Thread: Coincidences

Originally Posted by * Diamond Eyes *

What is your take on coincidences? Do you think it's merely that..a coincidence?..or is there something more to them? are they the universes way of telling us something .. or our subconscious telling us something that we consciously don't pick up on? Just curious..what's your thoughts?

It isn't anything telling anything to anything else.

I mean you could put it that way put it's giving a bad impression.

I only believe in coincidences when the coincidences in question don't appear in the religious, business, social, or political world. I would like to believe in them, but the paranoid person that was raised by someone who does investigations for a living won't allow me not to question them.

Of course coincidences are just coincidences.

Getting double sixes when rolling a pair of dice has a probability of 1 in 36. When you get double sixes it doesn't mean anything. It's just something that happens roughly every 1 in 36 times you roll a pair of dice. If you never rolled a pair of sixes in your life, that would be the extraordinary thing, not vice versa.

We're only aware of a fraction of the chains of events we set in motion from moment to moment, and the interweaving networks of cause and effect in which we operate. Coincidences can indicate patterns we didn't know we were part of, or things we set in motion individually or mutually without realizing. At the very least, keeping an eye out for synchronicities can keep us alert to opportunities.

Asking if you actually believe in the definition of a word is kind of stupid. Language loses all meaning otherwise.

Of course a coincidence is a coincidence, it's why we call it a coincidence!

"Was that coincidence actually a coincidence?"
"No dude, we just use the word coincidence for no apparent reason. It's not one at all".


And all these discussions show is that most people are extremely bad at probability and latch on to arbitrary patterns. During the course of our lifetimes, statistically we're going to have some very unlikely stuff happen. Most however do not understand probability and statistics and mistakenly attribute meaning to these events.

Coincidence is nothing but a word stupid people use to hide their stupidity. They label everything with coincidence so that they no longer need to think about the underlying chain of cause and effect.

Stupid person: "We said the same word at the same time, what a huge coincidence! Omg!"
Notstupid person: "We said the same word at the same time, this means we must have been thinking about the same thing, and if we were thinking about the same thing, it also means we most likely have experienced the same thing and if... etc etc"

The use of the word coincidence in your thinking will make you stupid if you accept it as a valid explanation of anything at all because using the coincidence as an explanatio stops you from figuring out the chain of causes and effects. Using the word coincidence as an explanation is exactly the same thing as using the word God to explain everything.

Okay...so maybe I worded it wrong..I'm saying is there any possibility that they could be more than just cause and effect? I know coincidences happen every day, all the time and most people don't even notice or recognize them.. but i mean the bigger ones, the ones that are harder to just explain away..If you've heard about the 'Celestian Prophecies' you might know what I'm talking about.

Even really insane coincidences have an extremely high probability of happening at some point. The probability that they will never happen is virtually zero. If you go through your whole life without coming across several really weird coincidences, something funny is going on.

Sorry (as in not really) to always be taking the middle road, but restating the assurance that coincidences will happen is no less inane than asking if they are God whispering in your ear. They're a compelling feature of human experience which can yield value or distraction; isn't it more profitable to consider how to use them well?

Originally Posted by * Diamond Eyes *

is there something more to them? are they the universes way of telling us something .. or our subconscious telling us something that we consciously don't pick up on? Just curious..what's your thoughts?

It is all in what effect it has on you. The subconscious is part of the universe so either way, if you notice a coincidence, or as I call them: synchronicity, it affects you. It makes you stop or pause and do a double-take. It is like a dreamsign signaling you to do a reality check. A reality check about what? What is the synchronicity about? Is there an apparent message or is it random. Does it stimulate a deja vu feeling? Is it related to a recent dream? If so this is what I call dreambridging. A synchronicity between a recent dream and a current synchronicity in waking life is an auspicious sign that your subconscious is aligning with your conscious as your dreams reflect waking life and waking life reflects dreams. We all know that waking life affects dreaming but when dreaming seems to reflect waking life synchronicities abound, at least subjectively. Whether or not why or if it just because you are looking for it is not important. But just because you experience it and it affects your psyche. Following the path of coincidences can lead to prophetic dream experiences, which if that does not agree with your worldview you can label it a coincidence and be done with it.
On the path of integration of consciousness via lucid dreaming synchronicities are mile markers.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Sorry (as in not really) to always be taking the middle road, but restating the assurance that coincidences will happen is no less inane than asking if they are God whispering in your ear.

Say what?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

They're a compelling feature of human experience which can yield value or distraction; isn't it more profitable to consider how to use them well?

How do you use coincidences well, and why not "use them well" and also analyze why they happen?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Say what?



How do you use coincidences well, and why not "use them well" and also analyze why they happen?

I'm saying precisely all of the above. To claim coincidence as utterly random in the interest of shrugging it off wastes it, whereas accepting one's small place in the system of cause and effect opens up whole new vistas of cause and effect.

How? And why can't you do both?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

How? And why can't you do both?

That's what I'm saying, you can do both. There's nothing magical behind a run of synchronicity, but it can certainly be enlightening.

Like there might be deeper patterns running behind the scenes that to express themselves in seemingly unrelated events but might not refer to anything or have any meaning other than what you give to it. These patterns might show up in the flight of a bumblebee, the orbit of the moon, the growth of a snail shell and the coldness of the winter.

For example, when a caterpillar is in a cacoon it dissolves into a jelly and its legs become the spots on the wings of the butterfly when it becomes a butterfly. You would think that the legs of the caterpillar become the legs of the butterfly. So it would appear that the spots on the wings of a butterfly are unrelated to the legs of the caterpillar but that is not so, they are related. It is hard to articulate what I'm trying to say. But nature is efficient and it often uses one gene in the DNA to accomplish unrelated tasks. Might not the same be true for the universe in general?

No. Why would it? DNA is efficient because it aids the duplication of said DNA. No such principle applies to the universe?

Originally Posted by Xei

No. Why would it? DNA is efficient because it aids the duplication of said DNA. No such principle applies to the universe?

So you're saying that we've gotten to the bottom of the universe's mysteries? that there's no way possible at all that that could be true? See it's thinkers like us (the ones with the wild ideas) that said "the world might not be flat" and "what if we could go to the moon" and "the earth might not be the center of the universe/galaxy".... and so on and so on and so on .... you first have to imagine to find out if it can or cannot be done/ is or isn't that way....... every scientist knows this to be the most important rule...

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..." " ~Isaac Asimov

"A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective." ~Edward Teller

and... "Science does not know its debt to imagination." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I asked him to explain his reasoning. He hasn't yet. What's wrong with that? If you make a claim, you have justify it somehow if you want me to believe it. People had a point when they said there was no evidence that the Earth should be flat, but it didn't become a fact until they actually did experiments affirm it.

Originally Posted by Xei

I asked him to explain his reasoning. He hasn't yet. What's wrong with that? If you make a claim, you have justify it somehow if you want me to believe it. People had a point when they said there was no evidence that the Earth should be flat, but it didn't become a fact until they actually did experiments affirm it.

i apollogize if i offended, i was merely commenting on that post.

Of course I'm not offended.

But I have as many 'wild ideas' as the next person. I just have the requirement that you provide some kind of reason that they're true before you believe them.

Imagination and reason are both vital aspects of science. Ralph Emerson clearly didn't have a clue what he was talking about. It's the scientists who were imagining things in the first place.

backing down now

Originally Posted by Xei

Imagination and reason are both vital aspects of science. Ralph Emerson clearly didn't have a clue what he was talking about. It's the scientists who were imagining things in the first place.

That still doesn't invalidate Emerson's statement. I believe that it means something along the lines of how science portrays itself as rigid and purely based on facts, forgetting the imagination [the scientists] put into creating it in the first place. You have to admit that any creative aspect about science is very much downplayed.

That is not how science portrays itself; that is how the media portray science.

Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. There is a body of knowledge that is scientific, but even if all of those facts and observations were erased (tragic as that would be) the method would still exist.

That said, science certainly appears rigid, if you do not understand--or are philosophically opposed to--the idea of testing our assumptions. If you are a fan of, say, homeopathy, an alternative "medicine" that flies in the face of medical knowledge and has been proven not to work, then in order to support that belief, you must either be ignorant of where science stands on the topic, or you must reject it as a method of inquiry.

The problem is, though, that if you reject science as a method of inquiry, you have essentially excused yourself from any possible reasoned discussion.

As to the question of coincidence, I recommend this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OTsYfTt-c

Originally Posted by RCLefty

That is not how science portrays itself; that is how the media portray science.

Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. There is a body of knowledge that is scientific, but even if all of those facts and observations were erased (tragic as that would be) the method would still exist.

That said, science certainly appears rigid, if you do not understand--or are philosophically opposed to--the idea of testing our assumptions. If you are a fan of, say, homeopathy, an alternative "medicine" that flies in the face of medical knowledge and has been proven not to work, then in order to support that belief, you must either be ignorant of where science stands on the topic, or you must reject it as a method of inquiry.

The problem is, though, that if you reject science as a method of inquiry, you have essentially excused yourself from any possible reasoned discussion.

As to the question of coincidence, I recommend this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OTsYfTt-c

I like this