Here's a question. Do you beleive in coincidence? Here's my situation:

This happens to me a lot. I see people that really look or remind me of someone. Recently, just in the past month I've been seeing my old friend all over the place, I see her and have to look again just to make sure it's not her. I haven't been in contact with her for a couple of years. Just last night, rght before logging off my computer,see contacted me.

So what are your thoughts on this?

I believe everything happens for a reason, maybe you were meant to talk, however maybe she moved to where you do for another reason, or maybe not!

But whatever, it's nice seeing an old friend...:D

the ancient greek said conicidentiality is of no existance,

modern science uses the word coincidence to explain the unexplainable, similar to the word anomaly


some say it all is some master plan, some say there is no such thing as the master plan


I say that things are what u think they are, if u belive this is happening for a reason ur mind will create a reson and ur theory will be correct,
if not, ur theory will also be correct,

maybe ur mind wanted to see this person, maybe u urself wanted to see them and desire gave the command which came true

it really is hard to say what is caused by the power of our mind and what is there nonetheless


edit:
did I even make any sense

Yes that made sence, Escoban! I always seem to have things happen like that. Too bad I couldn't have a vision of money!

ok... being a witch, my own personal beliefs are that you can tap into the energies of everything around you, preferably living, but sometimes magnetic or electrical ( i mean the energy that gives off no one go plug themselves into a socket please), can offer additional energy...

...now depending on what research you have done, some spiritualists believe that history can leave 'residual energy' like a sequence of events can leave a ghost .. similar to bonifide ghosts of individuals...

go with me here...

...so if both of these things are true and witchcraft is about manipulating the environment to acheive your will then, might you have been unconcously thinking that you needed to contact your friend... your abilities might have then acted as a homing beacon and picked up on their residual energy out and about, hence u seeing them all the time...

it could also have been your subconcious telling you that this person was about to contact you....

to answer the title of the thread... no i dont believe in conincidence... things happen for a reason, even if we are unaware of the reason at the time......what happens to us in this life, hinges on what desicions we make based on the circumstances we are presented with.....

phew


food for thought at least

Thanx!

she had been wanting to get in contact with you. mayhaps you had also desired contact with her. as you project this desire the universe passes it one. before you knew it. pow she had contact you.

It is not the right question to ask coincidence or no, the correct question is does that defenition matter?

good question vore,
and actually, I think it doesn't matter,
we cant change anything about it so why define it

probably just coz we like to philosphyse
:banana00:

It happens all the time with me. So many different ways, so many different things. Just the other day a strange name for someone I know of came up in conversation. It was not something likely to come up at all. I couldn't believe it really and it sort of threw me off now because I am half wondering what to expect now in the near future... It isn't this first time though. And these are just the little things...

Overall things like this, no matter what I will call them, have helped me so many times I do not even count them anymore or keep track (stopped long ago).

There are even many things where the overall track record of "coincidence" now is so strong that I know at any time I could go ahead and say many things which would leave some in awe (or that they would feel threatened by me extremely - which I would not want - I know to mind my manners generally) of what I know about them (which I did not ask for and so do not feel I have done anything wrong). And this would be only looking at it from the standpoint of coincidence, nothing more. After a while, you sort of just say "yeah right" to that.

Soemthing which relates to the idea (though there are many) is from Carl Jung. This is the principle of synchronicity.



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

Other sites:

http://members.rogers.com/earthpages3/arti...nchronicity.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/synchronicity.html

http://www.plim.org/Synchro2.html

http://www.circlon-theory.com/HTML/synchronicity.html

But such distinctions seem to be matters of perspective. Many different names for such things and it often a matter of fine distinction.

To give you examples, I have been helped with such things ranging from major life decisions all the way to winning board games ("checkmate drive" came up electronically the moment when I was about to make a bad move in a chess game with someone. lol ). It gets kind of funny and stupid often though. Sometimes you just have to laugh at it all and not take it all too seriously, kind of use it generally as a vague tool.

The problem here is of course how many times do you walk about and not see your friend? Or indeed how many people do you see that don't remind you of her? Many more I would think.

We like to think that every experience we have has a higher purpose - we can't just be alive, there must be more to it than that. We all have coincidences everyday. Hearing a song then having it play on the radio (chances are you listen to a station that plays the music you like), thinking of friend or relative and then they ring, saying a word and having someone say iy on tv at the same time and so on.

There is nothing very special about these things at all. They happen to us so much that the one's that are of mundane and low interest go unremembered. Only the juicy ones get a mention!

Yes it is fun but it isn't mystical in any way.

Jung's theories appear to be pseudoscientific at best.

You might not think this idea as Mystical. Sure things happen that we aren't always aware of, but some of us can tune in to this more than others. I think that this can be a positive thing. I do believe it is special...to me.



This does happen to me a lot. I believe it is the universe working with me, or me with it. Either way I think this is a positive thing. This is not the first time nor will it be the last for me...I hope.



Exactly. But then why does the word "Coincedence", even exist? What word should we use in it's place?

I don't think it's a matter of 'tuning in'. If there was a knack to it or if some kind of training/specialised education was needed to realize that these coincidences were happening and the consequences that would arise from them then there might be something to work on.

However, we all experience the coincidence phenomenon; all of us, without fail. In my work recently, I had 2 letters in a row - one from Mr Cheese and the next from Mr Burger! True story! I couldn't do a thing for about 5 minutes afterwards! We had 2 files for clients that were next to each other in the filing range - Mr Duck and Mr Goosey. Life is full of little surprises like that. No-one could deny that they were coincidences. Do they mean anything in the great scheme of things? No, not at all. A coincidence is just that - a concidence.

BTW, in my original post " Hearing a song then having it play on the radio" should be "singing a song " etc Sorry!

It's one of those things. No matter what happened it is never impossible to dismiss anything as a coincidence due to the nature of it and the uncertainty. (there is always that one chance) So with this view, even if things were not coincidental, you would never know. At some point however people will generally just say "no way, it not a coincidence anymore ... enough is enough". But that point varies between people greatly. For some people little things are enough, for others, much more is needed.

But it is a very personal thing.

A useful exercize might be to ask people who don't beleive in such things certain strings of things and to determine at what point a string of seemingly successive unlikely occurances would begin to make them suspect anything but coincidence. I would suspect much variance.

i dont think there is such a thing as coincidence but everything happens for a reason whether that be a positive or negative thing. I myself have had my fair shares of experiences. my most recent is similar to redragon whereby after not seeing or being in contact with a friend for several years i suddenly began to find myself thinking of them daily for about a month then they unexpectedly rang me.

I agree with what you have to say. This is a personal thing to me. If I want to believe in it, what should stop me?



Isn't it great!



Maybe thay don't mean anything to you...that's ok. I think this is a positive thing for me...I think that things do happen for reasons, how ever big or small they may be.

Its a matter of opinion. Personal belief and how u view the world. And, there's a fine line imo between simple co-incidence and fate.

How much one reads into a co-incidence is their choice. I am one that tends to believe in karma and that SOME things that happen DO happen for reasons...reasons we may not know or see at the time or even years later or ever. Linking together chains of events is a personal view. What applies to one set of control factors in one person's life does not in anothers.

I find that some major things in my life are easier delt with when I see them intertwined with a cause and effect karma. That view of traumatic things helps ME personally deal better with accepting losses and moving on. Some ppl might call that deceiving myself, others may not....but I think the important thing to point out here is co-incidence and fate are personal perspectives. There is no right or wrong.

Of course it is entirely up to the individual what beliefs they have and what ideas and ideologies they will use to live their lives. I wouldn't have it any other way. I am a total sceptic (no really I am :) ) As I am under moderation ( for seemingly months - not complaining!) I obviously have the capacity to be annoying so I'm sorry if I've offended. Glad to speak to me old mate/adversary Passingover again though!

Generally, humans look for patterns. Number 4 has come up in the lottery 3 times in a row - it's a 'hot number'. No it isn't - it's chance. Another true story, (I should be on a talk show!). My boss had a bumper crop of plums in her garden this summer. She brought a load in for whoever wanted any but two people took almost the whole load. There was the usual talk/bitch about rude and selfish they were. My mate got very vocal for some reason Anyway, he'a big fan of the horses. He looked at the paper and there was a horse running called? Yes - PLUM! He didn't get a chance to back it and it came in? Yes - first at 8-1! He was gutted!

Coincidences are usually only regarded as such when isolated from reality. All other factors are ignored. I work with random 10 digit numbers in my job. It was very easy for me and my collegues to think that the sequence 666 came up more frequently than any other 3 same digits. In fact they don't, you just remember them because of the significance.

There is such a thing as coincidence...read here to know more (a site about statistics of coincidence) http://pass.maths.org.uk/issue4/grimmett/

Everything happens for a reason...but as that reason is the sum of everything that has occurred before it's little good trying to figure out how you feature in terms of importance....the answer is not very much.

P.s Georgie Pin is my member of the year...he's taken on a job I can't even be bothered with anymore...Good luck Georgie...you're fighting an uphill struggle with all those actual facts you keep trying to make people read and understand.

The fact that you were moderated does not suprise me...I've had many discourses with mods about my naughty lack of respect for opinions based soley on belief...and just basicaly sitting on a couch never utilising the olde brain box...in a few cases. (not all)

I agree for the most part.



You could look at it as an honor too. For someone wants to be the first to know what you have to say before others do. (half serious here)

You just say the last part so that they will let your post through this time. ;)



Agreed.



Do you mean to say this? So you are saying that often people attribute things as coincidence without seeking out any correlations within reality. If so, I agree. There are often correlations, if not causation. Even if hidden or not apparent. It can be seen both ways still, see?



That makes sense (significance remembered, insignificance forgotten - confirmation bias) , except for the "In fact, they don't" if you have not really studied the data to determine that. Actually if they were "random", several generators (obviously not truly random) tend to skew to the high side making it more likely that higher numbers would occur more often than lower numbers. Also, even if it was truly random (which is often difficult), it could very well be possible that the generator would spit out 100 "6's" in a row. Statistically it isn't supposed to happen, but there is nothing forbidding it, no?

More about the 4th quote of yours above now.

This is what I have suggested for a while but probably not in the way you intend. There is a problem that it is easy to dismiss everything as a coincidence, over and over again. Then there might come the stage where you rule out coincidence (as a judgement call) and seek out causation or correlation. This is the portion that gets results traditionally. The first is just a reverse belief - asserting that it is nothing but coincidence. This stage would mean going out and seeking explanations, trying to understand.

The examples you give are mild. Many people have seen more. For example, what if someone was to suddenly tell you your birthday right now and here? You might just shrug and say 1 out of 365 (though this would be false odds really) and a good guess as to the year (among other things). But then what if someone were to follow up and talk about what you were wearing (or not wearing) while you read this? You might then start to get a little nervious and seek out explanations. Did this person break into my system and grab data about me you might wonder. Is there a camera on somewhere where he is seeing this you might think. Is a friend of mine playing a joke on me might be another thought.

Being a somewhat logically oriented person you would probably use your creativity and logic to come up with possible causes and explanations and then seek out to invalidate these explanations or find one that fit. Say you were unable to find one yet at this point. Then the same person came out and started tellign you about somethign major that was going to happen next week. Next week came and it happened. You may shrug it off. Perhaps this person actually caused it. Then say they did the same thing but this time about the weather. Now what do you say about coincidence? It is possible that you might still believe it all is nothing but or that there is a rational explanation using current scientific knowledge. But most people would not at this point, I am all but certain and would seek out alternative explanations. If incidently you still would not, you could add things like them telling you things about yourself and events that no one else really knew. Still yet say they went ahead and mapped out the next decade of your life?

See, while what you mention about confirmation bias and selective remembering as well as correlations with realities has value, it is a mistake in my opinion to say that this applies to everything. Of course the example I give above is only theoretical, but perhaps you see the difference between little things and big things? I can tell you that there exist people who at least claim to have undergone such things and experienced them. I truly wonder if you were one of these people, what would your beleifs on it be? What would you say honestly where would such a thing put you if it were to happen tomorrow?

But again I do like seeing things objectively or at least trying to. If something can be truly explained by confirmation bias or selective memory, that is fine. But It does not necessarily mean that it is the truth (because it is possible) nor will it explain everything or even be able to applied everywhere. Anythign else is but an assumption. And still we are left with soem subjectivity it seems.

Sorry for the length of the post. I will have to leave the thread now. I am trying not to take over threads so much (3 replies should be enough). Please feel free to reply though and if I have something to say I will contact you via pm or some other conventional means.

Whew, I knew you were gonna say that! Just kidding. I am not offended when someone has a different view. Every one is entitled to there opinions. I do know that there are facts, and debates on all of this. I am just vouching for my own personal experiences.

If you're talking about till reciepts then the number 666 comes up seemingly quite often when in fact it is no often than any other...three digit prices are very likely.

If the number 666666666666 comes up people will still give it significance as a representation of 666 many times over...they will seek for a way to make things significant as much as possible...when we look at the world we make it significant....this is very much the human way...both science and belief share that in common...

But nhialistic though it may seem...I consider nothing particularly significant...rocks, life, trees, quarks, space...is all significant only because we say it is so...and as we have existed for a very short time relatively speaking then everything has been insignificant much longer than it has been significant....Yes?

Nice easy colour to read there...


Coinsidence is just the happining of a chain of events that are significant to you (or more people). The world is based around luck. Only one thing is certain to happen in life... And thats death. Dont let luck fool you into thinking that things are 'ment' to happen...

now here is for a different view.

Yes.I believe that there is no such thing as coincedence. I look at it as being the fate of God. He reminded you of this friend and you used your phycic abilities subconsiously to get her to contact you.
But as i say this is only my vie and someone else may disagree

I do...

While I do think that some things are predetermined, there are other matters in which we have a choice. All of us have "alternate" fates, depending on those choices which we make. It's kind of like those old choose-your-own-adventure books.

That's just my opinion though, which will hold until I can figure out something else. :)