Explain this, you empiricists

[brennan]

@Cartesian - have you ever read Hume?

 

[nc-1701]

Ive been debating whether to bring this up, because its the sort of thing that automatically gets people labelled a nutcase. But what the hell, I AM a nutcase Ok here it is:

I dreamt repeatedly about their being a blackout. I wake up. A short time later, Im discussing it with someone, and specifically say, "Well, lets see if the lights go out." A few minutes later, theres a major brownout, and parts of the area locally are left without power for a number of minutes. Me and this person looked at each other, and he said that Im a 'Brujo' (warlock)

So whats the 'logical' explanation?

I have to say coincedince man if you just do the math you realize that the improbable thing is your dreams not coming true on occasion.

 

[mdwh]

To me, the word coincidence is shorthand for "I dont know, but I dont care to pursue the matter" Which leaves us right where we started from.

The logical explanation is that the blackout happened due to whatever rational explanation was responsible (I'm sure one could investigate the matter and find out). And you had a dream because everyone dreams, and this night it just happened to be about a blackout.

There you are, solved. The burden is on you to show that there is any connection between the two events in the first place.

 

[mdwh]

IMO, the so called 'laws' of probability are a lame human attempt to impose some sort of order on chaos.

"So called 'laws'"? We are not talking laws on nature here, we are talking about mathematics.

If there were no "hidden meanings" and things happened here according to chance, the idea is we can show mathematically that these two events happening together to someone on the planet at some point in quite likely.

I once had a dream it was raining, and the next day it rained. OMG I'm psychic!

 

[mdwh]

By 'science minded' do you mean limiting my musings to whatever happens to be considered science at any given moment? Then no Im not, not even a little.

He problaby means following the scientific method. Which does not change much at all.

 

[mdwh]

If I bugged all my friends from 3 years ago to look through their logs, I might be able to find it.. but why?

It would be interseting to see how accurate it was - our memories have a habit of changing, and we remmber the correct bits more than the incorrecgt bits.

Actually I thought you were going to say it was predicting 9/11,with the skyscrapers collapsing...

 

[mdwh]

My only extraordinary claim is that world is more complex than we think and and the extraordinary evidence is everywhere around us.

Clearly that's not what's being disputed- I'm sure most people would say it's likely the world is more complex than we think.

The claim is that two events are connected in some unknown way, based on zero evidence.

And I believe in invisible elephants.

 

[FinnMcCool]

I had an even crazier dream a couple years ago.

I had a VERY vivid dream, bordering on the lucid, that the space shuttle blew up. I was standing on top of one of the skyscrapers on the edge of Central Park in New York, and for some reason there was a Space Shuttle launch going on in the middle of the park. The Space Shuttle took off, but something went wrong. There was an explosion, and it started flying sideways. It hit one of the skyscrapers. There were more explosions. There's fire everywhere, things exploding, people screaming & running, skyscrapers collapsing. I was freaking out.

Next thing I know the picture slowly starts panning out, like in a movie. It continues to pan out and at this point I'm no longer standing on the skyscraper.. I am in the sky.. or something.. looking at the whole disaster from up top. But THEN, my point of view goes out and out and out.. and onto a couch! And I'm watching the disaster on TV, with my family. "Space Shuttle disaster", the headline reads. It was all so incredibly vivid & emotional, I can't even describe it.

This was by far the most vivid dream I've ever had, even more vivid than all the lucid dreams I've had in the past. As soon as I woke up I ran to my computer and typed the whole thing out, and sent it out to my friends. I had to tell everyone about it.. it was just so incredibly vivid & emotional. It touched me.

I had this dream on the night of January 29, 2003. (or it could perhaps have been the 30th)

1 or 2 days later, February 1st, 2003.. The phone wakes me up.. I don't get it in time.. I get up, go to the bathroom.. get on my computer.. and have like 20+ messages.. WTH.. Phone rings again.. Friend tells me to turn on CNN.. I do.. and what do I see?? Space Shuttle Columbia just blew up.

All my friends on msn/icq/irc are calling me a prophet. .. I'm just freaked out.

I believe in you. I've had mundane lucid dreams since I was 10. And you can imagine how I feel that the pilot was named "Willie McCool"... a namesake...

 

[C~G]

Clearly that's not what's being disputed- I'm sure most people would say it's likely the world is more complex than we think.

Well, some people say it's just law of probability and people should forget it and move along.
For me it's like saying that everybody hates peasoup and when someone says he actually likes it, others say there's no reasonable explanation for it so he must be wrong.

The claim is that two events are connected in some unknown way, based on zero evidence.

And there's the claim that two events aren't connected in some unknown way based on zero evidence.

I already stated that there's such thing as apophenia in my first post which could be the case here.

Personally I believe this kind of occurrence has to do with many things including statistical probability and as skadistic pointed out brains working over time without us knowing and also something else that we don't know.

And I believe in invisible elephants.

That is fine by me. But you see it's easy to spot invisible elephant if you enter shop full of china. What I'm interest is why do you believe into invisible elephants, what makes you believe into such things and what are the consequences of this believe. Maybe you get advantage over other people by believing into such things.

Thing is that I believe everyone is superstitious since they don't understand the world and they become up with the most common explanation which quite often as much as hocus pocus as everything else offered.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm with you Bozo. "Coincidence" is the rational cop out for what they cannot explain.

 

[mdwh]

Well, some people say it's just law of probability and people should forget it and move along.
For me it's like saying that everybody hates peasoup and when someone says he actually likes it, others say there's no reasonable explanation for it so he must be wrong.

It's more like: Some people hate peasoup and 1 person likes it - and it must be due to magic that that 1 person likes it (or there is otherwise some "special meaning" attached to someone liking peasoup that means it's connected to something entirely different).

And people are saying the complete opposite of "there's no reasonable explanation", they are saying there *is* a reasonable explanation.

And there's the claim that two events aren't connected in some unknown way based on zero evidence.

Well, all I'm saying is there's no evidence there's anything more to it, and coincidence is sufficient to explain it. Yes, invisible unicorns could exist, but I'm not going to believe in them without evidence.

 

[mdwh]

I'm with you Bozo. "Coincidence" is the rational cop out for what they cannot explain.

We have explained it.

Now, what's your explanation? Saying there's some mystical connection or we can see the future is not in itself an explanation - I want you to explain how that works.

 

[Mirc]

I never seem to remember my dreams. Ever. I remember having them, but I couldn't tell you what they were about.

Same for me. Just that sometimes, very rarely, I do remember one of them or so. But this happens about once every 2 months...

 

[Sidhe]

I dunno, to me coincidence is a meaningless word, like 'kerfliffel'. Something happens which cant be immediately explained, so 'kerfliffel' is invoked, everybody breathes a sigh of relief, calms down and goes on with their lives. Thats fine, its just that nothings been learned.

This is why probabiility was invented, unless you've studied it though in depth you'll assign it as sophistry or just wont give it credence, this is normal, people can read all sorts of mumbo jumbo into events and commonly do, that doesn't mean it's real. Did you know I got a receipt today and the price tallied up to 666? Does this mean the beast is here? No it means I have no idea of the laws of probability like most plebs in the world and you'll read all sorts of pseudo science into all sorts of non corellatory unrelated stuff.

That said though Yung's ideas behind synchronicity grew out of working with the famous nobel prize winning physisist Wolfgang Pauli. His exclusion principle outlines your vague quantum mechanical(QM) assertion. And various QM principles around at the time also would engender such theories, as to whether there true is completely in the realms of the hypothetical? Most people dismiss the Quantum effects on the consciousness or sub-conciousness, not all though, there are various scientists working on it, but it's a little fringe though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle

Here's a nice little law of probability I worked out recently. If you played the national lottery every week it would take on average nigh on 15,000 years for you to win, that is get all six numbers. Now if you dreamt about it and it happened then that would be interesting probably a 100,000-1(or something huge like this) Chance but hardly a miracle, after all their are 40 million people or so that can play in England say 2,000,000 play on the Saturday, if one dreamt about it and it happened we're talking something in the realms of the more likely right? This is probability, consider the odds, and things all seem a little more real and less fantastic.

 

[C~G]

Well, all I'm saying is there's no evidence there's anything more to it, and coincidence is sufficient to explain it. Yes, invisible unicorns could exist, but I'm not going to believe in them without evidence.

Sure, that is your right.
I don't believe into invisible unicorns neither into that "reasonable explanation" of this case.

I might add that whether something is coincidence or not, it's still fascinating phenomena which needs further study.

 

[Phlegmak]

I might add that whether something is coincidence or not, it's still fascinating phenomena which needs further study.

Coincidences aren't fascinating and they don't need further study.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

There have been many replies, I'll try to answer them all. For the most part, people seem to believe that its just coincidence (btw, I dont claim that coincidences dont happen, they certainly do. I just dont believe that every single unexplained occurence is a coincidence) because if you do the math, then its clear that occasionally someone will dream something, and it'll happen, so thats it, the crowd can disperse, theres nothing to see here. But heres what I say: in order to reach meaningful conclusions with nothing but mathematical equations, dont you need to have complete knowledge of everything, all the parameters influencing the thing that you are calculating? Is everything known about how the brain functions on the Quantum level, about consciousness, or even about Time itself?

But lets say you know every single factor influencing a rapidly bouncing rubber ball in a large container of some kind. You know the exact wind, airpressure, gravity, mass of the ball and its exact 'bounciness', the material of the container it will be bouncing around in, the force used to throw the ball, all of that, everything. Would you be able ahead of time to successfully calculate and mark with a marker every single point in the container where the ball will make contact with?

Now. How much more complex are the natures of Time, the brain, and consciousness, than a bouncing rubber ball?

Next, lets say all your number crunching regarding dreams is completely accurate, and you can demonstrate that, lets say, every 100,000 dreams will appear to predict something that hasnt happened yet. What do your numbers say about the significance of those occurences? How do you know that what youre calculating isnt that every 100,000 dreams will be some sort of 'psychic' experience? Whats that you say? You dont believe in 'psychic' occurences? Well, thats got nothing to do with your math, thats just youre own belief system talking.


For the record, I dont believe that Im a (for want of a better word) psychic. I just believe that there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, uh...Horatio.

 

[luiz]

Sorry Bozo but it's just a coincidencs - and as others pointed out it can be easilly explained by probability.

Many time I start whispering some song and then when I turn on the radio there it is. However, for every time this happens, I whisper hundreds of songs that are not playing on the radio. It's the same with your dreams. Eventually it will happen, if your dream is about possible events.

There is nothing hidden here, it's quite a clear-cut case. And stranger coincidences have happened.

(You say probability is an excuse for people who don't want to look further in the matter. I say looking for super-natural causes is an excuse for people who don't want to study probability )

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Luiz, ok lets say youre all right, and Im wrong. You can whip out a calculator and determine that every few thousand dreams will appear to predict a future event. The calculations are only concerned with frequency, not significance, right?

 

[brennan]

Bozo for there to be a significance, and therefore evidence of a causal relationship, the rate of 'coincidences' would have to be higher than statistically expected because statistical analysis like this assumes the complete absence of such a causal relationship.

Imagine you toss a coin 1000 times with your eyes closed and randomly call 'heads' or 'tails' - would you attribute any significance to the fact that you were right 50% of the time? If you just bring the odds down that is what you are saying - that your call affects the toss or vice versa.