Do you believe in coincidences?

I believe in coincidences, but I think they’re just coincidences.

Believe in them? I’ve seen them!

That said, I think we notice them more because we’re primed to do so. Like I said here,

I believe in “Yellow Jeep syndrome.”

Chances are very good that you’ve already passed several yellow jeeps on the freeway or around town, but you never especially noticed them because you never thought to do so. However, once someone says to you, “Boy, have you seen all the yellow Jeeps around lately?”, you will suddenly see them all over the place because you have been primed to watch for them now.

I think in some ways, “signs” are like that. They’re things that are around us anyway, but now and then we become sensitized to their existence.

Trustinglife went on to call that the reticular activating system.

Nope, I sure don’t!

@laureth…I have to respectfully disagree with you here. I have, using your yellow jeep example, exclaimed on numerous occasions, “Boy, have you seen how enormous my penis is?”.

Not once have they suddenly jumped back because of the previously unnoticed anaconda.

Are you asking if I believe that coincidences exist?

If so, then yes I do. In fact, I would say that I know that I occasionally perceive two or more events in a way that makes them appear to be related. However I have no reason to believe that anything happens for reasons that transcend cause and effect.

Yes I do believe in coincidences they happen to me all the time.

Of course. Coincidence means ‘things happening together’. I am typing this response while my dog snores: a coincidence. There is, in a sense, an infinite number of coincidences taking place at a given time, so it should not be surprising that it is possible to attach some sort of significance to a few of them. It certainly does not demand supernatural explanation.

What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing.

I think what’s more important is what the coincidence entails; as it’s been said, technically, an infinite number of coincidences are occurring every second.
The yellow jeep example is an excellent one.
However, I would argue that some things happening together are signs of something greater beneath what can be immediately seen on the surface. Let’s take for example someone who’s never seen the light of day; lived underground all their life. One day, they’re suddenly dropped into everyday life above ground. They notice the sun coming up around 6/7AM every morning. (this is assuming they were not informed of such things beforehand) Could they not declare the sun rising at 6/7AM multiple times a coincidence?
Noticing a “coincidence” could be the first step in discovering something far more complex and far less random.
Don’t forget the classic Goldfinger adage: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action.”

Yeah I typically do not believe in coincidences. As ulmaxes said, very often there is something more to it. Also its important to note that just because you drive a white van and now you start noticing white vans, thats not a coincidence thats just you become more aware of things that are similiar to you. Just like I bought a cool jacket, and then after that i started noticing a lot of other people wearing a similiar style jacket. Not really a coincidence. But anyways there are some innocent coincidences, but don’t brush every single one off as just purely chance.

Yes; the rules of probability say that it is very likely that same two things will happen together that you might remark as ‘special’. They state that it is unlikely, however, that these two events should coincide again, because the pool of candidates has been narrowed from thousands or even millions of ‘special’ events to just two. So repeated coincidence is often a sign of an underlying correlating mechanism between the two events. Note that I mean coincidence of the same two phenomena, not just a separate coincidence that can be construed to have a similar meaning, because if we allow separate coincidences will the same significance for you, then the ability of the human mind to twist facts to its own interpretation will again open up the candidate events to a vast pool, increasing probability and decreasing validity.