prior to winning the Mega-bucks/Power-Ball jack-pot, using numbers they'd magically gleaned from some magical entity that they informed noone of, two weeks hence actually won said lottery, I'd give that a little more credence.

I wouldn't. I'd still want to see the guts of the machine and how they work.

 

[Fudbucker]

You didn't say "powerball" in the post I replied to. You said daily 3. You also didn't say anything beyond somebody told you to play three numbers and you played them and won (hypothetically). You didn't not specify a controlled environment. I think this is referred to as "moving the goal posts".

I didn't say "daily 3". I said x,y,z. I was talking about a generic lottery. You can have a three number lottery that's harder to win than a Powerball lottery.

My point is that if someone makes a prediction (e.g., channeling a "spirit" to get the winning numbers), and the odds are hundreds of millions to one that they get it right, and they get it right, that would be exceptionally compelling proof that something weird went one.

But I think some people here would say, "Well...I would be really impressed if you won TWO lotteries!" and if they won another lottery, the response would be "Well, some people have won two lotteries, so I'd be really impressed if you won a third". At some point, you have to ditch the coincidence hypothesis.

I'll confess, I have little knowledge of Zener cards beyond what I can conclude from your comments. They would seem to be some part of a test for psychic ability. Spotting license plates from New Mexico in California, however, would not be.

No. If John predicts he can remote view, and we give Sally a license plate, and John and Sally are in different states, and John gets every number/letter right, that would be confirmation of psychic ability. Either that, or John got very very lucky (probably on par with predicting a lottery win based on numbers "channeled" by a dead person). If someone actually succesfully remote-viewed a license plate, the luck hypothesis would be irrational.