Late_Cretaceous

I have had quite a number of "premonitions" that came true. On the other hand, I have had many many more "permonitions" that never materialized. Of course, I only make mental note, or go WOW when one comes true, the ones that never ever happen easily get forgotten. I suppose it is the same for most people. They remember quite dramatically the time that AUnt Martha got into an accident that they had a premonition of, but tend to forget all those numerous premonitions of accidents, pregnancies, new jobs, new boyfriends, lottery wins, etc etc that never come true.
In recent years, I have actually made a concious effort to mentally note my premonitions/hunches or feelings, and see if they come true - sure enough more often then not they never happen. It would be interesting to keep a written record and see what happens.

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: Late_Cretaceous ]</p>

Mad Kally

I had a premonition that a middle aged white man driving a white van was going to go around shooting people. Maybe that was a Vuja De. (Wow this has never happened before!)

lisarea

I have a friend who was complaining about the investigation of the Beltway sniper and said, "It's probably some guy in a blue sedan, and they're just missing him because they're looking for white vans."

But there is a perfectly rational explanation for that: He is a magical leprechaun.

Glory

As opposed to a mundane leprechaun.

Glory

livius drusus

In a thread last year on <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000203&p=" target="_blank">haunted houses</a>, Jess posted a fascinating summary of an article in Science News which discussed geomes and 'second sight'. Scroll down about 3/4ths of the page for some great info which might shed some light on the whole premonition thing.

cricket

Lisarea,

Nor do I.

Possibly. And your subconscious would know kids frequently misplace mittens.

Maybe, but shouldn't "coincidence" be in here somewhere?

Auditory hallucinations happen. Not to everyone, maybe not often, maybe never, for some people ... but they happen.

It also happens that mothers run out to check on children...

And when we do, we often find the kid is in peril. They're playing with matches, or they've wrecked their bike, or they've lost their mittens again but still want to ski or throw snowballs or carry frozen milkshakes...

An auditory hallucination, followed by checking, followed by finding 'something wrong'... it seems impossible that it could be chance alone. But I don't think so. There are coincidences that happen occasionally, then there are more unlikely coincidences that happen more rarely... but they happen.

Perhaps we are even likely to experience a 'very unlikely' coincidence at least once in an average 75-year lifespan?

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: cricket ]</p>

Ernest Sparks

echidna,

Thanks for the welcome. I am usually on these days just lurking. I am ashamed to admit I can't remember making conversation with you.

Best regards,
ernie

Gar

I can't explain it, but that doesn't mean its magic.

Jamie_L

And really, if you look not at one person's life, but at all the people in the world, it seems very likely that these sort of coincidences will happen regularly to someone, somewhere.

I think I read somewhere that human beings really have no capacity to intuitively understand the liklihood of small-probability events of occurring, especially when dealing with large numbers of events.

Jamie

lisarea

Heh heh. I actually had to go re-read my post to make sure that wasn't there. I should totally just go back and edit it.

In other words, I meant to include that right up on top of the list.

In fact, I find coincidence absolutely charming and very likely. We humans have pattern-seeking brains, and as such, we're compelled and fascinated with coincidence; and I can certainly see where it can be quite a letdown to realize that most coincidences are simply that. I absolutely cherish the coincidences in my life--the more unlikely, the better. It's almost as though a choir of angels suddenly decides to sing a little chorus to me without warning or reason. Now, I know this is just random--the inevitable order that arises from chaos--but I am also sympathetic with the desire to make that angel choir a concrete thing.

My point, though, is that it is perfectly reasonable to open inquiry into other possibilities, even if they seem implausible (as I find most of my explanations). Despite all the research and inquiry we've done into discovering how the human brain works, and how we communicate and understand the world around us, the field is still in its infancy. We know almost nothing, relatively speaking.

I used to study linguistics--mostly computational linguistics and natural language processing--and it left me with, if nothing else, an overwhelming sense of awe at the capabilities of even the feeblest human mind. We can intuitively understand orders of magnitude more than we can articulate or explain. The sheer volume of information is staggering. As an undergraduate student, I was amazed at the fact that, through simple logic and very basic research, I was actually able to uncover a previously undocumented rule of tonal linguistics, despite all the work done by great scholars before me. But it's not that I was especially insightful or intelligent. It's just that there are so damned many of them out there, they're still ripe for the picking. And although I don't have as much experience in other areas, I know that this is not confined to language abilities.

I believe in intuition, for example. This doesn't mean that I accept gooshy supernatural explanations for it. It simply means that I know there are things we understand and perceive at a subconscious level. Many things we probably base on micro-signals, like those freeze framed facial expressions that people make without being aware, showing disgust or horror or joy, without conscious control.

But I'm completely open to the idea that there are entire fields of study we have yet to discover. I won't pretend to know what they are or even to say definitively what form those fields would take. But I'm a good 99% sure that there are still basic principles out there that we have yet to begin to explain.

The very concept of supernaturalism is out of the question, as far as I'm concerned. But the possibility that there are natural phenomena we have yet to discover is almost a given.

Effectively, I might even go so far as to say that an unwillingness to accept the possibility of undiscovered natural phenomena is almost as dangerous to our collective knowledge as attributing those phenomena to the supernatural. Of course, a good healthy dose of skepticism is absolutely necessary, and the vast majority of 'supernatural' phenomena can be explained based on existing knowledge.

Blar blar blar. I am typing too much. Bye!