I have noted that a lot of talk goes on about people's irrational and irrational-seeming belief systems. I am interested in hearing the oddest stories from personal life or historically-verified generally-accepted matters. Then rebuttals can be made or people can just shrug and say Wow. Please don't lie.

I'll start with myself:
1) My biggest thing is a birthday coincidence. Here are ten dates in chronological order in da/mo/yr format (I'll get to what they are, but you may recognize two or three): 03/01/42, 16/02/43, 16/07/45, 06/08/45, 09/08/45, 06/07/64, 16/07/64,
06/08/64, 09/08/65, & 11/05/97. The 1st, 2nd, & 6th are my father's, my mother's, and my own d.o.b. I'm in the USA, so to me these are all 2 days after holidays, and I guess the minor significance of the second holiday--relatively speaking--is made up for a little or a lot by this being the opposite-gender parent from myself. The 3rd-5th are the dates of the Trinity Site nuclear test and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 7th-9th are the d.o.b. of my closest same-generation relatives, for whom I am the sole link in that generation (I have six first cousins, two of these through my father's step-brother, three through his sister, and one through my mother's sister. I knew and know the birth dates only of the three closest in age to me: two of the three sons of my paternal aunt and my maternal aunt's daughter). The 10th is the date that Gary Kasparov lost to the IBM computer Deep Blue in a match (sequence of games) akin to a world championship though not recognized in those terms. You'll note that my cousins' birth dates are anniversaries of the explosions. Furhtermore, my older cousin, the other full cousin, taught me chess and I spent a lot of time using a computer to analyze the game. Even more, my own birthday also links to the third and tenth dates as follows: 7061964=4*1765491 and 6071964=4*1517991. Yet more is that I discovered the date of the Trinity Site test about 3 months after the 7.6-magnitude earthquake in Kashmir (and I could go on with some of the stuff that was preparatory to my making the full link).
2) 1 was useful in causing me to calculate (365+1/4)^4=17797577732+7^2/2^8. By extending the 7s on the right to get 17797777777.777... and taking the fourth root and subtracting 365.25 you get a string of digits whose first two 2nd millennium dates are 1957 and 1863. Pairing these two dates in a search of Britannica 2001 (CD) gives "Baha'i faith" as one of 20 hits. Placing "Baha'i" in the search gives 19382 hits, because it handles the apostrophe incorrectly (generating all the hits for "i"), and my 5-digit zip code is 19382, and 1938.2 as a date is in between the two days that Hitler bullied the Czechoslovak prime minister and then marched on Czechoslovakia. The zip-code system was also started in the year before I was born. There is quite a bit more about this date stuff that this post won't hold.
3) The very first thread I started on my own is a thread at h2g2. It's numbered as my 7-digit phone number aside from one digit being off by one digit.

Now, I'm not looking for this sort of thing from anyone but myself to this degree, but more along the lines of two others that other people have said:
1) I read of an American mathematician who happened to be in Germany when he ran across another mathematician who lived on the same block in Indiana when they were children, not having known each other then (with a mutual friend as a part of the story).
2) I was told of an occasion when someone lost a prescription contact lens while travelling, and the first person he spoke to was a woman who just happened to have an extra pair with one missing, and the lens was a good match.

So, don't worry about being believed. We here won't take anybody's word for it anyway.

I won't be responding here this week--I have a number of obligations including a long-ass post on pure number coincidences--but I'll be reading what's said if anything.

I only have one, and it is true coincidence. My soon to be sister-in-law and I have the exact same birthday of 04/11/1988 (mm/dd/yyyy).

Rawnaeris wrote:I only have one, and it is true coincidence. My soon to be sister-in-law and I have the exact same birthday of 04/11/1988 (mm/dd/yyyy).

Although I said I wouldn't do anything but read here, I should repeat and clarify that the coincidences can be things you have had reported to you that you yourself aren't sure whether you believe or not, and perhaps something from the real world that we know but have to be reminded of could come up as well. Of course, it doesn't have to be about dates either. If you could think of or look up somewhere a couple more, it would be better; but if this is all you have this is all you have, and thanks for contributing (and congrats to your brother or you and your fiance (if I can make the obvious assumption )).

I have a really amazing coincidence to tell you about! At no point in the last month has anybody phoned me while I was thinking about them! Astounding, or what?

hackenslash wrote:I have a really amazing coincidence to tell you about! At no point in the last month has anybody phoned me while I was thinking about them! Astounding, or what?

It all depends upon whom you were thinking about for how long and how frequently you would normally be called by them in the specific times of day et cetera. Actually, this sort of negative coincidence could be included too, so if anyone who is actually serious shows up, we have hackenslash to thank for that particular idea.
Talk again here on Friday or Saturday if nothing seriously requiring my input comes up.

I am serious. This would actually be more remarkable than the opposite in reality. The point here is that coincidence is a really fuckwitted thing to attach any significance to. I am absolutely deadly serious in this. Frankly, you'd be better off believing in some preposterous creator entity than this vacuous bullshit.

hackenslash wrote:I am serious.

I'll take your word for it

This would actually be more remarkable than the opposite in reality.

It depends upon the person (I take it you're not the lonely sort who never gets phone calls. Congrats to you too, then.)

The point here is that coincidence is a really fuckwitted thing to attach any significance to.

Coincidence is too broad a concept for you to believe this, in my opinion, but maybe you aren't as bright as you sound some of the time. I think what you really mean is that coincidences can be dismissed as such from the perspective that they don't directly enlighten you, with only second-hand science being able to do that. Science stands on many empirically observed coincidences.

I am absolutely deadly serious in this. Frankly, you'd be better off believing in some preposterous creator entity than this vacuous bullshit.

Where did I say something about believing something other than to make the observation that WE (myself included) won't be taking anybody's word for it?

Frankly, that should cover it for you for a while, and I have obligations on acquiring a vocabulary in regards to Buddhism. I recommend any reasonably young skeptic from the West do the same. There's plenty of irrational thought globally apart from the Abrahamic religions and pure woo, and the first two Buddhist congressmen were elected in the USA.

Nice bit of equivocation there. Science deals with coincidences in the sense of causal relationships, not coincidences in the sense of uncanny correlations, such as you spout in your fatuous numerology bullshit. There are many, many significant coincidences in the cosmos, but the vast majority of coincidences have no significance whatsoever.

And you want to warn us about woo? I've read your posts, thanks. I think I'll stick to laughing.

hackenslash wrote:Nice bit of equivocation there. Science deals with coincidences in the sense of causal relationships, not coincidences in the sense of uncanny correlations, such as you spout in your fatuous numerology bullshit. There are many, many significant coincidences in the cosmos, but the vast majority of coincidences have no significance whatsoever.

And you want to warn us about woo? I've read your posts, thanks. I think I'll stick to laughing.

Please, disbelief and being rude in your disbelief are two different things. I'm trying to allow this thread to percolate something more than my own uncanny coincidences for a scientific purpose. Calling my strain of semi-speculative mathematical quasi-theology or exo-psychology 'numerology bullshit' is your right, but you actually don't know what you're talking about, as I have promised to spell out a little more clearly on another thread.

My apologies for the rudeness. Unmitigated pseudo-intellectual fucknuttery brings out the worst in me. I promise I won't be rude to the braindead fucking drivel you spout from now on. Actually, I lied. I can't help myself.

hackenslash wrote:My apologies for the rudeness. Unmitigated pseudo-intellectual fucknuttery brings out the worst in me. I promise I won't be rude to the braindead fucking drivel you spout from now on. Actually, I lied. I can't help myself.

Being the loudest voice isn't going to win you any arguments here. The best you could possibly accomplish would be to turn this site into a less attractive one than it should be for all sorts of people, at both extremes of the rationality/irrationality divide. What you are after may be betrayed by which of two kinds of things you claim to disbelieve you say I should prefer. You think belief in God is better than a belief that certain coincidences mean something, therefore I accuse you of being a Christian pretending to be an atheist in order to make atheists look bad.

How may people chosen at random, would you need to have a better than 50% chance that 2 of them share the same birthday?

Answer

John

That's moving in the right direction relative to the general subject. While we're into this thread, I do want to remind anyone that's here of the intent of the OP--gathering purported or recorded data on coincidences that seem significant, (whether or not they are) to the respondents who give them, for the purposes of possible mathematical analysis--but this sort of thing is good. I probably should have gone through the trouble of posting it myself. By the way, there is a small problem with the Wikipedia article not providing an initial caveat that this deals with a uniform distribution assumption that is not exactly accurate (though I am nearly certain--haven't checked--that 23 is the correct answer in the real world as well).

The one person who did give a coincidence in response did give a strong one. However, unless that person is known to have not been associated with me and to not have come to this thread totally by coincidence unrelated to her reported coincidence, it doesn't provide very much evidence even if we assume it to be true. If we assume this and the fact that only about ten people had seen this thread aside from me at that time, we would have something to talk about. I have said I don't have time for it right now, but perhaps John would want to take over a little.

z8000783 wrote:How may people chosen at random, would you need to have a better than 50% chance that 2 of them share the same birthday?

Answer

John

The birthday argument perfectly illustrates that any significance attached to coincidences is purely down to our misunderstanding of statistical analysis, what significance we do attach is down to our expertise at spotting patterns in nature. These tend (on the whole) to be an accurate reflection of reality but problems can arise when we get carried away with ourselves and assign significance where none exists.

Is that what you were trying to say Hack?

Once is happenstance
Twice is coincidence
The third time it's enemy action

Auric Goldfinger

Mr P wrote:

z8000783 wrote:How may people chosen at random, would you need to have a better than 50% chance that 2 of them share the same birthday?

Answer

John

The birthday argument perfectly illustrates that any significance attached to coincidences is purely down to our misunderstanding of statistical analysis, what significance we do attach is down to our expertise at spotting patterns in nature. These tend (on the whole) to be an accurate reflection of reality but problems can arise when we get carried away with ourselves and assign significance where none exists.

Is that what you were trying to say Hack?

This is not rational, in my opinion. I've no problem with the thrust of this statement. I've no problem with the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What I have a problem with is cliquishness in support of an argument. Your sentence isn't all that bad, aside from treating coincidences of the delusion-causing sort as something apart from coincidences of the science-supporting sort. A coincidence is what it etymologically is, not your pejorative conceptual formulation. I've bolded significant parts to me of your error, underlining the key words. You have to have an open mind to things that aren't solidly refuted.

z8000783 wrote:Once is happenstance
Twice is coincidence
The third time it's enemy action

Auric Goldfinger

Edited response:

Someone wrote:

Mr P wrote:

z8000783 wrote:How may people chosen at random, would you need to have a better than 50% chance that 2 of them share the same birthday?

Answer

John

The birthday argument perfectly illustrates that any significance attached to coincidences is purely down to our misunderstanding of statistical analysis, what significance we do attach is down to our expertise at spotting patterns in nature. These tend (on the whole) to be an accurate reflection of reality but problems can arise when we get carried away with ourselves and assign significance where none exists.

Is that what you were trying to say Hack?

This is not rational, in my opinion. I've no problem with the thrust of this statement. I've no problem with the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. What I have a problem with is cliquishness in support of an argument. Your sentence isn't all that bad, aside from treating coincidences of the delusion-causing sort as something apart from coincidences of the science-supporting sort. A coincidence is what it etymologically is, not your pejorative conceptual formulation. I've bolded significant parts to me of your error, underlining the key words. You have to have an open mind to things that aren't solidly refuted.

Before this degenerates into a semantic argument (or just cheap shots about "cliquishness")could you let us know what point you are trying to actually make?

Mr P wrote:

Before this degenerates into a semantic argument (or just cheap shots about "cliquishness")could you let us know what point you are trying to actually make?

This;



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