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Kyo · 10-26-2003, 05:23 PM

Humans generally think in terms of patterns; linking objects, words, feelings, etc. Repetition, stress, or emotion can create stronger links. When you receive input from your senses, your mind is able to conjure up a mess of related items to help you identify it and take appropriate action. When you see a car, you recognize it for what it is by comparing it to cars you have seen in the past. You are aware that stepping in front of a moving car is probably detrimental to your health because you have been warned about it and have probably felt pain from other rigid moving objects (bats, fists, etc.)

Alright, so what? Well, by the very nature of our thought processes, we are likely to discount the idea of coincidences. Because our mind uses patterns to identify things, it will tend to focus more on things that form a pattern, discarding all of the other 'extraneous' data. This is, of course, done subconciously.

The thing about coincidences, however, is that they become much less impressive when you consider all of the times coincidences do not occur. If you were to record every number, or sequence of numbers, you see in a day, a week, a year, and then calculate the percentage of those numbers that are 11:11, I am willing to bet that the percentage is quite low - nearing the percentage that probability would predict from random chance.

10-26-2003, 05:23 PM	#8 (permalink)
Kyo Crazy	Humans generally think in terms of patterns; linking objects, words, feelings, etc. Repetition, stress, or emotion can create stronger links. When you receive input from your senses, your mind is able to conjure up a mess of related items to help you identify it and take appropriate action. When you see a car, you recognize it for what it is by comparing it to cars you have seen in the past. You are aware that stepping in front of a moving car is probably detrimental to your health because you have been warned about it and have probably felt pain from other rigid moving objects (bats, fists, etc.) Alright, so what? Well, by the very nature of our thought processes, we are likely to discount the idea of coincidences. Because our mind uses patterns to identify things, it will tend to focus more on things that form a pattern, discarding all of the other 'extraneous' data. This is, of course, done subconciously. The thing about coincidences, however, is that they become much less impressive when you consider all of the times coincidences do not occur. If you were to record every number, or sequence of numbers, you see in a day, a week, a year, and then calculate the percentage of those numbers that are 11:11, I am willing to bet that the percentage is quite low - nearing the percentage that probability would predict from random chance. __________________ Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.