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

[Ivan Seeking]

The frequency of occurrence is once.

How many people are there in the world? How many have experiences like this, and how often? What are the odds of any event? How often should events like this occur based on the odds? Do we see a siginficant difference between our expectations and the results? One can even calculate the expected margin of error based on the size of the sample.

If you are talking about multiple occurrences then you are making an association between this coincidence and some other event(s), and then you'll have to show that there's a correlation.

You would have to compare similar events given a reasonable definition of what we mean by similar events. For example, one could in principle test to see how often people think of someone just before [within five minutes, for example] they call on the telephone. Then one could in principle calculate the odds to see how often that should happen, and compare the two. The problem is that it would be incredibly difficult to design a proper test that would be practical.

Asking the frequency of occurence of a coincidental event is kind of like asking what the wavelength of a rogue wave is.

No, it isn't. And your statement makes no sense.

This is what the PEAR group was doing for all of those years. They were looking for deviations from what we expect statistically, due to "psychic" or so-called "psi" influences, for events that should be random. While they claim to have found some deviations from the expected results, the deviations are allegedly only evident using meta-analysis. Apparently, for that reason, the results are not generally accepted. If they had found siginficant deviations from the statistical expectations, it would be strongly suggestive of an underlying mechanism for the results, as opposed to random chance, and assuming that the results could be duplicated generally.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If I experience four coincidences a day, is that a sufficient number to qualify for "a high rate of frequency?" If so, why?

This cannot be answered in isolation. You would have to give a specific example of the type of events that you mean. From there, in principle your answer could be calculated.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Let's make it real simple. Obviously there is some chance that I can predict which card I will randomly select from a deck of playing cards - 1:52. I can make a prediction, select a card, and see if my prediction matches the results. We would expect that every once in a while, after every 52 tries, on the average, I will get it right. But, if I could do this every single time - if I guessed every card correctly - would you still claim it is chance? How about every other card? How about every fifth card? There is a reasonable expectation that once in awhile I will get it right. But if I get it right every time or within some limit, or even if I only get it right on 1:51 tries, or 1:51.9 tries, eventually we can rule out chance with high confidence, based on the number of trials.

I may even get lucky and guess every card correctly for some finite number of trials. But if my luck is nothing but chance, as we do more and more trials, my average success rate should approach a value of 1:52, exactly. If this wasn't true, we wouldn't have Las Vegas. In the end, given enough non-psychic customers, , the house always wins. And we know this with high confidence, by the odds, and by the size of the sample. If a significant percentage of gamblers were able to use psychic abilities, to enhance their odds of winning to a significant degree, eventually this would be evident in the average house winnings over time, and Vegas would have a problem.

It also important to remember that, just as with Vegas, our card test doesn't require that we use the same person for each trial. We can use a different person for each trial, but the results should be the same. This is why we could in principle test for "coincidence" for large numbers of people that each only have a few, or one relevant experience. It doesn't require that only one person has many experiences that could be tested. If large numbers of people have similar experiences, assuming that we can properly define what we mean by "similar experiences" and then design a good test, in principle we could check to see if chance is sufficient to explain the experiences, or not, to a level of confidence determined by the sample size.

 

[alt]

The frequency of occurrence is once.

Yes, the frequency of occurance of any event is once - once it occurs

If you are talking about multiple occurrences then you are making an association between this coincidence and some other event(s), and then you'll have to show that there's a correlation.

Hopefully, my reply to Georgia, following, might answer this.

Asking the frequency of occurence of a coincidental event is kind of like asking what the wavelength of a rogue wave is.

Well, if a rogue wave occurred frequently, I sure would want to know it's length :-)

 

[alt]

And, alt, you still haven't addressed this idea for me. Even if you're talking about the frequency of coincidences in general happening (as opposed to the specific events that they are ie: a chain of specific events called coincidences) how frequent is more frequent than anticipated?

An event with a 50% probability, would, should, obviously occur more frequently than one with a 10% probability.

You seem to believe or think or feel that there is some rate or number that is represented by the word "unusual". I'd like to know what the threshold is for "unusual rate".

See below.

If I experience four coincidences a day, is that a sufficient number to qualify for "a high rate of frequency?" If so, why?

If those events had a probability factor of, say, 50%+, I wouldn't get exited.

If OTOH each event, though unrelated, had a probability factor of, say 10%, and you had four a day to use your example, I reckon there's reason for enquiry.

I am of course, talking about information, ie, knowing something prior to it occurring.

I'm not saying that seeing, for instance, nine red cars and only one blue one, is anomalous.

The thing that needs to be considered, is whether it is possible to determine the probability factor of seeing someone after 30 years, whilst he just came into your mind 30 minures ago (to go back to my original example).

The UNIQUE thing here IS NOT that you saw him after 30 years, it is that you thought about him 30 minutes before you saw him. Even that, on it's own, may be no big deal.

BUT, if such events occurred to you persistently, events whose odds of occurring might well be calculated at 100,00 :1 (purely a guess on my part, for the purpose of the arguement), then I do believe it is something to wonder about.

To wonder whether there is a more subtle, unknown and involuntary mode of perception.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The thing that needs to be considered, is whether it is possible to determine the probability factor of seeing someone after 30 years, whilst he just came into your mind 30 minures ago (to go back to my original example).

The UNIQUE thing here IS NOT that you saw him after 30 years, it is that you thought about him 30 minutes before you saw him. Even that, on it's own, may be no big deal.

I brought this up before a few posts 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!). ("And", we can put words in Feynman's mouth here, in response to the specificity of your example, "I was just thinking about those letters and numbers 30 minutes before!")

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.

If you suspect an individual event is not coincidental you have to investigate by some means other than calculating it's odds of occurrence. It may well not be a coincidence, but the odds against it are not what proves that: "Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!"

The added specificity of "I was just thinking about (put specific thing here) 30 minutes before," seems to make the odds against coincidence airtight. However, it's actually just once more specificity. We give that particular kind of specificity disproportionately huge weight because it seems to make the whole thing extremely personal.

 

[zoobyshoe]

If this wasn't true, we wouldn't have Las Vegas.

In Vegas the house does not get suspicious about a customer who beats the odds once. They only get nervous when they collect a good enough sample to demonstrate he's repeatedly winning more often than he should. Then they start scrutinizing him for cheating somehow.

Each flukey/spooky story is one of the odds being defied once. That means nothing because because the odds against any specific event are huge.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In Vegas the house does not get suspicious about a customer who beats the odds once. They only get nervous when they collect a good enough sample to demonstrate he's repeatedly winning more often than he should. Then they start scrutinizing him for cheating somehow.

Each flukey/spooky story is one of the odds being defied once. That means nothing because because the odds against any specific event are huge.

Did you bother to read the example that I gave.

I am not citing this information as a matter of opinion. It is a fact.

Note to all: Continued objections to this will qualify as crackpottery. If you still don't understand, then take a statistics class.

 

[Noja888]

Cool Topic!

I have wondered upon this concept myself many times Ivan. Some of the stories described here are similar to experiences my Wife and I share.

"Flukey? -or- Spooky?" Some ideas I have had are:

[edit by Ivan]

This would be tricky (and fun) to come up with some sort of experiment to test this. I think it would be hard to test due to (and only in my opinion) a quantum element or hidden variable in the process.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Cool Topic!

I have wondered upon this concept myself many times Ivan. Some of the stories described here are similar to experiences my Wife and I share...

"Flukey? -or- Spooky?" Some ideas I have had are:This would be tricky (and fun) to come up with some sort of experiment to test this. I think it would be hard to test due to (and only in my opinion) a quantum element or hidden variable in the process.

Thanks. Please note that you are free to share your stories, but we don't discuss theories. That would only be appropriate if we had published papers documenting the claims, and a formal theory.

 

[GeorginaS]

Let's make it real simple. Obviously there is some chance that I can predict which card I will randomly select from a deck of playing cards - 1:52. I can make a prediction, select a card, and see if my prediction matches the results. We would expect that every once in a while, after every 52 tries, on the average, I will get it right. But, if I could do this every single time - if I guessed every card correctly - would you still claim it is chance? How about every other card? How about every fifth card? There is a reasonable expectation that once in awhile I will get it right. But if I get it right every time or within some limit, or even if I only get it right on 1:51 tries, or 1:51.9 tries, eventually we can rule out chance with high confidence, based on the number of trials.

I may even get lucky and guess every card correctly for some finite number of trials. But if my luck is nothing but chance, as we do more and more trials, my average success rate should approach a value of 1:52, exactly. If this wasn't true, we wouldn't have Las Vegas. In the end, given enough non-psychic customers, , the house always wins. And we know this with high confidence, by the odds, and by the size of the sample. If a significant percentage of gamblers were able to use psychic abilities, to enhance their odds of winning to a significant degree, eventually this would be evident in the average house winnings over time, and Vegas would have a problem.

It also important to remember that, just as with Vegas, our card test doesn't require that we use the same person for each trial. We can use a different person for each trial, but the results should be the same. This is why we could in principle test for "coincidence" for large numbers of people that each only have a few, or one relevant experience. It doesn't require that only one person has many experiences that could be tested. If large numbers of people have similar experiences, assuming that we can properly define what we mean by "similar experiences" and then design a good test, in principle we could check to see if chance is sufficient to explain the experiences, or not, to a level of confidence determined by the sample size.

Did you bother to read the example that I gave.

I am not citing this information as a matter of opinion. If is a fact.

Note to all: Continued objections to this will qualify as crackpottery. If you still don't understand, then take a statistics class.

Just to be entirely clear, because I'm a bit confused, here, are you saying, Ivan, that we have to confine our discussion vis the perceptions of the importance or significance of coincidences to this statistical example involving cards?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Just to be entirely clear, because I'm a bit confused, here, are you saying, Ivan, that we have to confine our discussion vis the perceptions of the importance or significance of coincidences to this statistical example involving cards?

What I am saying is that while perhaps not practical, in principle we can use statistical analysis, and a properly designed test, to see if there are statistical aberrations in the occurrance [frequency] of events that should be random. But we can't discuss this in general terms. Specific examples have to be given in order to determine the relevance.

I gave the one example of thinking of someone less than five minutes before they call. Obviously there is some chance that this will happen from time to time. It would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to design and implement a good test for this, but, in principle, that number could be calculated, and the expected frequency of these events predicted, and compared to the measured frequency.

 

[alt]

I brought this up before a few posts 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!). ("And", we can put words in Feynman's mouth here, in response to the specificity of your example, "I was just thinking about those letters and numbers 30 minutes before!")

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.

If you suspect an individual event is not coincidental you have to investigate by some means other than calculating it's odds of occurrence. It may well not be a coincidence, but the odds against it are not what proves that: "Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!"

The added specificity of "I was just thinking about (put specific thing here) 30 minutes before," seems to make the odds against coincidence airtight. However, it's actually just once more specificity. We give that particular kind of specificity disproportionately huge weight because it seems to make the whole thing extremely personal.

I don't mean to get bogged down in repeating the argument in different ways, but IMO, there is a HUGE difference in;

- seeing license plate ARW 357, and saying "what are the chances of seeing that ?", and

- seeing license plate ARW 357 and realising you had thought of it, or it had come to mind somehow, a little earlier.

These two events are very different things, IMO.

 

[alt]

What I am saying is that while perhaps not practical, in principle we can use statistical analysis, and a properly designed test, to see if there are statistical aberrations in the occurrance [frequency] of events that should be random. But we can't discuss this in general terms. Specific examples have to be given in order to determine the relevance.

I gave the one example of thinking of someone less than five minutes before they call. Obviously there is some chance that this will happen from time to time. It would be incredibly difficult if not impossible to design and implement a good test for this, but, in principle, that number could be calculated, and the expected frequency of these events predicted, and compared to the measured frequency.

I agree. Calculating the probability would be an incredibly difficult thing - even for a statistician.

I wonder if anyone has any idea of how to go about it.

 

[Noja888]

My apologies Ivan. My mind starts running sometimes.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

- seeing license plate ARW 357, and saying "what are the chances of seeing that ?", and

Still, in principle we could test for this as well, but it gets messy. In fact, unless we assume that one or both drivers are following random routes, the odds of seeing a particular plate may not be incredibly low. Each driver typically has a home base, a daily route, and a destination [such as the location of their jobs], and they follow these routes according to predetermined schedules. It may be a near certainty that I will see a particular plate at least once over a period of one year. On the other hand, if our paths never cross because we live in different States, then the odds of seeing a particular plate may be zero. And this is why any analysis of this nature is usually a practical impossibility, or seemingly so. The amount of information required for each person could not only be large, but also subjective, or indeterminate.

How often might I think of a particular license plate just before I see it? Good luck! For that matter, how often might one think of the concept of a license plate, and not just one particular plate? I have no idea how one could address that question. This would in part be a function of our daily lives. I may see an interesting custom plate, or a sequence of numbers, that make me think of Bob’s license plate, just before I see Bob driving down the street. But we have no way to predict these sorts of random associations that influence our thinking - we would have to predict how often those things might happen, and how often they are likely to influence our thinking... It is a black hole. At most, one might determine some limits by doing things like considering the maximum number of thoughts that a person can have in a lifetime.

 

[Noja888]

Hmmm... yes the metrics in such an experiment would be tricky. Much of the information would be on a subjective level which could be categorized and quantified into a sort of objective statement. (Providing we set a standard to consider at what point does the subjective indications become real data).

Also by performing measurements in this 'experiment' the 'system' being measured would be disturbed in some fashion. Would we force the experimentee' to have more coincidences than would be? How would we measure the base test/placebo group? That would be even more difficult to conduct. I'll try to think of some ideas to post.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I was talking with a factory engineer the other day. After a bit of discussion, we realized that we are about the same age. We grew up near each other and both went to private religious schools. He has the same name as a guy that was in my class in the private school, but he's no relation. We both went on to get physics degrees. After graduating, we both went to work in not only the same field, but for the same two companies, and in the same order! [As he was telling me his history my jaw about hit the table] Right now, he lives about a half mile from an apartment that my first finacee and I had.

 

[jreelawg]

What about that myth about the number 23 and 32? Just for fun after watching the movie 23, me and my friends started checking to see if we could find any 23's and 32's. The month and day of my birthday add up to 32. The digits in my birth year add up to 23. So my birthdate is decoded as 32 23. My drivers license number ends in 23. All the letters in my name converted to their number place in the alphabet added together including my middle name=213. At the time was watching the movie, I was 23 years old. I graduated from high school in 2003. I had a combination lock, in which the combo was randomly 23-32-2. I know it doesn't mean anything, but it was fun at the time, after watching the movie thinking up all the coincidences.

 

[DaveC426913]

The month and day of my birthday add up to 32. The digits in my birth year add up to 23.

This is Numerology. And it's even sillier than Astrology (didn't think that was possible).

The associations are arbitrary, and a numerologist will just keep looking for the number until they find it.

What do the digits of the month and day of your birthday add up to? Nothing I'll bet.

If your birth year didn't add up to 23, you'd* look at just the last 2 digits of it. Or if it wasn't 23, you'd accept 32.

Keep trying combinations of adding whole numbers and digits, and then various permutations of operators, until one result comes back with the number you seek.


*not you you, of course. I mean some you that takes this seriously.

 

[baywax]

You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember.

Is this what is termed "coincidence"?

Is it some influence that is electromagnetic in nature (re: "thinking of")

Is it part of some "pre-cognitive" ability? or "intuition"?

Are there any studies that debunk the idea that this is a pre-cognitive awareness of events about to take place in the future?

And what does the word "coincidence" describe with regard to cases like this, other than the fact that 2 or more incidents take place at one time.

 

[baywax]

I was talking with a factory engineer the other day. After a bit of discussion, we realized that we are about the same age. We grew up near each other and both went to private religious schools. He has the same name as a guy that was in my class in the private school, but he's no relation. We both went on to get physics degrees. After graduating, we both went to work in not only the same field, but for the same two companies, and in the same order! [As he was telling me his history my jaw about hit the table] Right now, he lives about a half mile from an apartment that my first finacee and I had.

That's a parallel life situation Ivan. The odds of it happening under the conditions you describe are probably pretty high.

edit, ie... the odds of parallel lives coming out of West Point Academy are huge... coming out of a private, highly structured school... the odds are not as high but still pretty up there.

 

[DaveC426913]

You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember.

Is this what is termed "coincidence"?

Yes. Compare to the countless times you have thought of someone and they have not shown up.

And what does the word "coincidence" describe with regard to cases like this, other than the fact that 2 or more incidents take place at one time.

A coincidence, by definition, does not require an explanation. It is quite simply: two things, otherwise unrelated, happening at the same time.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yes.

Prove it.

 

[DaveC426913]

Prove it.

Don't need to. Null hypothesis. The onus is on him/you to show there is a connection - that it is not a coincidence.

You would need to show that, of all the times the subject has thought of some person, there is a statistically significant number where that person subsequently showed up.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Don't need to. Null hypothesis. The onus is on him/you to show there is a connection - that it is not a coincidence.

You would need to show that, of all the times the subject has thought of some person, there is a statistically significant number where that person subsequently showed up.

I don't need to show anything. I'm not claiming that precognition happens. I'm saying that you have no experimental data falsifying the claim. You cite statistical expectations with no experimental data to confirm your claim. Put another way, I am skeptical of your assertion. Show me the evidence.

We expect that accounts of seeming precognition can be explained as chance, but to show that it only happens as often as chance would allow is a tall order - we don't know that for a fact. It is true that we have no scientific expectations otherwise.

You are the one who made the definitive statement, not me. You are the one who carries the burden of proof. It is one thing to say what we expect or have evidence to support. It is quite another to state assumptions as facts. We assume the null hypothesis until evidence is produced otherwise, but it is still an assumption.

 

[DaveC426913]

You are the one who made the definitive statement, not me. You are the one who carries the burden of proof.

No. baywax (or the royal you, as it were) said :

"You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

There is an implicit assertion that there is phenomenon some there worth examining. There is the implicit assertion that something occurring five times over one's life is statistically significant.


Fine then, we'll take it slower. Let's roll back to baywax's post:

He: "You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

Me: "That's nice. I've seen yellow firetrucks 5 times in my life. Why are you telling us this?"

Your move Ivan/baywax.

 

[nismaratwork]

No. baywax (or the royal you, as it were) said :

"You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

There is an implicit assertion that there is phenomenon some there worth examining. There is the implicit assertion that something occurring five times over one's life is statistically significant.


Fine then, we'll take it slower. Let's roll back to baywax's post:

He: "You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

Me: "That's nice. I've seen yellow firetrucks 5 times in my life. Why are you telling us this?"

Your move Ivan/baywax.

In other words, ARW 357.

 

[baywax]

No. baywax (or the royal you, as it were) said :

"You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

There is an implicit assertion that there is phenomenon some there worth examining. There is the implicit assertion that something occurring five times over one's life is statistically significant.


Fine then, we'll take it slower. Let's roll back to baywax's post:

He: "You may have experienced the phenomenon where you think of a person and the next moment or at the same moment they call you on the phone or you see them on the street. It has happened to me about 5 times in as I remember."

Me: "That's nice. I've seen yellow firetrucks 5 times in my life. Why are you telling us this?"

Your move Ivan/baywax.

Let me revisit my assertion... first of all, my claim of "5 times" having a thought of someone and having them show up simultaneously is a guess and completely non-statistical with regard to any proper, empirical studies of the incidents. The number may actually be higher... but, of course, as Dave points out, the number of times I've thought of someone... say, Cindy Crawford or Lady Gaga, dead mom or dead dad and they haven't shown up is much higher by comparison.

But do these two conflicting statistics tell us anything useful concerning pre-cognitive activity in the brain? For instance, the conditions surrounding each incident are usually going to be very different.

There would have to be a controlled study to weed out the variables in these cases to actually prove that a pre-cog event is taking place. Right now, however, as Dave points out, the number of times I think of a person and the number of times they seem to appear magically out of the telephone or elsewhere statistically points to coincidence with no known cause or motive other than random simultaneousness.

 

[DaveC426913]

Let me revisit my assertion... first of all, my claim of "5 times" having a thought of someone and having them show up simultaneously is a guess and completely non-statistical with regard to any proper, empirical studies of the incidents. The number may actually be higher... but, of course, as Dave points out, the number of times I've thought of someone... say, Cindy Crawford or Lady Gaga, dead mom or dead dad and they haven't shown up is much higher by comparison.

But do these two conflicting statistics tell us anything useful concerning pre-cognitive activity in the brain? For instance, the conditions surrounding each incident are usually going to be very different.

There would have to be a controlled study to weed out the variables in these cases to actually prove that a pre-cog event is taking place. Right now, however, as Dave points out, the number of times I think of a person and the number of times they seem to appear magically out of the telephone or elsewhere statistically points to coincidence with no known cause or motive other than random simultaneousness.

 

[baywax]

To further explore the implications of coincidence, seriality and synchronicity one might want to look at Chaos Theory since it does appear that coincidence has the same random chance of occurring as any "incident" or event.

Chaotic behavior can be observed in many natural systems, such as the weather (or appearances of subjects at the same time as thinking of them).[4] Explanation of such behavior may be sought through analysis of a chaotic mathematical model, or through analytical techniques such as recurrence plots and Poincaré maps..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Here's a map of leylines showing non-causal alignments that occur naturally in a group of stats.

Alignments of random points, as shown by statistics, can be found when a large number of random points are marked on a bounded flat surface. This might be used to show that ley lines exist due to chance alone (as opposed to supernatural or anthropological explanations).
Computer simulations show that random points on a plane tend to form alignments similar to those found by ley hunters, also suggesting that ley lines may be generated by chance. This phenomenon occurs regardless of whether the points are generated pseudo-randomly by computer, or from data sets of mundane features such as pizza restaurants. It is easy to find alignments of 4 to 8 points in reasonably small data sets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

Interesting history of the study of coincidence and a theory of "Seriality" and synchronicity.

A coincidence lacks a definite causal connection. Any given set of coincidences may be just a form of synchronicity, that being the experience of events which are causally unrelated, and yet their occurring together carries meaning to the person observing the events. (In order to count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.)
The Jung-Pauli theory of "synchronicity", conceived by a physicist and a psychologist, both eminent in their fields, represents perhaps the most radical departure from the world-view of mechanistic science in our time. Yet they had a precursor, whose ideas had a considerable influence on Jung: the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer, a wild genius who committed suicide in 1926, at the age of forty-five.
—Arthur Koestler[3]
One of Kammerer's passions was collecting coincidences. He published a book with the title Das Gesetz der Serie (The Law of the Series; never translated into English) in which he recounted 100 or so anecdotes of coincidences that had led him to formulate his theory of Seriality.
He postulated that all events are connected by waves of seriality. These unknown forces would cause what we would perceive as just the peaks, or groupings and coincidences. Kammerer was known to, for example, make notes in public parks of what numbers of people were passing by, how many carried umbrellas, etc. Albert Einstein called the idea of Seriality "Interesting, and by no means absurd",[citation needed] while Carl Jung drew upon Kammerer's work in his essay Synchronicity.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

 

[DaveC426913]

Ivan, I haven't heard you chime in.

Do you acknowledge that, per baywax's original account about his coincidences, he has not made the case that there is any anomaly to investigate?

 

[nismaratwork]

To further explore the implications of coincidence, seriality and synchronicity one might want to look at Chaos Theory since it does appear that coincidence has the same random chance of occurring as any "incident" or event.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Here's a map of leylines showing non-causal alignments that occur naturally in a group of stats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

Interesting history of the study of coincidence and a theory of "Seriality" and synchronicity.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

Well, that does make a lot more sense than what I thought you were saying! btw, thanks for the chaos theory link, I haven't revisited that in far too long.

 

[Borg]

I thought that I would relate an odd coincidence that occurred yesterday. My wife and I were walking about a mile from our house when I noticed a house that had water spraying from an outside pipe. We went around to the front door to let them know what was going on. Nobody answered the door so we knocked on the neighbor's door to let them know. The neighbor turned out to be the ex-husband of the woman who lives across the street from us. I understand that the goal of the thread may be to debunk this stuff but that was weird.

 

[baywax]

I thought that I would relate an odd coincidence that occurred yesterday. My wife and I were walking about a mile from our house when I noticed a house that had water spraying from an outside pipe. We went around to the front door to let them know what was going on. Nobody answered the door so we knocked on the neighbor's door to let them know. The neighbor turned out to be the ex-husband of the woman who lives across the street from us. I understand that the goal of the thread may be to debunk this stuff but that was weird.

Not so odd when you consider that a meteorite was found with what appears to be primitive life in fossil form in it and that it is proven to be from mars... which is our very distant neighbour.

The coincidence is that someone actually found it(!) its from mars, it flew off of Mars during a massive impact and landed on earth. That is a "needle in the haystack" sort of occurrence.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nasa1.html