Article Are coincidences real?

[Zinjanthropos]

This one today was a real beauty. It had me wondering wtf?

9am and I’m driving to my favourite restaurant for breakfast. For some reason I start thinking of a song I haven’t heard for at least couple of years or more. It became a big hit for the female artist. I start wondering why in the world am I thinking of this song. I actually was listening to Buffalo sports radio when the song popped in my head.

I get to the restaurant and forget about the song. Breakfast arrives, I start chowing down and the next thing I know the restaurant’s radio, in the background, plays the song. The song…All About that Bass by Meghan Trainor. WTF?

Asked my waitress, since when did they have background music playing in the restaurant? She said they just started it that morning. Are you kidding me?

Finished breakfast and on my way home I decide to buy a scratch lottery ticket. I won $40. An interesting hour for sure.

[Syne]

I've heard of studies that purport that people who work newspaper crossword puzzles do better the day after it is released... after many people have taken a crack at it. Some think that implies that we have some unrealized connection, and that the delayed crossword puzzle solvers are essentially crowd-sourcing the knowledge subconsciously.

If so, you could have crowd sourced Meghan Trainor.

Or you could have heard the song in the background somewhere you didn't realize, and it just happened to come to you shortly before, maybe, hearing it again on the same station at the diner. Personally, I think sometimes we just carry our own luck, good or bad, around with us, and the world is happy to reflect it.

[Zinjanthropos]

They say we have 6000+ thoughts per day so I think eventually one of them appears to be in sync with the universe every now and then. Have to admit I couldn’t believe that song showed up just after I didn’t give it another thought. This stuff happens to me frequently for some reason.

[Syne]

Yeah, mentalists wouldn't exist if we didn't have plenty of thoughts that fly by so fast we hardly notice them.

[Magical Realist]

Coincidences are indeed real. Ironically, tasked to explain them, mainstream science just scoffs and says oh it was bound to happen eventually. IOW, nothing really caused it to happen. It was a mere fluke of chance meaning nothing. But the thing about such remarkable moments is that they are always more powerful and compelling to the person who experienced them. Which to me says it happened specifically for you and no one else. You weren't looking for it, and you certainly aren't ideologically prone to looking for paranormal type events. Yet it still happened and continues to happen to you. It is perhaps the Universe's way of saying "keep the door open and pay attention to what is happening around you. I am speaking to you in ways you have yet to grasp."

[Syne]

The "law of large numbers" explains how seemingly improbable coincidences are bound to happen given enough opportunities, as the law states that
the average of random events will get closer to the expected value as the number of trials increases. In essence, while a single event might be incredibly unlikely, with a large enough sample size, every possible outcome becomes more probable.
- Google AI

[Magical Realist]

So the longer something doesn't happen, the more likely it becomes to happen? Isn't that the slot machine fallacy, where the player waits on a machine that hasn't given any money believing the chances it will give money are greater? I don't believe that. I believe with every trial the deck is reshuffled and the improbability of a coincidence remains the same. Happening or not happening iow has no effect on the probability of a happening.

[Secular Sanity]

I run an antique booth. I’m always hunting for treasures—estate sales, junk piles, or just knocking on doors when I spot a promising house.

A few years back, I met a man in his mid-90s who had an old porcelain sign I really wanted. But some people are just too attached to their things.

Time passed, so I went back to check if he was still around. The house was being remodeled. I asked the next-door neighbor, who told me the man had passed, and his nephew inherited the place. He gave me the nephew’s number.

I called—and hit the jackpot. The nephew wanted to sell everything. I scored the porcelain sign, plus a collection of items his uncle had gathered from glass beach in Fort Bragg, California—including some antique marbles.

I didn’t know what to do with the marbles until I thought of the local sea glass museum. I called the curator yesterday. He said he might be interested. He wasn’t, in the end...but man, was he a character.

He started talking about synchronicities. I asked if he knew Carl Jung’s work. That’s when he told me he’d published papers on relativity, quantum mechanics, and more. I said I loved that kind of thing. He handed me a card with his website.

Turns out, his "published" papers were through SCIRP—a predatory open-access publisher that charges authors $500–$1,000 with no real peer review, editorial oversight, or quality control.

He had knowledge, I’ll give him that. But… yeah. You know how it goes.

I watched his video. He said he used to be an atheist but now considers himself a spiritualist. He’s working on a "theory of everything." Then, at 20:06, he launches into his sea glass quantum tales.

He said that he kayaked onto Glass Beach and asked the Creator to let him find a red marble. Moments later, he found a beautiful red one with a white swirl. He showed it to me. He says, "That’s how the Creator talks to me. I asked for red—and I got red. Finding these three together? The odds are too vast for coincidence."

Anyway… I didn’t even know he had marbles in his museum. I thought it was all sea glass. He didn’t want mine but said they were probably worth about $200. As I was leaving, he smiled and said, "Don’t lose your marbles."

I’ve stopped challenging people’s beliefs. Asking questions works better for everyone. I hoped he had something real to offer—but no dice (only marbles). 

Still… interesting character.

[Syne]

So the longer something doesn't happen, the more likely it becomes to happen? Isn't that the slot machine fallacy, where the player waits on a machine that hasn't given any money believing the chances it will give money are greater? I don't believe that. I believe with every trial the deck is reshuffled and the improbability of a coincidence remains the same. Happening or not happening iow has no effect on the probability of a happening.

No, the gambler's fallacy is believing "you're due for a win," "this slot machine is about to pay off," "this table is hot," etc.. When has anyone ever thought "I'm due for a coincidence"? No one's waiting for a coincidence, so it can't be a gambler's fallacy.

The law of large numbers means that anything that is at all probable will eventually fall within the probability distribution and happen. If it couldn't/wouldn't happen by probability alone, it would skew the mean. For example, if winning the lottery on your birthday couldn't happen due to probability alone, then the odds of winning would be skewed... because there are countless possible coincidences. If so, the people who operate lotteries, casinos, insurance companies, etc. couldn't rely on probability to ensure a profit margin.

[Zinjanthropos]

I've heard of studies that purport that people who work newspaper crossword puzzles do better the day after it is released... after many people have taken a crack at it. Some think that implies that we have some unrealized connection, and that the delayed crossword puzzle solvers are essentially crowd-sourcing the knowledge subconsciously.

If so, you could have crowd sourced Meghan Trainor.

Or you could have heard the song in the background somewhere you didn't realize, and it just happened to come to you shortly before, maybe, hearing it again on the same station at the diner. Personally, I think sometimes we just carry our own luck, good or bad, around with us, and the world is happy to reflect it.

Entirely possible. I would have to heard it on some form of media, it’s not on my Top 1000 list. I just find it remarkable but I also realize there’s no unseen or unrecognizable force in the universe that’s playing with my marbles.

Realizing now that I used the word marbles in that last sentence, a day after reading the SS post. Would I have used it if I hadn’t? Not a coincidence in my mind but perhaps reasonably close. Maybe an indication of how they happen. I also used the word ‘remarkable’ which contains the word ‘marble’, although a bit fragmented. I didn’t do it on purpose, honestly noticed it after rereading it. Would that be considered somewhat coincidental?

When I read SS post I thought of Tootles in the movie Hook, receiving his lost marbles from Peter Pan. So I’m on the lookout today for someone to say tootles to me, hear it on media or it shows up on a word puzzle should I attempt one. Not counting on it…lol