FLUKEY OR SPOOKY? Incredible real-life coincidences ...or are they?

DaveC426913

You know what spooky activity I just saw??

I just saw a thread rise from the dead, having been buried for almost three years! Whoa!

GeorginaS

Yeah, but it works so nicely with the current "Ghost Story" thread.

Oooo was that a coincidence? Or did someone make that happen?

DHFabian

Nah, didn't rise from the dead. I just spend enough time wandering through the Internet crypts
(the fun of obscure researches). The point is, you can find an "eerie" chain of coincidence in nearly anything, if you look long enough. There's nothing mystical or spooky about it. It just happens.

DaveC426913

I agree.

I often have to explain that "coincindences happen. And they don't need to be explained; they're coincidences - that's the definition."

Ivan Seeking

This is the problem that I see: What are the odds?

Far more often than not, we have no idea what the odds for any particular event might be, so we can only assume that all "coincidences" can be explained as statistical flukes. But we can't state that as a fact. We have no way to test the claim. We have no model by which to make predictions and then test the frequency of such events. If coincidences occur more often than they should, we wouldn't have any way to know.

zoobyshoe

Remember this next time you see something in a painting that looks like a brain.

baywax

Actually the definition of coincidence would be two incidences taking place at the same time... which happens all the time.

Ivan Seeking

There is no need for language trivia or discussion of the trivial case. We are talking about events that are perceived to be statistically unlikely. The trouble is that we have to define what statistical relationship exists. And then determine how often one would expect a 1:100, or 1:1,000,000 event, or whatever the odds are, to occur.

Thetom

Wow! That is... uncanny :) What are the odds of that? He was a very fluky guy (or very spooky, depending on your views).

There can't be millions of people on their death-beds all trying to call help and getting the wrong number. Enough so that it becomes probable that one would get the right wrong number at some point. Can there?

DaveC426913

OK, but ten things coming together at the same time and place doesn't really fit coincidence.

GeorginaS

I think that the key word in this is "perceived". Perceived as statistically unlikely. I think that's beginning with the faulty premise that there is a statistical unlikelihood to begin with.

The name of this thread is "incredible real-life coincidences" when, really, I don't think they stretch credulity, but they are awfully darned interesting.

How many individual events happen to every person each and every day? We only pay attention to the ones that have any significance or meaning to us personally because we'd otherwise be overwhelmed with information. Add to that that our brains are designed to perceive patterns and then we also have a tendency to group together supporting ideas that include evidence of that pattern.

A simple one is how many people do we walk past every day? We don't take note of the majority of them nor does it seem remarkable to us that there are other people in public places where we are. But run into someone at Safeway who you haven't seen since high school 30 years ago, and you both attended a high school on the opposite end of the country, and now you have a "what are the chances?" event. It's not a statistical question. You've already been in that store day in and out with hundreds and hundreds of people. Why is running into someone you know less likely than running into all kinds of people you don't know? You don't pay attention to one grouping, but you pay attention to the other grouping.

And I think if we peer too closely at coincidences -- which are, I think, really just regular events we pay attention to rather than not -- we begin wandering into synchronicity and meaning and whatnot. (One especially has to be careful of the "whatnot". It sneaks up on you.)

QuanticEnigma

The probability of running into someone you know is much higher than running into somebody you haven't seen for 30 years and on the other side of the country, I think it's the latter that's more significant in that situation. This is a pretty trivial point, but the number of people you don't know far outnumbers the number of which you do know, so it would make sense you would pay attention to that minority when you are out. That being said, I don't think you would walk into a store, expecting to see someone from 30 years ago, and from the other side of the country.

zoobyshoe

I brought this up before a few years back, but I guess it bears repeating. Feynman deftly pointed out the irrelevancy of statistical probability to any given event:

"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!"

Any given specific event is statistically extremely improbable. The more specifically you define the event the more true that becomes (that particular license plate on that particular night!). As Georgina pointed out, we only notice the incredible improbability when the specific event has personal significance. The odds of running into a person you haven't seen in 30 years at the store one day are actually about the same as the odds of running into a specific individual you've never encountered before, if only you appreciate how specific that specific individual actually is, and how specific that time and place. Each stranger, each time, each place, is a very specific. Once you pay attention to that, and focus on how specific they are, the odds of you encountering them become less and less probable. We beat unbelievable odds moment by moment, all day long.

As Georgina emphasized, the key word is "perceived". We are pattern-seeking creatures, with a distinct leaning toward giving everything a kind of "pattern test". Very small whiffs of familiarity put us on alert and we test them to see if they fit a pattern we know. By this mechanism, a circle, two dots and an arc are "recognized" as a smiling face: , when in fact it bears no authentic resemblance to any face in nature. We even accept it rotated 90 degrees, without the circle :) It's a stripped down abstraction that never-the-less works due to our propensity for checking for patterns at many different levels of perception. Certain kinds of specificity take on extraordinary importance. Other kinds, though equally specific, are ignored, discounted.

Calulating the probability of an event ends up being immaterial in determining if it was a coincidence or not. If you define the event according to certain parameters it become statistically impossible that it should ever occur. Define it according to other parameters, and it becomes inevitable that it should occur.

QuanticEnigma

Thanks for clarifying that, I think I was referring to all strangers, not a particular individual. But maybe a person isn't considered "particular" until you actually acknowledge them. For example, the probably of seeing "a person" in the street is very high, but if you find out his name and then hope to see him again, that probability drastically reduces. So, really, its the probability of finding him again thats low, not the probability of finding him in the first place. Since you've already seen the friend from 30 years ago, the chance of finding them again is very low, whereas the chance of finding a stranger for the first time is very high.

turbo

http://www.physicsforums.com/showpos...74&postcount=8

Old post, but still a "wow" moment.

GeorginaS

Thank you for all of that, Zooby. You fleshed those thoughts out far more coherently than I did.

DaveC426913

The one I've always used (because I invented it) is:

"More babies are born during a full moon than any other time. Just ask any nurse; they'll corroborate it."

To which my response is: when is the last time a nurse, while attending a birth, looked out the window and remarked "Wow, another baby born during a waning gibbous Moon!"?