Is there more to chance and coincidence than just chance or coincidence?

I hope you don’t find any books I’ve written! :-) (Sory I could not resist. No offense meant.)

There are so many patterns and timing events that occur in our daily lives. We just don’t notice them until another event links the two – or three.

Yesterday while on the street you walked past his cousin and your the brother of one of the classmates in that very class! But you will never know it.

One of those delicious little mysteries that cannot be explained. I too have had several, uncanny “coincidences” over the years that could be called by many names, but remain mysterious and mystical. Last Friday my community had a crime spree that resulted in 2 deputies being shot and killed. One of the mens father was deputy that had been shot and killed in the line of duty on the same day, exactly 26 years ago.

Mind blowing.

One of my favorite Radiolab episodes dealt with exactly this question:

Stochasticity

There are no coincidences. There are connections, some easily understood, some difficult to understand, yet connections none the less.

Your eyes pass over millions of pieces of information in a given day, most get immediately discarded. Yet your brain can pick up a pattern of letters from a sea of text, so no surprise that it picked up the name of the professor. And who knows if your brain saw his name over someone’s shoulder without you being conscious of it? But it is all connected, and connected through you.

Wonderful answers to a great question. You’re right. That sort of thing happens to all of us. And it is important to stop and ponder it when it does. I take heart that you’re in that bookstore once a week instead of over at the astrologer’s place.

Yes, coincidence.
Think of all the billions of people that do not encounter such an event.

@ragingloli Name one.

Sadly, it is just a coincidence. I wish it could be more though.

When my dad died we went to Amelia Island, where he had lived, for his memorial. Before we left my son, who has always wanted to be a herpetologist, got to see a sea turtle on the beach. Kathy, my dad’s wife, said that was a VERY rare occurrence.

My daughter found a shell that had a heart-shaped hole in it.

Down at the Marina I saw a sail boat that was called “Miss Val.” Val is my name.

I wish they could have actually been something, rather than just the coincidences I know that they were.

This is an example of what Carl Jung called synchronicity

I was just going to ask this question.

One that always stuck with me:

I used to read cookbooks like novels, start to finish, all the way through. One day I was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a cookbook, and the phone rang. It was my great aunt, and she says, “Can you help me? Cindy just called wanting a recipe for Broccoli Raisin Salad. It’s got sunflower seeds in it and a creamy dressing.I’ve looked everywhere.” I turned one page back, and there was the recipe. I had been reading it as she dialed, and it’s something that would make me vomit if I ate it. Never, in a million years would I make it.

Call it chance, coincidence, connection or even synchronicity. The majority of these cases can be explained, as @zenvelo points out. There are some though that aren’t as obvious. Here are a few personal examples:

1. During a stay at a hotel to inspect it, I decided to go down to the breakfast area to get a coffee refill before the initial meeting with the manager. A man dining in the lobby caught my attention. I couldn’t place him, but the recognition had a strong enough pull that I approached him and his fellow diners. It turned out to be a cousin that I hadn’t seen or been in touch with for ~20 years. He lived in Seattle, I lived in Memphis, and we were in Baltimore. We were both staying at the hotel for one night only. While my job required constant travel, his did not. I would call that a rare coincidence.

2. A co-worker (also a hotel inspector), was walking through the St. Louis airport and heard ringing from a phone bank he was passing. Since he had time to kill, he decided to answer it and tell the caller that no one was in the immediate area. The caller said that the number had just appeared on his pager. The co-worker recognized the voice. It was his cousin.

3. My partner and I accidentally met on a website. We were two members out of over 50K active ones. This was not a dating website. There were oodles of what could be called chat rooms. We live in different countries with a 6-hour time difference. Neither of us are romantics. He is fairly anti-social and I had no interest in looking for a love connection. We were both in our mid-40s and never married. Within three weeks, I knew that he was a very special person. We were engaged a year later.

4. When an older sister was rapidly going downhill in the last stage of cancer, I went back to my hometown to help out. While asleep at Mom’s house, I suddenly woke up at 4am (which never happens) with an urgent need to head over to the sister’s house. Her body was still warm, but she was gone. I sat there until her two young daughters woke up in order to break the news to them.

As much as I would like to think that her soul gave me a hard nudge to get out of bed, I chalk it up to stress and, like the other examples, timing.