View Full Version : Funny stuff is never as statistically unlikely as we think
NottyImp
5th Jan 2005, 14:20
Maybe some time I'll tell you a story, a thing that happened to me, which conclusively proves that funny stuff happens.
Oh yes, it does. But it's never as statitsically unlikely as we think it is.
Never say never, Notty, unless it covers only the cases you know.
NottyImp
5th Jan 2005, 15:01
Never say never, Notty, unless it covers only the cases you know.
What am I saying "never" to? Not sure I follow you here, __R.C.__.
If you don't know what you said never to, how the f should I know? :D
What you are saying 'never' to calls for a new topic.........
There you go. Now if you two can agree on what it is we're actually talking about, we're away.
As someone who's guilty of doing similar... it all stems from when R.C. misread Notty's
But it's never as statitsically unlikely as we think it is.
... thinking he meant the opposite of what he did. Or not.
I think.
I'm, ah, sure that clears it up.
Good. Well, I agree then.
I'm furious, me. I opened a new topic - tried to - and wrote a long piece on this matter and it all disappeared when I tried to post it, I suppose because the thread was being divided at the same time. Grrrrrr.
NottyImp
5th Jan 2005, 18:01
Well, that's a shame, I might well have had some idea of what we wee talking about but for that. *0000
However, here is my ha'pennorth. I read this argument in an article some time ago, so I am probably bastardising it badly, but basically it goes like this:
Every day 1000 things happen to you. So, in three years, approximately 1,000,000 things will have happened to you. Most of these will, of course, be utterly mundane, but given the nature of statistical probability, in a million events, we would expect one to happen that has a million-to-one chance against it happening.
When this happens, we go: "Wow, that's amazing, that must have had a million-to-one chance against of happening. Isn't it incredible, unbelievable!"
Well, no, because we'd expect precisely that from the probabilities. What we do in effect is underestimate the chance of unlikely occurences and co-incidences happening by a large factor, whilst simultaneously over-estimating the significance of them when they do.
It's OK folks, you'll never have to spend an evening with me systematically killing all your joy. :lol:
Notty, with all due respect, there is actually not a lot of logic in that argument, but after having my elegant and irrefutable four parts logic to one part poetry submission DISAPPEAR I haven't the heart to try to explain. Instead I'll put to you a question:
Suppose you were walking to your local pub one day, to meet a friend. Along the way you think about a story you have been writing. One of the characters in the story is four and a half feet tall, wears a pork-pie hat and red shoes, and is called Gilbert. When you find your friend he introduces you to someone - a four-and-a-half foot tall man called Gilbert, wearing red shoes and the hat.
You are sure you have never laid eyes on nor heard of this guy before. As sure as it is possible to be. He is nobody in particular, just sort of an odd guy.
What are you going to think about that? My, my, what an amazing coincidence? What would it take, to make you question your assumptions? How about, the real Gilbert and your character both play the tuba? And have a Zulu girlfriend called Ann? Pretty unlikely, but not impossible. Could happen, right?
Are you saying, _RC_., that should this event actually take place, then it would be because of something other than pure chance?
I would be inclined to suspect that that might be the case, to put it like a politician. To begin to suspect.
Such a cynic, Notty.
OK, so it's foolish to tackle a scientist at statistics, but even before I start to quibble with your dubious actuarialism, it's a matter of poetical perspective, ain't it? The chances of me existing at all are several thousand to one, given the number of gametes competing for the egg. And that's within a single generation. So the chances of any event occuring to me are pretty much in the googol-to-one region, and therefore pretty strange and wonderful.
Indeed, despite the probabilities and statistics and maths and all the logic you might throw at any one occurrence, or all, they still have the power to make you amazed, left in wonderment, amused, or gobsmacked.
Can't too much thinking sometimes spoil the ride?
But I do think that knowing the science and applying all the logic makes some things even more amazing. (not that I do, at all!)
I, however, fully admit to being one who is very easily amused, less than logical and quite amazed by the oddness of most things. Life in Digger's head is quite fun really. :)
As it's vaguely pertinent, can I throw in a recommendation for Against The Gods (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471295639/palimpsest-21) by Peter L. Bernstein? It's a beautifully-written attempt to examine human history through the mathematics of probability. Easy to tear into it, because it sees just about everything as determined by our ability to calcuate risk, but all the same it's wonderful as a very clever history of maths, (or - for our American Palimpers who may perfer to the singular - math).
NottyImp
6th Jan 2005, 11:59
__R.C.__: Notty, with all due respect, there is actually not a lot of logic in that argument
Then you'll have to show me how - assertion isn't argument.
__R.C.__: Pretty unlikely, but not impossible.
Which is the whole point of my argument. Very unlikely things do happen.
Digger: Can't too much thinking sometimes spoil the ride?
Hell, no. Thinking is the fun bit. :D
wshaw: Such a cynic, Notty.
Well, I did say I was a killjoy, but cynical? No.
wshaw: So the chances of any event occuring to me are pretty much in the googol-to-one region, and therefore pretty strange and wonderful.
Or pretty normal and routine, depending on your perspective. :wink:
Notty, the point of my question to which you have not replied, is not that strange things happen. We are in agreement that they do. What I'm asking is that you imagine an event, something you have yourself witnessed in the clear light of day, which is so unlikely to have occurred by chance, that you are forced to think there has to be some underlying cause. If you were present on the day the chimp finally typed out Hamlet (or whatever it was), would you really accept that it had happened 'by chance', or would you say, There has to be some explanation for this, although I can't see what it might be.
Lucoid
6th Jan 2005, 13:52
Isn't that the root of all scientific discovery?
Isn't that the root of all scientific discovery?
It is often so, we are told. Then there are other times when they just trip over something while looking for something else - by chance as it were.
NottyImp
6th Jan 2005, 15:57
What I'm asking is that you imagine an event, something you have yourself witnessed in the clear light of day, which is so unlikely to have occurred by chance, that you are forced to think there has to be some underlying cause. If you were present on the day the chimp finally typed out Hamlet (or whatever it was), would you really accept that it had happened 'by chance', or would you say, There has to be some explanation for this, although I can't see what it might be.
And my point is that the assessment you make of it being unlikely may not be accurate. But let's assume for a moment that it is, and that rather than mere co-incidence, some causal mechanism is at work.
I'd need a testable, repeatable hypothesis and a causal explanation to make sense of the event your are describing. In the absence of that, my money is on the chance that the fairies did it; but you may prefer to think leprechauns are responsible.
Ah. But 'to make sense of the event' is a whole lot more than I'm asking for. After all, we're talking about events of the kind that are not readily duplicated. What I am asking for, is that you concede that wide-awake sensible people do now and then experience events which are so unlikely to have occurred by chance, that to dismiss them as co-incidence is less rational than to entertain the possibility that something weird is going on.
NottyImp
6th Jan 2005, 16:18
What I am asking for, is that you concede that wide-awake sensible people do now and then experience events which are so unlikely to have occurred by chance, that to dismiss them as co-incidence is less rational than to entertain the possibility that something weird is going on.
And yet the whole tenor of my argument (however back-of-the-envelope it may be) is that there is no need to do that. If you could quantify "weird" for me, I might take a step closer to your position, but if not then I merely shrug and roll the dice one more time.
Man, we are really not communicating. The whole tenor of my argument is that there is a need to do that. I'll have to find a better way of coming at it.
NottyImp
6th Jan 2005, 16:26
No worries, R.C. it doesn't really matter. We're just enjoying the craic...
Okay, let's up the stakes a little bit. Please take this in the spirit blah blah - in the spirit of being forced to overstate the case, actually (ever been there?). I acccuse you of willful blindness. To shrug off every uber-unlikely coincidence as just a chance event is grounded in a belief - the arrogant belief of science that although we may not know everything yet, we have a pretty good idea of what is possible, and that rules out a lot of stuff - like premonitions for example. If put on the spot science guys (some at least) will deny preclusion of possibilities, but as soon as you take off the arm-lock they go right back to it.
Remember where we started - you said coincidence is never as unlikely as we think. In other words, however improbable a juxtaposition of events may seem, if the connection is not within the limits of what science deems possible, only a fool would say it cannot have happened by chance. Well, I would turn that around, and say the science head here is the victim of delusion, or dogma. The evidence is before his eyes, and he says nope, impossible.
:D Apparently it matters to me.
NottyImp
6th Jan 2005, 18:41
James Randi has a $1 million dollar challenge. I suggest you take him up on it and make yourself a rich man. But a mild warning - no-one has won it yet:
http://www.randi.org/research/
rick green
6th Jan 2005, 18:45
As I see it, it's a matter of competing theories--none of which can be proven to the satisfaction of all parties. As we can't know for certain how the chain of causality or the matrix of probability or the tendrils of mystery govern our lives, we might as well live & let live.
The Randi challenge has no bearing on what I've been talking about, the only thing it proves in this discussion is that you haven't been paying attention (humphh). Fine, go along in your unenlightened way, one day perhaps you'll meet Gilbert and you'll walk right by.
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Sir Winston Churchill
As we can't know for certain how the chain of causality or the matrix of probability or the tendrils of mystery govern our lives, we might as well live & let live.
Nice. Been reading Tom Robbins, by any chance?
rick green
7th Jan 2005, 3:34
Ha ha, not lately, but I know what you mean.
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 10:25
The Randi challenge has no bearing on what I've been talking about, the only thing it proves in this discussion is that you haven't been paying attention (humphh). Fine, go along in your unenlightened way, one day perhaps you'll meet Gilbert and you'll walk right by.
No, I'll meet Gilbert and think: blimey, that's pretty unlikely... but still within acceptable bounds of probability, and probably not the result of "weird" stuff that no-one has ever offered an explanation for.
Call me a fence-sitter, if you will, but I'm with Notty and RC on this one.
In support of Notty's argument: in the absence of a scientifically satisfactory explanation for events, any seemingly bizarre happening or coincidence must be regarded as just that: bizarre, but random. I think of it as playing a game of 'Snap'. Only, in the game of life, there is no guarantee that either party holds an identical card to his/her partner. They may do; they may not. To the purely logical mind, should both partners come up with the same card at some point, such an event was always possible. That it may not happen at all, or only vary rarely, does not negate its possibility. A possibility divorced from any 'weird stuff' going on, as RC puts it. The odds of it happening may be miniscule, but these things do happen. A wee while ago, a woman won three major lotteries all within one year - when the odds of winning just the National Lottery alone, are something like 14m to one. However bizarre, Stuff Happens, as the saying goes.
However, in support of RC: just because something very bizarrely coincidental does happen, something that is beyond rational explanation at the moment - it does not mean that unseen - or more accurately - unknown forces are NOT at work. If science has taught us anything, it is how much we still don't know. For how many centuries did man (not so illogically) think his world was flat?
The one I like best is the apparent ability of dogs to know when their owners are about to return home. Despite rigorous tests, involving those same owners leaving at different times, taking different routes etc., doggone (sorry) it! But those mutts still knew when to go to the door or window and wag their tales in anticipation.
Personally, I like a little mystery. Explain everything away and you take away .... well ... fun!
Mister - I have the scars to prove it ....! :D
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 13:34
I think of it as playing a game of 'Snap'
Move over, Einstein! :D
Lucoid
7th Jan 2005, 13:34
Personally, I'm with Honey on this one. Just because something's possible it doesn't mean it necessarily has an obvious explanation.
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 13:37
Personally, I'm with Honey on this one. Just because something's possible it doesn't mean it necessarily has an obvious explanation.
Certainly I'd agree: try following Richard Dawkins' explanation in Climbing Mount Improbable of the wonderfully intricate world of fig-tree and fig-wasp co-evolution and you'll agree entirely with that sentiment.
Lucoid
7th Jan 2005, 13:39
In which case, I think you and RC were putting forward two different parts of the same point as one another. But I guess you know that already.
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 13:43
In which case, I think you and RC were putting forward two different parts of the same point as one another. But I guess you know that already.
I'm not sure that we are, as I've offered an explanation (that RC doesn't like), and he has offered none. But hey, let's not flog a dead horse, it's Friday and I've just taught my last class of the week.
in the absence of a scientifically satisfactory explanation for events, any seemingly bizarre happening or coincidence must be regarded as just that: bizarre, but random.
I was going to leave this business alone now, but HP (fresh victim) WHY must the bizarre coincidence be regarded as random? This is not a neutral position, it is just another undemonstrable theory, which science heads accept as an article of faith. It's not the same as saying We have no explanation. Is it?
A possibility divorced from any 'weird stuff' going on, as RC puts it. The odds of it happening may be miniscule, but these things do happen. A wee while ago, a woman won three major lotteries all within one year - when the odds of winning just the National Lottery alone, are something like 14m to one. However bizarre, Stuff Happens, as the saying goes.
What are the grounds for this divorce? Infinite possibilities do not rule out the possibility of there being some underlying cause for the coincidence, as you have pointed out. Of course it's hard to imagine a connection which would cause this to happen, but that's a long way from proving there isn't one.
Because so many astounding things have been revealed by science, people are ready to believe that if science can't find it, it's not there. I call that a lack of imagination.
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 13:53
Infinite possibilities do not rule out the possibility of there being some underlying cause for the coincidence, as you have pointed out.
Of course not, but in the abscence of evidence we don't consider these possibilities as a general rule. There's a possibility that an invisible pink elephant is playing a banjo in my garage as I type this, but you'll forgive me for not taking that possibiliy terribly seriously.
As someone once said: I like to keep an open mind, but not so open my brain falls out.
Ooops, sorry old hoss, floggin you again when I said I wouldn't. :D
Precisely. Unless you are a scientist banking on living longer than Methuselah, you simply cannot spend endless hours cogitating on all the possible reasons for such and such a thing happening. Science has to start with the tidier and more rational assumption that without proof to the contrary, the cause of something must be put down (temporarily, at least) to pure chance.
However, while that may be the rule for scientists, it is not the rule for everyone. If you choose to consider that something strangely coincidental happened due to currently unknown forces, that is just as tenable.
What I was attemtpting to show was that as in all things, the truth is a moveable feast. One man's reality can only ever be what that man believes it to be.
Notty - Einstein here, says you sound like a man in need of a good pint or two of Black Sheep. Have a virtual one on me, kid!
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 14:11
However, while that may be the rule for scientists, it is not the rule for everyone. If you choose to consider that something strangely coincidental happened due to currently unknown forces, that is just as tenable.
Now that all depends on what you mean by "tenable". But hey, believe what you like, just don't expect me to.
Notty - Einstein here, says you sound like a man in need of a good pint or two of Black Sheep. Have a virtual one on me, kid!
I'm perfectly relaxed HoneyPotts, but I appreciate the offer, even if virtual beer is strangely unsatisfying..
Maggie
7th Jan 2005, 14:13
Interesting debate this !
I still contend that because we (as humans ) have, in the grand scheme of things, such an infinitesimal amount of time with which to analize things, we can't possibly explain everything. We may have the answers "for the moment" but that is all we can be certian of.
Is it not also a matter of preception ? What may seem "random" to one person, may make perfect sense to another.
Most things occur because of cause and effect, if this occurs then this happens.........blah blah blah.......if one "cause" should alter, in any way, the effect is different. Like domino's, if lined up properly the result is predetermined but is life like domino's ? Speaking for myself, I've often set up my little dominos and expected the desired result, but unfortunately because I am not in control of all the "causes" I am often surprised at the outcome. To me it seems that there is quite a bit of randomness in this.
IMHO the more one searchs, the less one knows. If nothing else, it is a belief that keeps one somewhat humble.
Maggie
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 14:16
We may have the answers "for the moment" but that is all we can be certian of.
Well, I can't disagree with this: all I know for certain about science is that it's all wrong, and any scientist worth their salt will agree with this. It is an approximation, at best, to that thing we call reality.
I think this debate is more about methodology, in fact.
I really should let this go and get on with something productive, but hell - it's fun!
But hey, believe what you like, just don't expect me to.
I didn't actually say what I believed - so busy was I trying (and no doubt failing) to show I understood both sides of the argument. But for the record, I shall admit to passing off those 'Gilbert' moments as mere random happenstances, when in one mood, and considering all sorts of divine or-not-so-divine intervention to be at work, when in another. Vested interest has a part to play, of course. Sometimes, it is so much more 'thrilling' to think there is a touch of the paranormals at play, than not. This is, I am fully aware, utterly illogical and does me no credit whatsoever. But as Notty has said, science doesn't exacty get it right, much of the time, so you might as well enjoy believing what you will, until proof arrives to the contrary.
Coincidence is a funny thing.
When I spent a while joining cults (odd day job) I became a little weary of gurus and the like telling me, like it was a big revelation, "There is no such thing as coincidence!"
Thinking about it, that's about as fundamentalist a viewpoint as you can reach with regards to coincidence.
Coincidence does to be closely related to a sense of spirituality though. I talked to this Jungian guy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684834952/palimpsest-21) who'd written a book about gurus and he felt that there is a state of mental illness in which the brain sees the world as charged with meaning. Things that would appear to be a coincidence to one person who is in this state could appear totally mundane to the next. For a Jungian - if I understand correctly - this is the brain attempting to reorder itself after some sort of trauma - a part of the process of recovery. This bloke said this was a stage he believed most gurus had gone through - which accounted for their heightened visions of the world.
Of course, I'd add, (just to annoy Notty :wink:), just because there's a social scientific explanation for some of what we're talking about, doesn't alter the fact that there may also be a spiritual explanation for it.
I'm not for a second suggesting that this is your situation either, R.C.! (he added hastily...)
Yes, that was prudent Mr Shaw. :D
Lest there be any lingering doubts, I certainly am not promoting any concealed 'spiritual' agenda, I think I'd rather be a Jesuit! Nor the view that there is no such thing as coincidence, obviously that is silly in the extreme. I am merely saying - one more time - that events do occur which point to the existence of, for want of a better term, some 'paranormal' influence.
In court, the testimony of sound witnesses can lead to a murder conviction. We are willing to accept that a witness's word is good. There have been many cases of people known to be level-headed, reporting an event which would be called paranormal. Along with most of the rest of the world, I might have gone through life supposing there must have been some trick of the light, except that I have experienced such a thing myself.
Colyngbourne
7th Jan 2005, 15:38
I concur on the 'paranormal' thing - there are as-yet-unexplained phenomena, and para-pyschological things that do happen, but I believe there is some scientific explanation that will be found at some point.
I'm not sure if this is the same thing as unexplainable coincidences though :wink:
Along with most of the rest of the world, I might have gone through life supposing there must have been some trick of the light, except that I have experienced such a thing myself.
RC - this is just too tantalising for words. You going to enlighten us, or merely toy with our curiousity? I for one am agog ...... :shock:
Colyngbourne
7th Jan 2005, 15:45
Along with most of the rest of the world, I might have gone through life supposing there must have been some trick of the light, except that I have experienced such a thing myself.
Me too.
Oy. I could tell you, I wouldn't mind. Trouble is, most people will jump to the conclusion that there are only two possible explanations - either RC is crazy, or RC is a liar.
OK, what the hell. A little later though, I need lunch and a walk in the sun while it lasts.
Trouble is, most people will jump to the conclusion that there are only two possible explanations - either RC is crazy, or RC is a liar.
The good citizens of Palimp city wouldn't dream of doing either - they know you'd eat 'em for breakfast if they dared :D
So .... in your own good time, RC .......
I feel, at this point, I should be filling my pipe with shag, pulling a chair closer to the crackling fire, beckoning the valet to freshen my whisky glass...
No pressure, RC :D
John Self
7th Jan 2005, 17:41
RC is a good storyteller or anecdotalist so I too am awaiting this with bated breath... :wink:
NottyImp
7th Jan 2005, 18:05
I concur on the 'paranormal' thing - there are as-yet-unexplained phenomena, and para-pyschological things that do happen, but I believe there is some scientific explanation that will be found at some point.
Actually, I'm really not so sure there are that many Col, although I agree with the second part of your sentiment. Most "paranormal" phenomena have been shown to be either perfectly explicable with what we already know, or the work of tricksters and shysters of one kind or another with a vested interest.
If you would like to quote some examples, however, it would be easier to address that question.
Of course, I'd add, (just to annoy Notty ), just because there's a social scientific explanation for some of what we're talking about, doesn't alter the fact that there may also be a spiritual explanation for it.
What is a "spiritual explanation"?
(Now, where is that damned annoyed emoticon?)
Sometimes, it is so much more 'thrilling' to think there is a touch of the paranormals at play, than not.
Indeed. Reality is so dull isn't it? :D
Reality is so dull isn't it?
Like I said, reality is personal. It can only ever be the way you or I choose to see things. An acorn falling on the ground will have a very different reality for a nearby ant, than it will for a nearby you or me. So, by changing your view point, you can make life as dull or thrilling as you please. Cup half full/cup half empty and all that bizz ..... :D
Wow! HP, Coly, now wshaw and John too. No pressure? You jest. Suddenly I wish this were a much more interesting story. Now don't expect too much.
Years ago, when I was in my mid-thirties, I took a course taught by an American woman by the name of Terry Hull. She was an ordinary sort of person, a little older than I was, I had no feelings about her one way or the other, had never spoken to her that I recall. (Perhaps a few words about an assignment, something of that nature, probably not even that.) It was a fairly large class, maybe 50 or 60 students, and I was one of the quiet ones, she wouldn't have known my name.
One day as I was driving to the class I was thinking about her, not thinking anything in particular, only she was on my mind. At the same time I had a feeling akin to dread, a heavy, scary feeling which lasted however long it took to get there. It seemed to me - to the point of knowing it - that she was in bad trouble. When I arrived, instead of going to the class I went looking for her office. This was entirely out of character. I was the reserved type (yes, John) hardly the one to run around looking for ways to make a fool of myself. Nevertheless I found her office, rapped on the door (which was slightly ajar), stuck my head in and, seeing her at her desk, said, point-blank, "Is the under toad in here?"
Now that was a wacky thing to do. I don't know why I did it, unless I was impelled by the strength of the feeling. As to "under toad", I couldn't have known whether she would get the reference, actually I think I remember a stab of panic that she wouldn't, since I sure as hell didn't want to have to explain.
"Under toad" was from a book by John Irving. There's a child in the book who heard adults speaking of the undertow in the water at the beach, and as children will do, misunderstood and never asked. He or she thought it was a great toad under the waves who might snatch you if you go too far out. It became a family expression meaning nemesis or something along those lines.
Anyway, Terry Hull looked up (her head had been down, face covered by long hair) and said --understandably - "What?" I repeated the question although by that time I was wishing to be anywhere else, because her face was distraught and wet from crying. She stared at me a moment then told me that she had just been on the phone, someone (brother?) had called to let her know her fiancee had been killed in a highway accident.
I don't remember what else I said to her, I got away as fast as I half-decently could. I went to the class, waited a few minutes, she didn't come, so I left. I don't know whether she turned up eventually or someone else came to dismiss the class. In any event, at the next scheduled class the first thing she did was to scan the class and walk toward me. Oboy thought I. I got onto my feet (fellas did that then). She said, "How did you know?" All I could tell her was what I have just told you.
I have no theories. Skeptical is an understatement for what I think of other people's ideas about this stuff. But if I were to hear a hitherto reliable person, in all seriousness, relate such a story, I'd have to give him or her the benefit of the doubt.
John Self
7th Jan 2005, 19:27
Well! That is a good one.
It is at moments like that that I find myself confronted by a certain gracious sense of latency in creation, a sense of something not yet disclosed. Is there something in the life process itself that is trying to express itself through the dark mirror of human consciousness? Obviously, there is no way of answering that question, but there is a way of responding to it. We could choose to live as though the best meaning and purpose we can find for our own lives is the very meaning and purpose of the universe itself. We could pay the universe a compliment it probably does not deserve by living as though its purpose were love, as one tradition in Christianity says it is. And if the universe, in the end, were to prove us wrong, who cares? Our lives, then, would have been an act of defiance of indifferent power, and power is always worth defying. Even though we experience God as absent, we should continue to live as though he were present in love. That's why I love the old Castilian romantic, Miguel De Unamuno. In his great book The Tragic Sense of Life he quotes these words: 'Man is perishing. That may be; and if it is nothingness that awaits us let us so act that it will be an unjust fate.'
Ah yes, the Undertoad - from The World According to Garp, I think. Which places you in your thirties sometime after 1976, RC - making you somewhat more youthful than I had figured. :wink:
That, RC, was worth waiting for. Thank you.
Oooh. Ooooohh. Love that quote, John.
My age is one of those eternal mysteries. You can speculate as much as you like.
Thank you HoneyPotts.
Now I go read the quote again.
John Self
7th Jan 2005, 19:59
At the risk of dilution, more then from Looking in the Distance:
All I can say is that, as well as moments of deep emptiness, the mystery of Being affords us fleeting moments of encounter with what feels like a kind of presence. To be more exact: it feels like the presence of the great absence in our lives that leaves only echoes or footprints. We have to be careful not to turn these moments into religious objects, to reify them into explanatory idols. They are, anyway, beyond description. It is impossible to find verbal equivalents for them, to catch them in words. Poetry comes closest to communicating the mystery of the experience. I want to quote a poem about one of these encounters. It came to that remarkable woman Simone Weil, who refused ever to board any of the ships of religion that ply their wares on the oceans of human sorrow and uncertainty. It is by Edward Hirsch and it is called Simone Weil in Assisi:
She disliked the miracles in the gospels.
She never believed in the mystery of contact
here below, between a human being and God
She despised popular tales of apparitions.
But that afternoon in Assisi she wandered
through the abominable Santa Maria degli Angeli
and happened upon a little marvel of Romanesque purity where St Francis liked to pray.
She was there a short time when something absolute and omnivorous, something she neither believed
nor disbelieved, something she understood - but what was it? - forced her to her knees.
I have had one or two moments like that in my life. Because of my religious background, I was always tempted to interpret them as evidence for the official claims of Christianity. Now I am happy just to let them be. They are as much a part of the human experience of the mystery of Being as the experience of nothingness and the abyss. We do not need to posit any supernatural agency to account for them. They are intrinsic to the life process and can be explained in natural terms. Nevertheless, they come to us as sheer gift, as an encounter with the graciousness of Being, as a kind of exultation in the pure fact of living. It is their very ordinariness that makes them significant. At the very least they help us stop trying to explain life and they prompt us to start living it with a bit more passion and gratitude.
Yes, I read an excellent interview with Richard Holloway in The Times recently. He seems an eminently sensible chap - but I can't remember whether he is now an ex-bishop or still is one.
Thank you John. I know what he's talking about, it happens maybe once in ten years and lasts about a second, but I know.
I meant earlier to remark on RC's, er, remarkable anecdote. Certainly an odd, and as John says, good one.
Hope no one minds me shifting this across to the newly retitled Politics and Society thread. Seemed to be its natural home.
John Self
7th Jan 2005, 21:26
Holloway is an ex-Bishop (of Edinburgh).
To move from the sublime back to the undertoad... That John Irving section always reminds me of a friend who lived in an old house who used to tuck her daugther in at night, then place a pillow across the bottom of a door. "To stop the draught," she'd say. And would retire, confident that she'd done everything to ensure a peaceful night's sleep for her child.
Only one night she returned to find the child sobbing and terrified. When she asked what's wrong, the child pointed to the bottom of the door. "You forgot to put the pillow there to stop the giraffe."
Thanks for the story, RC. With respect to Notty, I don't always see the value of trying to reduce a story like that to a "rational" explanation. The danger is that if we do that, we're not being scientific at all; all we're trying to do is assuage our giraffe-in-the-night fears that the world may not be as orderly as we like to imagine.
When I was using the phrase "spiritual explanation", Notty, I was being a bit fast and loose.
What I meant was as an explanation which either allows for the existence of a "higher power" of some sort or one that is irreducible to known science - one that current scientific method does not disprove.
Phew.
Thanks for telling your story RC. It is not always easy to go out on a limb and share something like that. It does, however, appear to be easier than crawling out on the age limb :wink:
rick green
8th Jan 2005, 3:28
I'll have to get my hands on that Looking in the Distance some day.
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 9:22
What I meant was as an explanation which either allows for the existence of a "higher power" of some sort or one that is irreducible to known science - one that current scientific method does not disprove.
Ah, right. I prefer the answer: "I/We don't know" in these situations, seems so much more straighforward than making stuff up.
:twisted: (Hmm... "twisted", not exactly annoyed is it?)
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 9:31
Years ago, when I was in my mid-thirties, I took a course taught by an American woman by the name of Terry Hull...
And in the spirit of my last comment, I can hold my hand up and say: I do not have an explanation, RC (and neither do I think you are mad or lying!).
Your anecdote, is of course, of a fairly common type that I think most of us will have heard before in some form or another. Given that, it should be possible to do work in this field in a meaningful scientific way (although of course, killing someone's brother for the tests might be considered a little unethical). I wonder if such work is/has been done? I would certainly be interested in it if it had been.
Colyngbourne
8th Jan 2005, 9:35
Would annoyed be any of these? http://www.bdshost.com/shark/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif or http://www.bdshost.com/shark/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sly.gif or http://www.bdshost.com/shark/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sneaky.gif or http://www.bdshost.com/shark/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sneaky2.gif
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 10:14
I think those are various types of derangement, aren't they?
Thank you for swallowing the razzberry Notty, you're a gent. I think the only 'work' that could be done with such stories would be to collect them, do what can be done in the way of verification, classify, assign names to types - once a thing has a proper scientific name people tend to feel much better, they think they've got a handle on it -- an illusion of course. In the social sciences, I have sometimes thought, the most 'scientific' aspect is just the language they develop to distinguish one camp from the next. But it's everywhere, this love of names. Me too, I am like that. When I go into the woods I love to see all the little plants and insects and birds, but if I can pin a name to them, it's double the fun. I have a friend who really knows her plants, she gets a kick out of relating the wild ones to ones she grows in her garden, and there's no stopping her when there are plants around, no other conversation stands a chance. Bird-watchers are the same. Sometimes the names are wonderful, sometimes they're awful. Oh-oh, I feel a new topic coming on, in this dead mid-winter. Let's see if anyone else is interested.....
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 15:46
I think the only 'work' that could be done with such stories would be to collect them, do what can be done in the way of verification, classify, assign names to types...
Don't underestimate the power of taxonomy, it is often the start of all scientific inquiry whether it be the colour of stars, or classifications of plants and animals into genus, phylla etc. Without the latter, for example, it would have been extremely hard to make any progress in the biological sciences before Darwin, or indeed after.
The first step is often to decide if there is a phenomena to be investigated, and therein lies the problem. Anecdotal evidence is not terribly useful in this respect, but it would at least be a start that might allow patterns to emerge.
The problem I have with "paranormal" research is that whenever supposed phenomena have been investigated, no corrleation that has statistical signifcance has been found. Hence my scepticism in general about such claims, regardless of what mechanism might be proposed to explain them.
Given just one investigateable example, I would be a lot happier with claims of this nature.
John Self
8th Jan 2005, 15:59
The difficulty is that the sort of experience which RC (or Richard Holloway) describes is, by definition, uninvestigateable (to further expand Notty's portmanteau), because it was not planned or expected and has passed. If it happened regularly or often enough to predict then it would presumably have been investigated by now. :?
Similarly I think it's important to distinguish between the sort of deliberately fraudulent charlatans that James Randi baits with his million dollar challenge - who claim to be moving the pages of a book by will alone when in fact they're blowing on it, or endless other examples of greater sophistication, of the sort similarly debunked by Derren Brown - and the sort of one-off, irregular, extraordinary bit of synchronicity that RC describes, which makes no claims but just asks, gogglingly, "How??"
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 16:50
The difficulty is that the sort of experience which RC (or Richard Holloway) describes is, by definition, uninvestigateable (to further expand Notty's portmanteau), because it was not planned or expected and has passed. If it happened regularly or often enough to predict then it would presumably have been investigated by now.
Which, of course, is all grist to the sceptics mill. It's much easier to claim a co-incidence when the instances are so few. And that is part of the problem as there seems to be no prima facie reason why alleged paranormal events should be so few and far between
John Self
8th Jan 2005, 17:14
...except that paranormal means 'outside the normal' so by definition they must be few and far between or they wouldn't be paranormal!
NottyImp
8th Jan 2005, 17:39
...except that paranormal means 'outside the normal' so by definition they must be few and far between or they wouldn't be paranormal!
I'm not sure that "outside the normal" necessarily means "infrequent", it means "beyond normal explanation". My point is that the fact that these alleged events are so few does little to help their credence as anything other than co-incidence.
There is, as far as I can see, no reason why a paranormal phenomena might not be extremely common, but still beyond explanation (for example, just about everyone seeing ghosts every other night). The fact that none are limits their credibility in my view.
John Self
8th Jan 2005, 18:04
But 'credibility' of course suggests again that some claims are being made of an event, whereas with RC's example he's just saying there it is and how come?
Maggie
8th Jan 2005, 18:18
tip toeing into the frey..........
I don't think that all people are open to paranormal experiances. The more high tech our world becomes the less we are in tune to what is around us. I'm not saying that everyone who experiances something "unusual" is looking for it but I do think that there are those who are more "sensitive" to such things than others. And I do know that ,in the long ago past, women were counted on to use their "intuition" for the survival of the tribe.
What is an experiance such as : Smelling ones' Dad's pipe smoke or hearing his voice so clearly that one answers out loud, long after Dad has passed away ? You could argue that the mind is strong enough to conjure these things up and you would be right but I don't think that it is the "normal" way a mind works. I think that there is something unusual going on when this happens. The question is.........how come if our minds have the capability to conjure up these things, why does it not happen more often ?
Although walking around talking to one's dead father may be deemed as
certifiable behavior.
Maggie
[quote]Ah, right. I prefer the answer: "I/We don't know" in these situations, seems so much more straighforward than making stuff up.
Well, we've all been saying we don't know, Notty.
If not leaving it there is "making stuff up", that's a bit depressing. There is a role for the imagination in both art and - probably even more so - science.
Meself, I interviewed a bloke who's dead mum appeared to him regularly the other day. If I had to bet on it, and it could be proved either way (which of course it can't unless he can be shown to be lying), I'd bet against the longest odds in the world that he was delusional. But I do like to consider the idea of "What if..."
As an aside, I think there's a kind of modern scepticism that is driven by the idea that we sometimes see ourselves as a secular society increasingly assailed by a new wave of superstitions and fundamentalisms. I'm not sure that's the the case at all.
For instance, what's going on with Behzti and Jerry Springer - The Opera actually shows how far we've come in the last 50 years. Until 1968 there was official censorship that would have never allowed either play - especially if the Church objected to something. These days the Evangelical Alliance who are behind the whole Springer thing actually see themselves largely as an embattled minority.
Colyngbourne
9th Jan 2005, 9:59
Meself, I interviewed a bloke who's dead mum appeared to him regularly the other day. If I had to bet on it, and it could be proved either way (which of course it can't unless he can be shown to be lying), I'd bet against the longest odds in the world that he was delusional. But I do like to consider the idea of "What if..."
As an aside, I think there's a kind of modern scepticism that is driven by the idea that we sometimes see ourselves as a secular society increasingly assailed by a new wave of superstitions and fundamentalisms. I'm not sure that's the the case at all.
.
It's fairly common for bereaved people to see/smell/hear their deceased relatives. I don't think it's delusional, but rather illusional (perhaps that's a small difference to make). But that doesn't mean the experience isn't 'real'.
NottyImp
9th Jan 2005, 16:21
If not leaving it there is "making stuff up", that's a bit depressing. There is a role for the imagination in both art and - probably even more so - science.
No there isn't.
(Sorry, just playing to type there :D ).
I'm not sure I understand what's depressing about that, but I certainly don't disagree with your sentiment about imagination. My problem (of course) is when people attribute specific charecteristics to unexplained (or perhaps non-existent) phenomena, and then expect me to believe the map-cap world-view they construct around this.
NottyImp
9th Jan 2005, 16:27
But 'credibility' of course suggests again that some claims are being made of an event, whereas with RC's example he's just saying there it is and how come?
Consider this corrolary to RC's experience:
How many people have sat in their office (or for that matter, anywhere) after hearing of a bereavement, and not had someone they vaguely know burst in and make a faily random comment?
Or, how many people have felt a strong sense of forboding, only to find no connection whatsoever between that and some outside agency?
RC is making a claim of sorts (although it is a negative one): my experiences are not the result merely of chance. But since negative claims cannot be proven, we'll have to leave that one there.
Yes, but Notty (without trying to rile you further) where does that sense of foreboding come from? Sure, it's a few electric pulses whizzing through the brain, but why at that moment?
NottyImp
9th Jan 2005, 16:42
Yes, but Notty (without trying to rile you further) where does that sense of foreboding come from? Sure, it's a few electric pulses whizzing through the brain, but why at that moment?
Well, I'm not riled yet (but give me to the bottom of this glass of Merlot).
Or indeed, for the vast majority of people, why not at that moment?
There was a time when I believed that reason, if diligently enough applied, had to win. So I would argue about religion and how it made no sense, but I found that at some point even very intelligent people, who had conceded various things which I thought made my case, would say something to the effect of: I believe because I believe. The brick wall.
This discussion seems to have reached a brick wall. Now it's just a question of who gets the last word. I think I know who's going to insist on having that. (Not me, anyway.) I have just one remaining question: what is the "map-cap world-view"? NottyImp? :D
NottyImp
9th Jan 2005, 23:32
There was a time when I believed that reason, if diligently enough applied, had to win. So I would argue about religion and how it made no sense, but I found that at some point even very intelligent people, who had conceded various things which I thought made my case, would say something to the effect of: I believe because I believe.
Of course, when you get to this point the discussion is surely over, but I think that final statement (when used) is a cop-out and produces nothing useful. But you're right, there's little to do but shrug and metaphorically (or perhaps literally) walk off.
As to the last word, I think you just had it RC. :wink:
NottyImp
9th Jan 2005, 23:33
what is the "map-cap world-view"
Anything you like (quite literally).
Even the sceptical mind must be prepared to accept the unacceptable when there is no alternative. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.
Quick blob of Douglas Adams for you there. Just wanted to bring it all up again - as we say in our family when the tummy bug does the rounds.
NottyImp
1st Feb 2005, 18:00
Even the sceptical mind must be prepared to accept the unacceptable when there is no alternative.
Didn't Sherlock Holmes say something not disimilar to this?
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