When do you no longer consider something a "coincidence"?
Timely Question-People Who Know Things.....
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When it's subjected to a number of tests and is repeatable in a higher incidence than it can be occurring merely due to random chance. As I said, the broken clock syndrome.
I mean, you've got to draw a line somewhere. Now you're a good distance away from the "Well, I saw a leaf turn yellow over two days and a yellow car ran over my son's yellow Tonka truck in the parking lot and then I saw a flag man in the construction site waving a yellow flag .." type thing (insert whatever in wherever as needed) ..but you've got to weigh it with a skeptic eye or you're surely going to induce wishful thinking.
Now I surely believe that ..hmmm..that which may appear coincidental being of spiritual origin. I tend to think of it as "opportunity" for certain individuals or organizations to evidence their own spiritual depth. We can all cite instances of "someone there just happened to have just what I needed.." ..or YOU being there with exactly what was needed or doing what needed to be done.
I mean, you've got to draw a line somewhere. Now you're a good distance away from the "Well, I saw a leaf turn yellow over two days and a yellow car ran over my son's yellow Tonka truck in the parking lot and then I saw a flag man in the construction site waving a yellow flag .." type thing (insert whatever in wherever as needed) ..but you've got to weigh it with a skeptic eye or you're surely going to induce wishful thinking.
Now I surely believe that ..hmmm..that which may appear coincidental being of spiritual origin. I tend to think of it as "opportunity" for certain individuals or organizations to evidence their own spiritual depth. We can all cite instances of "someone there just happened to have just what I needed.." ..or YOU being there with exactly what was needed or doing what needed to be done.
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
After the interesting discussions it really a simple problem; come forth with evidence that you can do better than chance on any number of statistically valid tests of 'ESP' and you'll receive fame, wealth, glory, the ability to help your fellow man, etc., whatever winds your clock.
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Originally Posted By: Oilgal
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
See?!!!
But on a more serious note, how do you determine statistical validity?
As far as I can tell no one is claiming the girl is an all-around psychic. The claim is that two unconnected people received identical visions which apparently foretold a tragic event. Out of millions of people who could have had those visions, apparently only two did. Even if there were more people who did, there is no identifiable group.
If your intent were specifically to discredit the claimants, you would design a test to disprove something they were never claiming in the first place - such as that they could foretell all events happening anywhere, anytime, any field.
However a more reasonable test, given the claims, would be to look at what percentage of the population had prescient visions, and where they fell in a normal distribution.
The question you ask frames the answers you will get. What would you consider a relevant test?
As far as I can tell no one is claiming the girl is an all-around psychic. The claim is that two unconnected people received identical visions which apparently foretold a tragic event. Out of millions of people who could have had those visions, apparently only two did. Even if there were more people who did, there is no identifiable group.
If your intent were specifically to discredit the claimants, you would design a test to disprove something they were never claiming in the first place - such as that they could foretell all events happening anywhere, anytime, any field.
However a more reasonable test, given the claims, would be to look at what percentage of the population had prescient visions, and where they fell in a normal distribution.
The question you ask frames the answers you will get. What would you consider a relevant test?
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Oilgal
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
Well, now that one there, all depends on which way he is facing.
Originally Posted By: Oilgal
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
Well, now that one there, all depends on which way he is facing.
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Quote:
What would you consider a relevant test?
(butting in)
Well, that's not how it was first presented, iirc (I'm not going back and rereading the first post). It was about diary entries and a drawing that preceded death. Under those limitations, I would look at all diary entries and look at all drawings. I'd see how many gloom and doom entries were not followed by tragic events or other "bad things" that were beyond her control.
That should be easy enough to figure. If she was into that "theme" in her writings, then whatever "bad" happened to her would be a prediction.
(poor example) It would sorta be the same if she constantly expressed fear of pregnancy (for whatever reason) ..and eventually became pregnant. "See? I knew it!!".
What would you consider a relevant test?
(butting in)
Well, that's not how it was first presented, iirc (I'm not going back and rereading the first post). It was about diary entries and a drawing that preceded death. Under those limitations, I would look at all diary entries and look at all drawings. I'd see how many gloom and doom entries were not followed by tragic events or other "bad things" that were beyond her control.
That should be easy enough to figure. If she was into that "theme" in her writings, then whatever "bad" happened to her would be a prediction.
(poor example) It would sorta be the same if she constantly expressed fear of pregnancy (for whatever reason) ..and eventually became pregnant. "See? I knew it!!".
Originally Posted By: Oilgal
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Oilgal
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
Well, now that one there, all depends on which way he is facing.
Not really, the world is mostly spherical, so eventually, the disturbance will get there, possibly from another direction.
As for statistics, 90% of them can be made to say anything you want, 50% of the time. Or something.
Originally Posted By: moribundman
Originally Posted By: Oilgal
People also cope with dissonance, by denying the obvious, that all things interconnect.
Pedro lets one fly and 4.219 hours later a tsunami hits Hawaii.
Well, now that one there, all depends on which way he is facing.
Not really, the world is mostly spherical, so eventually, the disturbance will get there, possibly from another direction.
As for statistics, 90% of them can be made to say anything you want, 50% of the time. Or something.
I saw that comercial too.
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Quote:
What would you consider a relevant test?
(butting in)
Well, that's not how it was first presented, iirc (I'm not going back and rereading the first post). It was about diary entries and a drawing that preceded death. Under those limitations, I would look at all diary entries and look at all drawings. I'd see how many gloom and doom entries were not followed by tragic events or other "bad things" that were beyond her control.
That should be easy enough to figure. If she was into that "theme" in her writings, then whatever "bad" happened to her would be a prediction.
(poor example) It would sorta be the same if she constantly expressed fear of pregnancy (for whatever reason) ..and eventually became pregnant. "See? I knew it!!".
I agree with this. I'll also add that most predictions are useless if not accompanied by a reasonable time frame for the event. For instance, I can make the prediction "it will rain" and I am confident I'll be 100% accurate. But that prediction is useless for all practical purposes unless I tell you when it will rain.
Quote:
What would you consider a relevant test?
(butting in)
Well, that's not how it was first presented, iirc (I'm not going back and rereading the first post). It was about diary entries and a drawing that preceded death. Under those limitations, I would look at all diary entries and look at all drawings. I'd see how many gloom and doom entries were not followed by tragic events or other "bad things" that were beyond her control.
That should be easy enough to figure. If she was into that "theme" in her writings, then whatever "bad" happened to her would be a prediction.
(poor example) It would sorta be the same if she constantly expressed fear of pregnancy (for whatever reason) ..and eventually became pregnant. "See? I knew it!!".
I agree with this. I'll also add that most predictions are useless if not accompanied by a reasonable time frame for the event. For instance, I can make the prediction "it will rain" and I am confident I'll be 100% accurate. But that prediction is useless for all practical purposes unless I tell you when it will rain.
But if you said that puppies would fall from the sky at a specific time and place, and you missed the time by a week, I personally would not dismiss your premonitions as coincidence. If another person independently had sensed the same unlikely event, I would consider it even less a random event.
I've read the diaries. Not doom and gloom at all. Except for asking to be used to impact her generation and the sense of not being around long enough to raise a family ect, the writings are very ordinary teen girl.
Worried about trying to quit smoking. How lucky to have a family that loved her. Typical writings about boys. Looking forward to dates. Getting a part time job, working on school plays, how much she liked her group at church.
Rachel mentioned her feelings about living a short life to several family members and a few very close friends. Never to her parents. It was said very matter-of-factly, not looking for sympathy, and not on a regular basis.
Apparently, she had no feeelings toward the events of April 20, 1999 until right before the shooting. She and her brother got out of the car at Columbine that morning argueing because they were late for school.
Worried about trying to quit smoking. How lucky to have a family that loved her. Typical writings about boys. Looking forward to dates. Getting a part time job, working on school plays, how much she liked her group at church.
Rachel mentioned her feelings about living a short life to several family members and a few very close friends. Never to her parents. It was said very matter-of-factly, not looking for sympathy, and not on a regular basis.
Apparently, she had no feeelings toward the events of April 20, 1999 until right before the shooting. She and her brother got out of the car at Columbine that morning argueing because they were late for school.
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Did this girl leave any instructions regarding people reading her diary after her death?
Originally Posted By: MarkC
Not really, the world is mostly spherical, so eventually, the disturbance will get there, possibly from another direction.
Mark, interesting that you should raise this.
I was lying awake at 4AM, expecting more phone calls from troubled power stations, and started pondering the ever expanding and accelerating universe.
Why is it accelerating ?
Dark matter ?
And it's allegedly finite.
Then started to think about a moebius strip. Say a (linear) big bang occurred at a point, and energy/matter started heading out away from each other. They grow increasingly distant from the point of origin.
They start heading towards each other on the other side of the strip, essentially on the other side of the universe (although potentially extremely close, around the loop, and they are heading back towards each other, although still away from the point of origin.
Eventually, they start attracting each other through simple gravity, accelerating until they collide again.
Anybody any good at 4D maths ?
Not really, the world is mostly spherical, so eventually, the disturbance will get there, possibly from another direction.
Mark, interesting that you should raise this.
I was lying awake at 4AM, expecting more phone calls from troubled power stations, and started pondering the ever expanding and accelerating universe.
Why is it accelerating ?
Dark matter ?
And it's allegedly finite.
Then started to think about a moebius strip. Say a (linear) big bang occurred at a point, and energy/matter started heading out away from each other. They grow increasingly distant from the point of origin.
They start heading towards each other on the other side of the strip, essentially on the other side of the universe (although potentially extremely close, around the loop, and they are heading back towards each other, although still away from the point of origin.
Eventually, they start attracting each other through simple gravity, accelerating until they collide again.
Anybody any good at 4D maths ?
"Anybody any good at 4D maths ?"
Dunno about 'good', but a fun thing to do in 3D is to join the edge of two Mobius strips as you end up with a Klein bottle.
Consider someone living in a 2D world experiencing a 3D object like a ball; they would see a point, watch it grow into a circle, the circle gets larger then smaller, and then it becomes a point before disappearing. Now consider 3D vs 4D.
From what I understand a photon moving at the speed of light would 'see' everywhere it's been, where it is, and everywhere it will be, as it should be able to 'see' 4D like we see 3D.
Dunno about 'good', but a fun thing to do in 3D is to join the edge of two Mobius strips as you end up with a Klein bottle.
Consider someone living in a 2D world experiencing a 3D object like a ball; they would see a point, watch it grow into a circle, the circle gets larger then smaller, and then it becomes a point before disappearing. Now consider 3D vs 4D.
From what I understand a photon moving at the speed of light would 'see' everywhere it's been, where it is, and everywhere it will be, as it should be able to 'see' 4D like we see 3D.
Quote:
...the writings are very ordinary teen girl
...synonymous with melodramatic, in my experience. Not psychotic, just normal teenage melodrama, yup.
As for predictions, interconnectedness, puppies appearing on the channel 6 radar ("Trav, what do you make of this? I dunno, turn on the siren. Check Julie's diary, it's in the bottom drawer."), if one is already convinced of a premise, one tends to ignore evidence to the contrary but rather to fixate on even remotely encouraging 'evidence'.
I'm sure every event, positive or negative, was preceded with all manner of curious "can't possibly be a coincidence"s if we looked thoroughly enough. If only the Corleones had picked up on that orange thing, jeeze.
...the writings are very ordinary teen girl
...synonymous with melodramatic, in my experience. Not psychotic, just normal teenage melodrama, yup.
As for predictions, interconnectedness, puppies appearing on the channel 6 radar ("Trav, what do you make of this? I dunno, turn on the siren. Check Julie's diary, it's in the bottom drawer."), if one is already convinced of a premise, one tends to ignore evidence to the contrary but rather to fixate on even remotely encouraging 'evidence'.
I'm sure every event, positive or negative, was preceded with all manner of curious "can't possibly be a coincidence"s if we looked thoroughly enough. If only the Corleones had picked up on that orange thing, jeeze.
"Every event"? You've got to be kidding.
My sister was killed in an apartment fire. No clue. Whatever caused the fire was so fast (unknown) she couldn't get to a door, a window, a phone, or a fire extinguisher. She was found in the shower with all her clothes on, trying to keep from burning to death till help could get there.
I had just talked to her the day before and everything was fine. No clue. I went over her emails, looked in her car. Nothing.
No coincidences that I, the ATF, Fire Marshal, accelerant sniffing dogs, insurance detectives, or eight lawyers could find.
My sister was killed in an apartment fire. No clue. Whatever caused the fire was so fast (unknown) she couldn't get to a door, a window, a phone, or a fire extinguisher. She was found in the shower with all her clothes on, trying to keep from burning to death till help could get there.
I had just talked to her the day before and everything was fine. No clue. I went over her emails, looked in her car. Nothing.
No coincidences that I, the ATF, Fire Marshal, accelerant sniffing dogs, insurance detectives, or eight lawyers could find.
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