Coincidence Theory

Started by winkio, February 12, 2011, 10:39:01 pm

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winkio

My theory is that due to the large amounts of stuff happening in the universe, coincidences happen on an all too regular basis.  Most of them go by unnoticed, because people aren't looking for them.  But when people start thinking about karma, or religion, or whatever type of superstition they believe in, they start paying attention to these coincidences.  And the more they look for, the more they find.

Ryex

and then a good portion of them start trying to pass them of as signs divinity or something like it.

when you think about it.  the scale the earth and the universe plays on allows for things like coincidences to happen at frequencies that to our perception could seem frequent, but when but into the scale of the universe are so infrequent most statisticians would write them off as nonexistent.
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Kagutsuchi

and anyone with a brain will figure out it is not coincidence after all. Go Laplace's demon!
And fuck quantum physics!

Ryex

actually the vast majority of the world population lacks a brain. it take a brain to realize that god doesn't play dice with the universe, god IS the dice.
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Blizzard

But quantum physics are based on coincidence. Well, rather chance than coincidence, but you get my point. I personally like Chaos Theory a lot more, because it makes sense. I would say even our conscious minds are affected and in the end determinism prevails. Ironically I live my live as if I am the one deciding my own destiny.
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Kagutsuchi

Quote from: Blizzard on February 13, 2011, 05:01:54 am
But quantum physics are based on coincidence. Well, rather chance than coincidence, but you get my point. I personally like Chaos Theory a lot more, because it makes sense. I would say even our conscious minds are affected and in the end determinism prevails. Ironically I live my live as if I am the one deciding my own destiny.

What? Chaos theory just states that small changes can have huge impacts on large and complex systems. It doesn't kill off Laplace demon like quantum physics does. Imo we don't know the whole deal with quantum physics yet, when we do we won't have to use probability to describe it. Determinism vs freewill is the most crazy thing ever. I don't think we are ever going to find out about determinism vs freewill because it is outside of what humans understand. We can only grasp things that happens within 3 dimensions, time and causality.

Fantasist

@winkio: Exactly my point of view! :D

@Blizz: I agree, but not completely. Determinism is only partial. Our actions can affect outcome of events. But that is true of every molecule in the universe. The mere fact that it exists will have some or the other impact on the rest of the universe, however small that may be.
Hm, but if you're saying our thought patterns are affected by the deterministic way of nature and our so-called 'decisions' are a result of a determined chain of mentan activity, then I agree with you completely. On this note, do you think there's any credibility to astrology?
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Kagutsuchi

February 13, 2011, 07:03:22 am #7 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 07:05:36 am by Kagutsuchi
Quote from: Fantasist on February 13, 2011, 06:14:50 am
@winkio: Exactly my point of view! :D

@Blizz: I agree, but not completely. Determinism is only partial. Our actions can affect outcome of events. But that is true of every molecule in the universe. The mere fact that it exists will have some or the other impact on the rest of the universe, however small that may be.
Hm, but if you're saying our thought patterns are affected by the deterministic way of nature and our so-called 'decisions' are a result of a determined chain of mentan activity, then I agree with you completely. On this note, do you think there's any credibility to astrology?

Meta physics versus pseudo science. While the stars may have some effect on us, through background radiation mostly from super novas, black holes and quazars etc, these fall in under chaos theory, in that they are far too small variations in a too complex system for us to be capable of analyzing them, merely by looking at their positions. For the moment this is just meta physics and things we can't determine with todays technology, and anyone claiming otherwise are scammers.

Have a look at this video if you wonder why your star sign is wrong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPtMqw6CSo

Power Hungry Midget

Is it coincidence that you post this right after a load of Christians think a glare on the camera lens is the fourth horseman?
A camera was recording scenes in Egypt and there was a camera glare which looked a lot like a horseman. Naturally all the Christians went crazy. It's ridiculous really, everyone knows that things like that only manifest themselves in toast.

The plot thickens......

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Kagutsuchi

Quote from: Power Hungry Midget on February 13, 2011, 07:10:12 am
Is it coincidence that you post this right after a load of Christians think a glare on the camera lens is the fourth horseman?
A camera was recording scenes in Egypt and there was a camera glare which looked a lot like a horseman. Naturally all the Christians went crazy. It's ridiculous really, everyone knows that things like that only manifest themselves in toast.

How about watermelons?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8-8WJxA-cI

Hatsamu

QuoteI don't think we are ever going to find out about determinism vs freewill because it is outside of what humans understand.


This is true not only for this but also for almost every "meaning of life", Chaos-Theory stuff and religion debates.


There are things that we just cannot understand no matter what, we are just not able. The only options is to choose what to believe about this things.

Either choosing on believing (or not believing) as a fact something that exceeds human comprehension, its what we call "Faith".


Personally, I like Chaos Theory. Anyway, I believe in destiny; I am SURE (in Faith terms, as stated that this things can't be proved by humans) that the future is already written.


So, yeah, I don't think that coincidences are coincidential at all... a_a

Blizzard

@Kagutsuchi: No, Chaos Theory states that for the same initial conditions you will always get the same state at the end, it's deterministic.
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Kagutsuchi

February 13, 2011, 09:49:26 am #12 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 09:53:11 am by Kagutsuchi
Quote from: Blizzard on February 13, 2011, 09:17:56 am
@Kagutsuchi: No, Chaos Theory states that for the same initial conditions you will always get the same state at the end, it's deterministic.

Chaos theory is more than just that. It also states that for dynamic systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, small changes in the initial conditions can lead to huge changes in the system, rendering long term predictions useless due to rounding errors even if the system is deterministic.

Regarding the question if the future is already predetermined: That depends on what discoveries are made within the field of quantum physics. Also, it is very likely that it is outside of what humans can understand. In my opinion "belief" and "faith" is bullshit, the real world doesn't care about what you believe. We just have to accept that, and keep living our life, accepting that we cannot know everything.

Push this button, and see what happens. Or don't push it, and be driven mad by the thought of what would have happened had you pushed it.

Fantasist

February 13, 2011, 01:51:03 pm #13 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 02:07:54 pm by Fantasist
Quote from: Kagutsuchi on February 13, 2011, 07:03:22 am
Meta physics versus pseudo science. While the stars may have some effect on us, through background radiation mostly from super novas, black holes and quazars etc, these fall in under chaos theory, in that they are far too small variations in a too complex system for us to be capable of analyzing them, merely by looking at their positions. For the moment this is just meta physics and things we can't determine with todays technology, and anyone claiming otherwise are scammers.

Have a look at this video if you wonder why your star sign is wrong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPtMqw6CSo

People from historic times weren't stupid. The fact that their findings are not properly interpreted is the reason for their studies to fall into the realm of pseudo-science.
And in the video, he does mention that Vedic astrology accounts for the wobble of the Earth's axis. That was the flaw he was pointing out in the video, and he admits it's not true for Vedic astrology.

What I'm saying is, "anyone claiming otherwise" are NOT scammers. Most of them are, and the wise ones among them acknowledge the uncertainties of their beliefs. Folks of the old did their homework, but their findings are unfortunately lost. Let's not dismiss their wisdom just because we with our relatively new albeit seemingly superior "technology" can't make sense of it. (btw, look up vedic astrology. Have you ever seen a Natal Chart? I have, and I got the feeling it was more of math than anything else. It was just calculation based on formulae.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a believer in astrology. But I've seen enough to believe it's not complete BS. It works, at least to some degree. (and I have a habit of bringing up the "other side" of an argument and some people are annoyed by it, haha)

Quote from: Hatsamu on February 13, 2011, 08:48:40 am
QuoteI don't think we are ever going to find out about determinism vs freewill because it is outside of what humans understand.


This is true not only for this but also for almost every "meaning of life", Chaos-Theory stuff and religion debates.


There are things that we just cannot understand no matter what, we are just not able. The only options is to choose what to believe about this things.

Either choosing on believing (or not believing) as a fact something that exceeds human comprehension, its what we call "Faith".


Personally, I like Chaos Theory. Anyway, I believe in destiny; I am SURE (in Faith terms, as stated that this things can't be proved by humans) that the future is already written.


So, yeah, I don't think that coincidences are coincidential at all... a_a


Try looking up meta-cognition. If human beings are capable of that, maybe we're capable of understanding the incomprehensible.

Or maybe, it's just technically impossible for humans to think beyond a point of logic. I sure hope not.

@Kagutsuchi: Faith and belief are not BS! :O  You said: "We just have to accept that, and keep living our life, accepting that we cannot know everything." That is a form of a belief. Human beings cannot survive without beliefs. Their psyche will crumble if they start to doubt everything. That have to believe in a set of things and live life based on those beliefs. And no one said anything about the world caring about beliefs and faith.
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Kagutsuchi

February 13, 2011, 02:08:52 pm #14 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 02:14:17 pm by Kagutsuchi
Quote from: Fantasist on February 13, 2011, 01:51:03 pm
Quote from: Kagutsuchi on February 13, 2011, 07:03:22 am
Meta physics versus pseudo science. While the stars may have some effect on us, through background radiation mostly from super novas, black holes and quazars etc, these fall in under chaos theory, in that they are far too small variations in a too complex system for us to be capable of analyzing them, merely by looking at their positions. For the moment this is just meta physics and things we can't determine with todays technology, and anyone claiming otherwise are scammers.

Have a look at this video if you wonder why your star sign is wrong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqPtMqw6CSo

And what's to say that today's technology is surely superior to old technology? You know all that stuff about the astronomical accuracy of Pyramids' orientations and the like. People from historic times weren't stupid. The fact that their findings are not properly interpreted is the reason for their studies to fall into the realm of pseudo-science.
And in the video, he does mention that Vedic astrology accounts for the wobble of the Earth's axis. That was the flaw he was pointing out in the video, and he admits it's not true for Vedic astrology. What do you think about that?

What I'm saying is, "anyone claiming otherwise" are NOT scammers. Most of them are, and the wise ones among them acknowledge the uncertainties of their beliefs. Folks of the old did their homework, but their findings are unfortunately lost. Let's not dismiss their wisdom just because we with our relatively new albeit seemingly superior "technology" can't make sense of it. (btw, look up vedic astrology. Have you ever seen a Natal Chart? I have, and I got the feeling it was more of math than anything else. It was just calculation based on formulae.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a believer in astrology. But I've seen enough to believe it's not complete BS. It works, at least to some degree. (and I have a habit of bringing up the "other side" of an argument and some people are annoyed by it, haha)

No it is complete bullshit. It is based purely on speculations and pseudo science with absolutely no merit. The only reason it can seem true is that experts in the field gives such broad answers that it can be interpreted as almost anything.
And regarding the "And what's to say that today's technology is surely superior to old technology?"
/argument


Quote from: Fantasist on February 13, 2011, 01:51:03 pm
Quote from: Hatsamu on February 13, 2011, 08:48:40 am
QuoteI don't think we are ever going to find out about determinism vs freewill because it is outside of what humans understand.


This is true not only for this but also for almost every "meaning of life", Chaos-Theory stuff and religion debates.


There are things that we just cannot understand no matter what, we are just not able. The only options is to choose what to believe about this things.

Either choosing on believing (or not believing) as a fact something that exceeds human comprehension, its what we call "Faith".


Personally, I like Chaos Theory. Anyway, I believe in destiny; I am SURE (in Faith terms, as stated that this things can't be proved by humans) that the future is already written.


So, yeah, I don't think that coincidences are coincidential at all... a_a


Try looking up meta-cognition. If human beings are capable of that, maybe we're capable of understanding the incomprehensible.

Or maybe, it's just technically impossible for humans to think beyond a point of logic. I sure hope not.

@Kagutsuchi: Faith and belief are not BS! :O  You said: "We just have to accept that, and keep living our life, accepting that we cannot know everything." That is a form of a belief. Human beings cannot survive without beliefs. Their psyche will crumble if they start to doubt everything. That have to believe in a set of things and live life based on those beliefs. And no one said anything about the world caring about beliefs and faith.

No that is not belief. I claim that I KNOW we cannot know everything and that it is pointless to go around doubting everything. But just because I don't doubt everything, doesn't mean I believe it either. I approach everything in life with skepticism, but I don't bother to dig too deep into stuff, because I know that I will just end up at "well, we don't really know, but it has empirical merit" and if it doesn't have empirical merit it is bullshit.

RoseSkye

Fantasist, that isn't a form of belief. Not believing in something and believing in something are two different things. I don't play world of warcraft so you're saying thats a form of playing mmorpgs? People who believe in god just can't understand the concept of not believing in something. We're not BELIEVING in god while ignoring god. We're not believing in god period.

@winkio

I thought that was painfully obvious. I mean 'shit happens' doesn't really cover "only good shit happens" or "bad shit happens". Right now somewhere in the universe planets are being destroyed, Blackholes are consuming suns, suns are imploding, galaxies are colliding, and even here on earth things are dying. Right now predators are killing prey, people are dying, and animals are being slaughtered. Life isn't order, it's fucking chaos and just because we can't see it we think that it isn't.

Fantasist

February 13, 2011, 02:29:39 pm #16 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 02:31:14 pm by Fantasist
QuoteNo it is complete bullshit. It is based purely on speculations and pseudo science with absolutely no merit. The only reason it can seem true is that experts in the field gives such broad answers that it can be interpreted as almost anything.

You've obviously never seen a real astrological prediction. They can be frighteningly precise and specific, not broad.

QuoteAnd regarding the "And what's to say that today's technology is surely superior to old technology?"
/argument

That argument works only if you consider life expectancy to be a direct result of good technology, and I believe it's not (I could be wrong). If you notice, I've removed my claim from my post, but not because of your argument. I remembered an other argument I had with someone, where my friend proved that today's technology is indeed superior, but it only works on how the word "technology" is defined.

QuoteNo that is not belief. I claim that I KNOW we cannot know everything and that it is pointless to go around doubting everything. But just because I don't doubt everything, doesn't mean I believe it either. I approach everything in life with sceptism, but I don't bother to dig too deep into stuff, because I know that I will just end up at "well, we don't really know, but it has empirical merit" and if it doesn't have empirical merit it is bullshit.

"Knowing" is, at some point, believing. But you know what? I think it's the subjective interpretation of the words that's getting in our way.
It's obvious that I'm mixing up the significance of those two words. Now I see when you say "know" you mean this: "We know something when we can reproduce a phenomenon by applying observations."
I apologize for the confusion.

@RoseSkye:
I didn't get you here:
QuoteI don't play world of warcraft so you're saying thats a form of playing mmorpgs?


As for the rest, I totally agree, but I don't see how that's supposed to counter what I said.
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Kagutsuchi

Of course life expectancy is a direct result of improved technology. Better health care, more reliable food supplies, etc, everything thanks to technology based on empirical science.
Fantasist, you should read Immanuel Kant. Synthetic a priori. Empirical knowledge that we can have without making any observations. So your definition of knowledge being
"We know something when we can reproduce a phenomenon by applying observations." is not broad enough, because we can know something without making observations of it. (Once again, read Kant, you should probably read Descartes and Hume before moving onto Kant though).

Fantasist

QuoteOf course life expectancy is a direct result of improved technology. Better health care, more reliable food supplies, etc, everything thanks to technology based on empirical science.

I believe quality of life is a result of technology.

QuoteFantasist, you should read Immanuel Kant. Synthetic a priori. Empirical knowledge that we can have without making any observations. So your definition of knowledge being
"We know something when we can reproduce a phenomenon by applying observations." is not broad enough, because we can know something without making observations of it. (Once again, read Kant, you should probably read Descartes and Hume before moving onto Kant though).

I'll read those, thanks :) It's been ages since I read something mentally stimulating.
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RoseSkye

My point is "I don't believe in god" is not believing in no god.  It's just not believing in god. Just like not playing WoW is not playing not playing mmorpgs.
If it doesn't make sense neither does making 'not believing in god' into 'believing there is not god'. You need 'faith' if you sort of believe in god yeah because you acknowledge a specific one exists.  Things that fit the definition of 'gods' may exist...  but the gods we specifically named with human forms? Highly unlikely. Every god we've created is just a big human that gets credit for things like weather, birth, fertility, healing, and etc. The gods noted are just earth gods. There is no god of 'inside black holes' that explains un-earthly things that we've never seen. There is no god of outside the universe. It's just that... santa for grown ups.

If you don't believe in santa (as I do not believe in santa) you will properly understand how an atheist doesn't believe in god. Just because the word 'believe' was used to explain the lack of belief it doesn't mean we have 'faith'. There isn't a question mark, it is a period. I do not believe in god = God does not exist. So when we die, god still will not exist for an atheist. When we're dying god wont exist. When our loved ones die. God doesn't exist. Note the lack of question marks or the whole "maybe". The period means there is no question and along with my short explanation the air should be clear.

I think the word you were looking for is agnostic. It takes faith and belief to be agnostic. Agnostics are atheists that are not sure that a -certain- god exists. A christian agnostic, muslim agnostic, etc.

Blizzard

February 13, 2011, 04:15:43 pm #20 Last Edit: February 13, 2011, 04:17:01 pm by Blizzard
@Kagutsuchi: Yes, Chaos Theory is more than just that. Even though I never said that Chaos Theory was only what I said early and nothing else, thank you for correcting me.

Just for the record: I am not reading or participating in this thread anymore. If any of the mods does, good. If not, then in case somebody can't act maturely, make use of the Report button. There is no need for flame wars or anything of the like. I trust that you will debate maturely. Also, please keep in mind that you shouldn't go too deep into the matter of religion as people believe different things or don't believe at all and sometimes they are stubborn to just accept that there are people who think differently (they don't have to accept their beliefs, only the fact there somebody else believes in something different, aka. accepting the fact that somebody else has a different opinion and simply moving on).

As far as I can see now, though, everything seems fine. Go on, have fun.
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RoseSkye

Quote from: Blizzard on February 13, 2011, 04:15:43 pm
@Kagutsuchi: Yes, Chaos Theory is more than just that. Even though I never said that Chaos Theory was only what I said early and nothing else, thank you for correcting me.

Just for the record: I am not reading or participating in this thread anymore. If any of the mods does, good. If not, then in case somebody can't act maturely, make use of the Report button. There is no need for flame wars or anything of the like. I trust that you will debate maturely. Also, please keep in mind that you shouldn't go too deep into the matter of religion as people believe different things or don't believe at all and sometimes they are stubborn to just accept that there are people who think differently (they don't have to accept their beliefs, only the fact there somebody else believes in something different, aka. accepting the fact that somebody else has a different opinion and simply moving on).

As far as I can see now, though, everything seems fine. Go on, have fun.


Okay, you got me I was flame-baiting. Sorry, it's a habit... I'll  be good. This topic just got less interesting without the thrill of a nice flamewar.

Fantasist

@Blizz: Sorry if I contributed to the problem, I'll try to be good :)

@RoseSkye: I get you now, thanks for the explanation. And I agree with you.
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Blizzard

Lol, there was no problem. I was just saying that I'm not keeping track whether there is a problem or not. xD
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Shin Migumi

My "coinsidence factor" if you will, is that I have a huge amount of in the moment deja vu. is it a coinsidence that it happens all the time, I don't know. But some people say that deja vu is god's way of telling you that you're at the right place at the right time as he wanted you to. I don't entirely believe that, but I get a weird feeling when it happens. That "wth, this happened before" while everything is in motion. And it happens ALOT to me. Coinsidence?

Vell

Normally, when I get deja vu it's because a scenario is similar to one I encountered in a dream.

Shin Migumi

yea that happens occasionally to. but it usually happens like it did the exact same thing before in real life. Maybe I need to change up my daily regiment. i'm getting to repetitive.