WEBVTT - The Science of Coincidence 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.200 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:16.799 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Yeah, 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.800 you all may remember Joe from Forward Thinking Um, one 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.680 of our sister podcasts. I actually appeared on a couple 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.280 of episodes talk about monsters with you guys right least 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.400 was it last October? So that was what we talked about, 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.040 monsters in the future of monsters. That was really fun. 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:34.640 That was that was a fun one. Got into some 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.559 of the uh the de sci fi possibilities for the 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.480 future in terms of monstrosity. And Joe's joining me this week, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.400 going in for Julie to talk about the science of coincidence. 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.160 So I've got one for you. Tell me if you've 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.920 heard this one before. Lincoln and Kennedy. Oh, yes, you 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:57.560 know this. I was first exposed to this in middle 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.720 school when a teacher of mine get gave us a 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.560 list to these like it was some kind of really 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.440 important fact we needed to learn. But yeah, how about this. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:10.039 Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, two American presidents, both 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.520 were elected to Congress in the year forty six. Lincoln 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:17.440 in eighteen forty six, Kennedy in nineteen forty six. Both 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.240 were elected president in the year sixty, Lincoln in eighteen sixty, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.160 Kennedy in nineteen sixty. Each of their last names both 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:29.160 contains seven letters uh. And then there's this whole list 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.240 of coincidences that keeps going. They were both shot in 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.399 the head, they were both assassinated by Southerners. They were 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.880 both succeeded by Southerners. Their vice presidents were Southerners. Both 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:46.440 vice presidents were named Johnson. What are the odds? Yeah, 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.680 I remember this being rolled out, perhaps in a history class, 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.480 and uh, you know that the list would start about 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.760 these coincidences, and I would kind of tune out after 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.720 the first one or two. Um. And I guess that 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.800 that kind of boils down to the type of p 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.320 in the world, Like there there are people out there 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.160 who just tune out after the first coincidence or two, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.040 and then there are those who obsess about it and 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.600 see this as as something something really crucial and something 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.560 really telling about these two men, about the history of 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.120 this nation, et cetera. That might be the difference between 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.200 this Robert, because I did not tune out. I was 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.880 my mind was blown to uh, to borrow from a 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.280 popular phrase. Yeah, I I sat there in my desk like, wow, 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:31.399 what are the odds? You know, must be some kind 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:37.600 of ghost spirit controlling this. It just I was amazed. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:42.600 There two twin souls are basically the same entity, reincarnated 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:47.960 and and and tracked hunted by the same extra dimensional force. Yeah. 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.040 Or there was some sort of like cosmic literature teacher 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:54.280 trying to get me to observe parallels between the meaning 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.239 of these two men. Yeah, it's another one of course 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.200 that comes to mind is the of Thomas Jefferson and 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.679 John Adams, two individuals who, of course a very interconnected 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.799 in the history of the United States as well, both 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.640 instrumental in drafting the Declaration of Independence, which was signed 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.960 to July fourth, seventeen seventy six. Both men died on 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:19.760 the same day, July four, eighteen twenty six, exactly fifty 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.400 years to the day after the document was ratified. So 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.000 that that you know that that kind of hits you like. 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.000 I like that one because that one's nice and succinct. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.760 You know, what were the chances? You don't need a list, Yeah, 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.120 it's right there. Yeah, I mean they were they were 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.520 good friends. So maybe there was you could imagine some 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.840 level of synchronicity about, you know, when you're giving up 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.760 and sort of handing it over to the reaper. But 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.440 but the dates are are kind of compelling there. It 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.720 would be even crazier, though, if I found out now 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.160 that you played John Adams in a production of seventeen 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.840 seventy six. No, but I was in a production of 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.600 seven times. Here you go, I played Thomas Jefferson and 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.000 been a production of seventeen seventy six. So we're tied 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.440 into it too. There's no escaping the black hole of coincidence. Okay, 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.560 I've got an even crazier coincidence. No, it's probably not. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.960 This is kind of dumb, but why do so many 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.720 action heroes have the initials JB James Bond, Jason Bourne, 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.880 Jack Bauer, Jack Burton my favorite? Well, I mean, what 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.479 are the chances? Actually, we have no idea, do we? Yeah? 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.839 I haven't read any I mean maybe there's some really 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:29.400 deep statistical study on this out there, but uh yeah, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.800 maybe is it? Is? It? On one hand, is just 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.680 possibly pure luck. And we only pick up right on 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.120 there there being a j B here, a JB there 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.040 because we're also not taking into account all the other 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.720 j B initials out there, like like does Jim Bean 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.440 factor into this, Probably not, and all of the action 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.120 heroes that aren't j B s. Yeah, And then to 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.200 what extent is it just completely almost subconscious, you know, 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.000 because you have an action hero, and and by extension 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.400 of action hero, you think of mythological hero and the 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.640 symbolic power of the hero and how it resonates through 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.440 through our culture and through through our our the way 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.720 we view the world, and and perhaps that ends up 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.160 informing it. You know, you have James Bond in your mind, 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.400 and then you end up creating Jason Bourne and Jack 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.800 Bauer in the same way. And I'm just purely spitballing here. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.000 You could perhaps have the mythic hercules in your mind, 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.960 and then when you need to create another, you know, 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:23.760 mythically strong hero, perhaps you go with the Hulk. That's 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.800 the same kind of consonants. Yeah. We associate sounds with 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.919 with ideas certainly. Yeah. Now another crazy one. And I 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.599 love this one, uh, in part because it involves Edgar 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.760 Allan Poe. Of course, Edgar Allan Poe only wrote one 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.599 novel his entire career. You know, mostly known for his 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.359 his excellent short stories, but the novel in question published 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.560 an eight thirty eight the narrative of author Gordon Pym 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.240 of Nantucket. I've never read it, never mean, I never 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.039 read it there, but uh, the fiction of this story 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.400 is you have a crew of a ship called Grampus. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.479 They wind up adrift with no food or water, and 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.720 so first they catch it toward us. They eat it, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.120 but eventually they have to draw straws to see who 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.440 winds up has dinner. And uh, an individual named Richard 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.919 Parker draws the short straw, so they stab him and 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.840 then they eat him. And then they build a house 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:16.920 on the boat so that they can bury him behind 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.120 the wall. Yeah, I mean, you gotta play the greatest hits, right, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.320 Here's where it gets crazy. Years later, in four a 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:29.840 yacht named the minion Net leaves England, is headed towards Sydney, Australia, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.560 and it sinks in a storm. Four men wind up 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.960 adrift in a lifeboat. They catch a turtle. They eat 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.640 it all right, But again you're probably thinking at this point, Okay, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.520 you know turtles, how hard are they to catch? There 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:42.880 are lots of turtles in the world, they're all tasty. Yeah, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:44.080 and if you're four men in a boat in the 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.160 middle of nowhere and you're hungry, you're gonna eat it. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.440 No good deal. But then it turns to cannibalism, and 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.080 this too you might think, well, what a four guys 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:53.560 in the middle in the middle of the ocean in 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.799 a little boat. They're hungry, They've only had one turtle 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.680 to eat. It's kind of inevitable, right, Well, this is 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.719 this is crazy. But aboard this vessel, you have a 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.600 seventeen year old named Richard Parker, the same name as 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.760 the individual they ate in pose novel. This guy falls overboard, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.640 drinks a bunch of seawater to quench his thirst. Uh, 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.640 and so he starts going. He starts deteriorating really quickly 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.640 here and they side, well, he's he's about to die. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:22.800 We're gonna have to eat him, and they eat him. 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.560 So you have these this fictional account of cannibalism seeming 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.080 to inform this real life act of cannibalism years later 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.840 and in almost identical circumstances. Yeah, and it's so gruesome 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.880 you can really doubt that they staged it to happen 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.720 on purpose. Because of the novel. Yeah, Like I can't 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.160 imagine them being on the boat and someone saying, look, 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.520 I read this book, and uh, there was a guy 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.680 in the book named Richard Parker and they ate him in. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.800 Your name's Richard Parker. So I'm not saying we have 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:58.720 to eat you, but come on. Yeah, it's like the 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:04.000 worst school play every exactly Alright. So, uh, in this 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.480 we're talking about coincidence, and in this episode we're talking 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:11.160 about coincidence and the science of coincidence, how we perceive 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.080 a coincidence. Uh, but let's let's get down to brass tacks. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.440 What exactly is a coincidence? Yeah, and specifically, I think 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.880 we should think about what's the difference between a coincidence 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:26.440 and just an improbable event? Um so of standard Oxford Dictionaries, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:31.000 definition is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.120 apparent causal connection. Okay, So that's sort of playing up 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.000 on the like the two different things coinciding, like like 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.439 the pim right, like the Gordon Pim example, or like 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.560 Jefferson and Adams, you know, dying on the same day. 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.559 Another way of putting it is that it's a concurrence 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:54.959 of events that is quote perceived as meaningfully related with 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.120 no apparent causal connection, um and and that quotes from 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.000 a paper that we're gonna end up talking about later 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.959 in this episode. But I think that's something we should highlight, 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:08.040 is that a coincidence has a perceptual element. It's something 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.920 that seems to be important to us, like it has 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.040 a psychic weight. But you know it, it kind of 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.199 comes back to what we're talking about earlier about the 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:18.280 two students in the classroom. One of them is just 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:23.280 enthralled by the Kennedy Lincoln coincidence list and the other is, uh, 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.600 it's just tunes out on it. Because that that kind 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.319 of comes down to how we can look at coincidence 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.800 in the life. You can either say it's just pure dumblock, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.560 is just a matter of statistics, And then there's the 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.160 the the view that there's something else going on here, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:41.240 that there is some sort of connected, connective tissue that 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.760 we were just not privy to. And we have seen 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.079 some very you know, thoughtful and informed study on both 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.640 sides of the issue. Right there have been brilliant people 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.679 throughout the years who paid way more attention to coincidences 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.600 than we might today. I mean, we all experience coincidences. 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.200 I would be shocked if was someone who would say, no, 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.840 I've never experienced anything like a really weird concurrence. It 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.400 happens every single day. It happened to us we were 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.520 talking about while we were researching these podcasts, so like 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:15.520 just strange topics coming up and seemingly unrelated episodes. Yeah, 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.680 I mean, of course that kind of gets down to that, 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.520 like the power of coincidence. Coincidence can can kill you, 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.760 Coincidence can can make you rich. Coincidence can just be 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.880 this seemingly meaningless, little connective tissue between two things. Um, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.560 and it's a trapped It's so easy to fall into, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:36.360 especially given how important causation and determination are in human culture. Right, 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.480 And we'll get more into that later, but I mean, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.840 you you almost can't fault an individual for for thinking 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.040 about these coincidences in terms of some sort of connection. Now, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.560 and you see it at every level. I mean, what 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.960 is the meat cute and every romantic comedy, it's always 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.840 some kind of coincidence that brings people together. And on 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:58.000 the opposite end, you've got famous scientists who have tried 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.040 to investigate, you know, what's the meaning of coincidences. I 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.360 think one great example is the Austrian biologists Paul Camera. 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.440 Uh you know, if if you ever have that feeling like, wow, 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:13.800 I think everything's connected, he did too. So Paul Camera 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.920 lived from eighteen eighty to nineteen twenty six and he 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:21.240 was a proponent of Lamarckian evolution. Have you ever I'm 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.520 sure you're familiar with this, the one to just give 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.280 everyone a quick reminder, the idea that say giraffes, their 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.320 next grow long because they're reaching for those top those 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.720 top leaves, and so it's like one generation informing the next. Yeah. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.960 So normally, now what we believe is min Dalian genetics. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.719 You know, you inherit, you inherit your genetic traits from 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.520 your parents germ cells, and you pass those same genetic 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.439 traits onto your kids. And unless you have a certain mutation, 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.680 that can be basically random. But the Lamarchian ideas where 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:52.840 that you could you know, maybe if you work out 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:54.839 a lot or something, your kids will be born with 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.520 bigger muscles or something will strain your neck trying to 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.000 reach something in this life, and in the next life, 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.559 your kids will have longer necks by virtue of your 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.280 your straining. Yeah, and so in one famous experiment, Camera 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.800 claimed to have caused male specimens of a of an 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:14.760 animal called the midwife toad to grow these black forearm 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.720 paths that some species of male toads have, and that 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.839 they used them to hold onto females during mating. Unfortunately, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.880 some other scientists in the field examined Camera specimens and 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.000 found that the black pads on his toads had been 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:33.200 injected with artificial inc and so Camera denied responsibility for that. 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.280 And I guess nobody really knows whose fault that was. 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.880 But the accusation here would be that he cheated, right, 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.280 which is important because we'll come back to cheating. Right. 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.360 But Camera wasn't only interested in toads and inheritance. He 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:51.200 was also interested in coincidences, like he kept a diary 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.800 of daily coincidences. And just one example against it in 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.280 a in a paper that we're going to bring up 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.080 in a bit, his brother in law tells him that 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.320 he attended to concert and held both the ticket for 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:09.680 seat number nine and the coach check ticket numbered nine. WHOA, yeah, yeah, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.280 But anyway, that itself doesn't seem all that interesting until 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.840 you start making lists which Camera did, and he added 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.280 them up over time. And I have to admit, when 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.720 you add it's it's kind of like the Lincoln Kennedy thing. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.280 The first one isn't all that interesting until you start 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.160 adding them together, and then it really gets your attention. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.160 There's this cumulative effect of this, like snowballing kind of attention, 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.120 getting significance of coincidences that pile up on each other. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.640 So Camera organized these thoughts into a hypothesis he called 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.440 the law of seriality, uh. And he posited basically this 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.599 underlying force in reality that was a quote world mosaic 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:58.000 or cosmic kaleidoscope that brings like objects and events together. 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.640 So almost a kind of of emergent order, uh in 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.120 the chaos yet show which I could buy into it. 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.160 And we see in emergences as a major topic in 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:13.559 understanding and intelligence, evolution, etcetera. So why not coincidence? Sure? 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.720 But of course Camera wasn't the only scientist who has 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:22.680 been interested in coincidences and who has attributed some significant 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.000 role in the universe to them. Carl Young. Carl Young 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:32.080 loved coincidences. Carl So. Carl Young was a Swiss psychiatrist. 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:33.640 You've probably heard of him. As sort of like a 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.320 he's one of the big names in psychology and psychiatry, 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.600 following Freud. You know, it's like the Mantle, I think 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:45.840 union and the big big tents. But Young was was 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:51.600 very much into sort of interesting borderline magical esoteric ideas. 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.960 So he loved the paranormal. He was interested in meaningful 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:02.520 connections and mystical truths, eesp astrology, psychokinesis, all kinds of 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.840 stuff like that, and so naturally he was really interested 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:12.520 in coincidences. And so he wrote a book called Synchronicity 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.840 and a Causal Connecting Principle. And this book was actually, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.040 uh it was I think extracted from a larger volume 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.240 of his work and eventually published on its own. But 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.680 I read this book when I was in college, and 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.480 I remember thinking, at the time, yet again playing up 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.880 on my I guess I'm susceptible to this kind of thing. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.600 I was like, I wonder if he's onto something here. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:38.480 It seemed really interesting. So what kind of coincidences did 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.520 Young notice? Well, he gives one example. This is the 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.720 one that's always cited. It's it's it's his favorite example. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.240 It's the Golden Scaub. So in a nineteen fifty one. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.480 I believe it was essay on synchronicity. Young told the 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.560 story that he had been seeing a female patient for psychoanalysis, 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.160 and Young believed basically that she was languishing because she 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.680 was in sort of a prison of rationality. She was 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.680 just too rational. She she wouldn't quote open up to 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.560 the human side of life. For Young, I think this 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:16.160 had a decidedly sort of supernatural tinge to it. And um, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.320 he wanted to uh and this is from a particular 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:24.280 translation quote sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding. 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.320 So one day she was in psychoanalysis telling him about 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.280 a dream she'd had where someone gave her a golden 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:37.200 scar rub. And Young claims at that very moment, an 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.600 insect started knocking against the window of the office where 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.240 they were, and he opened the window and he caught 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.520 the insect and it was a beatle. It was a 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.440 scarub type of beetle. And he said it was like 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.360 a green color, but in the right light it reflected 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.400 the light and looked gold. And then he presented it 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.680 to her in this moment of you know, one of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:58.880 those there are more things in heaven and Earth than 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.120 dreamt of in your fullosophy kind of moments, and and 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.960 he hoped that this helped shatter her rationalism. And so 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.440 I don't know if that happened to me. If I 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.439 had just been talking about a beetle and then a 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.480 beatle started knocking against the window, I'd probably think that 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.480 was interesting. But I don't know if I designed any 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.320 meaning to it. Yeah, it doesn't really smack of just 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.159 Heaven sent beetle sent to you know, open up my 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.879 mind and make me more you know, in love with life, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.160 because they're probably just a lot of beetles flying around 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.560 out of there. Sure, but Young commented that when coincidences 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.800 like these accumulate, it's what we were talking about earlier. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:40.880 The more of them happened, the more we take note 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.560 of them, uh, and with good reason, because it's harder 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.160 to explain them away by random chance. The more they accumulate, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.800 you fill up that entire diary with them, right. Yeah, 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.239 it has weight to it exactly. So Young came up 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.720 with this term synchronicity to describe the a causal connecting 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.280 principle that links meaningfully significant events that couldn't be connected 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.199 by physical causes. So he's not saying that there's like 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.320 a there's like a you know, a ghost that put 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:14.240 the beetle there, because that would be in some way causal. Instead, 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:18.280 he's saying there's another force in the universe other than causality. 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.600 It sort of runs parallel to causality that connects events 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.879 and and creates links of significance. But it's not physics, Okay, 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.080 Like I kind of in making sense of it in 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.000 my own head, I thought of it in terms of 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.040 this room or recording in in which case we have 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.760 wires that are running outside of the walls, then running 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.239 across the floor and under the table, and then there 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:42.680 are the wires within the wall that we cannot see. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.000 And so the wires that are running outside of the 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.679 walls are are kind of like causality. We can we 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.119 can see them. We're in causality. We've our brain spends 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.359 a lot of time making sense of cause and effect. 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.320 But then there's this idea that there might be some 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.800 other force at work within the walls. We can't see it, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.480 we're not we're not privy to it. It's exact in 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.360 an ins and outs, but it's it's making things interconnected. 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:09.040 It's it's these connections are popping up throughout our life, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.119 throughout the times game. Yeah, causality connects events in the 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.680 physical realm, and according to Young, synchronicity would connect events 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.199 in sort of like the psychic meaningfulness realcom that it 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.000 was this force it makes things have meaning and shows 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:30.159 us meaning by bringing unlikely events together. Okay, so this 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.440 would be kind of like in um, you seen Interstellar? Yes, okay, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.679 so there's the whole bit in there about love. Is 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.359 this uh, this connecting force like that seems to line 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.760 up rather closely with this idea of synchronicity. Yeah, I 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.560 think that makes sense. So coincidences obviously have this power 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.320 over us. They captivate us, they seem significance. They make 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.159 us wonder if there is some kind of magical or 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:57.480 super psychic force at work. And sometimes it can be 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:02.080 hard to tell because we don't know how to analyze coincidences. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.360 You know, like there when something happens, like you get 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.440 a number nine from the coach check and then you're 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.119 in seat number nine. There's really no reason to ask 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:17.040 why something like that happened, but you can perhaps ask, 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:23.520 wait a minute, did anything significant actually happen? Indeed, now 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.399 we've talked about the the sort of supernatural end of 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.800 the pool, the idea that there is some sort of 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.479 of intrinsic synchronicity connecting these these events. And now we're 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:35.560 gonna we're gonna look at a more critical and more 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.359 skeptical side of the pool. Right, So, several times so 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.159 far in this podcast we've referred ahead to a paper, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.680 and this is sort of a classic paper in statistics 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:50.040 and mathematical analysis of coincidences, and it's called Methods for 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.480 Studying Coincidences. It was published by the Journal of the 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:57.240 American Statistical Association in December nineteen nine. I think it 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.600 had been given at a been given as a presentation 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.000 in a couple of years before. But it's by Percy 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.040 Diaconis and Frederick Moss Stellar, and they were I believe, 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:14.600 Harvard mathematicians, and Diaconis and moss Stellar offer four main 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:19.720 categories of explanation for seeming examples of synchronicity. You know, 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.840 they refer to camera, they refer to young and they say, 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:24.919 what what do we make of these events? And and 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.320 how can we tell if something is actually going on 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.480 that's worth noting. So the first of the options is 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:35.000 that there is an actual causal link. It's not a coincidence, 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:40.040 because there's a cause that to seemingly disparate events happen together. Uh. 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.000 The second one is psychology. It's something about the way 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.760 our brains work, the fact that we're noticing what seemed 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.120 to be coincidences, and will definitely have more on that later. 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.880 Another point is what they call the multiplicity of end points, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.760 and this is going to be about how how we 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.680 count something as a hit. And then the last one 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:04.080 that they site is called the law of truly large numbers, 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.520 and that's going to be about statistical context. So I 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.359 think we should go back and look at causes first. 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:15.680 So when something happens that's seemingly just a huge coincidence, 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.359 you should always consider the fact that there might be 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.399 a cause that's more obvious than you realize. Yeah, this 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.960 would of course be the birthday problem, right, which is 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:29.199 a problem that that people will encounter just everywhere, right 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.880 and in your workplace, at school, et cetera. I mean 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.280 we can encounter it right here in the podcast Chamber 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:39.040 Joe Win your Birthday July six, Minds October six, whoa synchronicity? 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.720 Are you serious? I'm serious? Were sixteen sixteen. Okay, what 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.480 happened when you were sixteen? What city were you in? Oh, Paris, Tennessee. 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.119 I was in Tennessee too when I was sorry, I 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.240 was in fatal Tennessee. But still Tennessee, Tennessee. Man, something 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.840 weird is going on. Yeah, or but but worth noting 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.440 here is notice how we're we're singling in on the hits. 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.560 We totally missed the same day birthday by by many months, 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.840 but we're counting as a hit because we both had sixteen. Yeah, 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:10.760