So I was in a online debate (okay it was an argument) with a real kook today who had this elaborate New World Order theory he laid out with links to speeches, comedy routines, and YouTube videos to support his wild masterbation. Anyway he finished it off with this video about numerology and Trumps inauguration making it some kind of significant ancient Hebrew prophecy. I kid you not.
What struck me was how important and significant this guy felt coincideness are. Meanwhile I’m thinking if there were no coincideness that is what would be incredibly amazing. They happen all the time. They have to happen.
So I’m collecting some online reading on exactly that…
Why Our Brains Do Not Intuitively Grasp Probabilities
Have you ever gone to the phone to call a friend only to have your friend ring you first? What are the odds of that? Not high, to be sure, but the sum of all probabilities equals one. Given enough opportunities, outlier anomalies-even seeming miracles-will occasionally happen.
The Improbability Principle
On 12 March 1951, a new character made his debut in the British comic The Beano. His name was Dennis the Menace, a boy who got into all sorts of scrapes. A few hours later on 12 March 1951, on the other side of the Atlantic, a new syndicated newspaper comic strip appeared, also featuring Dennis the Menace.