I was juuuust thinking about Coincidences this morning. Wow. Wierd. :F

Good vid - but I wish these explanations of stats and coincidence would go the extra step. None of them are interested in talking about the mathematics of situations when coincidence is very unlikely. The dice example is a good one to demonstrate what I mean. While the chance of throwing a combined 7 with two dice is 1/6, the chances of doing it twice in a row are 1/36, and three in a row is 1/216. So, throwing 3 7s in a row is highly unlikely. I'm not making an argument for the supernatural, but there are weird coincidences I've seen that stats would have a hard time explaining as simple coincidence. Coin flipping is another favorite example, usually something like this. Imagine you are flipping a coin, and the last ten times it came up heads. What are the chances it will come up heads on the next throw. Well, obviously the answer is 1/2. But the more important question, to me, is what are the chances of flipping heads 10 times in a row to begin with? Less than 1/1000. Which makes the original question somewhat absurd.

This isn't just true with dice and coins (independent events) though. Take the dream example, for instance. In the video, the imagined situation is a dream filled with all sorts of weird shit during a thunderstorm. So, of course, a thunderstorm later that day shouldn't be surprising (especially if the dreamer saw the local weather report the night before). On the other hand, what if the actual event that happens corresponds to some ridiculously unlikely event, say something like an airliner flying into a skyscraper (this is a real example, btw). Compute the chances of dreaming that and it actually happening. Absurdly small. I wouldn't want to assign any supernatural cause to the dream, but it is one of those data points that is very hard to account for. And, imho, explanations of chance and statistics like this should address the point.

This post has been removed from the Brain channel by channel owner jonny. Please review the FAQ to learn about appropriate channel assignments.

btw - I removed it from the brain channel, because while it does describe human behavior, it does not really give any explanation for that behavior in terms of brains or minds (primary criterion for inclusion).

Interesting video, but goddammit that guy's lethargy about put me to sleep.

Upvote for 1) six Plymouth monkeys spending a month typing five pages containing nothing but the letter 's' and 2) an unspecified number of University of Plymouth researchers spending a month monitoring monkeys typing five pages containing nothing but the letter 's'.

>> ^RedYellowBlue:
I was juuuust thinking about Coincidences this morning. Wow. Wierd. :F


Me too!

What are the chances we both were?!?!

>> ^jonny:
On the other hand, what if the actual event that happens corresponds to some ridiculously unlikely event, say something like an airliner flying into a skyscraper (this is a real example, btw). Compute the chances of dreaming that and it actually happening. Absurdly small. I wouldn't want to assign any supernatural cause to the dream, but it is one of those data points that is very hard to account for. And, imho, explanations of chance and statistics like this should address the point.


I think it addressed that point fairly well. The idea is that you take into account the millions (or billions) of people having dreams the night before 9/11, and it would be absurd to think that at least some of them didn't dream about planes hitting skyscrapers. If you think of all the billions of people in the world, there were probably a few people every night dreaming of planes hitting skyscrapers since the inventions of planes and skyscrapers.

But if you are one of the few who did have that dream just before 9/11, you might be tempted to think it was clairvoyance, when it was really a statistical likelihood that just happened to involve you.

If you dreamed about planes hitting a skyscraper before 9/11, you were part of the govt conspiracy, or a jew. Clearly, you know about it ahead of time, maybe even you planted some thermite.

I see what you're saying MaxWilder, but I disagree with your assumptions. Namely, that dreamed events are randomly distributed across the population. They are not. The weirder the event, the less likely someone is to have dreamed it. And before 9/11, I seriously doubt folks thought about planes hitting the twin towers very much.

I should also clarify that it wasn't my dream, but that of a friend. And that it wasn't the night before, but exactly 5 months prior. She told me about it the next day in email, and was very shaken up by it. It was a hyper-realistic dream - lots more detail than usual, sounds more clear, etc. She was more shaken up by the idea that her mind would have created such a horrible scenario than the scenario itself. I remembered her dream story a few days after 9/11 and went looking for that email. The number of coincidences in details was truly astounding.

I'm not suggesting it was some supernatural occurrence. I don't know what to make of it. I guess the point I was making above, is that, sometimes, it really is not a coincidence, and videos like this would do well to show the flip side of the coin. I think it would give viewers a better understanding of statistical reasoning, and when to suspect coincidence or not.

>> ^jonny:
I see what you're saying MaxWilder, but I disagree with your assumptions. Namely, that dreamed events are randomly distributed across the population. They are not. The weirder the event, the less likely someone is to have dreamed it. And before 9/11, I seriously doubt folks thought about planes hitting the twin towers very much.


How can you say "The weirder the event, the less likely someone is to have dreamed it."? Dreams can be VERY weird...it not hard to imagine that someone has dreamed about a plane hitting a skyscraper or even being in a plane that crashes into a skyscraper. Of the over 6 BILLION people on the planet that dream every night why would it be unusual that at least 1 or more would have a dream about a plane crashing into a building, or a truck crashing into a building, or a car crashing into a building, or a giant flying carp crashing into a building?

It's like when the phone rings and the person on the other end is the person you were just thinking of. You may think of hundreds or thousands of people you know everyday...but you never make the connection that almost everyday none of them called you while you were thinking of them. It's only when that coincidence happens when they call at about the same time you thought of them that your mind makes a connection that some people insist has to be more then a coincidence.

You also keep saying that the "other side" should get mentioned...how? How exactly do you take into account "super natural" forces? Something that can not really be proved let alone measured.

What this video tries to show is that what many people consider to be evidence of "something weird" can easily be attributed to coincidence in most cases and if you look at the big picture it doesn't seem so "weird" anymore.

BTW...a plane crashing into a skyscraper isn't totally a strange or unheard of event. In 1945 a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State building. It's true that it's not common..but you can't say that before 9/11 who would have ever thought of such a thing or dreamed of such a thing.

"I'm not making an argument for the supernatural, but there are weird coincidences I've seen that stats would have a hard time explaining as simple coincidence."

uh yea... that's the entirety of the problem. You don't understand, therefore it can't be possible?

i watched an entire special on TBN (church channel) explaining how because flagellar motors are so complex and darwin COULD be wrong... therefore = GOD made the earth.

Utterly ignorant and sad.

>> ^vairetube:
"I'm not making an argument for the supernatural, but there are weird coincidences I've seen that stats would have a hard time explaining as simple coincidence."
uh yea... that's the entirety of the problem. You don't understand, therefore it can't be possible?

Time to put the crack pipe down, bro. I never said anything about what is or is not possible in world of the perfectly natural. If it helps, let me clarify a bit. I come from a background in neuroscience and AI. I'm agnostic (as I expect you'd describe it, but atheist will do just as well in this context).

I specifically chose an example for which I nor anyone else I know can find any scientifically plausible explanation, based on current human knowledge. That choice was never meant to imply (nor did I) that because something cannot be currently explained that it is somehow "unexplainable" and thus must be attributed to some supernatural being. In fact, looking at my previous comments, I made it quite clear that I do not ascribe the event to the supernatural.

The essence of the point that I was trying to make is that human knowledge is not only imperfect, but it relies on the ability of our brains to recognize patterns, i.e., statistical correlations. I've seen a number of videos like this describing the likelihood of coincidence. My point is the viewer would be better served by a video which explains the mathematics and informs him or her as to when to suspect a pattern emerging as well as when to expect coincidence.

Here's a statistical correlation I've recently noticed. There is a distinct pattern of VideoSift users flying off the handle at even the remotest suggestion that the human mind is somehow incapable of any and all knowledge. Well, guess what - it is incapable of certain knowledge. Unless you care to ascribe certain (possibly) supernatural powers to it. Are you familiar with Gödel's Theorem and its consequences? If not, then you should probably STFU.

>> ^Grimm:
How can you say "The weirder the event, the less likely someone is to have dreamed it."?

By having worked in a sleep lab as a research programmer for 5 years. That good enough? Trust me, I'm not just making this shit up as I go along. There are indeed very distinct patterns in human dreams. But in any case, I never claimed it was impossible for someone to have dreamed of an airliner flying into a skyscraper. Only that it was highly improbable that someone would dream that prior to 9/11 and that the dream would include so many specific details of the incident. Given your decades old example, I suppose I should have qualified that to anyone who is currently under the age of say 40. Got me there.

No doubt dreams can be weird. In fact, one theory of why humans (mammals) dream is in fact to remove the statistically irrelevant correlations that build up during daily experience. The theory goes that the weird shit you see in your dreams (e.g., a cheetah driving a car) is the activation of neural pathways being pared that were inappropriately strengthened in the process of learning some other bit of information.

see above for the rest.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say jonny. I'm open to the possibility of some sort of collective unconscious, or even the possibility that time may not be strictly linear. The point is that when people say "Wow, that couldn't be a coincidence!" They're wrong. It could just be a coincidence. And given the lack of tangible evidence for most of the supernatural reasons given for things like that, it is far more likely that it is coincidence. Of course it could be something supernatural, but the likelihood is so low that it really is foolish to seriously entertain the thought.

our brains have nothing to do with reality, that i agree with.

what is perceived as real is real in consequence, and thats about as far as i can understand things.

wow - I don't know how many ways I can write it. I am NOT ascribing any supernatural properties to my friend's dream. I am not trying to classify it AT ALL. It was brought up purely as an example of a data point for which statistical coincidence in highly unlikely.

Forget about the dream. All I'm saying is someone should make a video on statistical reasoning that includes coincidences and correlations.