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

[zoobyshoe]

With a large enough sample, a high confidence in the predictions can be achieved.

I agree with this completely. In the case of these spooky/flukey stories, though, people usually try to guestimate odds from single occurrences.

 

[DaveC426913]

- Running into someone you hadn't seen for 30 years ? Unremarkable.

- Running into someone you hadn't seen for 30 years, but whom you were clearly thinking about (for the first time in years) 30 seconds ago, or 30 minutes ago ? Very remarkable.

No. That is a coincidence.

And as Ivan says, what are the odds ..

They are highly unlikely.

But in a complex world, highly unlikely events are inevitable*.


*See what I did there?

 

[alt]

No. That is a coincidence.

They are highly unlikely.

But in a complex world, highly unlikely events are inevitable*.


*See what I did there?

Yes, of course - coincidence.

The event I mentioned could be, probably is, coincidence.

The thing that follows from that, is what are the odds - a very difficult, if not impossible thing to calculate ?

And what if such events happen much more frequently than what one might expect ?

I know that your resposne would be as above, ie, 'in a complex world, highly unlikely events are inevitable' ..

But if such highly unlikely events occur with a high frequency, it does leave one wondering.

 

[GeorginaS]

Yes, of course - coincidence.

Yes, because that's what those events are called.

And what if such events happen much more frequently than what one might expect ?

Define a reasonable frequency expectation is for such events. Once a month? Twice? Once a year? What are the parametres for those expectations?

But if such highly unlikely events occur with a high frequency, it does leave one wondering.

If you read what's already been written, what makes you say that that event is highly unlikely? Coincidences happen all the time and with great frequency. I'd surmise, then, that they're very likely.

And, then, further, I'd be interested to know what exactly you think it "leave one wondering". What do these normal, every day events leave you wondering?

Also, consider for a moment why it leaves you wondering whatever it leaves you to wonder. To me (and not putting words in your mouth just describing my experience; I'd like to hear yours) when someone says to me, "It makes you wonder" they're telling me that they see some significance in whatever the event or events are. When, really, it's our lizard brains perceiving groupings and patterns, which is a normal function. *There's a physicist and commentator named Robert Park who uses the term "Texas sharpshooter fallacy" to describe the perception of groupings as significant and/or meaningful, and everything that falls outside of support for that pattern simply not being taken into account. Statisticians describe it "like firing all your bullets into the side of a barn and then walking over to the bullet-riddled wall and drawing a bull's eye where it looks best". *

[*Reference: Caveman Logic by Hank Davis Prometheus Books Copyright 2009 pg 97]

 

[alt]

Yes, because that's what those events are called.



Define a reasonable frequency expectation is for such events. Once a month? Twice? Once a year? What are the parametres for those expectations?



If you read what's already been written, what makes you say that that event is highly unlikely? Coincidences happen all the time and with great frequency. I'd surmise, then, that they're very likely.

And, then, further, I'd be interested to know what exactly you think it "leave one wondering". What do these normal, every day events leave you wondering?

Also, consider for a moment why it leaves you wondering whatever it leaves you to wonder. To me (and not putting words in your mouth just describing my experience; I'd like to hear yours) when someone says to me, "It makes you wonder" they're telling me that they see some significance in whatever the event or events are. When, really, it's our lizard brains perceiving groupings and patterns, which is a normal function. *There's a physicist and commentator named Robert Park who uses the term "Texas sharpshooter fallacy" to describe the perception of groupings as significant and/or meaningful, and everything that falls outside of support for that pattern simply not being taken into account. Statisticians describe it "like firing all your bullets into the side of a barn and then walking over to the bullet-riddled wall and drawing a bull's eye where it looks best". *

[*Reference: Caveman Logic by Hank Davis Prometheus Books Copyright 2009 pg 97]

Hi Georgia - thanks for the reply.

Lets assume that different incidents occur at a frequency of, say, once a week, and that such incidents probability is calculated at, say, 1M to one (as to how such probability might be calculated, I have no idea, but we have to have something to work with).

That would then leave me wondering whether there was a more subtle means of perception that enabled one on those occassions, to, ummm .. involuntarily, glimpse a much broader 'present moment' than one would normally.

PS - I can't seem to get the multi quote function to work on this forum. I click on it but nothing happens. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong ? Thanks.

 

[GeorginaS]

Hi Georgia - thanks for the reply.

Lets assume that different incidents occur at a frequency of, say, once a week, and that such incidents probability is calculated at, say, 1M to one (as to how such probability might be calculated, I have no idea, but we have to have something to work with).

That would then leave me wondering whether there was a more subtle means of perception that enabled one on those occassions, to, ummm .. involuntarily, glimpse a much broader 'present moment' than one would normally.

PS - I can't seem to get the multi quote function to work on this forum. I click on it but nothing happens. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong ? Thanks.

Last thing first, here's a thread that gives really good instructions about how the multi-quote function works

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=388346"

Can you flesh out your idea about involuntarily, glimpse a much broader 'present moment' than one would normally. I'm not quite getting what you mean.

And I think I need to ask you again -- given the normalcy and pedestrian nature of coincidences -- what would you consider an "unusual rate" of their occurrences?

 

[alt]

Last thing first, here's a thread that gives really good instructions about how the multi-quote function works

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=388346"

Can you flesh out your idea about involuntarily, glimpse a much broader 'present moment' than one would normally. I'm not quite getting what you mean.

And I think I need to ask you again -- given the normalcy and pedestrian nature of coincidences -- what would you consider an "unusual rate" of their occurrences?

Present moment;
Consider a fly. It's present moment would be much shorter than a humans - I'm speaking from the point of view of perception, not actual time. It might experience one second of time, the way I might experience 10 seconds, or a minute, even. I would view it's furious flight as a blur - it would view it's own as normal. OTOH, It would view me as a mass of slow moving substance that it could run rings around. For practical purposes, therefore, it's present, is much smaller and sharper than mine.

Yet if it could 'plug into' my mentality, it would get a far broader perspective of the world around it, albeit a much slower moving one. Things that it would have hitherto come across as succesive instants by way of it's own perception, it could now witness in one instant, as I would.

By extention, I toy with the idea (toy being the operative word here) that occasionally and involuntarily, a human might attach to a higher present moment - perhaps even has a dormant or vestigial ability to do so.

I'd like to answer the second part of your post more fully, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Each unlikey event could be presumably, be given a probability factor. If an event has a probability of, say, one in a hundred, and such an event (or similar events) were occurring, say 10 in a hundred, then that would be interesting.

Georgia - this is idle thought experiment on my part. I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything, nor create a new creed or somthin'

Cheers.

PS, thanks for the multi post link. I'll be checking ot out.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That is a coincidence.

Prove it. Show that this only happens as often as we would expect.

 

[jreelawg]

One day while I was in College, I woke up in the morning and started my one mile walk to school for an early morning critical thinking class. A ten dollar bill blew onto the sidewalk right it front of me. I picked it up, and on the way, I put it on the ledge where the kids in the elementary school hang out after school waiting for their parents.

Then in beginning of my class, the teacher asked us what we would do if we bought something at the store, and they gave us $10.00 extra in change.

I don't know how strange of a coincidence it really was, but at the time I thought it was kind of mysterious.

 

[Mu naught]

One day while I was in College, I woke up in the morning and started my one mile walk to school for an early morning critical thinking class. A ten dollar bill blew onto the sidewalk right it front of me. I picked it up, and on the way, I put it on the ledge where the kids in the elementary school hang out after school waiting for their parents.

Then in beginning of my class, the teacher asked us what we would do if we bought something at the store, and they gave us $10.00 extra in change.

I don't know how strange of a coincidence it really was, but at the time I thought it was kind of mysterious.

What does that question have to do with critical thinking? I'd keep that 10 dollars by the way unless it was a small mom and pop store.

 

[DaveC426913]

Prove it. Show that this only happens as often as we would expect.

No. That's the point of a coincidence. Two events occurring coincidentally does not require odds.

I fly to Singapore and, while on the beach, run into my ex-girlfriend. This is just an event.

I was thinking about her. This is just an event.

These two events occurring on the same day. That is the coincidence. No matter what the odds are, coincidences occur.

 

[alt]

No. That's the point of a coincidence. Two events occurring coincidentally does not require odds.

I fly to Singapore and, while on the beach, run into my ex-girlfriend. This is just an event.

I was thinking about her. This is just an event.

These two events occurring on the same day. That is the coincidence. No matter what the odds are, coincidences occur.

Yes, but if the frequency of occurance is higher than what the odds (if calculated accurately) suggest it should be ?

Is is then not interesting to ask why, and if there is any other influence at play ?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Yes, but if the frequency of occurance is higher than what the odds (if calculated accurately) suggest it should be ?

Is is then not interesting to ask why, and if there is any other influence at play ?

That is the point. Even if there is a genuine signal buried beneath the noise, we have never devised a test that could provide evidence confirming [or refuting] the claim.

We have no scientific evidence supporting claims of precognition. But we can only say that no one has been able to produce evidence for it on demand. This does not logically exclude the possibility that the proper test has never been devised. Perhaps it cannot be produced "on demand", and only occurs in unique situations - the parameters required for success being undetermined at this time. In much the same sense, most scientific experiments require the correct conditions for success.

So while we can say that we expect that all claims of precognition are really just coincidence - a logical expectation based on the odds of such events - and while we don't know of any physical explanation that could account for claims of precognition, we cannot say that we have good evidence showing [that we know for a fact] that all claims can be dismissed as coincidence. We don't know that these events only happen as often as we would expect.

The difference between saying, "we know", and "we expect", is the difference between philosophy, and emperical science.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes, but if the frequency of occurance is higher than what the odds

The frequency of occurrence is once.

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.

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

 

[GeorginaS]

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? 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".

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

 

[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.