Posted: Jul 18, 2017 8:28 am
I had two musical coincidences in a row in the pub last Monday. I was talking to some other fella about Coldplay, who had just played in Dublin, and next thing Coldplay came on the jukebox, which just plays random hits when no one has put money in it. Then we started talking about some band (I completely forget now) and trying to think of that one hit they had years ago and as we were trying to think of it, it came up next on the jukebox.
D'other fella thought something spooky was going on. I didn't think it was anything more than amusing. So the first question would be - did something genuinely, objectively spooky happen? Or was the spookiness merely subjective to only one of the participants of the conversation? And; how would we find out for the former? That is, how would we settle the argument over whose interpretation is correct?
The thing about coincidences is; given all the zillions of thoughts and information, a lot of it repetition, which passes through our brains, life would be more spooky, perplexing - even incomprehensible - if there were no coincidences. How could it never happen that someone is thinking (a close approximation to) the exact same thing as someone else at the same time? Or someone had a dream about someone else the night they died? Or someone wished someone else dead and they died? Or that a song comes on the radio just as someone is whistling it? Or, indeed, a person finds an answer to a prayer by selecting a random quote frm a book?
D'other fella thought something spooky was going on. I didn't think it was anything more than amusing. So the first question would be - did something genuinely, objectively spooky happen? Or was the spookiness merely subjective to only one of the participants of the conversation? And; how would we find out for the former? That is, how would we settle the argument over whose interpretation is correct?
The thing about coincidences is; given all the zillions of thoughts and information, a lot of it repetition, which passes through our brains, life would be more spooky, perplexing - even incomprehensible - if there were no coincidences. How could it never happen that someone is thinking (a close approximation to) the exact same thing as someone else at the same time? Or someone had a dream about someone else the night they died? Or someone wished someone else dead and they died? Or that a song comes on the radio just as someone is whistling it? Or, indeed, a person finds an answer to a prayer by selecting a random quote frm a book?